It’s important, especially these days, to be fully transparent and open about who I am, what I believe and what I stand for, so
here are my various flags firmly nailed to my poles.
My Core Beliefs
Despite being (potentially) the world’s biggest introvert, and not a huge fan of, well, people… I do kinda love humans. I’m all about kindness (which is not the same as ‘niceness’), and I firmly believe that every person deserves to be treated with kind respect and dignity, and that we should all have access to the resources, education and health we need to thrive. Seeing that this isn’t the case for so many people has shaped my worldview. Community is how we take care of each other, and while trying to change the world feels like a daunting prospect, I’ve come to believe that making a positive change in our own little corners (volunteer work, sharing, helping our neighbours, even just taking our rubbish home with us) can add up to a net change overall.
I believe that art and creativity are some of the biggest things that connect us; that help us to understand each other and make sense of it all. That’s the driving force behind why I write. Stories are important because they hold a mirror up to the world, help us feel less alone, and help us understand others.
There’s a shortage of joy in the world, especially now, so I aim to belligerently seek joy and honour the joy of others while championing freedom. It's dark and hard and lonely and scary out there. Everything is big and loud, I know. But we keep getting back up. We keep going. We fight. Hope is a thing with teeth, and I will tell stories about it.
The SEO bit:
Does Alice Ewens Use AI in Her Books?
No. I will not (and have not) ever knowingly used generative AI for any part of my creative process. My notes, research, drafting, editing, finished books, book covers, artwork and social media posts are all created by myself.
My book covers are all created by me using royalty-free stock imagery layered in Photoshop, with fonts that are free for commercial use. Where other artists are used, they have been vetted to ensure they do not use AI. All credits and details are included inside my books.
Generative AI will never have a place in my work; the environmental strain it’s adding to our infrastructure and ecosystems, plus the theft of intellectual property and ignoring of copyright that’s required to feed and fuel LLMs, will always outweigh any perceived benefit of using it.
What Causes Does Alice Ewens Support?
- I staunchly support the LGBTQIA+ community, as a queer bisexual person myself. I will always defend and protect the human rights of my queer community. Trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary people are their own fully-realised selves. Our Trans siblings need our support more than ever as they are used as scapegoats and pawns by people in power.
- I believe in and strive to follow the ‘social model’ for an inclusive society that caters for the needs of all abilities and disabilities. All my books will include Content Warnings that can be found on the individual book pages of my website and included within the introduction of each book.
- I fully support the rights of all Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples.
- I believe in land-back campaigns.
- I will always carry out sensitivity research and work with sensitivity readers where my writing involves characters with lived experiences that differ from my own and deserve respectful representation.
- I support the plight of the Palestinian people as they strive to survive the apartheid and genocide being enforced on them.
- I recognise that there are multiple other genocides occurring across the world, including in Sudan and within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- I believe refugees deserve to be safe and to have dignity, that no person is illegal, and that immigrants are not the cause of the societal issues we’re facing.