---
title: "Telling Untold Stories"
episode: 172
date: 2025-08-21
guest: "Tracy Stewart"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/172-telling-untold-stories
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-172/audio.mp3
---

# Telling Untold Stories

Joanne Lockwood is joined by book coach and editor Tracy Stewart, founder of Freshly Press, to explore why so many voices and storylines still struggle to be heard in publishing. Together they unpack how the industry’s commercial caution, limited marketing budgets, and traditional expectations can shut out authors whose work doesn’t fit familiar norms. They discuss the practical obstacles that underrepresented writers face: imposter syndrome, the cost of editing and production, and the challenge of building an audience before agents and publishers will take a risk. Tracy also highlights accessibility barriers for disabled writers, including the physical and digital hurdles involved in writing and self-publishing, and the way disabled protagonists and authors are still too often sidelined. The conversation also touches on technology and AI, including where it can be genuinely enabling (such as dictation) and where it raises ethical concerns around copyright and the loss of “soul” in storytelling. Throughout, Joanne and Tracy return to the value of authentic narratives—stories told with nuance by those who live them—and offer practical encouragement for listeners who want to write: start by getting words on the page, clarify what you want the reader to feel, and seek the right kind of professional support when you’re ready.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome
- 01:30 — Inclusive Publishing for Diverse Voices
- 07:11 — Self-Publishing Challenges and Pitfalls
- 14:49 — Publishers as Authors' Venture Capitalists
- 20:24 — Publishing Paths for Diverse Authors
- 21:56 — Smart Self-Publishing Success
- 28:35 — Support Challenges for Disabled Writers
- 35:58 — AI Copyright Concerns in Publishing
- 43:01 — Authenticity in Diverse Storytelling
- 44:52 — Experiencing Accessibility Challenges Firsthand
- 53:31 — Embracing Diverse Narratives in Media
- 01:00:09 — Refining and Objectifying Your Manuscript
- 01:04:36 — Connect with Tracey Stewart Online

## Key takeaways

- The deeply entrenched lack of diversity in traditional publishing and why mainstream audiences rarely see disabled, queer, or minority protagonists at centre stage.
- How imposter syndrome and practical barriers disproportionately silence would-be authors from underrepresented communities.
- The cost realities of quality book production—editing, design, marketing—and how financial barriers persist despite the rise of self-publishing platforms.
- The critical importance of authenticity in storytelling, particularly around lived experience, and why sensitivity alone is no substitute for true representation.
- The impact of AI and technology: how new tools can help break down accessibility barriers for writers, but why human creativity and emotional resonance remain essential.
- Strategies for aspiring authors to overcome doubts and structure their work—starting with capturing ideas, finding a target audience, and seeking collaborative professional support.
- Why inclusion in literature matters for societal change, and how challenging the status quo—rather than settling for token representation or niche shelves—can reshape culture and understanding.

## FAQs

### What is the main theme of this episode?

The episode explores the challenges and significance of amplifying untold stories and underrepresented voices in the publishing industry. Joanne Lockwood interviews Tracy Stewart, a book coach and founder of Freshly Press, focusing on accessibility, diversity, and the journey from manuscript to published work.

### Why are untold stories important in publishing?

Untold stories enrich the literary landscape and reflect the true diversity of society. As Tracy Stewart states, many traditional publishing avenues only cater to a narrow demographic—often middle-class, white, and able-bodied—leaving vital stories from disabled, LGBTQ+, and ethnically diverse communities out of print. Amplifying diverse voices helps challenge the status quo, foster inclusivity, and provide authentic representation.

### What barriers do aspiring authors from underrepresented communities face?

Barriers include:
Imposter syndrome and lack of confidence in their stories’ worth 
Structural inaccessibility (e.g., difficulty using computers for those with disabilities) 
High costs related to editing, design, and marketing 
Publisher reluctance to take financial risks on unfamiliar narratives 
A lack of ready-built audiences, which publishers often seek

### How does self-publishing compare to traditional publishing for marginalised authors?

Self-publishing offers speed and autonomy but requires authors to manage editing, design, marketing, and distribution—often at significant personal cost. Traditional publishing, while offering more support and credibility, is highly selective and demands that authors, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, already have established audiences. The industry’s commercial caution frequently leaves innovative or different stories untold.

### Why do stories featuring disabled protagonists struggle to find publishers?

Although there has been progress in publishing works by and about people of colour or LGBTQ+ individuals, stories with disabled protagonists remain rare. Publishers often lack the courage to depart from what they perceive as commercially safe, resulting in disabled-centric narratives being overlooked—even when well written and deserving.

### How do cost and access impact who gets published?

Publishing involves significant expenses before a book reaches market: subediting, editing, cover design, and marketing. These costs can be prohibitive, especially for those from non-traditional or financially constrained backgrounds. Without investment by publishers or alternative support structures, many talented writers are priced out of the process.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Foreign. Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyone not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. And today is episode 172 with the title Telling Untold Stories. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Tracy Stewart. Tracy is a book coach, editor and founder of Freshly Press, who is dedicated to amplifying untold stories and advocating for diverse voices in publishing. When I asked Tracy to describe her superpower, she said it is championing unheard voices and guiding storytellers to share their truth. Hello, Tracy. Welcome to the show.

Tracy Stewart: Thanks for having me. Delighted to have the opportunity to chat with you in a bit more detail than we normally have the opportunity to do on LinkedIn.

Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Yeah, I think we bumped into each other probably four or five months ago, didn't we? And we've been talking about a book. I've got a budding book. I've got podcast poetry, so.

Tracy Stewart: Looking forward to seeing that come to life.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, well, you will be featured probably in volume two, so. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that as well. So whereabouts in the country are you right now?

Tracy Stewart: Well, I'm actually in France because although I'm British, I live in France. Yeah. Live in Normandy.

Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Still got the same daylight out the window, so I would have never known, so.

Tracy Stewart: No, I know.

Joanne Lockwood: I think you're probably the first guest in the 172 episodes that has actually been based in France. Wow.

Tracy Stewart: There you go. Always upload somewhere.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So, Tracy, one of the reasons we started talking originally was, you know, we talk about this, guiding storytellers to tell their truth. And I think for the first moment we had a conversation, you talked about the publishing industry as a whole, the lack of diversity that's there, and the usual suspects. Get in if you like. Yeah. So how. What. What started this? What ignited your passion to help untold authors, if you like untold people, tell their stories. I guess about 10 years ago I, which is when I moved over to France, I'd stopped working, doing my old job in the city. That was a very traditional career. And I had the opportunity to go and work with a small publishing house, independent publishing house, remotely supporting authors. From that I ended up building a business which I started with two other women. And we were really wanting to focus on giving authors who never usually had the opportunity to get their books in front of large audiences to be able to get publishing opportunities or to promote their books better, differently, all of those things. And it really stemmed from the fact that the books we were looking at and publishing originally were, were all largely you know, traditional, middle class, white, you know, not, not terribly reflective of society and certainly not telling stories that we were experiencing in everyday life and needed to be told, needed to be amplified. So that was really the cause was, was looking at, you know, I've been a book buyer all my life, but looking at it from the other perspective made me realise just how many stories effectively don't make the cut with publishers because they're often not brave enough to take on stories that are different. I presume there's also the imposter syndrome of many people would have me an author. No, really, no one's going to be interested in what I have to say. So you must find that the barrier there is one, getting someone to actually have their story and want to do something with it and secondly, getting someone who's prepared. Prepared to publish that.

Tracy Stewart: Yeah. And there are several steps in between and after. Very often imposter syndrome is a huge barrier. People wanting to write, they want to, they know they've got a good story, they want to be able to get it out into the world, but they, you know, they go through that. Who am I to tell my story? Or they might start to write it and then not know where to go with it. Because all books have a certain flow, we might not realise it, but as humans we like to have stories told in certain, you know, in certain flows, in certain ways, you know, to reach peaks and troughs at different times. And so when, when you're an inexperienced writer, when you're trying to get your story down, it's very difficult to know what that pathway is initially. But equally then being able to have the confidence to approach agents or to approach publishers. How do you go about doing that? How do you learn how to do that? I mean, there were lots of free resources on the Internet, but Sometimes they offer conflicting advice. So there are lots of different barriers really for people being able to get in and often for people with disabilities, for example, which is something I'm really passionate about, they actually don't have proper access to be able to use computers in the same way as you or I may be able to do it. People may have issues with blindness, with colours, with dyslexia, people may have issues of not being able to use their hands easily to type or write. And all of those things present barriers as well. So there are difficulties and challenges to be faced, not just in the idea of writing or having the confidence to write, but also in the physicality of getting something written as well.

Joanne Lockwood: It's also a cost barrier, isn't it? Because it's to do it properly. I don't know what properly means, but there's sub editing, editing, design, marketing, all those various aspects aren't free because people have to earn a living doing this. So that can also be a barrier to people maybe with non traditional backgrounds, maybe don't have the financial resources or wealth to embark on this process.

Tracy Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. Whilst now you can much more easily publish, self publish, using, you know, the usual suspects at Amazon off the digital, there are lots of different platforms now and ways in which you can self publish. If you self publish something that hasn't had the right attention beforehand, as you rightly point out, you know, the editing process, the COVID the fact that the layout is done correctly, all of those things, then actually when you present that to market, although it costs you nothing to put it onto Amazon, you're actually providing a product that is not fit for purpose, it's not fit for market and in some ways isn't respectful of the reader, the buying public. So yeah, the cost is definitely an issue as well because everybody in the chain, and I'll call it a chain because it is, everybody in that chain has to earn a living somehow. And ultimately the writer wants to earn an income, if not a living from the books that they're writing. You know, there's, there's, you know, if you take, there's one, one big gold coin and that act, that gold coin has to be split in so many different ways before ultimately, as a published author, you can get the royalties in the end. So it's not an easy process to navigate.

Joanne Lockwood: I also, I'm just thinking about my own authorial, authorial, if that's a word, ambitions. I'm kind of a pragmatist because I know many people who've published books or even I Know people who publish tens of books and some of them have achieved what we call bestselling author, genuine Sunday Times. Someone who is incredibly a bestselling author rather than a screenshot of an Amazon page on day three after their launch. It's not easy to become celebrated authority.

Tracy Stewart: It's not, it's not at all. And for various reasons, you know, there's a huge number of books now in the market. It's, it's quite a saturated space. While self publishing has given an opportunity for many people to get their work out, it means that there is so many more options for buyers in terms of what they, they can read. And if you don't have a big marketing budget or if you, you don't have the opportunity to be picked up by national newspaper or, you know, a Richard Book club or whatever it may be, actually getting recognition is incredibly difficult. Incredibly difficult. I think a lot of it comes back down to why you're wanting to write. Some people genuinely just want to write to get their story out there, to share their experience. It's about knowing who your target audience really is. Because you can't be everything to everybody. And really finding your niche and finding people who are going to be genuinely interested in your story is an important aspect. Because if you can nurture, you know, a community of people who are wanting to hear your story and who are able then to talk to others about your story, you know, that helps the process. It definitely isn't easy. And we've all done it, haven't we? We've all bought books on, you know, Waterstones, Amazon looked at something. Do we go back and review it very often not. Because, you know, inherently we're often quite lazy about doing things like that. And one thing that readers really can do to support authors is to review a book they've written. Because unfortunately, the algorithm on social media on, on all the big platforms, big publishing platforms, they only work on the basis of somebody having a review or having a, you know, a rating against their book. So one of the things I always try and encourage anyone who reads a book to do is actually go in and take the trouble to enjoy it and review it.

Joanne Lockwood: And as you're thinking now, I'm thinking because my publishing ambition is kind of very vocational, very around what I do, what I talk about. So it's more a business outcome or associated with business. But there's also, I guess there's people who are having their voice heard, who are novelists, who are science fiction writers, who are maybe even comic writers or whatever.

Tracy Stewart: It May be, yeah. And this is one of the things that is a huge challenge for the industry, but a huge frustration for writers is that particularly those with disabilities are probably the ones that are left behind in the culture of publishers and agents trying to bring wider representation and diversity in publishing. Lgbtq, the writers of colour, they have tended to have more opportunity. They still don't have enough, but they had more opportunity than writers who have disabilities. One of the clients I've worked with have seen several years. She has been writing fiction and poetry practically all her life. You know, she's received awards for it. She's won a Hemingway prize and was included in the Hemingway anthology. And yet her novels, because they include disabled protagonists, are not being picked up. But you're getting lots of comments back about the quote, quality of the writing, how wonderful and interesting the storylines are. But we have yet to find a publisher brave enough to take on a story with a disabled character as the principal character in the book. And it is a challenge, a real challenge for many writers and across all different types of disability and all different types of, you know, challenges that people face. The industry largely, and there's been quite a lot of research done into this in the last few years, the industry largely is speaking to and publishing for, you know, a white middle class audience. And the industry is making decisions about what it sees as being commercial and it doesn't feel yet when it's not brave enough in very many instances to try something a bit different. And then we've been through this process with writers of colour, with writers of LGBTQ literature. It took so long to start to get those stories out there and there's still a long way to go for sure.

Joanne Lockwood: So we talked about, I asked you earlier about the costs and you talked about the big gold coin and everyone's got to try and earn a living out of this. No one's doing it for free. So when you're about here is publishers are reluctant to take the risk is where they would maybe take, assume some of that cost, financial cost of the editing process, the publishing process and take that burden off of the author rather than expect them to have to fund all that themselves and take the risk. It's a bit like venture capitalists. We know that many female founders, many people with disabilities, aren't getting the investment for venture capital Raft and the publisher to be our venture capital investing in our book. And that's what you're saying the challenges people perceive there to be a market isn't that strikes me as there's a bit of chicken and egg. There is no market, therefore we can't. But because we can't, there is no market. And it's kind of, we need to break through that.

Tracy Stewart: And that's a really good analogy about the publishers being the venture capitalists for authors, for sure. And the thing is, I genuinely believe that there is a market, you know, that people, if you look, if you, if you read in newspapers, in magazines or if you look at what people are watching on tv, people are really interested in stories that bring a different perspective to life, that something that is different from our own lived experience. And they want to know these stories, they're interested in these stories. But unless there is some way in which a publisher sees that they've almost got a ready made audience, they're very unwilling to take on books that are different. I mean they're even unwilling, if you look at it in this perspective, they're unwilling to take books which are very, very well written crime novels for example, that are in a, you know, written by a normal person like me, you know, who comes along, just, you know, has a good idea for a story, writes a story and sends it off. They, they get so many of those types of solicitations. They, they don't, you know, they take on a very, very small percentage. And so often, you know, we go off and we self publish. But there's a, even for books where there's a market, there is not enough capacity or courage within publishing houses now to take on someone who doesn't have an established following. Very rare. So as an author, particularly as an author with a form of disability or from an underrepresented part of the community, they've also got to work on building their audience before they even get to the stage of presenting their work to an agent or publisher. Because they want agents, publishers, they all want some form of, you know, partial guarantee if you like, that there are people out there already wanting to buy this book. And that's a difficulty, that's a challenge.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've, I've spoken to, I suppose you would call them book coaches, which not, not too dissimilar to yourself. And I've been quoted between 10 and 20,000 for depending on how light touch, you know, guided toward, you know, how much I want them involved in the process. And that's just to get the book to a publisher, not actually do the publishing and then do the marketing and the branding and all that kind of stuff. So it's probably, I don't know, I'm just guessing off the top of my head. Let's pick a number. 30,000 pound to get from A to B. And it each book doesn't make that much money, does it? There's not a huge amount of money in books.

Tracy Stewart: No, there's not. You know, there isn't. There really isn't a huge amount of money in books. There are ways in which you can earn a living, but it's very rare that it's purely from the books you've written. You know, you tend to have as a writer, you often have a sort of portfolio career. So you'll do some commercial writing. You might be journalists part, you know, you might also be content writing or copywriting in those types of situations. So it's very rare that someone earns solely from the books that they've written. It can happen, you know, if a series gets auctioned and gets put to market through Netflix or Apple TV or something like that. But purely from writing a book. No, it's a challenge. And this is where one of the things that I always look to do with freshly press was find a way to be affordable. Because nobody I know, you know, has 30 grand sitting in their back pocket to use that, you know, picked out the air sum to to even get a book ready to go to an agent or publisher. It's just not practical. Yeah. And there are other ways that, that you can support people to help them write. Memberships, there are writing hours or writing groups. There are lots of different ways in which you can help. But ultimately to package a book, to get it to market, whether that's to self publish or to put it to an agent or an independent publisher, there is a certain amount of polishing that has to be done at the end to make it viable. And publishers also are, they don't have the wherewithal that they used to have to do a lot of the editing. You know, the big publishing houses, if you're one of their bigger authors, then they'll have an editor and you know, it'll look something like we all thought the traditional model of publishing does and should look like. But there are an awful lot of people who, even if they publish with Penguin Random House, you know, they have that little logo on the side of their book. But what they don't have is a huge lot of support around that book, particularly once it's published, because marketing budgets are really small.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, it's the best route to self publish and then hope that gives you a kind of a cv. If you like to go to a publishing house with is it better to do one yourself. Or is it better to say let's not come out early, let's go straight for publishing house because if I come out badly then I'm going to be judged on that first piece of work. What's the guidance?

Tracy Stewart: I really wish there was a right answer, but honestly there isn't one size or one route that fits all because authors have lots of different needs. I mean, some of the authors I work with, you know, are from a neurodivergent background. And so the prospect of actually self publishing and having to deal with inquiries, with arranging all the interviews, with reaching out to podcasters or book reviewers, you know, it's just not something that they're able to do. It's an incredibly stressful, potentially stressful situation for them to find themselves in and they don't want to be connected necessarily contacted directly by people. So for them an agent is often, you know, a much more appropriate route and a route that gives them a lot less stress. But it costs more to go down that route and it takes longer. I mean the thing with self publishing is it's super fast as you can literally get your book up and within, within a week you, you, you're rolling. Some authors do get picked up from self publishing because one of the things that some of the bigger publishing houses and other agents do now is that they're looking to see what's coming up, what's selling in the self published charts and then they're approaching, they're approaching authors from that direction, which is something that would never have happened a few years back. So I think there are positives, absolutely there are positives from going down the self publishing route and there are some authors that have never done anything but self published and are multi million sellers. But what they've done is they've been very smart and very savvy about the way that they've self published. So there isn't a right or a wrong route. I'm a firm believer that you choose the route that is right for the author because not authors operate and have the same skill sets. I've got some wonderful authors that I work with who are well aged, I think we'll say, and they're vintage, vintage skills. They're vintage, absolutely. And they write cracking books. But their skills in dealing with all the minutiae of self publishing and you know, marketing side of things, that's not their bag. They just want to write. So for them going down a straight self publishing route would, would be a challenge if they didn't have someone to Support them along that line. So it's multi layered. It's multi layered. And also a lot of the things, you know, using. Using platforms to self publish is often not accessible to writers with disabilities because the logistics themselves, you know, lining everything up and making sure that the book is uploaded in the right way and then it goes off and you have all these different boxes to tick. You know, somebody with visual impairments is not going to be able to manage that. And someone who finds it difficult to work keyboard or hold a pen finds that very difficult as well.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you're talking about. It's really hard as a. As a minority person, if you come from a minority background, to get published. You mentioned specifically people with disability. We are seeing good representation of black queer authors because they have their own communities. I guess it resonates with. As you're talking about that, I was thinking about just looking at everyday television, BBC, Netflix, whatever it is, and you see many black led TV series, documentaries, films, whatever it may be. Again, queer stuff. As you're talking, I'm thinking. I'm just trying to think where the series is centred around a person with a disability, such as a wheelchair user, such as an amputee or whatever it may be. There's sort of representation in programmes like Silent Witness with Liz Clark. Yeah, Liz Clark. And the newer series we're going back in Time, show My Age. Ironside was a detective who was a wheelchair user. But we don't see strong TV representation, which presumably that helps. What's the opposite of fuel? Extinguish demand. Because we're not seeing those lived experiences being. I hate the word normalised, but becoming everyday every day. Visual associations.

Tracy Stewart: We shouldn't. We shouldn't see these books or these TV series or films as being something special. They should be just part and parcel of everyone's experience, because they are. It's a conversation and I think. Was the guest you had last week Charlie. Charlie Hunt, Charlie Hart. Yeah, yeah. And she was talking about the fact that, you know, having labels, you know, being ADHD or being autistic and having high functioning, there are all the different variables of that, you know, make it often so that people are being pigeonholed rather than being made, you know, to just be accepted for who and what they are, you know, members of civilization, human race and society. And it's a similar situation with all underrepresented communities. They're often seen as token or they have a strong role and they have strong lines, they have a strong presence, but they are somehow depicted and seen as being you know, not the norm and you know, they are the norm, they're normal. In the same way I'm as normal. There is, there shouldn't be a distinction between the type of character driven stories that we see, read and listen to.

Joanne Lockwood: There's also a. I perceive there to be a hierarchy of privilege again even within many communities. I mean, just, I was thinking about disability, the disabled community, for example. There's. We see a lot of representation in the media of Paralympians. People have been in Invictus Games and again, there's a privilege there. If you've suffered a life changing injury due to warfare, whatever that may be, then your lived experience about the recovery from that. There's a lot more money in supporting you around prosthetics, rehabilitation, giving you a voice than there is for someone who was maybe born, born without a limb or born with a cerebral palsy or whatever that may be, that they will no longer have access to that amplification and privilege and funding. So again, we do see a lot of representation, especially around Paralympics, Victor's Games, celebrity appearances on telly. There's a real disconnect between their acquired disability at that point in life and someone who has maybe been born with their disability. And yeah, the differential experience. And I guess I want to see real lived experience told through their eyes, their lens, their perception, not a, I don't know, a sort of sanitised version. I want to see the rawness. You know, there's a storyline on EastEnders which I saw the other night, which mirrors the strip search of a young black girl. And this is about a young Asian girl being strip searched by the police. And I want to hear those stories in the mainstream media to say this isn't good enough, it happened in real life, now let's dramatise it and let's bake that into history so it never happens again. And I want to hear the injustices of my friends or wheelchair users struggling with their day to day life and having that told to story.

Tracy Stewart: Yeah. And yeah, you're absolutely right about the fact that people who have been born with conditions, and often multiple conditions or you know, have multiple conditions develop later in their life, they struggle to get heard in, in every sense of the word. So not even just through writing, but you know, through access to work, through the ability to have the appropriate care to enable them to work. Writers I've worked with struggle to receive an appropriate level of support to do not just the basic things. I mean, I think there are many, many stories and experiences that people have Shared about the fact that, you know, they find it incredibly difficult to find a Tube station access or to have somebody support them with driving, getting them from A to B to just to be able to work. There are very often people who. And authors who require support and help to help them to write. And that is seen as a luxury. You know, it doesn't even come close to being something that is considered to be important. And yet if you're a writer, to not have access to. To either the right software to enable you to properly dictate, for example, or to have the appropriate access to screens that enable you to see a screen clearly and be able to navigate that screen, really, so have the right physical equipment for, be that headsets or the right type of mouse or keyboard to use. For writers, it is incredibly, incredibly hard to have those types of things seen as being necessary to work. So very often you've got authors and writers who have extraordinary storytelling skills and can provide wonderful articles and contributions to news publications, to magazines, to anthologies, the. To also write their own memoir or novel. They just are not heard and they're not seen as being somebody who has a need. And, you know, when you're a writer, you're very often driven. Writing is the thing that supports your mental health. Writing is the thing that, you know is what you are here to do. And doing it in all its forms is important. But it's virtually impossible for many writers who have disabilities particularly, to even get started on that ladder. So it's creating barriers for access to work, for being able to access markets and be able to write their books and talk to agents and talk to publishers, have speaking engagement, because there's a whole raft of things that just. You don't enable them to be on that stage and be in that world.

Joanne Lockwood: Is that because people don't take being an author as a serious career option? It's. It's almost like a hobby, a bolt on. It's not. It's like people say, I want to leave school, I want to become an actor. It's like, can't you get a real job? You know, I want to. I want to be a sports person. Can't you get a real job? You got to. You got to work on that first. So people aren't vet fe. There's not enough people earning a living being purely an author. You said it earlier. It's a bolt on.

Tracy Stewart: Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: So getting support and getting funding for it as a hobby must be hard because it's. I guess it's a hobby until it becomes a Profession, I. It's a hobby until you actually make some money out of it.

Tracy Stewart: Or you can, because you can't make money as a writer in all of its forms. You know, book writing, copywriting, writing articles, being a journalist. If you don't have access to the right tools, you cannot make money. And if they're saying you've got to make money before they'll give you access, then you're absolutely between a rock and a hard place. I mean, there are some organisations which do provide support, but often the forms and the processes that authors have to go through to even get somebody to look at their case are, you know, they're making it not possible to even get to that stage. It is a hugely frustrating situation for many people to find themselves in. Hugely, hugely difficult.

Joanne Lockwood: We originally started talking months back and around my own book, the podcast Poetry, and unashamedly are leading with the fact that it's helped or wholly developed by AI. So I'm taking the podcast that you're listening to now, feeding it through some AI technology with my own scripts and my own customization to create poetry from that episode and help me generate some of the other parts of the book, the notes around the episode and everything else. With AI becoming ubiquitous, becoming everyday on people's phones in their pocket. Once you have something in your pocket on your phone, it, it becomes the norm. Our kids today are going through school with AI, and I've been at conferences over the last few weeks and there's a real emphasis now on how business can leverage AI. It's going from horse and cart to the petrol vehicle, from log tables to slide rules to calculators. We're in that kind of quantum acceleration now. This is going to change the world of copywriting. Marketing people are now competing with technology. So how can the writing industry, wherever aspect, author, copywriter, sub editor, editor, how can you embrace the reality of the future?

Tracy Stewart: It's again, one of those questions where there's so many facets to the answer. It can be incredibly helpful. It can make things happen faster, it can produce ideas, it can help you structure a piece in a more, you know, more logical manner. There are lots of different ways in which AI can support doing your job better, but one of the things that I think pretty much is universal is that you still need a human to actually review and put humanity back into the work. So you know to what extent you do it. If you put something in and you, you, you put one of the prompts in that says, you know, please write me a piece that I can send through to an editor as for a submission for a newspaper article on X, Y, Z, it'll come back with something that it doesn't have soul, you know, because ultimately they're, they're, they're processing words, they're processing algorithms, they're processing, you know, information. But there is no sense to it, there's no real emotion behind it. And you can tell by the rhythm of the sentences that, you know, it's absolutely written to follow rules, it's not written to follow natural speech patterns and things like that. I genuinely do not think that AI certainly in the short to medium term can replace a lot of the work we do. But the challenge is that there are organisations like Meta currently who are using published work that has copyright in the front of the book to feed into their AI systems and train AI to become more human. Because it's picking up patterns of speech that are an essential part to any novel, for example, that's written. And this is one of the things that we're facing at the moment in the Society of Authors and the Good Law Project are all looking at ways in which you can do that. Because all of these books have been published with the copyright completely held in the appropriate words and format and still these are being fed into AI to train AI. So, you know, there are certain things that I use AI for to help me in my day to day work, but I absolutely cannot stand behind a system that supports effectively ceiling work that others have done to train AI to do that. So I may or may not have answered your question that you, you fundamentally asked. But I think that there are, there are lots of different aspects to it and actually, you know, there are things that AI can help disabled authors do. Dictation is a form of AI, you know, and that's something that's incredibly enabling. You know, that doesn't give systems the right to tape work and it doesn't give us the right to present AI fully. AI generated work as something that is, you know, is not. You know, you're very open with the web that you're talking about with your book, that you have used AI to, to help you generate and explore themes from the episodes. And, you know, you've been 100% open about that. But there are unfortunately people who are also producing work which is 100% AI generated and has had next to no input from a human. And they're not necessarily being badged as being things that are AI generated and so they can be produced in two hours, whereas writing a book can take months and Months, if not years and years. So it's creating imbalance as well in terms of the ability for people to produce work and content.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I use AI a fair bit in some of my writing. It's good for a wireframe, it's good for sort of key bullets and headings. It's got me, helped me and coached me into structuring, because I write a lot of articles into HR type magazines, so it helps me structure those sometimes. You know, most of these magazines have their own editorial guidelines. They want it to have key takeaways, they want it to have pick out key quotes which they can highlight in the article. Sometimes you write, you get the article and then say, can you just generate me three punchy takeaways from this at the bottom?

Tracy Stewart: Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: And can you pick out a couple of quotes in it, or can you highlight discreetly certain words and certain paragraphs to give it emphasis? And it'll go boom and give you a few bolds, a few italics here and there. So sometimes it's really great to sort of augment your creativity.

Tracy Stewart: Exactly. But it's not there to replace creativity. And fundamentally it can't. Because when, as a human, when we read something as AI generated, you know, by and large, you know, because it's not following those rhythms of speech or it's got, you know, it's too correct in the way that it's written. And then we see that we can't necessarily always name what we're feeling, but it's a sensation because it's something that is so embedded in human culture. Storytelling has a rhythm. Storytelling has a soul. Storytelling has a way of touching us when we read it. And we don't know the why and how of all of that, but what we do is sense it.

Joanne Lockwood: It's interesting. I picked up on the word you said there, soul. And I've used that word before around AI. And, you know, you think about some famous Android TV characters, you know, Commander Data, people like that, that they, they lacked humanity, they lacked humour, they lacked a soul. And that was what, in Star Trek, Data always wanted. He wanted to be able to laugh. You wanted to better understand a joke or find the irony of something rather than an algorithm telling him that it was funny. So, yeah, and I, I, I'm the same that I've done a lot of judging on award ceremonies and, and categories and things. And the last couple years, I've noticed that you read it and go, there's no soul in this. There's no, there's no umph. There's no humanity. It's just facts or. Or information that's been put out there, I think. Where's that? The umph.

Tracy Stewart: This is where. When, you know, when we've got so many underrepresented communities and voices that are missing from bookshelves, in bookshops and libraries and from online platforms, there is a void that needs filling to enrich life, to enrich our experience of how others have experience life. These. These stories, they. They touch. They really do touch you. You know, I use the word soul a lot because I genuinely believe, you know, that we. We are. When we're reading something, we are looking for connection. And that connection doesn't have to be something that we know we can be touched and connected with something we had no idea about, no experience. Experience of. And that's the power for me, that's the power of being able to get more of these untold stories out into the world, is to enrich all of our lives.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And I was talking to you earlier about my father's eulogy, which I delivered at his funeral a few weeks ago, and I took his eulogy and blended it with a poem by a famous poet who often is quoted in eulogies, Mary Elizabeth Fry. I took his eulogy and asked AI to blend it with his poem, and it came up with something really beautiful, completely relevant to my father. But a lot of that, if you read it, I don't upsell my own ability here, but delivering it, something that's written by AI, you can put that emphasis, you can put the soul into the words through the way you deliver, the pace, the tone, the modality of what you're doing. Whereas if it's written on paper, author words are going to work harder when they're written than when they're told, haven't they?

Tracy Stewart: Yeah, very much so. Very much so. And this is where I think, particularly with fiction, you know, being able to read fiction that's written by a person of colour or by someone in the LGBTQ community or by someone with a disability. There is no one that has a better authority to write that in a manner that is relatable and encourages that curiosity to know more than someone whose lived experience that is, having someone who is not gay write a gay character will not deliver the same result. I mean, you can use sensibility readers, and this applies to all of the underrepresented communities. You can use sensibility readers, sensitivity readers, but at the end of the day, there's a nuance when we write. There's a cadence, there's a turn. Of phrase, call it what you will, but unless you've lived that experience, you can actually not easily tell that story. And, you know, that's another challenge that people from all underrepresented communities faces, that very often, you know, their situation has been appropriated by someone who does not have that lived experience. And that in itself is a. Is another challenge because, you know, you see big publishers picking up books that, you know, do actually have a disabled character as a. As a protagonist, but it's not written by someone who has a disability, you know, and, you know, is that right? Is that wrong? You know, even with someone having read it for sensitive activity, why not publish someone who has had that experience and who can give much more depth to that story?

Joanne Lockwood: I've got. I mentioned earlier, I've got a couple of friends who have physical disabilities and I see stories in the news about horror story about a wheelchair user who was stuck on a train because there was nobody available at the platform to lower the ramp to help them off. People trying to navigate London, the bus stops without a drop curb or they can't get up and down the curb, or the people on the bus won't let them off, they tut and get angry when they're trying to move their wheelchair or there's a push chair in the disabled space. There's all these stories and we've all heard these, we've all seen them, but I travelled across London with my friend who has cerebral palsy in a powered wheelchair, on and off of buses, up and down kerbs, across the town into underground stations, having to navigate Victoria tube station with a wheelchair user, going into a pub, going into the conference room. And I didn't. Obviously I don't have their lived experience, but I was able to have their experience by proxy because I was right next to them during this journey. And all the stories I see now have a relevance to my avatar of her, if you like, knowing that experience. So I experience her story through her eyes in real time. I think just hearing it in the news, it never lands that same way. You have to have that powerful story. I think that's what you're saying there.

Tracy Stewart: Yeah, very much so, yeah. We. Even if we experience that alongside somebody, we're still not living it in their skin, you know, which is, for me, something that's hugely important, is that, you know, these stories are told by the people who live them and we can, as you say, live them by proxy to some degree, but it's still. It's still far from what it's like to live. And when we're living it by proxy, often it's. It's. It's for a short amount of time, you know, and they are experiencing discrimination or they're experiencing, you know, difficulty, as you say, even something as simple as going up and down a curb or getting in a. Going on the tube. They're experiencing that day in, day out, year on year on year. And we can't imagine what that's like. We can be more sensible and more sensitive to it, but we can't truly understand what that means. And so to be able to have a true representation of what that is, I think, is hugely important. Hugely important, yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Because I think we talk about putting the soul into the conversation to the story that AI can't do. I actually put the soul into the story of their story by being with them. Because they could tell me about this problem, they could tell me about what happened to them last night, they could tell me this, that and the other. But what difference was, I could feel, and I think that's the word, feel their anger, feel their frustration, feel their disappointment, how upset they were, how uncaring that situation was through their eyes. So I was able to, as a human, feel from them. And even when they tell me the story of another incident, I haven't got that osmosis of feeling from them, have I?

Tracy Stewart: No, no, exactly. And there's no way we ever can. But the best chance we've got of really understanding somebody else's experience or, you know, seeing. And I think this is one of the things that, you know, kind of. We often look at this as in a negative sense, but actually, you know, the stories that I've read and the novels that are being written that are just not getting published, you know, these are celebrating the fact that, you know, people are who they are, that they are gay, they are someone of colour, they have a disability. But that's actually not the point of the story. It's. It's how these characters are developed and how these characters go through life and how they interact and, you know, the experiences that they. They have putting them comes back, I think, to one of the things we talked about early on, about this sort of, you know, normalisation, if you will, and I don't actually like the word normalisation, but actually making these part of everyday life. So, you know, if you're picking a crime novel up off the shelf or if you're picking a love story off of the shelf, it actually doesn't matter, you know, if the person is disabled or if the person is transgender, or if the person is of an indigenous population, it's that experience through their eyes and. And their situation, and there's just not enough of that out there. It was interesting because the other day, and I think I spoke about this when I had a chat with Marie, you can look in some of the big bookstores and they'll have a set of bookshelves which are labelled up and badged LBGPQ plus, you know, and they have it. It's kind of like, whoa, look at us. You know, we've got a bookshelf, you know, that's not integrating, that is not properly accepting, that's making it stand out and be different. And it's not. You know, you could. Yes, it makes it easier to find, but also it means that you lose a whole draught of audience because there are a lot of people who won't naturally gravitate to. Look in that little corner section where there are two books to two bookcases filled with LGBTQ fiction. How. How do you do it? You integrate it. You make it more the norm. You make it that you can look through a selection and you just. You pick out the author and the storyline. You're not going there solely for something that's written in that manner. There isn't a right or wrong answer. Because equally, there have been so many years where there were no books published at all that actually represented certain communities. You know, that. That it's important that we are able to see that there are now. But, you know, getting that balance right, I think it's kind of swung quite a long way the. The other way, now that it's sort of being trumpeted as being. This is. This is us being inclusive, this is us being diverse. And it's like, yeah, you can do it without the trumpet.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying there. Because, you know, often you go to watch a film, watch a. A Netflix, whatever you got to watch, and it's written in such a way, the directors cut it in such a way that the plot is going to have a romantic encounter between two of the characters. And it's not explicit, it's not part of the major storyline. It's just human interaction. There's going to be a bit of flirting and there's going to be a glance at some point, isn't it? There's something going to go on here and you're kind of drawn into the romantic. Will there be a bit of jumping into bed later? Or there'd be a bit of romance later. And it's really powerful when that is not a traditional heterosexual couple having that moment. You go, does she look at her? Yay. So it's gonna, oh, I'm looking. And you get drawn into it. And it's not the big purpose of the story, it's that incidental storyline on the side from a queer lens. And you don't want that to be on a queer shelf, you want it to be on the mainstream shelf. It just so happens the relationship that's evolved is not a heterosexual based relationship or a transgender relationship. So. And I think it was an episode of one of these Korean Alice in Borderlands. I think it was one of these Korean type shows. And halfway through the second series there was this fight scene and everyone said, wow, go girl. Wow, you're amazing. He said, that's my transgender superpower for you. It's like, well, of course she's transgender. It didn't matter. It was just suddenly it became a superpower that made her a great kickboxer. Halfway through the film it was like, so that subtle discovery doesn't have to centre the character on that. No part of it. And I think Star Trek had a same sex couple, two men were having a relationship on there, but in the same way that another character flirted with another character. It was just how it just again, go back to that word normalise. We shouldn't be normalising it just didn't draw attention to it.

Tracy Stewart: No, exactly, exactly. You know, and I think that's across all genres, to be honest, of writing. It's. It's just important to almost, I think back to some avatar and you've got these blue human or non human, whatever, you know, however you interpret it, you know, and we're able to accept that, you know, without thinking twice. And yet if there's a film which is, is based around, you know, you say a full blown queer relationship or is focused around a character with, with disability, then often they'll look at it and they'll, you know, it's like, oh, I feel a bit uncomfortable with that. I mean, you, you going back to the point you made about the, you know, when someone has lost their leg, perhaps through war, through, you know, disease or illness. And I think about the character in Strike, Robert Galbraith's storyline and you know, that how that is portrayed is something that, you know, it became an important part of the storyline. You know, for some people it made them feel uncomfortable, you know, and it was interesting how it was portrayed in the, in the series when, you know, there were often occasions where the prosthesis would be on show in some way, shape or formal, or.

Joanne Lockwood: It took it off once, didn't he? Or put it back on or something.

Tracy Stewart: Yeah, back on. And, you know, you look at and you think, you know. And I remember distinctly, you know, somebody talking about it afterwards and saying, oh, well, you know, I don't. Don't think that was really necessary. And it's like, well, hold on a second. You know, this is someone's life. They weren't making it. I mean, he didn't have all of the rah, rah, rah stuff that we were talking about with, you know, with things that surround Paralympians. And, you know, and absolutely they should be celebrated, but there's a much bigger, broader community of people who are impacted because of disability or because they are different in some way, shape or form, perceived to be. They're not getting the support they're not getting. Their voices aren't getting heard. And that's something that needs to change. I mean, it's changed a little, but it's definitely not changed enough and not by any way, shape or form.

Joanne Lockwood: So if you're listening to this podcast right now, I mean, let me ask a question on behalf of a listener. How can someone who feels that they've got a story, whether that's fiction, nonfiction, business, whatever it may be, but they've got a story to tell, how should they go about it, A, overcome their imposter syndrome, B, where do they start? And C, where do they head?

Tracy Stewart: Overcoming imposter syndrome is sadly something that if you're a writer, you pretty much have to learn to live with, you know, because it comes in waves. You know, you'll write something brilliant one day and you'll write something the following day that you. You look at and you think, why do I even think I can write? And it's sort of having that toolbox of being able to work through it, to write through it. You know, I always say when you. When someone's writing the first draught of anything, you know, we call it the shitty first draught, because that's what it is, you know, or it's a. It's a vomit draught. I mean, you can call it whatever you like, but essentially the first time when you're writing is just you telling yourself a story. You know, it truly is just you telling yourself a story because there's so much of our experiences, of our ideas, you know, and it doesn't matter, actually whether it's memoir, fiction, or whether it's a business book, what you're trying to do is you're trying to get everything that's in your head down onto the page about that particular subject. And it won't come out in the right order. It's impossible for it to come out in the right order because some ideas are just more bullish than others. You know, they'll. They'll be the ones that come to the fore. But you just. I would say, just. Just keep writing. Just write. You know, you don't have to share it with anyone at this point, but until you've got out all your thoughts and you've got your ideas and things will spark, you know, you'll. You'll write something down and the next day you'll suddenly think, I hadn't thought about it like that. So the next day you write something that you hadn't anticipated writing at all. Just write. Just get that as much as you can out of your head. And what that does is it opens up space in the brain to then look at what you've written and form it in a way that it can't when it's just all stuck in your head. So we always say, if you think you've got a story to write, the very best thing you can do is actually get it down on paper. Whether that's, you know, dictating it using a software programme or whether it's writing by hand. Just get. Get it out. Get it out of your head and onto the page. Once you've got something onto the page, you'll look at it and by and large you'll go, no clue what to do with it. Now, you know, no. You may even feel that it looks all right, but actually, you know, when you. When you look at it and you read it, you know, you know, it's not necessarily coher or it's got plot holes. If it's a piece of fiction, and at that point you can, you know, if you're. If you're part of a little writing group, you can ask someone to take a read of it if you want to have somebody professionally take a look at it. There are ways in which you can have someone literally just do a manuscript review. You can work with somebody, you know, relatively low cost, who can help you format, if you like that story and give you ways in which you can take it forward. And there are lots of different methods and approaches, but you cannot edit a blank page. It's a fundamental principle. Get it down and write it. When you've got something written, really think about who it is you're writing. For when someone picks up your book, what experience do you want them to take away? Do you want them to feel entertained? Do you want them to feel enlightened? Do you want them to feel angry about a certain situation, but then empowered to do something about changing their life in that respect? So really think about who the audience is. You can do a lot of this stuff yourself. You can, you can't complete the whole thing, but you can build a lot of this. And each time, each, each time you go back to your manuscript, you can refine it, you can change the focus, you can add in something, take something out, and then you'll get to the stage where you feel that you physically can't do any more with the piece of work that you've got in front of you. And at that point you do need in some shape or form a professional view of whether or not it's something that is workable as a, as a commercial project or even if you want to get it self published comes back to the fact that you, you have to respect the end user, you have to respect the reader. And so you need to then look at getting editing done, getting a decent cover design, and there are various ways in which you can do that, but fundamentally, get it out your head, get it out of your head and then look at it objectively and see where it can take you. And very often where you think your book is going to take you isn't at all where you end up, you know, you, because it, having all of that actually in front of you instead of having it all just, you know, randomly whizzing around your head means that you see it in a different light and you can see that a book that you thought might be, you know, a memoir actually turns into something that is much more collaborative with the reader and so may become more of a workbook or a self help book rather than a straight memoir. Or, you know, you may look at it and think, you know, I don't think I really want to tell this story as me, I'd like to tell the story through a character because that gives you that one degree of separation, if you like, between the experience. And you know, often these are very uncomfortable experiences. They're painful for people to work on and to look at. So I think, you know, first get it out there. Second, think about what you actually want the book to achieve and then think about how you can turn all of those ideas into something that meets those two objectives.

Joanne Lockwood: I read my late grandfather's memoirs, which he wrote going back 20 or 30 years now and he was really proud of it. But as a reader, it was just historical dates that had no context or reference. It was him dumping his life onto a bit of, onto, well, two inches of paper probably in the end, you know, it's 80 odd years of life. So you're so right. You know what matters to me? My story matters to me and for me. But if, if I want my story to resonate with you, I have to tell it so that it's, you know, what's in it for me? Why should I? Why do I care? So if it's just about me, my ego, it's not going to land with you, is it?

Tracy Stewart: No. And it's actually one of the most difficult things as a writer to realise that the book you're writing isn't about you at all. In that sense, it is always going to be about the end reader because if it is about just you, then you're going to have that experience that you have with your great grandfather's memoir. There's no context to it, there's no, how does this help me move forward in life? Or how does this help me understand something I didn't know? There has to be an exchange. As a writer, we write, we pour our heart and souls into the books, but as a reader, you're paying money for a book and you're investing time in reading that book. So there has to be a fair exchange between the writer and the reader.

Joanne Lockwood: So the brain chemicals, that reward thing in your brain's dopamine or whatever it is, you got to get a pleasure, pleasure reaction from it. It's going to change you in some way, hasn't it?

Tracy Stewart: It has. I'm sure we've all been there where, you know, we started a book and, you know, even if somebody else has, somebody enjoyed it, it just doesn't resonate with us, you know, and, you know, so we don't finish it and we feel disappointed by it in some way, shape or form. So, and that's often, you know, we talk about the fact that they may not have really thought about what they wanted their reader to feel, but you still might touch some people because we all get touched in different ways by all of these stories.

Joanne Lockwood: One thing you missed in your bit of advice here, Tracy, was call you, message you for help, advice and guidance. How can our listener here get hold of you to find out more?

Tracy Stewart: Well, they can go to my website, which is www.freshlypress.com. they can look me up on Instagram as Tracy Stewart, author. And both of those have the ability for people to connect with me through a message and the details about the services that I offer. Um, and I do, I do offer a gift call for people. Because I think one of the things that's important is, is that people can have the opportunity to just explore some of these ideas first. And often, you know, I'll talk with people and then they'll go away and do something and then they'll come back later. But sometimes they just need that potential to their idea through to, to say out loud, I've got this idea for a book and it's hard to do that sometimes with friends or family who don't understand the industry or don't necessarily understand what the type of degrees you're looking to achieve. So I always recommend just talk to a professional. There's lots of professionals who offer the opportunity to have that initial chat and just sometimes articulating the fact that you want to write that book and get a little bit of direction can make all the difference between stepping over that threshold of imposter syndrome and actually getting the words down on the page.

Joanne Lockwood: And I would say you've been extremely helpful, insightful in the conversation we've had about my own creation. So, you know, and I would encourage anybody to reach out. You're very generous and very insightful, so it's been really helpful. So thank you, Tracy. Tracy's been an absolute blast. We've been chatting now for a few quite. Oh, way too long. But it's thoroughly enjoyable. But no, thank you so much for your time again. I'm sure if you're listening to this, then people will get in contact with you as well, Tracy. So thank you so much.

Tracy Stewart: It's been a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity.

Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community, driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.