˗ˏˋ Prologue ˎˊ˗

Photo from Pixabay

    As an avid reader from an early age, and an aspiring author and writer, I wanted to dedicate my blog Of Stars and Ink to reviewing a variety of novels from a young, queer writer's perspective. Reading is the best way to learn the industry and refine your own writing skills—a thing we are all told early on when you announce that you want to start writing—so what better way to get into the craft than by reading and reviewing it? I'm not an expert in any way as a University student, but why not share the work and see if this reaches anyone else on the same path?

    I named the blog Of Stars and Ink because I thought it would be a fun play on the purpose of its creation. A rating system of stars, reviewing novels printed with ink. Not very original, granted, but still fun and fitting. There are several genres to look into, especially when you have a topic as broad as reviewing, so I thought initially limiting the search to popular novels and romance novels would be a good start. Romance novels in particular have so many subgenres involved that that alone can make things easy to focus on, but it feels limiting to only focus on romance since there is so much more to the queer community than just their romance. As a nonbinary bisexual myself, finding representation everywhere, especially where it isn't explicitly known such as in romance, is always a nice surprise.

    In fact, there is no shortage of articles and threads online about how to write queer people in a way that isn't painfully stereotypical and possibly harmful—such as this blog post about nonbinary writer Elise Carlson—the same way that there are plenty about writing for different races. While I am very white, I try to include a multitude of different ethnicities in my own work. In the novel I am currently drafting, the main characters are Indian and Latino, two races I am not, but I have close friends and family who are. Writing that requires research and talking with people of those cultures to make sure I don't get things entirely wrong, stereotype them, or even outright insult them since I don't have the same experiences myself. The same goes for sexuality and gender!

    I have a variety of novels I've read within the past two years that I can review, including some that are very popular that I might have differing opinions on, but I plan on focusing mainly on novels of contemporary and fantasy genres. So, if you want to see if I like the most recent popular TikTok trending book, or you want to debate and share opinions, follow along and reach out!