Author of the Month, August 2012

This month, our Author of the Month theme is "Challenge Yourself".

It's the beginning of a new term, and there's no better time than to sit down and think about why you write what you write. With the final testing of the Mary Sue Litmus Test just behind us, the Writing Center staff have really been discussing why people write what they do. And it's quite simple: most authors write what they know.

Most authors, especially at the very beginning of their time here at RMI, will write characters very similar to themselves. They often only write within their race and gender, picking hobbies for their character that they find it easy to sympathise with. It makes writing easier, and it's a lot less scary to know that you can't be called out for doing something wrong because you are writing a part of your life into your character. And your life is real.

But as people become more confident in their writing, they often slip into what's comfortable. It's something we've all done, because it's an easy thing to do. How many of us have found ourselves only writing characters who share our likes and dislikes? Who have the same interests and hobbies? Who are the same gender or race, or who come from the same socioeconomic level as we do?

So this month, we honor one of our youngest authors who never ceases to seek out a challenge. This author not only consistently write characters of a different gender, but truly strives to represent the characters with a sense of reality that other, more experienced authors may gloss over or lack. The characters written by this author are diverse, and this author strives on a daily basis to make them even more so. Moreover, after over a year of being on edits - and not giving up, even though it was very frustrating at times - this author has finally been given the go-ahead to post without assistance.

That's right. Our author of the month for August, 2012 is the author of Alice Beastly!

Congratulations, and write on Alice :)