Writing Contemporary Fiction in the 21st C. Might Not Be Your True Calling If… Every character is Anglo (or every human character is Anglo in Sci-Fi). There are no LGBTQ characters or families. There are no physically or developmentally challenged characters. Perfect is used to describe human bodies, personalities, relationships or families. Financially poor characters are inherently ignorant, lazy, and predisposed to bad actions. Christianity is revered as a legitimate religion while all others are impugned. Strong and powerful character traits are segregated into masculine and feminine distinctions. Emphasis is placed on female characters’ clothing sizes, weight, shoe sizes, slender anything; pale, milk or pearl white skin and beautiful blonde hair. References to doing something like a girl or being a woman are offered as insults. Single female characters are referred to or think of themselves ...

I I v Confession: Geraldo Rivera's beliefs about what "... a woman brings to a marriage more than anything else, to a relationship, is her youth. Youth is a fragile and diminishing resource..." didn't surprise me. In recent years, it's been his clueless comments about wearing hoodies in the Trayvon Martin killing, his ill-advised naked selfie post (Who does he think he is--James Franco?), and now proclaiming this 18th-century attitude that have swung the media spotlight his way--not the excellent journalistic relevance of many years ago.    BATAF: A woman's value decreases as she ages, while a man's increases.  

photo by Cardyn Brooks 2014  Confession: Fiction books with humans on the cover almost always make me feel excluded. They rarely resemble me in skin color, body type, age or attitude. BATAF: The growing demand for diversity in casts of characters and main characters is a fad.

photo snapped by Cardyn Brooks 2014  Confession: Hearing someone (or myself) say, "Thank you for your service," to a military service member always sounds like inadequate words of gratitude for all that they risk and suffer and sacrifice to protect the U.S. The expanding investigation into VA hospitals magnifies that sense of shameful inadequacy. BATAF: One day; one holiday weekend per year is sufficient acknowledgement for those who have died to protect and defend the United States of America.

image by Cardyn Brooks 2014  Observation: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Bill Gates made technology mainstream. They and their peers conceived and built upon innovations that launched this current digital society, measured by likes, views, unique visitors, subscribers, customer reviews, etc. We are connected through many more ways of communication and information access at the same time the depth of our face-to-face connections is eroding because we're always looking down into our personal tech for amusement and knowledge. BATAF: Human- to-human engagement is obsolete.   

image from weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com  Confession: The #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #DiversifyYourShelves threads are so encouraging to me after reading so much mainstream contemporary fiction in which there are no non-Anglo characters or the ones who are included seem flat and false. BATAF: Diversity is a politically correct fad, not a universal necessity.

original image from hercampus.com Confession: Being called bossy doesn't bother me. Not teaching our girls, boys and young women and young men how to move through life as propelled by ethical ambitions, the Golden Rule and internal validation does. This Ban Bossy campaign is well-intentioned, but ignores the source of the leadership gap between girls and boys: the suffocating narrowness of gendered expectations and the consequences of not conforming to them. BATAF : Desirable female and male personality traits are rigidly defined.