Identity Politics

As I've complained before, it's hard being Kim Davis right now. Ugh. But, that's my name and I'm sticking with it in spite of the hell Kentucky Kim is putting in the universe right now. This week, I read that m/m author Josh Lanyon finally fessed up and admitted she's a woman (whose name isn't Josh Lanyon). After denying that she was a woman, I guess she decided to just come clean. It's hard these days to write under a pseudonym especially if you have some success with your work. I enjoy a lot of Lanyon's books and that won't stop now that I know she's a woman. (I kind of suspected she was anyway--the lady doth protest too much.) I do think it's sad that some writers feel they have to be someone else in order to gain an audience. I read recently about a white guy who used an Asian name to submit his poetry in a contest and won. He said he hadn't had any luck getting his work recognized under his rather bland (i.e., white) real name, so he decided to try something else and that something worked. The same goes for JK Rowling and her reasons for writing the Harry Potter books under a pseudonym. It's a shame that some people will discriminate against an author because of his or her name. I'll read anything by anyone as long as I'm interested in the book. I don't discriminate against an author because he's white (or not white) or because she's a woman. If you write something I want to read, I'm reading it. There's a perception that women and people of color primarily cannot write outside of their own identity. (White heterosexual men are the exception because, apparently, they can write about anyone and anything. /s)  I get annoyed with people (men, mainly) who say women can't write from a male point of view and women who say the same about men. I enjoyed reading The Hours written by Michael Cunningham that tells the story of three women and I thought he did a great job of telling those stories. He's not a woman, yet he wrote from a woman's POV. Yes, he's gay, but so what? Does that make him more apt to write about women? I don't think so. He's still a man! JK Rowling isn't a little wizard boy, yet she did a great job (I'm told) of writing about a little wizard boy. My point is people shouldn't box themselves in by dismissing a writer just because that writer happens to write about someone of a different race, sex, religion, class, whatever.