a voice from the other side…an editor speaks

The truth is, I don’t know that many editors; they’re mostly a mystery to me.  When they blog, it’s often done anonymously or they say things that drive me nuts (the Coretta Scott King Award is racist; black people are so blighted by racism they can’t produce literary fiction).  So in an effort to understand [...]

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“expensive curation”

A few months ago when I was first contacted by Amazon Encore, I did an online search to find out more about the venture.  This article came up; I read it with interest, and never forgot the (anonymous) author’s equation: “publishing = expensive curation.”
Publishers have controlled the direction and profits in the books market for so [...]

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New Tu You

Do you know about Tu Publishing?  If not, stop by the publisher’s blog and while you’re there, read a great interview with LaTonya Baldwin, fabulous founder of Color Online.  It’s also Teen Read Week, so do what you can to put a book in a young reader’s hands…

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Beware the Single Story

Please watch this short video of the brilliant Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in which she describes the effect of reading only British stories as a child (she, in turn, wrote only stories of white children marveling at snow, eating apples, and drinking ginger beer).  A “single story” reduces a diverse, dignified people to something [...]

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Neesha rocks

Do you know about Neesha Meminger?  You SHOULD!  She’s the author of Shine, Coconut Moon, which I loved (read my review here) and works tirelessly to enlighten the kidlit community on issues of race & representation (read her brilliant essay here).  Now she’s turned her critical eye on my YA novel, and I couldn’t be [...]

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job well done

I’m super tired right now, and need to put my feet up but wanted to jot these notes down first:
1.  Many thanks to everyone who left such thoughtful and supportive remarks over at Justine’s blog.  It was doubly thrilling to have such a great review AND such outrage over my inability to find a publisher [...]

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the end

My brain is wound too tight–still.  I finally had to turn the computer off this afternoon and head over to the garden…saw a new patch of wine-colored lilies and then slipped underground to get away from the pre-Caribbean Day Parade festivities.  I’ve been wound up all week, really, and woke yesterday knowing that a migraine [...]

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Something like an open letter to the children’s publishing industry

In 1986, poet/activist June Jordan published a brilliant essay titled “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America: Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley.”  I taught this essay in my course on black women writers; I revisit it often and especially when I am feeling disheartened and demoralized by the publishing industry.  Unlike some, [...]

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more straight talk on race & kidlit

Have you seen this article over at Publisher’s Weekly?  It’s on the blog of bookseller Elizabeth Bluemie.  Here’s the opening argument:
It seems to me you’d have to have enormous resiliency, not to mention a generous sense of humor and/or deep ethnic pride, to grow up black in this country. One of the many things I [...]

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the future of black lit

Sofia Quintero posted this link on Facebook and I thought some of you might be interested.  It’s an interview with Ron Kavanaugh, founder of Mosaic Magazine, in which he discusses the viability of the Kindle, the future of literary fiction, and the seeming dominance of “street lit.”  Here’s a taste:
A: I would like to answer [...]

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