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What’s missing from the bookshelf? (Hint: it’s you)
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Reading time: 2.20 553 words Hey Reader, What if the story that changes everything hasn’t been written yet? If we want to see ourselves in the stories we read and see, we’re probably gonna have to write them ourselves. Sometimes it’ll simply fulfil our human need to be seen, heard, and understood… and sometimes it literally saves lives. Malone Mukwende, a medical student, noticed that Black and brown skin was missing not only from his training but also from every medical textbook he encountered. “I first started noticing this problem when I was in my first year of university. Often we would get taught signs and symptoms on white skin but I knew this wouldn’t entirely translate in the same way on my type of skin. Often the textbooks we would use as a reference, would often just show the symptoms on white skin.” I’m sure you can see how this might result in worse outcomes for people with darker skin than mine. White doctors weren’t going to fix this problem (or, at least, in centuries of medical texts, they hadn’t yet) so Malone rolled up his sleeves and wrote Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin. Since he published it, it’s been read 500,000 times in 170 countries. Let me give you another, less specialist example: The Little Mermaid. In the 2023 live-action movie, Ariel is played by Halle Bailey. Do a quick search for reaction videos and you’ll find dozens of videos of little Black girls shrieking in delight as they see Ariel for the first time and she looks like them. And another, more personal to me: The Good Doctor. Let’s leave aside the fact that this show irritates me intensely because it once again presents a palatable autistic person as having a superpower (we’re not all savant geniuses, jeez) — because the very first episode had me in tears. I’d never seen a representation of what it’s like for me in an airport or another busy and overwhelming environment. It wasn’t just “oh look at that weirdo rocking in their seat or flapping their hands” — pointing and staring from the outside. For the first time, I saw a version of what it’s like to be me, not just a caricature. Maybe your idea is about marketing, or money mindset, or wellness, or fitness, or wealth, or sales, and you think “gawd there are tons of books on those subjects, who needs another one?” Let me ask you: are most of those books by people who allllll look the same? From similar backgrounds? With similar life experience? (I can already tell you the answer: yes. Most nonfiction books are written by straight white men. In 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in UK newspapers were by women. Authors of colour are making the bestseller lists more frequently, but it’s a small group of high-profile authors. LGBTQ+ authors are barely there. History, politics, and business are still dominated by men and those are areas that desperately need more diverse voices.) Find your angle. Find the gap. Find what’s missing. Your perspective, story, background, struggles, is what’s missing. Whatever your topic, your voice can fill a gap nobody else can. So, what’s missing from the bookshelf? It’s you. And the world needs your story now more than ever. TTFN, Vicky 🫡 p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.
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Learn to Write Like You Mean It
Join 500+ writers, creatives, misfits, and weirdos and learn to write like you mean it in 10 minutes a week. Get ONE practical tip, story, or shenanigan every weekday + a creative goodie bag on Friday 🖖🏼
Reading time: 1.48 426 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, Relatability is everything. I once had a client who wrote a fantastic book called Eat Drink Think. Her book is about addiction, about ending the battle with food and body image and living a life of authenticity and joy. Renae Saager’s book contains multitudes, as does she, but one line gut-punched me: “Stop trying to love your body.” She was incredible at seeing through the glossy, aspirational, unreachable, beautifully...
Reading time: 1.29 352 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, When Sharon was in college, double majoring in English & Psych, her English professor told her she “can’t write and never will.” She’d written short stories as a child, and journalling seemed to her like good prep for writing a memoir (it is). And although Sharon had always dreamed of writing a book, after that encounter with her low-quality professor, she just assumed writing was a talent she didn’t have. So she didn’t...
Reading time: 2.06 498 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, I’m elbow-deep in soil and worms, building a new vegetable bed, when Joe finds me. He’s a bit surprised because I’m supposed to be writing my book. “I thought you said you were too busy to bowl,” he says. I am. Too busy to bowl, I mean. I’m supposed to be writing a book. So obviously I am now building a new vegetable bed and also cleaning out the greenhouse and filling the bird feeders. It’s URGENT. I’m too busy to have...