Dear aspiring author who is of color, LGBTQA+, disabled, female, neurodiverse, or intersectional,

I’m writing this letter to encourage you to write your book. But to get to that point, I need to share a bit of backstory about my personal inclusion journey.

My interest in feminism started in college. Fresh out of my conservative community and a toxic long-term relationship, I was twenty-two and ready for a new way of functioning in the world. Even through my rebellious teenage years, I had subconsciously held tightly to the tenets of my faith, which taught me things like I should cover my body at all times and never prioritize my career. I struggled mightily with the religious school system, church leaders, and the constant shaming of my community.

Enter literary theory.

For the first time, I was exposed to concepts like the “other” and the “male gaze” in literature. As a lifelong ferocious reader, I started reflecting on the messaging from books I’d read. I started paying closer attention to the media and its representation of women. I wrote a rather insightful paper—if I do say so myself—on the male gaze in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I also fell in love. That class is where I met my husband, who said that outside of physical attraction, he was drawn to me because I was the “only person in class who ‘got’ Longinus,” the literary theorist we were studying at the time. He was also a feminist, and anti-racist, and all the things I was becoming during that transformative time of my life.

Soon after, I moved to the Dominican Republic with him, where I saw racism firsthand and actively fought against it. I was a high school language arts teacher and selected books that dealt with Black history and racism, opening up conversation in my classes about equality. Then we moved to Vietnam, where I witnessed racism again, and my orientation to the world of inclusion bloomed deeper within me.

Now, seventeen years later—I’ll save you the math, I’m thirty-nine—with a master’s in writing, fifteen years in publishing, and directly working on 100+ books, I have devoted my professional life to amplifying powerful, diverse voices. That doesn’t mean I don’t work with men or white people, because I do. Heck, I’m white. I’m married to a white man and have a white daughter and white son.

To me, diversity means that we are bringing a wide range of voices to the table, to a wide range of readers, on a wide range of topics.

And my work has demonstrated, not just in sentiment but also in data, that readers want to hear from diverse authors. The writers of color, women, LGBTQA+, neurodiverse, and disabled authors I’ve had the honor of supporting are speaking on major stages to rapt audiences, growing their businesses, and scaling their impact.

Time and time again, I see social media posts and receive emails from the authors I work with about readers who say they finally feel seen. Women of color who finally get to read a business book from a woman of color. Queer readers who finally get to read a leadership book from a queer author. Disabled readers who finally get to learn from a disabled finance expert who truly gets their unique situation.

Research shows that diversity breeds creativity. While these studies have been done in the workplace within teams, I’ve seen that we can extend this out to what we consume in the media and how it impacts readers. I’d like to see more white authors reading works written by authors of color for people of color. Male readers reading business books by women for women. Non-disabled people reading books by disabled authors for disabled readers. Straight people reading books by queer people for queer audiences.

But here’s the thing: the authors we need to hear from are not writing enough books, especially in the genres I work within: leadership, business, personal development, health and wellness, science and medicine, and what I call keynote memoir.

We need more aspiring authors with unique and diverse perspectives to write more books. We need a wider socioeconomic band of writers. We need more authors of color. We need more women. We need more queer authors. We need more disabled authors. We need younger and older authors.

And if you’re an aspiring author, we need you.

To writing your book,