A “sensitivity reader” represents a member of your target audience who could potentially be misrepresented by content in your book, or a reader who can help you catch insensitive, stereotypical, or inaccurate portrayals of characters or language that may be offensive to some readers. He or she reads an early version of your manuscript and offers feedback with a specialized focus on sensitive issues.

If you’re writing characters, settings, or details outside of your personal lived experience, you may want to consider having sensitivity readers who have lived those experiences on your team. If your book deals with sensitive social, political, or historical topics, you may want to consider including at least one sensitivity reader for every group.

These days, writers know that diversity matters, representation matters, and inclusivity matters. But, what writers must also consider, is how a person outside a group can be insensitive when portraying members of a group. Writers are often told to “write what they know,” but those limits in personal experience do not always limit the stories that a writer attempts to tell. And when a writer attempts to tell a story that’s outside what they personally “know,” it can be highly beneficial to have someone who does “know” give their opinion.  

If you, as the writer of your manuscript, have written characters who are not the same race as you, the same gender as you, the same cultural background as you, same abilities as you, same mental health status as you, the same sexual orientation as you, or the same lifestyle as you, please consider submitting your manuscript to sensitivity readers for review.