As an American writer, I tend to write (and read) what I know. Stories that are set in the US, usually with an American mindset.
But am I unnecessarily limiting myself this way?
Travel has shown me that there’s a great big world out there, and even the few places I have been outside of the US have broadened my mindset immeasurably.
So why not bring this same idea into my writing and reading?
My questions today – as a writer, have you ever written a story that was set in an entirely different (current day Earth) culture besides your own? And as a reader, have you read many LGBT books that were set in other places? How can we connect with other cultures to broaden our work?
I think one of the great values of writing fantasy or science fiction is that it encourages us to re-create social and political constructs to examine more deeply what it means to be a human being.
I strongly believe that learning how other cultures view familiar constructs is good exercise for doing that. Often clues are built right into the language of a particular culture, showing attitudes or value systems.