Updated: Dec 13, 2020
In June 2019, I posted an article to this blog called "Sensitivity Readers Are Not Censors." At that time, controversy was swirling around the role and appropriateness of the so-called sensitivity reader (SR). I had a hard time finding clear, positive discussions of what an SR was and what one does. Even the prestigious New York Times ran that article titled “In an Era of Online Outrage, Do Sensitivity Readers Result in Better Books, or Censorship?” by Alex Alter that was as unflattering as you could get about SRs.
This go-round, I will tell you what SRs actually do and why now, a mere year and a half later, the need for writers and publishers to employ SRs is the norm and not the exception.
SRs Aren’t Going Away
The Chicago Manual of Style weighed in on these issues in Section 5.254: Bias and the editor’s responsibility. It says in part:
A careful editor points out to authors any biased terms or approaches in the work (knowing, of course, that the bias may have been unintentional), suggests alternatives, and ensures that any biased language that is retained is retained by choice.
Conscious Language
Conscious language is a term coined by Conscious Style Guide founder Karen Yin. According to Yin, conscious language is the art of using words effectively in a specific context. Who is your audience? What tone and level of formality do you want? What are you trying to achieve? Some words are more apt than others. The most important part of conscious language is the conscious part—our intention.
Conscious Style Guide described itself as:
…the first website devoted to conscious language. Our mission is to help writers and editors think critically about using language—including words, portrayals, framing, and representation—to empower instead of limit. In one place, you can access style guides covering terminology for various communities and find links to key articles debating usage. We study words so that they can become tools instead of unwitting weapons.
Yin’s website is replete with resources from scores of other websites (divided into sensitivity categories), a newsletter, blog, and, of course, the obligatory store.
What Sensitivity Readers Offer
Crystal Shelley is a full-time editor, proofreader and sensitivity reader who works as Rabbit with a Red Pen. In addition, Crystal is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW).
According to Crystal, authors, editors, and publishers employ sensitivity readers to accomplish four goals:
Strengthen the story
Identify potential harmful elements of the writing
Assess the effectiveness of the language
Evaluate biases
While the role of a sensitivity reader is most often associated with editing fiction, an SR’s specialty is applicable to all forms of writing, including blogs, memoirs, and long-form essays. Sensitivity readers strengthen writing by helping the writer with these elements:
Character description
Dialogue and character behaviors
Cultural elements and settings
The role of an SR is to flag problems with language, but, most importantly, they will offer alternative language and depictions.
How can a sensitivity reader strengthen writing? An SR reads with the goal of rooting out language that is:
Disrespectful
Excluding
Stigmatizing
Presumptive
Writing that is devoid of harmful, derogatory, and disrespectful language builds trust; readers can see the author cared enough to do their homework.
Diversity Baseline Survey
Lee & Low Books released the first Diversity Baseline Survey 1.0 in 2015. Before the DBS, people suspected publishing had a diversity problem, but without hard numbers, the extent of that problem was anyone’s guess. The goal was to survey publishing houses and review journals to capture information about their employees, their publishing workforce, regarding these categories:
Race
Gender
Sexual orientation
Disability (chronic, physical, and mental illness)
The results of DBS 1.0 were shocking. The publishers' survey respondents were identified as:
79 percent White
78 percent women
88 percent straight
92 percent non-disabled
As readers had begun to demand to see themselves depicted in books, the publishing industry itself did not reflect the diversity of our country's populace.
The numbers provided by DBS 1.0 brought into sharp focus the need of publishers to place more books into the marketplace that represent our country's rich diversity, but initially, this effort was apparent only in the children's book market. Cultural events and political and social movements in the five years since the DBS 1.0 cannot be ignored by the industry.
Diversity in Publishing Matters
According to a Lee and Low blog article from January 2020, the book industry has the power to shape culture in big and small ways. The people behind the books serve as gatekeepers, who can make a huge difference in determining which stories are amplified and which are shut out. If the people who work in publishing are not a diverse group, how can diverse voices truly be represented in its books?
Are You Out of Step?
If you do not grasp the importance of diversity in writing, and the need to accurately and kindly represent people of different races, genders, orientation, and disabilities, you are out of step with the US publishing industry. One could argue you are out of step with humanity. If a discussion of sensitivity to “the other” in your writing doesn’t speak to your heart, I am reminded of a quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci:
I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care for other people.
Updated: Apr 1, 2022
NOTE: This article is not meant to take the place of professional legal counsel. The author is not a lawyer and has never been through the process of a defamation or invasion of privacy lawsuit.
From the moment your manuscript starts to take shape, you will feel a sense of purpose. You will share stories from your life that provide genuine value for the readers; stories that honor, inspire, encourage, and heal.
You’re writing and making progress. You feel empowered and you tell everyone what you’re doing, what you’re writing about. And it’s all dandy until some killjoy says, “Be careful you don’t get sued.”
Oh, criminy! That’s a cold shot. Is getting sued for a memoir even a legitimate possibility?
“But it’s all true,” you say. “How can I get sued if it’s true? Anyway, I can write whatever I want—it’s my memoir, my story.”
The fear of a lawsuit can keep people from writing their memoirs or, at least, keep them from writing the story they really want to tell. Lawsuits against memoirists are a sad reality, one you want to avoid at all costs. You might have questions at this point.
As a memoirist, what can I be sued for?
How can I tell my story honestly without tempting a lawsuit?
What legal liability am I willing to risk with my memoir and is that risk worth it?
What precautions can I take to avoid a lawsuit?
Let’s get started.
Understanding Defamation and Invasion of Privacy
What are the legal ramifications of writing about another person in a bad light? After all, you are revealing things about others in your memoirs they might not want revealed and would not choose to reveal on their own. What could you be sued for? The two forms of legal liability a memoir author needs to be concerned with are defamation and invasion of privacy. First, I’ll define them. Then I’ll discuss how to avoid such lawsuits.
Defamation
By definition, defamation is someone’s claim that something you said or wrote about them is untrue, and that this brought loss, pain, or harm to them in some way—their finances, job, reputation, or relationships. There are two forms of defamation. When you defame someone by speaking falsely about them, it’s slander. When you defame someone in writing, it’s called libel. As a memoirist, you should be concerned with libel.
These are the best ways to avoid a defamation lawsuit:
· Tell the truth. Don’t fabricate. Don’t exaggerate.
· Get consent first. Prior consent is your suit of armor again a defamation claim.
· Make the claim confidently if the information is a matter of public record, such as military, employment, or criminal records.
· Confirm that witnesses will step forward to corroborate your story.
It’s not always possible to get consent (for example, the person cannot be found, refuses to comply, or disagrees with your allegations). If you know your truth, don’t let this stand in your way. Make sure to read the section titled “Ways to Legally Protect Yourself.”
If you are uncertain about the legal liability of what you have written, seek professional legal counsel.
Invasion of Privacy
Invasion of privacy is known as “the right to be left alone.” Many memoirists are familiar with defamation and worry most about this when writing a memoir. But, in truth, invasion of privacy might be the more concerning legal issue. Here’s why.
Unlike defamation, with an invasion of privacy claim it does not matter whether the statements made in the memoir are true. That’s right—every word can be undeniably true and a privacy lawsuit can still be filed. There are four elements of such a lawsuit.
An otherwise non-public individual (i.e., not a celebrity, politician, or public figure) has a right to privacy from:
1) intrusion (intentional) on one's solitude or into one's private affairs;
2) public disclosure of embarrassing private information;
3) publicity which puts him/her in a false light to the public; and
4) appropriation of one's name or picture for personal or commercial advantage.
Generally, for the plaintiff (the injured party) to prove invasion of privacy, all four of these elements must be established. (I say generally because this requirement varies from state to state.)
Of these four elements, #2 is the most damning in a privacy claim and the one I found the most difficult to explain here. A successful invasion of privacy claim depends on proving that you have revealed facts not related to public concern, that is, a public disclosure of private facts.
To further complicate the matter, states define public concern differently, but one characteristic that applies across the board is newsworthiness. Is the disclosure newsworthy? For it to be newsworthy, it is something the media are likely to find interesting enough to write about or broadcast. This is typically the case when the disclosure is about something illegal, salacious, or against human decency.
Therefore, a defense against this claim will depend on arguing a legitimate public concern. This can take a number of forms. In some cases, the fact that a publisher chose to publish the book has been enough to show a legitimate public interest. Also, courts have tended to rule in favor of an individual’s right to tell their own stories, even when they contain salacious or distasteful allegations. But this is not a given.
As with libel, consent is the ultimate defense against a claim of invasion of privacy. Consent can be written or spoken, explicit or implied. (Implied? If you tell someone you are recording them for a memoir and they let you, it will be difficult for them to later claim that your memoir invaded their privacy.)
If you are uncertain about the legal liability of what you have written, seek professional legal counsel.
IMO
By the way, you cannot be sued for simply stating your opinion about someone. If you say you felt bullied by your older siblings and they made you feel stupid as you were growing up, they might not ever speak to you again, but they can’t sue you. That’s one of those trade-offs that must be your decision.
What (or Who) Do You Risk Losing?
Are you prepared for the personal or professional consequences of stories in your memoir? Family members, ex-spouses, partners, friends, co-workers, or bosses are just some of the “characters” in a memoir who might take offense at what you have written about them and, subsequently, cut ties. Are the stories, the quotes, and the revelations worth it?
To help decide, you might ask yourself: Why is the person in the book? Based on the story I am telling, is the inclusion of the person and their actions necessary to the story? How would the story change if I left them out?
Ways to Legally Protect Yourself
You don’t want to get sued. If you are working with a publisher, they don’t want to get sued either. So how can you write the memoir you want to write without this happening? Nothing is foolproof, but here are the most effective techniques:
· Get consent. Whenever you can, get permission before you record, interview, or write about someone. The same is true if you are using letters, photos, or other materials created by others. It might not always be possible to get someone’s consent. If it’s not, consider the other techniques.
· Alter identifying information: such as names, places, genders, professions, and distinguishing characteristics (tattoos, scars, height, etc.). Changing information to protect privacy is an acceptable practice for memoir writers.
· Use a pseudonym. Also called a pen name, this can add another layer of protection.
· Consider your motives. I’ve said it before, do not write a memoir seeking revenge or hoping to do harm to someone’s reputation. A memoir is not the way to get even and an honorable publisher won’t touch it anyway.
· Verify your facts. Memories can falter. Research public records, talk to others who were a part of your story, review your own letters, pictures, and journals to confirm information as thoroughly as possible. Writing a memoir is no time to be hasty and careless.
· Ask yourself, how would you feel if someone wrote these stories about someone you love? If the thought bothers you, reconsider what you are writing.
· Add a disclaimer. Every memoir includes a disclaimer in the front material of the book. Publishers do so routinely. Read about the legal controversy surrounding the memoir Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. He was sued for invasion of privacy and lost. There was an undisclosed monetary settlement and Burroughs had to call Running with Scissors a book, not a memoir, and was ordered to include a disclaimer.
If your have a difficult story to tell in your memoir, tell it! Write your story down as you remember it: what happened, what was said, how did the experience shape you? Live your truth through your memoir. Seek legal guidance later. There will be time.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.
Updated: Apr 1, 2022
Few issues in the world of publishing are more controversial right now than that of sensitivity readers. On the off chance you are not familiar with what a sensitivity reader (SR) does, this is a person hired by a writer, editor, or publisher to review a manuscript to make certain there is no language, character portrayals, and situations that are offensive to any group or population.
Dhonielle Clayton is the chief operating officer of We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit founded in 2014 to support writers from marginalized groups and to advocate for more diversity in publishing. The way she sees it, the job of a sensitivity reader is first and foremost to improve the literary quality of a book by steering the author away from one-dimensional portraits and clichés.
Think of an SR as a type of fact checker. Instead of fact checking numbers, quotes, foreign language words, geographic descriptions, and so on, SRs are fact checking race, religion, gender, culture, disease, or mental illness. On the surface, this sounds good for everyone, right? No author wants to offend a reader or worse, yet, an entire category of readers. Then why is the use of sensitivity readers such a sore spot for so many writers and an ongoing stumbling block for publishing houses?
Writers vs. Editors
I conducted my own survey of sorts about people’s perception of the use of SRs and it’s as unscientific as a survey can be. I asked the members of a particular closed group of writers on social media their opinion of the use of SRs and I asked the same question of the members of a closed group of editors on social media. (See, I told you it was unscientific.)
Overwhelmingly, the writers (many of whom have little or no professional writing experience) were vehemently opposed to the use of SRs. Since it was the first time some of them had ever even heard of an SR, they were appalled at the thought of their work being “censored.” Again, noting that many who responded to my question are young and/or unpublished, their attitude was “no one’s gonna tell me what I can and can’t write.”
Ah, I love the smell of naiveté in the morning.
Conversely, those in the professional editors’ group were unanimously supportive of the use of SRs. I attribute this to two factors. First, these folks all understood the validity of using SRs and some had already worked on projects that employed them. Second, as editors, they are dedicated to the highest quality of writing possible, especially if they are identified with it in a professional capacity.
Is This Really Censorship?
The reaction of so many of the newbie writers in that Facebook group is indicative of the larger public relations problem sensitivity readers have.
The work they do has become synonymous with censorship in its most unsophisticated form—a knee-jerk reaction to any word, expression, or characterization that is insulting to the one person who is reading as a representative of an entire group or type of people.
In December 2017, the New York Times ran an article titled “In an Era of Online Outrage, Do Sensitivity Readers Result in Better Books, or Censorship?” The author, Alex Alter, highlighted a few of the most egregious examples of publishers scuttling books following concerns expressed by sensitivity readers, making it appear as though SRs have a stranglehold on publishers.
Censorship, which takes many forms, means the suppression or prohibition of something. So, let’s be clear, sensitivity readers have no power to censor.
No SR has the ability to say, “You are not allowed to describe a bi-sexual woman this way, so change it.” Or “A man of this race would never say this, so delete it.” Ultimately, the choice to leave the prose as is, delete it, or edit it is left to authors, editors, and publishers.
Diverse Authors
But Dhonielle Clayton and others in the publishing world have rightly pinpointed the real problem at the heart of this argument—the lack of diversity among authors and works chosen by publishers. As Clayton points out, “Publishing has a diversity problem.” According to Madison Schultz in her article “What Is a Sensitivity Reader, and Why Do You Need One?”
…31 percent of children’s books published in 2017 were about non-White characters, but only 7 percent of the children’s books published in 2017 were written by Black, Latinx, or Native American authors.
Publishers know that the general public, especially where the children’s market is concerned, is clamoring for books that feature diverse characters and storylines. But those same publishers either can’t find diverse authors or are reluctant to offer publishing deals to diverse authors.
This is not to say that a writer should never write outside his or her areas of personal experience. No one is saying that, including SRs. But trained sensitivity readers—and yes, there are academic programs for sensitivity reading—help authors create believable, deep characters and genuine storylines that make for better books. While SRs are a step in the right direction, finding, promoting, and supporting diverse authors should be a priority of the traditional publishing houses.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.