LookAgainPress

re: advent and impact of technology - are you familiar with the recent federal court decisions re: ebooks that suggest a state library association can buy a single copy of an ebook and share it simultaneously with multibple users by placing it "on reserve"?

They need to imagine a future for themselves.

Have you seen this one?

http://postscriptd.com/authors-of-color-to-big-publishing-wheres-the-love/

Have you read OCTAVIAN NOTHING?

Lee & Low's annual contest: http://www.leeandlow...ces_award.mhtml

SCBWI's annual award: http://www.scbwi.org...ng-Voices-Award

Also, for those interested, black authors and illustrators do get published and win awards in the children's lit category. EACH KINDNESS, by Jacquline Woodson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, just won the Charlotte Zolotow award.

Links to registration and more Information about Nikki Grimes intensive and the conference where she will be speaking can be found here: www.southern-breeze.net

Lee & Low's annual contest: http://www.leeandlow.com/p/new_voices_award.mhtml

SCBWI's annual award: http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/On-The-Verge-Emerging-Voices-Award

The Anansi Conference is a free (with registration) event in NY. More info here: http://africanastudies.as.nyu.edu/object/IAAA-Anansi-2012.html

RE comments about writing/publishing the "true experience" of a black person ((e.g. writing about slavery whether the writer is black or not) authors might want to listen to

There is also an excellent article and good links to additional info at http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=700

Those interested in what the publishing industry is doing about bias in publishing should check out the Anansi Conference just held in NY - I believe they will be doing this annually.

Check out Lee & Low Publishers and Tu Books, one of its imprints. They have an annual competition for minority authors. Also the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators just established its "New Voices" awards. Details at their websites.

Major publishers push for reviews for books written by minority writers they think might win awards, but then don't do anything to get them book signing tours after they win. This is the true travisty of the publishing industry - the allocation of marketing dollars is based on and tends to reinforce the perception that African-Americans don't buy books and don't read.

BTW, Nikki Grimes, an award winning African American author, is coming to ATL and will teach an all day writing intensive on creating books in verse. If you want details, let me know.

Cynique and Troy - this is why I believe children's books can have a significant influence. Children in their earliest years do engage in me-not me comparisons during the development of their identity, but the judgments associated with that differentiation are culturally based. Addressing and changing these judgments which are (at least in societies arising from European domination) often rooted in Darwinism, Eugenics, and religious beliefs about gender and race is a difficult if not almost impossible process precisely because it has subtle support in the literature we offer children.

To illustrate my point, and to address the argument based on sex/gender suggested by Pioneer1 - think about the ways in which the roles of men and women are gendered. while saying "man" or "woman" doesn't evoke much other than physiological structure, the context in which the words are used is important. For example, when talking about parenthood, a man who is a parent is a "father" and a woman a "mother" - burdening what is initially a biological distinction with clearly identifiable cultural expectations and value systems regarding who should stay at home, who is more capable of nurturing a child effectively, etc.

Words carry meanings which are dependent on the context in which they are used, and once you call a person "black" or "Asian" or "Native American" you have necessarily associated that person with all kinds of cultural biases, assumptions and expectations which are often based on what we have read about these groups. It is just as hard to uproot these "racial" biases as it is to eliminate gender bias, and we must be aware of them in our reading and writing.

In her book, A TRUTH TO TELL, Eve Tal does a nice job of exploring the reasons why fiction can be more powerful than non-fiction formats and the ways "non-fiction" relies on narrative structures to retain the reader's interest.

IMO, all non-fiction, and expecially HIStory is shaped to tell a story, usually the story of priviledged white males. For example, I love reading/listening the narratives catalogued by the Library of Congress, but these are all too often shaped by the questions asked by the white interviewer.

Perhaps more interesting is the shift from inspiration to action. Even if you don't know the exact origination of an idea, the moment you begin to do something with an idea, moving it to a creative concept, is an intentional choice, often founded on routine or patterns of creative behavior.

There are some mainstream publishers who publish speculative fiction by and about African-Americans, e.g. Tu Books. http://www.leeandlow.com/p/tu_submissions.mhtml

While they characterize their novels as YA, IMO speculative fiction written for YA audiences is often better and more inventive than what is written for "adults"