The Sensitivity Reader Podcast

This podcast helped me become a lot more educated and conscious about my responsibilities as a writer.

I’ve been a writer for 20 years, an editor for 15 years and a professional publisher for 13 years. I'm always striving to learn more and better myself in my perspective, understanding and needs of others in my line of work. But for many people who’ve been at it as long as I have, and are not in school, it’s easy to think you’ve learned it all and to switch into autopilot mode when working with others in your field or creating your own works. You just want to get the job done. But that doesn’t work anymore in a world that needs us to be more aware than ever in how we tell stories and present media and to understand who our audience is. Sydney’s podcast is incredibly eye-opening, diving deep into what it means to truly do your best work by creating more authentic and respectful portrayals of marginalized communities. They also beautifully explain the necessity of diverse stories and media in our collective cultures. Sensitivity reading is not about censoring people’s voices or blanketing works with political correctness. It’s the opposite. Truly every writer and publisher should be utilizing the resources of readers like Sydney to create more solid, impactful and successful works. One of my favorite things I’ve learn from this podcast is that sensitivity readers, and those who work with them, are exercising activism (activism for introverts as Sydney explains!) which actually translates into extroverted activism, as this kind of work causes a ripple affect by positivity and healthfully impacting our collective communities. Can’t wait for more episodes!

This is a great podcast if you've heard the phrase sensitivity reader but still aren't quite sure what it means. It's also for those who think the world doesn't NEED sensitivity readers, or that sensitivity readers may in some way be detrimental to the purpose of the creation. This podcast offers a nuanced examination of what these things mean to those sensitivity readers working in the field.

This podcast helped me to better understand what sensitivity reading is. I didn’t know much about the topic and after the first episode I feel like I have a real understanding of what it is and why it’s needed. I look forward to the diverse topics that the host talked about for further episodes. Thank you for making this podcast available! I think that everyone can find something in this podcast and I’m excited to watch it grow.