Can I tell an author's gender? Well, I often could back when there were only two genders based on nothing more than the author's name or cover photo. These days with dozens/hundreds of genders, it's impossible to even have a clue as to how an author identifies. A quick look at the old Google machine shows that ABC News feels there are 56 genders. Women's Health Magazine differs and feels there are only twelve. Apath.org thinks there are 63 genders. Eroscoaching.com lists 58 genders. Some sources list hundreds. It's all gotten very confusing.
Crazy old me, I tend to think there are two genders. (By the way, if you can't tell by an author's name or cover photo, you can use an ink eraser and gently erase their clothing in the cover photo to take a peek at what lies underneath. Or so I've been told.) In terms of just their writing though. Not really.
Having read hundreds of unpublished works by authors during the Amazon Breakthrough Novels Award, I can state categorically that I can't tell an author's gender simply by their writing. There were some excerpts that read very male but were written by a woman. There were some excerpts that were very feminine and written by a man. Words on paper are just that, words on paper. A writer tends to write based on what they prefer to read. If a male writer reads lots of novels written by women, his writing will more likely be of a more feminine style. (If there is such a thing.) A woman writer who only reads Tom Clancy and Louis La'Mour will more likely write in a more masculine style. (Once again, if there is such a thing.) They're just words on paper. People tend to write in a manner similar to what they like to read.
Some agents now only want works written by very specific genders targeting very specific readers. It's gotten a little crazy. I follow some agents on Twitter and they're very specific in what kind of authors they want to represent and what kind of stories they want from those authors. I'm often off to Google to try and interpret the various abbreviations and acronyms they use these days. Crazy old me, I tend to think a good story is just a good story. A beta reader of mine commented that an as yet unpublished short story (tentatively titled "Dave's Weird Christmas") lacked enough cultural diversity. He liked the story just fine but felt I should have included more nationalities and more diverse names. But it's a good story? "It's a great story. I loved it. I just felt it could be a bit more culturally diverse." Uh, okay. It's a weird time to be a writer.
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