Until a few years ago, only publishing industry insiders would have understood the role of the sensitivity reader. Then came American Dirt. The Jeanine Cummins novel sold to a US publisher for a seven-figure advance, was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, and was touted as “the new Grapes of Wrath”. On the book’s release in 2020, early readers noted that the white author’s depiction of Mexican people was, at best, flawed, inaccurate, and riddled with stereotypes and, at worst, simply racist.
A sensitivity reader is an additional editor who works alongside the publishing house staffer who acquired the rights to your book. This individual will conduct a very specific read of the manuscript, and offer notes on characters from marginalised groups, or elements which may cause offence. The argument goes that if American Dirt had been sufficiently scrutinised by a reader of Mexican heritage, some of the furore could have been avoided.
The publishing industry is split over the increased usage of sensitivity readers. Lionel Shriver said she would rather quit writing than have her work scrutinised. John Boyne tweeted: “No serious writer would ever allow their work to be so sanitised.” Kate Clanchy claimed sensitivity readers “sullied my memoir to suit their agenda”, and parted ways with the publisher who employed such professionals.
My background as an author is in young adult fiction, an area in which sensitivity readers are common, especially in the US, so I’m less fazed. I have also been a sensitivity reader, informally. An author friend asked if I’d read his manuscript to check if I felt he’d accurately depicted a transgender character. He mostly had; there were some quirks he’d got wrong, things that only someone who had gone through the grind of gender transition – like me – would be aware of.
I see my job as a giddy, creative game of make-believe in which I spend my office hours imagining what it’s like to be someone who isn’t me. I am a trans, 40-year-old woman from Bradford navigating life on the south coast of England, but I don’t want to exclusively write characters in my own demographic. Through my fiction, I’ve been a Time Lord; a Scot; a fashion model; an oligarch’s daughter and Bloody Mary. It’s all part of the job. However, when I’m writing a character who has experienced oppression, I need to take extra care. When writing my forthcoming adult debut, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, I created a character called Leonie, a mixed-race woman from Leeds. The book is about magic and witchcraft, but it is also a story about women and feminism – and I felt it was odd to pretend race wasn’t an issue in the fictional coven. There were elements of Leonie that were very familiar to me. Like her, I’m from Yorkshire, I’m queer, and I’m an ambitious gobshite. Unlike Leonie, I am white.
So, to the surprise of my UK publisher, I petitioned to get a sensitivity reader. If I was to include Leonie in my book, I wanted to know I had done her, and myself, justice. My publishers agreed so I sent my manuscript to a sensitivity reader, herself a mixed-race woman, and I waited to hear her thoughts. My editor checked in with me to ensure I was ready to hear some things I might not want to hear. Of course, no one wants to think of themselves as bigoted, but if I’d inadvertently written something inaccurate or insulting, I’d much rather know while the book was a Word document and not on the shelves of bookstores. To me it was a no-brainer.
The reader’s notes came back and, I stress, I was under no obligation to make changes to the novel, but I did. It was the same sort of feedback I’d given my friend – I’d got a few tiny details wrong and, in one sequence, had actually been a bit snobby about a council estate, which is ironic because I was born on one. Unconscious bias strikes!
There is a bigger issue under the surface of all this. We wouldn’t need external editors if the in-house teams at UK publishers were more diverse. I have loved working with every single one of them, but the six UK editors I’ve had since 2011 have all been cisgender white women from (I’m guessing) quite comfortable backgrounds. Their big bosses, almost exclusively, have been cisgender white men.
I am starting to see a change, and that’s a good thing, but for now, I think sensitivity readers are here to stay, and I’d urge authors to welcome them into their process. After all, don’t we all want to release our book into the world safe in the knowledge it’s as rigorously edited as it can be?
The final word goes to Society of Authors chair, and author, Joanne Harris: “It takes courage for an author to admit they may not have all the answers. (Note: Dickens changed his depiction of Jews after corresponding with one of his Jewish critics, who pointed out antisemitism in Oliver Twist.) In later years, he also went through the text and revised it quite heavily, removing more than 200 of the more extreme antisemitic references, to the disappointment of some of his more antisemitic readers. He showed the capacity to grow. Perhaps that’s what makes a great writer.”
• Juno Dawson is an author and screenwriter
