While there are many great reasons to work directly with indie authors, one of the challenges is that you have no built-in filter to protect you from highly difficult or insensitive subject matter. When I started working with indie authors, I had no idea how much I would need to double as a sensitivity reader. In those early months, I had a bad string of luck where several projects in a row contained exceptionally poorly handled sensitive themes. Needing to dwell on this triggering subject matter and educate authors about it started to take a toll on my mental health. After that experience, I created a quick yet thorough vetting process that allows me to know what I’m getting into before I agree to a project. The most important of these tools is a customized macro that allows me to quickly flag and review potentially sensitive passages in a lengthy manuscript. In this session, I’m going to teach you what I’ve learned and how you can use the tools I’ve created to identify your own boundaries and effectively vet clients for sensitive themes.
Amelia Winters
I’m Amelia Winters, a professional fiction editor, language nerd, and story aficionado. By night, I chase stories and explore distant worlds through books, role-playing games, and sewing my own historical garments. By day, I journey with authors to help them hone their story craft, elevate their voice, and polish their prose. Though Canadian, I grew up overseas in the desert of Doha, Qatar. I’m currently back in the great white north and based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.