Writing an Identity Not Your Own: A Guide for Creative Writers

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.

Alex Temblador is the Mixed Latine award-winning author of Secrets of the Casa Rosada and Half Outlaw. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma and is a contributor to Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America and Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology. Alex has taught creative writing seminars, workshops, and classes with the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, WritingWorkshops.com, the Writer’s League of Texas, and more, as well as spoken about diversity in the literary world with the Texas Library Association, Abydos Learning Conference, and at many other festivals, conferences, and universities. She is an award-winning travel, arts, and culture journalist who specializes in diversity, equity, and inclusion, publishing in the likes of Conde Nast Traveler, Outside, and Travel + Leisure, and speaking about such topics at SXSW, the Society of American Travel Writers, and the World Travel Market. Alex lives in Dallas, Texas, where she runs a literary panel series called LitTalk.