Sandra mature

Rachel, the ingenuous 1st person narrator, relates the details of her humiliating eleventh birthday. Although her diction reflects her age, Rachel conveys the difficulty of growing up with adult precision. She is embarrassed and feels helpless, but knows she will soon be home with her parents, and her terrible day will drift away. She employs numerous similes, describing crying like uncontrollable hiccups, drinking milk to fast, and little animal noises. She is passionate and curious, almost to a fault.

This session was a long time coming and, frankly, well overdue. The author-panel was made up of a Queer woman, a Black woman, an Asian woman, while the moderator was a white woman who happens to be Chair of the Writers Board of South Australia, as well as an academic currently examining intersections of race and gender in historical romance. I sat right up front. The panellists were all romance writers, and I was interested in what it was, or is, like for those members of the panel to be, or have been, overlooked as a leads, incorrectly portrayed, rendered to stereotypes or rendered invisible. If you follow the ranty Sandra Soapbox Mature Content Stockpile stuff I usually post here, what the panel discussed may sound rather like what I ranty Sandra Soapbox about. All the time.