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Writing an Identity Not Your Own
Additional information
| Author | Alex Temblador |
|---|---|
| Genre | Nonfiction – Reference |
| Release Date | August 13, 2024 |
| Publisher | St. Martin's Essentials |
Description
A practical guide to help authors authentically write and edit a character whose identity is different than their own.
Do you have the tools to authentically write and edit a character whose identity is different than your own? It’s not a subject that’s generally taught in creative writing programs, and there are so few craft books and online resources on the subject. Even if you can take a seminar, class, or workshop, there’s nothing like having an easy-to-understand book on hand to provide guidance and insight every time you craft characters with historically
marginalized identities.
In Writing an Identity Not Your Own, award-winning author Alex Temblador discusses one of the most contentious topics in creative writing: crafting a character whose identity is historically marginalized. What is “identity,” and how do unconscious biases and bias blocks impact and influence what we write? What is intersectionality? You’ll learn about identity terms, stereotypes, and tropes, and receive genre-specific advice related to various identities to consider when writing different races and ethnicities, sexual and romantic orientations, gender identities, disabilities, nationalities, and more. Through writing strategies, exercises, and literary excerpts, writers will gain a clearer understanding on how misrepresentations and harmful portrayals can appear in storylines, dialogue, and characterization. Alex will guide writers from the brainstorming phase through the editing process so they can gain a full understanding of the complexities of writing other identities and why it’s important to get them right.
About the Author
A
lex Temblador is the award-winning author of Half Outlaw, Secrets of the Casa Rosada, and the forthcoming book, Writing an Identity Not Your Own.
She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2014 and became an author in 2018 with the publication of Secrets of the Casa Rosada by Arte Publico Press. Half Outlaw was published by Blackstone Publishing in 2022, while Writing an Identity Not Your Own will be published by St. Martin’s Essentials in 2024.
Her creative writing has appeared in anthologies like Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America and Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, as well as literary journals like Colorado Review, PALABRITAS, D Magazine, Cigale Literary Magazine, and Scissortale Review.
She has won numerous awards for her books and writing including: the 2024 Fiction Finalist for the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, 2023 Bronze Medalist winner for the Rudolfo Anaya Best Latino Focused Fiction Book Award from the International Latino Book Awards, 2020 Texas Library Association TAYSHA’s Reading List for Secrets of the Casa Rosada, 2019 NACCS Tejas Foco Young Adult Fiction Award, 2018 MG/YA Discover Prize Winner of the Writer’s League of Texas Book Awards, 2018 Kirkus Reviews’ Best of YA Books, and a Starred Kirkus Review for Secrets of the Casa Rosada.
Alex is the Executive Director of Write Here DFW and the founder and moderator of LitTalk at Whose Books, a quarterly panel series for DFW authors. She has also been the Discovery Prize judge for the Writer’s League of Texas Book Awards and a Young Adult category judge for the Texas Institute of Letters Awards.
In her career as an author, Alex has conducted a wide array of presentations for the likes of Macmillan Publishers, Abydos Learning Conference (keynote, 2021), TLA Annual Conference, Texas Teen Book Festival, and universities like Southern Methodist University, University of Houston, University of Louisiana at Monroe, LaGaurdia CC, etc.
Alex’s pronouns are she/her and she identifies as Mixed, Mixed Latine, Mexican-American, Latina, Hispanic, and Chicana. She is based in the Dallas, Texas, area.
She is represented in literary matters by Mary C. Moore of Aevitas Creative Management. Rich Green at Gotham Group is her film agent.
