Showcase: Diversity and Identity in Your Writing

February 10, 2019 Conference 2019, Early Live Events, General 7 Comments

To participate in the Q&A, post your questions below!

This event originally aired on January 7, 2019.

Gail D. Villanueva is a Filipina author born and based in the Philippines. She’s also a web designer, an entrepreneur, and a graphic artist. She loves pineapple pizza, seafood, and chocolate, but not in a single dish together (eww).

Gail and her husband live in the outskirts of Manila with their dogs, ducks, turtles, cats, and one friendly but lonesome chicken. Her debut novel, My Fate According to the Butterfly, will be released on July 30, 2019 by Scholastic Press.

Gail is represented by Alyssa Eisner Henkin of Trident Media Group.

More About Gail D. Villanueva

Tags: diversity writing craft

7 Comments

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Alyssa
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Author

January 6, 2019 at 7:13 PM

Question from Akossiwa Ketoglo: Do ever feel pressured into making your cultural descriptions accessible to readers who are not from the same culture? For example you mention a specific type of dish and immediately follow it with a description.
Dave
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January 6, 2019 at 10:29 PM

A friend of mine was writing a fictionalized version of his Indian grandfather becoming indentured and sent to Guyana. He spent a lot of his text translating words, and explaining customs. Sometimes it didn’t interrupt the flow of the story, but there were parts where it felt like a manual. Afterward I realized I’ve read fantasy novels that did that a little too — because even the unreal have diversity and identity. How do you decide what to explain?
Kristoff
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January 7, 2019 at 1:52 AM

Hi Gail. I have read Erin Entrada Kelly’s books. The only books I’ve read with postcolonial themes. Basing from the synopsis, your book has the same theme, which I am so glad to know because there really is a lack of postcolonial themes in children’s books especially from the Philippines. I’m interested in your opinion on the lack of children’s books that tackle postcolonial issues and conditions especially in the Philippines. What are your thoughts on this?
Mindy Yuksel
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January 7, 2019 at 10:34 AM

Can you tell us about the Writing in the Margins mentoring program? Are there other mentoring programs you would recommend for writers with and without agents?
Renee'
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January 7, 2019 at 10:41 AM

How do you feel about someone writing characters without identifying any skin color or ethnicity (unless necessary), so the reader can associate the characters to people and locations they identify with, rather than specifying and forcing a color, culture, etc? I know it can’t be done all the time, but I don’t see just one color or background when I write, either. I agree that research and feedback are vital, too.
Mindy Yuksel
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January 7, 2019 at 10:52 AM

Thank you! This was awesome!!!
Osemome Ndebbio
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January 7, 2019 at 11:38 AM

Thanks dor sharing. This is going to be helpful when trying to develop the right mindset for writing my own truths. Waiting for your book!