Feeling hopeless after this article in the times.

[Unsurewhattodo1995]

Read it on Saturday, it’s behind a paywall but the basic gist is that publishers won’t publish things unless you directly have experience of being a certain character/gender/sex/ethnicity. This has made me feel so depressed, not only in gender but also over a book I’ve been working on for ages where the narrator is an older man (I’m a mid 30s woman!).

is the times article true or exaggerating it a bit?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-fiction-is-the-new-flashpoint-in-the-culture-wars-cp8f0jkmp

Publishers have their own criteria for accepting manuscripts. Mostly they want it vetted by an agent first and then submitted in their preferred format. A good read is a good read and that is what matters not the current hysteria about gender.
There’s always someone who will gleefully stamp on your ambitions. Avoid those people. Writing is hard enough, good on you for keeping on keeping on.

Thank you @Flowersintheattic57 - I worry though that agents would not accept something that might offend someone?!
the article refers to the furore over ‘American dirt’ and says that publishers are very cautious after that.

It’s rubbish. If the publisher has any concerns, they can use an authenticity reader, which is now a thing.

I haven't read the article but I have it on reliable authority that the publishing industry is a shit-show of cancel culture and headless chickens all looking for The Next Big Thing.

Frankly, most of them have no idea what they're doing.

Have a listen to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's excellent Reith Lecture.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fmtz

That is very depressing op. I've read some amazing books where the author doesn't have lived experience of the subject matter. There's room and a market for all.

I've read some amazing books where the author doesn't have lived experience of the subject matter.

We'd never have sci-fi, historical fiiction, murder mysteries, spy stories, and a whole lot of other books if authors were required to have lived experience of everything they wrote about.

OP, there's always the option of self publishing if you don't get anywhere going the traditional route. There's a lot of dross on Kindle, but a self published author can do well if their books are good, they put the work in on promoting them, and have that bit of luck that's needed to succeed at anything.

a book I’ve been working on for ages where the narrator is an older man (I’m a mid 30s woman!).

I think you’ll be fine! No one will avoid a mid-30s woman writing an older male protagonist out of fear of cancel culture, unless you’re also layering on some other issue like ethnicity or sexuality etc that is integral to the story e.g. a book about an old, white bloke that’s about his struggles with relationships in contemporary gay dating culture - might be problematic if you’re neither a man nor LGBTQ. A crime novel with an older white detective, not so much. One has ‘issues’ at the heart of the plot, one is just a character who’s not exactly the same as the author.

Context is everything.

It's called imagination and rest assured, that if they think your book will make money, it will be published by somebody.

I'm trying to imagine how weird fiction could get if authors could only write characters like themselves. Every story would be set in a weird clone world, populated entirely by billions of middle-aged Argentinian men with mild hearing impairments, or billions of straight British Asian women in their late twenties with a thing for motorbikes.

I also think you'll be fine as a woman writing from the perspective of an older man. And the publishing industry is in danger of disappearing up it's own backside.