Zoe Dubno

The rise of the ‘sensitivity reader’

Welcome to fiction’s new moral gatekeepers – and a seductively cheap way to cancel-proof your book

Illustration by Natasha Lawson
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You probably won’t have heard about sensitivity readers, but across the pond they are already an essential part of fiction.

Sensitivity readers are freelance copy editors who publishers pay to cancel-proof their new books. They read books that feature identities or experiences that are outside of the lived experience of the author.

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