Tag: author interview

Nikki Giovanni Talks About Libraries Supporting Readers on Earth and Mars

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date May 18, 2023

Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni joined Books in Bloom in Columbia, Maryland, on May 13 to discuss the importance of libraries, including one in outer space.

The book festival’s headliner was introduced as someone who identifies as an “earthling” by Busboys and Poets founder Andy Shallat. This led to a conversation with Nikki discussing her work with libraries and her curation for a library on Mars.

A library was established in 2008 by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, thanks to the funding and development from The Planetary Society, where TV scientist Bill Nye is the CEO. The space shuttle left an encoded archival silica-glass mini-DVD on Mars and called it the Visions of Mars digital time capsule.

The DVD contains a collection of literature and art about Mars from mostly male authors such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Carl Sagan. California-bred science fiction author Leigh Douglass Brackett, who was dubbed the Queen of Space Opera; Canadian sci-fi author Candas Jane Dorsey, and Finnish speculative fiction author Johanna Sinisalo seem to be the only women whose texts are in the interplanetary library of over 80 literary works. The DVD was designed to last hundreds, possibly thousands, of years, according to the society.

It’s unclear if Nikki was referring to the 15-year-old library already on Mars having its collection updated. At the festival, Nikki said she was tapped to curate a library that will be on the Red Planet. Though the first collection had works in English, she said this time the library she is working on will translate works into the Navajo language as the oldest language in the U.S.

“Whatever life forms might come to Mars and say, ‘What is this?’ It’s going to be a disc. ‘Oh, that one is something called English, but let’s get this. This is our language,'” she said. “Because Navajo is probably someplace else in the universe.”

Her work coincides with the new documentary on her decades-long civil rights activism and Afro-futuristic views on outer space called Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. It debuted at Sundance Film Festival this past January and is still on a film festival tour.

“The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans,” she says on the documentary’s website. She sees connecting with other life forms as a way to evolve past the division we see with race and gender in global history, she said at the festival.

“When we go into Mars or we go all the way up to Jupiter, we won’t be lost,” she said. “We will know where we’ll be going, and we’ll be meeting the people there, the other life forms there.”

Nikki was also promoting her newest book, A Library, a children’s picture book released last year and illustrated by Erin K. Robinson. From mentioning her childhood library, she shared how her grandparents lived on a street in the “colored” section of Knoxville, Tennessee, called Mulvaney Street. The library was at the top of the street. After a small Black community was established there, she said the University of Tennessee eventually used eminent domain to force the Black families to move away.

She is now working on a book about the former Mulvaney Street—later renamed Hall of Fame Drive she says in honor of basketball coach Pat Summitt—so the historically Black neighborhood would not be forgotten. Her essay, 400 Mulvaney Street, in her 1971 book, Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-five Years of Being a Black Poet, also touches on her feelings about losing her grandparents’ home to an “urban renewal” project in the 1960s.

Going from Mars to Knoxville, she says our own stories should be considered vital since we would be the only ones to tell our individual stories.

“There is always a story. I think a lot of people forget there’s always a story,” she said. “A lot of people say, ‘I want to write an important book or I want to write a best-seller’… When I was teaching, the first thing I would say to my class: ‘What is the number one best-seller?’ And not one of them ever knew, not one of them knew the number one best-seller. If you don’t know what it is, then why do you want to be it?”

Tags a library, author interview, black female poets, black women authors, black women poets, black women writers, book festivals, books in bloom, busboys and poets, children's books, children's literature, female poets, kidlit, library, nikki giovanni, women poets

what's lit

‘Shakti Girls’ Author Shetal Shah Uses Poetry to Tell the Stories of Indian Innovators

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date April 21, 2023

A former teacher who taught at all-girls schools, Shetal Shah said she noticed how the girls’ self-esteems soared when they were learning about women of various diverse backgrounds. This has led to Shakti Girls, her debut children’s picture book featuring poetic biographies about trailblazing women across the Indian diaspora.

“Shakti” refers to an individual’s divine power and energy in traditional Hinduism. This energy is considered female because mothers have the power to birth new life, according to the first page of the book. Throughout the book, the poems highlight the accomplishments of newsmakers such as Vice President Kamala Harris to actress-producer Mindy Kaling, but we also learn about former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj, and astronaut Kalpana Chawla.

Empowering Hindi words and motivating messages are woven into the verses to affirm each young reader’s identity and self-esteem. A short glossary of English and Hindi words is provided on each page to enhance the experience, as well as activities to empower one’s inner shakti.

The inspiration to tell these stories are not only from Shetal’s education background, but it also pairs with her upbringing in New York City as a second-generation Indian American. She talks to she lit about telling these women’s stories in rhythm and seeing her children’s reactions to the finished product. Check out the conversation below:

she lit: How did you come up with the concept to tell these stories in rhyme and intentionally use Hindi words and phrases in the poems?

Shetal: The idea of sharing these stories was in the back of my mind for quite some time. However, it was my youngest son who sparked the idea to present them in a more engaging format that would resonate with young readers. In order to capture their imagination, I knew the writing had to be lively, fun, and ignite their thirst for learning.

As an educator, I was aware of the cognitive benefits of rhyme in enhancing memory retention and concentration. Additionally, having experienced the sheer pleasure of reading and reciting rhyming poems, I knew it would captivate and delight my audience. With this in mind, I embarked on the task of narrating the stories of these remarkable women in verse.

Later on, I felt compelled to incorporate Hindi words into the poems when I reflected on my own grasp of Hindi and Gujarati, a regional language of India. Having realized that my exposure to these languages did not include many self-affirming and empowering words, I imagined how uplifting it would have felt if the first words I learned were words of empowerment.

she lit: Growing up as a second-generation Indian American, how and where did you learn about women of Indian descent? What was your sense that classmates and kids around you knew about these women?

Shetal: Growing up in the United States during the ’80s and ’90s, I did not have access to the resources that would have helped me learn about women of Indian descent. Occasionally, a family member visiting from India would bring me short stories about Hindu goddesses like Lakshmi, but I never encountered a secular book or article about an Indian woman until I learned about Indira Gandhi in high school.

However, the information was limited, and Gandhi remained the only woman of Indian descent I knew about until college. I realized that my knowledge, or lack thereof, was not unique and was likely shared by my peers. Even as a frequent library-goer, I had little knowledge of books and media that celebrated Indian women.

Today, I am grateful to see a shift in diversity represented in children’s literature, but there is still much work to be done. While we have made progress since I was a child, we have yet to scratch the surface of adequate representation.

she lit: From your experience as a teacher at all-girls schools, how did you engage students in learning about women from different ethnic backgrounds who may have been left out of their history lessons?

Shetal: Witnessing my students’ natural curiosity about the world and its diverse cultures and people was a privilege and a joy. Teaching an extension lesson on Murasaki Shikibu, the author of the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, as part of our unit about medieval Japan, was particularly memorable. The thoughtful questions and wonderment my students shared about her and her achievement were exciting.

Fortunately, many of the courses I taught fell under the umbrella of global studies, making it easier to introduce diverse cultures and viewpoints within the curriculum. By starting with student inquiry and later giving them the space to reflect and make connections to historical figures like Shikibu, my students took ownership of their learning and forged deep connections that transcended boundaries and cultures.

Learning about history and the people who made it can be incredibly empowering, especially when students are given a choice and voice in how they want to learn. The true challenge, however, was finding the resources to support different learning preferences and interests.

she lit: There is an interactive component with having readers look for symbols related to the poems in the illustrations. What motivated you and illustrator Kavita Rajput to add this type of engagement for young readers?

Shetal: As an educator, I recognized that incorporating an interactive component would enrich the learning process by enabling readers to make connections between the visual cues and the women featured in the book.

In my teaching practice, I favored a multisensory approach that engaged learners through storytelling (hearing it), illustrations (seeing it), and activities (interacting with it) that fostered reflection and interaction. I was determined to apply this approach to Shakti Girls, as I believed it would create a more meaningful and enjoyable learning experience for readers.

she lit: How have your children reacted to the book and what has impacted them the most?

Shetal: From the inception of the book, my children were part of the creative process, unapologetically critiquing, editing, and validating all aspects of it. Now, I catch my son who inspired the rhymes, casually reading the book on his own. I can tell they are proud of their mom, but I can also tell they are excited to learn about these brave women and are inspired by their stories.

As a mother of two boys, I am confident that reading this book will help break down any unconsciously held beliefs they have about women and girls. A defining moment for me came when my oldest son, who enjoys swimming competitively, asked me if I knew any Indian American swimmers who had competed at the Olympics. Given the statistics on diversity in the swim world, I wasn’t surprised when our internet research drew a blank.

However, I was able to share Mohini Bhardwaj’s story from my book. As an Olympian and former captain of the USA’s gymnastics team, who happens to be a vegetarian like my son, her journey was a source of inspiration for him. While it didn’t entirely answer his question, it helped him see that people like him can achieve greatness in athletics.

Tags asian women authors, asian women writers, author interview, biography, children's books, children's literature, female poets, indian female authors, indian female writers, indian women writers, kavita rajput, kidlit, poetry, poetry book, shakti girls, shetal shah, women poets

what's lit

Jenny Han Talks Asian Representation in Books on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Tour

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date June 29, 2022

Lola Tung as Belly in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty'

Best-selling young adult novelist Jenny Han has another series in the book-to-TV limelight. After finding success on Netflix with the three film adaptations of her To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series, she now has her first YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty getting the screen treatment with its recent premiere on Amazon Prime Video.

Not new to advocacy for having more Asian and Asian American stories represented in books, Jenny spoke about the issue on her press tour while a mention made an appearance on the new TV show.

On CBS Mornings this week, anchor Gayle King asked if Jenny was hurt when she wasn’t able to sell her early works featuring an Asian character. Jenny says her feelings weren’t hurt “because it was so matter-of-fact.”

To be able to sell her first YA novel, she made her main character Belly Conklin, played by Lola Tung onscreen, appear White.

Jenny Han in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ (Peter Taylor/Prime Video)

“I had tried to sell a book with an Asian main character before this one, and people weren’t really interested in it,” says Jenny, who’s also the executive producer of the show. “The thing I would hear is we already have a book with an Asian. I thought with The Summer I Turned Pretty, it was a story I hoped would kind of have an effervescence to it that people can lock onto. After that, I wrote To All the Boys, and I was able to write my own ticket once I had garnered trust from an audience that might not pick up a book with a cover with someone who didn’t look like them.”

The character of Belly became half-Asian, half-White, and is now depicted as biracial on the updated media tie-in cover issued by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was the first best-seller to have an Asian girl on the cover, according to the author. The fight for representation even spilled onto the choice to have her headshot on the back cover.

“Even with my first book, it was important to me to put a picture on the back of it because at first they were like, ‘Hmm, we don’t really need it.’ It wasn’t really done at the time,” she says. “I want other young Asian women to see that and think it’s possible.”

The Summer I Turned Pretty follows Isabel “Belly” Conklin who’s on the verge of turning 16 when she heads off to Cousins Beach in Massachusetts with her mother and older brother for another summer with the Fishers, her mother’s best friend and two sons.

The foursome who grew up together every summer are now teenagers, and Belly feels the energy shift between her and the oldest Fisher son Conrad, played by Christopher Briney, and the younger Fisher son Jeremiah, played by Gavin Casalegno. Belly always had a crush on Conrad when she was considered too young and nerdy. Now that she’s blossoming into womanhood, heightened by a debutante ball, she becomes entangled in a love triangle that stretches beyond her and the two brothers.

In one scene in the fourth episode “Summer Heat,” after a conflict reaches a fever pitch in the Fisher summer home, Belly’s author mother, Laurel, played by Jackie Chung, heads to a bar to cool off. There, she sees the local author she’s been competing with in the beach town’s bookstore. Once they start chatting, the state of their careers comes up.

“When we went out with my first novel, everyone said, ‘Uhhh, there is no market for a book about a Filipino main character, and now it’s all they want from me,” says author Cleveland, played by Alfredo Narciso, about his treatment in the beginning of his fictional publishing career.

The show also stars Rachel Blanchard as Susannah Fisher, the mother of Conrad and Jeremiah. Rachel starred as the ’90s TV version of Cher Horowitz, the main character of Clueless loosely based on Jane Austen’s classic Emma.

The second season of the series has already received the green light for production.

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‘Ashes of Gold’ Author J. Elle Shares How She Crafted ‘Wings of Ebony’ Fantasy YA Series With Black Duality in Mind

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date February 28, 2022

Fantasy young adult author J. Elle is marking the end of her Wings of Ebony duology about a Black teen girl from Houston who’s on a mission to understand her bloodline in the magical land of Ghizon.

Ashes of Gold, published by Denene Millner Books and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, came out last month continuing the story of Rue, raised in Houston with her younger sister by their late mother, who must follow her destiny in her father’s homeland of Ghizon and save her magic-possessing people from destruction.

But readers don’t have to wait long to read more of J. Elle’s work. Her middle grade fantasy YA duology, A Taste of Magic, will be published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books this summer.

The first book in the series will introduce us to 12-year-old Kyana, a Black girl who’s recently learned she’s a witch and becomes a student at the Park Row Magic Academy hidden behind a beauty shop. Once she realizes redistricting and gentrification will close the shop, she fights to keep it open.

J. Elle talks to she lit about anticipating the debut of her middle grade duology, owning the “inner city fantasy” subgenre in the increasingly diverse fantasy YA genre, and transitioning from a teacher whose book pitch was discovered by literary agents on Twitter to teaching books she’s written in the classroom. Check out the conversation below:

she lit: Your YA duology features Rue, a Black girl from Houston’s Third Ward, who travels to the magical land of Ghizon to fulfill her birthright. How did you come up with the subgenre of an “inner-city fantasy” and what inspired you to make this character bicultural struggling to exist between two worlds?

J. Elle: The aesthetic of the story honestly came to me as I tried to make a fantasy world I could see myself in. I wanted to craft a world that felt familiar to me and I grew up in an inner city community. I found when I left my community to attend college, the first in my family to do so, and get a job or move to other parts of the country, I felt like I was in an entirely different world sometimes. I wanted to parallel that dichotomy in this story and explore the many ways Black Americans might feel like they’re forced to live a double life when they’re in spaces that aren’t inclusive.

she lit: You’ve said Rue’s background has elements of your own. Without giving spoilers, is there a scene in Ashes of Gold that you wrote based on a particular experience?

J. Elle: Most of Ashes of Gold takes place on the magical island of Ghizon, but there is a moment in the book where Rue returns to East Row that is reminiscent of how it felt when I’d come home from college. It was nostalgic and quite special to be able to explore the ways being able to connect with home is an affirming experience.

she lit: How would you describe Rue’s character development in Ashes of Gold compared to Wings of Ebony?

J. Elle: Rue’s view of herself changes from the start of Ashes to the end. She has a definitive assumption about what she is capable of and the journey she goes on shows her she is capable of—and worthy of—much more than she thinks. It was a challenging book to write because book one, Wings of Ebony, leaves off with Rue seemingly unstoppable. But she had plenty of room to still grow. I just had to dig in to find it.

she lit: In both books, Rue has a longing to protect her Houston family and her fellow Ghizonis. What do young readers usually tell you about how they relate to this balance of supporting family and community?

J. Elle: I’ve had readers tell me the idea of not wanting to let family down really resonated with them. So many of us carry the pressures of supporting those who came before us. I was really glad to hear readers were able to see their lived experiences reflected here.

she lit: How would you describe the transition of being a teacher then becoming an author who is teaching through your books?

J. Elle: It was really interesting! I miss the way I could read kids’ faces as I stood in front of them teaching a concept. I loved seeing the light bulb click, hearing their opinions. When I write books, I’m sending my words out in the world for students to consume on their own. And so I miss hearing from them! Seeing their faces as they read! I try to do as many school visits as I can because I just love working with students so much.

she lit: With your passion in creating characters that kids can relate to, what are your concerns about more and more diverse YA books, many by Black authors, being banned from schools and libraries across the country?

J. Elle: Book banning is deeply grieving. When has the government trying to control the narrative of history taught in school ever gone well? Creating freethinkers is the purpose of education. Students who can reason and analyze and interpret with the rich perspective they bring to the table. The beauty of this country is “supposed to be” its freedom of ideas. But that grates against the actual picture of what’s happening with book banning all over the country. I am consoled, however, knowing that books in schools are only one way kids access books. I am hoping to see communities band together to exercise their constitutional right to read whatever they choose. There’s much more I could say here, but I’ll wrap up by offering this small encouragement: I believe in our kids. I believe in the relentless persistence of their curiosity, the connectedness they cling to nowadays via social media, and their spirit, their heart. Tell a kid in school something is forbidden, they’re only going to want it more. The banners will fail. Look at history.

she lit: What’s it like working with accomplished author and editor Denene Millner and having your duology under her imprint?

J. Elle: It was a true privilege to work with Denene. She brought such a needed eye to my story and helped me contextualize the themes I wanted to explore with the nuance I needed. I’ll forever be grateful for her seeing me in her inbox and saying, yes. It changed my life.

she lit: Your book series was discovered through the literary pitch competition #DVPit. What do you think was the secret sauce that made your successful tweet stand out for agents?

J. Elle: Strong comparison titles and a fresh hook help pitches stand out. My comps were The Hate U Give meets Wonder Woman, which aesthetically is incredibly fresh. There’s no guarantee with contests of course and what’s “fresh” is a bit nebulous at times to figure out. But running a pitch by a few people who don’t know what the story about can be a fun way to see if your tweet feels fresh and engaging.

she lit: You’re promoting Ashes of Gold and the end of the Wings of Ebony duology. What can you reveal about your next duology, A Taste of Magic, and how does the Park Row Magic Academy compare to Ghizon?

J. Elle: A Taste of Magic is about 12-year-old Kyana who must cook up some magic to save her magic school from the effects of gentrification. It’s a delightful middle grade story so the biggest difference is the age range and tone. Tonally it’s much more lighthearted and funny than Wings of Ebony. My YA tends to be a bit grittier and dark. A Taste of Magic is for any age, but I’ve tried to target 9-12 year olds with Kyana’s voice and sensibilities. I’m so excited for readers to meet Kyana!

what's lit

Activist-Author Kimberly Jones Promotes ‘How We Can Win’ After Viral Speech

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date January 20, 2022

In summer 2020, author Kimberly Jones was known for her young adult novel, I’m Not Dying with You Tonight, co-authored with Gilly Segal. At a protest in Atlanta in the aftermath of George Floyd‘s murder, she broke down the racial inequities plaguing Black communities in a six-minute viral video that has now inspired a new book.

How We Can Win: Race, History and Changing the Money Game That’s Rigged, out this week, explores systemic racism and the economic disparities holding back Black Americans. Henry Holt and Co. is the publisher.

In the video that was viewed by millions across social media platforms, a quote about comparing the socioeconomic factors at play with the game of Monopoly resonated with viewers and contributed to the book’s title, she revealed in a CBS Mornings interview with Gayle King, Nate Burleson, and Tony Dokoupil.

So if I played four hundred rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for fifty years, every time that I played, if you didn’t like what I did, you got to burn it like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood, how can you win? How can you win?
Kimberly Jones

Though some viewers stereotyped her as an angry Black woman for how she delivered her speech on camera in 2020, Kimberly called it “righteous anger.”

“I think sometimes in righteous anger you get to express to people your pain, and I think that’s what people saw,” she said on the news show. “Even though they saw an angry woman, they saw a hurt woman, so they felt that and they were like, ‘Omigod, the pain is visible.'”

She also explained that viewers had reached out to her and said her delivery in the video enlivened the argument well enough to the point they forwarded it to their loved ones in hopes they better understand systemic racism.

“There’s no way to nurture empathy in people if they don’t know the full story,” she said. I think one of the greatest mistakes that we have made is we talk a lot about the miseducation of the Black child, but it’s really the miseducation of the American child that has allowed us to live in a way that we don’t have empathy for each other because it’s in that education, it’s in that knowledge that you can empathize.”

Kimberly teamed up with Gilly Segal a second time for the YA novel Why We Fly that came out last October from indie publisher Sourcebooks Fire.

Tags 2022 books, anti-racism books, author interview, black female authors, black female writers, black lives matter, black women authors, black women writers, george floyd, gilly segal, henry holt and company, how we can win, i'm not dying with you tonight, kimberly jones, nonfiction, sourcebooks fire, why we fly

what's lit

‘Joy Luck Club’ Author Amy Tan Shares How Her Work Became an ‘Unintended Memoir’

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date May 25, 2021

Netflix

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Netflix debuted a two-hour documentary about Chinese American best-selling author Amy Tan that focused on how her books became reflections of her life and her mother’s life.

After seeing immediate success with her debut novel The Joy Luck Club in 1989, Amy started a writing career that followed the story’s legacy of featuring two generations of American-born daughters and Chinese-born mothers.

The documentary follows Amy’s childhood where she loses her older brother and father both within six months of their back-to-back brain tumor diagnoses. Amy talks about feeling scared being left with her suicidal mother, who moves Amy and her younger brother to Holland from the San Francisco Bay Area. Once she returns to the U.S. for college, Amy reconnects with her best friend who was another child of the real-life Joy Luck Club, a small social group of Chinese American immigrants who met to discuss investment opportunities, play mahjong and cards, and feast at midnight with the kids.

Years later, Amy is making a career as a business technical writer and living with her husband. One day she receives a call from her brother that her mother had a life-threatening heart attack. She said she made a vow to God that she will spend more time with her mother and talk to her about her life in China. When Amy connects with her mother, she learns her mother experienced angina after an argument at a fish market. Her mother was fine, but the promise echoes and inspires her to sit down with her mother and discover her mother’s life in China.

“I started to ask her about her life, and I listened instead of saying, ‘I’m really busy now. I can’t listen to you,'” Amy says in the documentary. “I would listen to everything and that profoundly changed everything. I wasn’t fighting it anymore. And I learned a lot by simply being quiet and actually listen.”

The Joy Luck Club became an instant sensation resonating across cultures with the common thread of generational trauma.

“It gives you curiosity; you want to ask questions you want to understand and in the answers you get stories,” says author Isabel Allende in the documentary. “That’s what Amy has been doing. She observes her mother and her aunts and the culture and at the same time she totally belongs here. So it’s in the conscience, in the complexity that she finds her language, her inspiration.”

Four years later in 1993, the book became the first film to feature a majority Asian American cast. That success wouldn’t be repeated until 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians based on Kevin Kwan’s first book in his soapy series.

“Not to do any disservice to the amazing Asian American writers that came before Amy, but I think this is the first book that really crossed over into becoming a mainstream mass market success. It had such a huge impact on paving the way for other writers of color to tell their stories,” Kevin says in the documentary. He adds he saw the film five times in the theater growing up in Texas where all his friends were White, but he was proud to be able to show them “English-speaking contemporary Asians.”

The novel has also seen its critics who Amy says believed she had used ethnic tropes like starting the novel with a fake Chinese folktale to portraying the grandmother as a concubine who commits suicide. Except the tropes Amy is accused of putting in her book actually happened to her family and in her life, she says.

“When I was given this mantle for speaking for the Asian American community, suddenly there were these expectations. I started getting a lot of criticism. Some said I did it wrong, that I had created stereotypes and pandered to those,” Amy says. “Mothers speaking in broken English, or concubines who had killed themselves. These were stereotypes.

“In the beginning, I didn’t know what to say. I would be caught off-guard,” she adds, “but then I realized that they wanted really was role models. They wanted me to right the social wrongs, the social injustices and finally they had someone in the limelight who should now address that and not be pandering, so to speak, to the mainstream.”

Besides The Joy Luck Club, Amy is the author of seven other books, including memoirs and children’s books.

Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir is streaming now on Netflix.

Tags #netflix streaming, amy tan, asian women authors, asian women characters, asian women writers, author interview, deep lit, documentary, netflix, the joy luck club

what's lit

Author Natasha Diaz Wants Us to Know Black Jewish Stories Matter

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date December 28, 2020

When Natasha Díaz discovered her debut novel was excluded from a Black Jewish book list, she went to Twitter to air her frustrations that led to a conversation on multiracial Jewish literature.

Natasha’s young adult novel Color Me In features a sixteen-year-old protagonist who moves in with Black mother’s family after her parents divorce, but her White Jewish father wants to throw her a belated bat mitzvah. The change in surroundings and circumstances heightens the racial and religious intolerance, according to the publisher Penguin Random House imprint Ember, but the teenager who’s usually quiet tries to find her voice amid the noise. On her author website, she says the book is “inspired by my experiences as a white passing, multiracial woman.”

In June, Natasha tweeted she had submitted the book that was first published in 2019 to the Association of Jewish Libraries for inclusion in its list of Black Jewish literature in light of the George Floyd protests. She said the association refused to add her book to the list.

The Association of Jewish Libraries created a list that includes the YA best-seller Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert, which comes from Little, Brown & Co. Books for Young Readers about a Black girl who’s trying to deal with her White Jewish stepbrother’s mental illness. The list is the seventh installment in the association’s Love Your Neighbor series, an initiative to promote works by Jewish authors in the aftermath of the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting in Pittsburgh.

By mid-June, Natasha started a campaign asking for followers to amplify Black Jewish writers whether they were published or unpublished. Within two months, she penned the article “What It’s Like to Be a Black Jewish Writer” in Alma, a digital media outlet focused on pop culture content about Jewish women.

I never read a character who was grappling with where to fit, how to own her whole self, and also how to take accountability for white presenting privilege, in a book. Yes, it’s a lot, but it’s my life, and while I was so incredibly proud to learn my book was “a first,” I couldn’t help but also feel infinitely sad that my Black Jewish experience, which is so impacted by my proximity to whiteness, is the only one to travel through the traditional publishing channels and represent young Black Jews in children’s literature.

In the article, she has a roundtable discussion that includes Marra Gad, the author of the award-winning memoir The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl from Agate Publishing, and Rachel Harrison-Gordon, the filmmaker behind Broken Bird about a Black Jewish girl preparing for her bat mitzvah. Also in August, Natasha was interviewed by the Jewish Book Council and discussed her book’s impact.

Perhaps one of the most visible Black Jewish authors is Rebecca Walker, the daughter of writing legend Alice Walker, who wrote about her multiethnic upbringing in her first memoir, Black White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, published by Penguin Random House in 2002. Rebecca is the author and editor of seven books, including a debut novel called Adé: A Love Story, originally published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. and Amazon Publishing Co. in 2013. A year later, pop icon Madonna was set to direct a film based on the book.

Meanwhile, Natasha continues to discover and elevate multiracial and Black Jewish writers on social media who still battle deep-rooted hatred from within the White Jewish community and antisemitism outside the community.

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‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ Stars Karyn Parsons and Daphne Maxwell Reid Talk Writing Life

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date October 29, 2020

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-stars Karyn Parsons and Daphne Maxwell Reid spent Saturday talking about their literary ventures at the National Black Book Festival on Facebook Live.

Known for playing the iconic wealthy Black girl Hilary Banks on the hit ’90s NBC sitcom, Karyn has enjoyed a second career as a novelist and biographer managing a nonprofit geared toward bringing Black stories to life for kids. Daphne played the second rendition of Hilary’s mother, Vivian Banks, also known as Aunt Viv to star Will Smith’s character. She also mentioned her self-publishing experience.

Karyn, the founder and president of Sweet Blackberry Foundation focused on literary education, discussed her 2019 debut novel How High the Moon, a middle grade historical fiction novel set in the Jim Crow South.

“My mother grew up in Charleston, and she always talked about how happy her childhood was, how great everything was,” Karyn said during the panel. “Always a positive light. It took many years when it finally dawned on me the time that she grew up in and the location. So I started asking more questions.”

After pushing for more information, she said her mother grew up in a small town outside Charleston, South Carolina. The idea of the book came from her imagining if she grew up in the same location in the 1940s as a preteen Black girl. She added she was able to weave into the novel the true story of George Stinney Jr., a Black 14-year-old boy who was convicted and put to death in nearby Alcolu for allegedly murdering two White girls. He was exonerated in 2014, 70 years after his execution.

Along with the release of How High the Moon, Karyn also wrote a new children’s book titled Flying Free: How Bessie Coleman’s Dreams Took Flight with illustrations by R. Gregory Christie. It will be released in December.

The publisher of both books is Little, Brown Young Readers under the Hachette Book Group.

“I was just writing all day now that I didn’t have a show,” Karyn said about her writing hobby blossoming post-Fresh Prince. “I guess I was always writing, but I never thought of myself as a writer because I always thought of myself as an actor.” She added that a friend she had met after her famous TV role had become a literary agent and convinced her to write a novel to complement her work with Sweet Blackberry.

Her passion to bring Bessie Coleman, the first African American female licensed aviator, started with a Kickstarter project for an animated short that debuted last year at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.

Daphne, who has self-published four photography books and a cookbook, said she’s working on her memoir.

“I’m still not a writer; I compile,” Daphne said. “What I started doing was taking photographs. I started this photographic journey, and from this journey, I was talking about the prints that I was making and what the relationship of the prints had to life. I was doing presentations before groups and talking a lot about the experience of taking the pictures. And finally I said, ‘I keep repeating the same thing over and over again,’ so let me write it down.”

Her photography books focus on doors from all over the world. “I was trying to encourage people to look at the details in their life. That was my main focus, so I wrote.”

Though she took the self-publishing route, Daphne said she may look for an agent for the memoir she’s working on.

The two actresses are not the only ones from the Fresh Prince world to become authors. Show producer and writer Maiya Williams, whose name also appears in the iconic green graffiti font in the intro, also became a middle grade author.

Karyn and Daphne can be seen on TV again with the Fresh Prince reunion airing Thanksgiving weekend on HBO Max.

Tags author interview, bessie coleman, celebrity authors, celebrity bookwomen, celebrity writers, daphne maxwell reid, deep lit, flying free, fresh prince of bel-air, hachette books, hbo, how high the moon, karyn parsons, little brown and company, maiya williams, national black book festival, sweet blackberry

what's lit

‘Paper Gods’ Author Goldie Taylor Shares Inspiring Words After Book Picked Up for TV

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date August 26, 2020

The Daily Beast editor-at-large Goldie Taylor will have her 2018 best-selling sexy thriller Paper Gods turned into a series produced by John Legend.

John’s production company is teaming up with actress/producer Nia Long to bring the novel to the silver screen. Nia will also star in the ABC series.

Once the news broke, Goldie tweeted her gratitude about the project but also inspired writers to begin their careers.

Paper Gods surrounds the life of a fictional Atlanta mayor who seems to be living the perfect life with her Ivy League credentials, heart surgeon husband, and twin daughters. Then her world is turned upside down when her congressman friend is gunned down. In the congressman’s Bible, she finds a “paper god,” an origami marker that turns up at the sight of other murders across the city. She has to solve the mystery before her own potential murder.

The novel is published under the All Points Books and St. Martin’s Publishing Group imprints with Macmillan Publishers.

Tags all points books, author interview, book to tv, goldie taylor, john legend, macmillan, nia long, paper gods, st martin's publishing group

what's lit

YA Author Kimberly Jones Explains Civil Unrest Logic in Viral Video

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date June 7, 2020

A young adult author’s video interview discussing how race, socioeconomic status, and history are the root of the latest civil unrest has gone viral.

Kimberly Jones, the co-author of the young adult novel I’m Not Dying With You Tonight along with Gilly Segal, passionately spelled out why people are protesting, rioting, or looting after the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. His death has sparked nationwide civil unrest as the U.S. slowly comes out of the COVID-19 quarantine.

In a George Floyd tribute T-shirt, Kimberly says she supports both viewpoints from Black people saying they don’t want rioting or looting in our communities and they don’t want to support mainstream White-centric businesses. She then breaks down the difference between protestors, rioters, and looters—a definition that the media struggles with in its reporting, which leads to people misunderstanding the situation such as in the example with the Red Sofa Literary Agency founder who called police on people she classified as looters last month.

“Let’s ask ourselves why in this country in 2020 the financial gap between poor Blacks and the rest of the world is at such a distance that people feel like their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk through a broken glass window and get it,” Kimberly says in the video.

“But they are so hopeless that getting that necklace, getting that TV, getting that change, getting that bed, getting that phone, whatever it is they’re going to get because in that moment when riots happen and they present an opportunity of looting that’s their only opportunity to get it. We need to be questioning that. Why are people that poor? Why are people that broke? Why are people that food-insecure, that clothing-insecure?”

What also helped the video go viral is her Monopoly comparison to how economics work in America.

“If I right now decided to play Monopoly with you and for four hundred rounds of playing Monopoly, I didn’t allow you to have any money,” she says, pointing to the four centuries that Black people have been in the U.S. dealing with injustice after injustice. “I didn’t allow you to have anything on the board. I didn’t allow for you to have anything. And then we play another fifty rounds of Monopoly and everything that you gained and you earned while playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you.

“That was Tulsa, that was Rosewood. Those were places we built Black economic wealth, and we were self-sufficient. We owned our stores. When we owned our property. And they burned them to the ground.”

She refers to the race massacres in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 and Rosewood, Florida in 1923 in which White mobs destroyed thriving Black communities. Descendants of people who were impacted by those massacres are calling for reparations.

In a tweet, Kimberly wrote, “I just took the time to go through the first hundred or so responses in this thread and I am FLOORED! The support is so welcome and overwhelming.”

https://twitter.com/kimlatricejones/status/1269275215663685635

Titled “How Can We Win,” the video interview is on YouTube via David Jones Media and has a timestamp of being posted on June 1 and the interview conducted on May 31. David Jones wrote in the video’s summary:

“On day two, Sunday the 31st, he activated his dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime he captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full length documentary, they needed to hear them now.”

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, who recently received the golden Oscar statue for his six-minute film and accompanying book Hair Love illustrated by Vashti Harrison, shared the video on June 5.

Listen to what this sister has to say.

I added captions to the video for anyone who needs it.

Credit: David Jones Media https://t.co/W1yuk2aUen pic.twitter.com/tQ9VpuDHyd

— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) June 5, 2020

Authors like Angie Thomas and Jason Reynolds were quick to point out that Kimberly is a Black author who deserves the support with the purchase of her book. Harper Collins Publishers’ Epic Reads even chimed in.

According to the book’s description, “I’m Not Dying with You Tonight follows two teen girls―one Black, one White―who have to confront their own assumptions about racial inequality as they rely on each other to get through the violent race riot that has set their city on fire with civil unrest.”

The video is approaching half a million views on YouTube.

Tags angie thomas, anti-racism books, anti-racism novels, author interview, deep lit, george floyd, gilly segal, i'm not dying with you tonight, jason reynolds, kimberly jones, matthew a cherry, multicultural young adult novel, young adult authors, young adult writers

what's lit

Author Jia Tolentino and Model Kaia Gerber Discuss What to Take From ‘Trick Mirror’ During Quarantine

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date April 26, 2020

The novel coronavirus quarantine has produced another celebrity book club. Supermodel Kaia Gerber, daughter of the legendary Cindy Crawford, started a book club that’s already receiving praise from fans and young Hollywood.

Now a month into her book club, she had an Instagram Live conversation with Jia Tolentino, the author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, on Friday night with an average high of 2,200 viewers. Kaia started the chat saying she found the book to be a refreshing take on modern-day philosophy.

This is how publisher Penguin Random House describes the essay collection: “Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die.”

A staff writer at The New Yorker, Jia talked about the ills of the internet and social media, a focus in her book, but also mentioned its current necessity as we grapple with self-isolation and quarantine due to the coronavirus crisis. Jia brought up how the internet and social media has made people perform for attention. She asked Kaia about her personal experiences since the Gen Z model has 5.5 million followers due to her career and stature.

Now 18, Kaia said she started her Instagram at 14 and noticed how social media can change a person and their professional goals and give more attention to influencers rather than, for example, doctors and nurses who are saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The internet, for better for worse, is the biggest change of this era,” Jia said during the conversation. “It’s become this nervous system of our society… There’s an unavoidable centrality to it that seems like every story in a way is an internet story, no matter what.” She added we have a natural impulse to be seen, to be recognized, to be liked, and the business of social media takes these behaviors and monetizes “every inch of human life.”

They discussed how social media and the internet has to be impacting teens’ lives now and adding unique pressures never before experienced. Jia, a millennial who said she graduated during the Great Recession, said it would’ve been “dark” if she owned a smartphone in high school. With dreams to attend Columbia University, Kaia said as social media became a regular existence around her and she became hyper cautious in order to stay clean for college application times.

Jia pointed out to the feminism parts of the book where women were not able to apply for credit cards alone until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 and how marriage is supposed to be the main life-changing event for a woman. Kaia brought up how her mother’s wedding dress was revolutionary in a way because it was a slip dress when sexy was looked down upon for a bride.

The chat came to a close with Jia saying how clear it is during the coronavirus quarantine that we can’t wholly replace in-person interaction with the internet and social media. Kaia said she would read anything else Jia writes and added the excitement of being able to have the conversation:

“This is the coolest thing ever. Truly the only people I fangirl over are writers and authors because I admire it so much because the idea of sitting down and writing an entire book is so intimidating to me, but I would read all of them.”

Earlier in the month, Kaia had an Instagram Live chat with the stars of Normal People on Hulu, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. The TV series is based on Sally Rooney’s literary fiction book about two unlikely friends who develop a complex relationship in high school then college.

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Author Dhonielle Clayton Says Students Called Her a Racial Slur on Zoom

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date April 25, 2020
8 Comments on Author Dhonielle Clayton Says Students Called Her a Racial Slur on Zoom

The Belles author and We Need Diverse Books chief operating officer Dhonielle Clayton says she was called the n-word several times during a Zoom class.

The situation sounds eerily familiar to fellow young adult author Kelly Yang who said last month that a student called her a “Chinese virus” in the floating comments on an Instagram Live lesson for students now out of the physical classroom due to the COVID-19 coronavirus quarantine. She said a few days later the student apologized.

Dhonielle tweeted on April 23 that students unmuted on blank video screens kept calling her the n-word while they also kept calling their teacher fat. She said the teacher “burst into tears” and in another tweet that she too wanted to do the same. The students were 11th graders in Los Angeles, she revealed in some tweets later when many big-time authors chimed in the comment section on Twitter to send their apologies over the situation.

https://twitter.com/brownbookworm/status/1253399974219481089

https://twitter.com/brownbookworm/status/1253402538856103939

https://twitter.com/brownbookworm/status/1253746135900004360

Dhonielle further added her concern for security during Yallwest, or YallStayHome this year, a popular book festival for YA authors that attracts many teens, so the new virtual format could unfortunately be a breeding ground for hateful comments as well.

While these authors are making time out of the kindness of their hearts to directly interact with their audience, it raises the question of security when racial slurs and other inappropriate comments can be typed in or verbalized in a virtual setting.

As most Americans were beginning to do school and work at home, the videoconferencing provider Zoom became a popular tool in late February but so did the term “Zoombombing” in which people uninvited to a meeting enter the meeting with many using racist terms against particular groups who were meeting on camera.

The Anti-Defamation League wrote about one incident on March 24 “when a white supremacist interrupted a webinar about antisemitism hosted by a Massachusetts Jewish student group by pulling his shirt collar down to reveal a swastika tattoo on his chest.” CNET reports that though this phenomenon began in March there are still privacy concerns as Zoombombing has led to meeting attendees being exposed to racial slurs and pornographic material from uninvited parties.

Zoom said in an April 1 blog that the company was making improvements to privacy and security. The company wrote that it set up a dedicated policy for education users from kindergarten to 12th grade. It also added that its videoconferencing software was designed for clients with full information technology support, meaning Zoombombing was never supposed to happen since Zoom would be used by corporate clients that had the means to avoid such occurrences. Now as the tool ballooned in the number of public users, Zoom’s founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan has started weekly webinars on Wednesdays for input from users.

Many authors are also using Instagram Live as a source to reach readers, especially kids, which is what Kelly Yang used. The social media network’s parent, Facebook Inc., hasn’t given any information on the hate speech that could be spread on the video part of the platform though users can press the restrict button on any bullies in written posts.

Dhonielle is the author of The Belles, a multicultural fantasy YA novel, and its sequel The Everlasting Rose. She’s also the co-author of Tiny Pretty Things and its sequel Shiny Broken Pieces with Sona Charaipotra, who’s her business partner at Cake Literary, a media content company focused on kidlit to women’s fiction projects. She’s an outspoken advocate for diversity in literature, especially in kidlit and YA books, and is one of the more recognizable authors in the Twitterverse with 30,000 followers.

Tags author interview, black women authors, black women writers, dhonielle clayton, instagram, instagram live, kelly yang, racial discrimination, videoconferencing, yallstayhome, yallwest, zoom

what's lit

Black Fantasy YA Authors Discuss How They Are Revolutionizing the Genre

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date April 8, 2020
1 Comment on Black Fantasy YA Authors Discuss How They Are Revolutionizing the Genre

Up-and-coming Black fantasy young adult authors convened on a YouTube video chat hosted by Black Girls Create to go deeper into how they gravitated to the genre and what they hope their works can achieve for readers.

Bayana Davis of Black Girls Create, a hub for Black female creators, moderated the first half of the #KuumbaKickback conversation featuring Nandi Taylor, Jordan Ifueko, Namina Forna, and Roseanne A. Brown. Porshèa Patterson-Hurst moderated the second half with authors Kalynn Bayron, Tracy Deonn, and Bethany C. Morrow.

All the authors, who also participated in a #DontRush video challenge, mentioned how they fell in love with the fantasy genre but failed to see characters that looked like them and how the lack of visibility led to their writing careers. The video of the conversations are available on the Black Girls Create’s YouTube channel now.

Nandi Taylor is the author of Given. The story is about why “island princess Yenni is searching for a way to save her father’s life, but a handsome yet infuriating shapeshifting dragon becomes an unexpected distraction,” according to publisher Wattpad. The book is out now and has reached 1.2 million reads.

Nandi opened up about how she felt when trying to insert herself into certain fantasy stories, which created a conversation among the authors about being a Black girl who loved fantasy but not seeing Black girls in the stories.

“I loved reading fantasy, but the fantasy worlds I was reading about were very Eurocentric and it felt—how do I say this?—it felt wrong to insert myself in those worlds, which is sad to say. I felt kind of guilty like I wasn’t meant to be there. So I started writing my own world, so I can do that self-insertion without feeling guilty or ashamed.”

Jordan Ifueko is the author of Raybearer. Publisher Abrams’ imprint Amulet Books says “with extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we’re willing to go for the ones we love.” The book is available on April 14.

Jordan spoke about how African influence in fantasy and science fiction stories was historically erased or not accurately documented amid colonialism.

“I wanted to write fantasy because I wanted a story about a magical Black girl who didn’t have to endure slavery or systematic subjugation to win something. I feel like there are so very few stories based on real life, which that happens to Black girls, not because there weren’t Black girls who were awesome and powerful but because those stories were not recorded in history. Precolonial Africa, especially West Africa, had powerful women all over the place, but we don’t hear about those women because you have to dig and dig and dig and dig to even get a reference to some of those heroines because the history was written by the colonizers and they didn’t care.”

Namina Forna is the author of The Gilded Ones. The debut novel is described as “the start of a bold and immersive West African-inspired, feminist fantasy series for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther. In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice.” The book is scheduled for release in spring 2021.

Namina described her experience of immigrating to Atlanta from Sierra Leone at a young age and dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome once she was old enough to understand the effects of the civil war in her native country.

“One of the ways I was able to cope with everything that was happening was by disappearing into fantasy. I would read, read, read, read a lot. When you read, you’re able to ignore what is happening around you and even when I came to America and really started understanding what was happening more, for me I loved disappearing into fantasy worlds. They’re my safe space. I think that is the importance of fantasy: it’s a place in which you can disappear, in which you can deal with things you might not have the wherewithal to deal with.”

Roseanne A. Brown is the author of The Song of Wraiths and Ruin. Publisher HarperCollins calls the book “the first in a gripping fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction.” The book will be out June 2.

Roseanne, who immigrated to the U.S. from Ghana at a young age, said fantasy was the genre of choice for her to weave in today’s racial issues.

“While I really respect contemporary writers in what they can do to bring things in the here and now to engage on our level, I found putting it a step away and putting it in a different world—in a world that mirrors our own, reflects our own—to really come to terms with heavier things like we see in race. We have intergenerational trauma, we have violence against girls, we have self-harming—those are all real things teens in our world are dealing with.”

Tracy Deonn is the author of Legendborn. The novel is “filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic,” publisher Simon & Schuster wrote. It’s scheduled for a Sept. 15 release. Tracy also contributed to Our Stories, Our Voices: 21 YA Authors Get Real About Injustice, Empowerment, and Growing Up Female in America.

Tracy spoke about noticing the very few Black characters in science fiction and fantasy media while she was growing up and trying to connect as a Black girl to the characters she loved.

“I remember being drawn to certain characters consistently and wanting more from them. We talked about Star Trek already. Obviously, I liked Uhura. I could’ve watched the whole show about her. I wanted to watch a whole show about her. I was drawn to any character in any fantasy TV show, cartoon, or otherwise who looked vaguely Black in any sort of way I was like that’s me.”

She mentioned her feelings when Storm Reid, who’s Black, was cast in Disney’s 2018 Ava DuVernay version A Wrinkle in Time based on Madeleine L’Engle‘s middle grade fantasy classic, which also starred bookish celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling. “

The little part of me inside was, ‘This is revolutionary. This idea that we can be Meg.’ That was fulfilling in a long arc in a way of reading that and wanting to be Meg and actually seeing it later as an adult.”

Bethany C. Morrow is the author A Song Below Water. It is “a captivating modern fantasy about Black mermaids, friendship, and self-discovery set against the challenges of today’s racism and sexism,” wrote publisher MacMillan. The book is expected to be out on June 2. Bethany also wrote Mem and edited and contributed to the YA anthology Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance.

Bethany promoted science fiction in the post-slavery diaspora since many recent Black fantasy stories take place in Africa, saying these stories are necessary to tell to incorporate all types of Black characters.

“Even when I do science fiction, I’m always dealing with what it means to be a Black American. I think that is extremely important. I think that Black American kids need fantasy and science fiction that is Black American science fiction, Black American fantasy that doesn’t make them feel like it’s second fiddle to something else, like it’s derivative, it’s not as important, to liken it to something to be ashamed of. Again feeling like you’re supposed to take ownership of something and divorce from what has been done to you is something I’m not OK with… I love all the West African folklore that’s coming out. Central African fantasy and that sort of thing. I’m in love with all that stuff. It’s never a neither nor situation but again as a Black American child who grew up on the West Coast, I deserve to see myself specifically too. I deserve not to be erased from the American tradition, from the American culture, from American histories and storytelling, so I’m specifically writing diaspora fantasy, diaspora science fiction.”

Kalynn Bayron is the author of Cinderella Is Dead. The story takes place “200 years since Cinderella found her prince, but the fairytale is over” according to publisher Bloomsbury, which adds it’s “an electrifying twist on the classic fairytale that will inspire girls to break out of limiting stereotypes and follow their dreams!” The book will be available on June 8.

Kalynn discussed the hardships of growing up as Black girl in Portland, Oregon, where Bethany’s A Song Below Water takes place, and how reading fantasy became a refuge.

“What happens there when you are a brown girl, growing up there as a child, it makes me emotional to think about the environment there and how it affects you and how the racism is very polite…. Writing about characters that fit into the intersection of race, gender, sexuality in the fantasy genre is really important to me. It is something I want to keep doing.”

what's lit

Samantha Irby Shares How She Went From Author to TV Writer

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date March 25, 2020

Comedic essayist and blogger Samantha Irby wrote a lengthy article about how she was tapped to be a part of a TV show perfectly made for her.

Samantha, the author of the best-selling essay collections We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, Meaty and Wow, No Thank You, is a writer on Hulu’s Shrill, starring Saturday Night Live‘s Aidy Bryant based on a novel by Lindy West.

Shrill follows Aidy’s character, Annie, as she navigates her mid-20s as a low-paid journalist with a slacker boyfriend, aging parents, and a supportive friend circle in Portland. Except Annie is a plus-size woman who realizes she can be comfortable with her body and get whatever she desires.

In a recent Guardian article titled “I had zero experience in a writers’ room. Then I was offered my dream job in LA,” Samantha describes how Lindy invited her to be a part of the Los Angeles writers’ team for Shrill, the TV show. With her characteristically claustrophobic writing style with packing as many words as she can into a sentence, Samantha expressed how she dealt with her imposter syndrome.

After the first week, I waited for someone to show up and tell me, “OK, hoe, it’s cute that you thought we were just gonna let you sit in a chair and get paid to think about imaginary people. Here’s your scrub brush, you remember where the toilets are, right?” And… I would do it. I would scrub those toilets.

Within her two months on staff, she said she warmed up to LA by watching celebrities, collecting crystals, and eating a lot of tacos.

She also discusses one of the biggest moments on the TV series during the first season where Annie fights to cover a story on a body-positive pool party for women in the “Pool” episode. She goes to the Fat Babe Pool Party, fully clothed, unbelieving how the women are comfortable in their swimsuits. Then she takes in the energy around her and jumps into the pool.

Aidy Bryant as Annie Easton in Shrill

The popular episode saw plagiarism claims by Virgie Tovar, the author of the 2018 body-positive manifesto You Have the Right to Remain Fat. Virgie argued Shrill lifted the scene from her book and her TEDx talk. Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want To Talk About Race and Samantha’s friend, defended the scene she said is verified as being taped the same time Virgie’s book was made available, making the scene coincidental.

Samantha, who wrote the episode, talks about how she came up with the idea of the pool party and placing Annie in the midst of the uplifting event.

“In Chicago, I would go to dance parties, and clothing swaps, and exercise classes that were made specifically for fat women,” Samantha wrote in the Guardian article. “I thought it would be cool to see Annie seeing all different types of bodies unabashedly enjoying decadent party snacks while wearing crop tops and bikinis poolside.”

Samantha and Lindy, who both started their writing careers on blogs, are among a growing list of authors who have segued their acclaimed literary careers into the world of TV. Another example are Celeste Ng and Attica Locke, who are two of the producers behind Hulu’s new series Little Fires Everywhere, based on Celeste’s top-rated 2017 novel.

Tags aidy bryant, author interview, book to tv, celebrity bloggers, deep lit, essay collection, essay collections, essayists, ijeoma oluo, lindy west, meaty, samantha irby, shrill, so you want to talk about race, virgie tovar, we are never meeting in real life, wow no thank you, you have the right to remain fat

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Kidlit Author Kelly Yang Says She Was Called a Racial Slur While Teaching Class

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date March 24, 2020

Kelly Yang

Update: Kelly Yang tweeted on March 25 she received an apology from the teen who she said had called her a “Chinese virus” while she was teaching writing basics on an Instagram Live video.

Middle grade and young adult novelist Kelly Yang posted on Twitter that she was called a “Chinese virus” on an Instagram Live video.

Kelly, who wrote the middle grade best-selling novel Front Desk and forthcoming sequel Three Keys and young adult novel Parachutes, offered a free online course on Monday for teens learning at home amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In the video, Kelly first talks about the difficulties of raising her three kids at home in the San Francisco Bay Area. She then sends support to medical workers and describes how her mother is sewing homemade masks for those workers.

After talking about the personal impact of the pandemic, she mentions the overt and casual racism many Asian Americans are experiencing over fears of COVID-19, which first became publicized in Wuhan, China. President Donald Trump has called the COVID-19 coronavirus “Chinese virus” at several recent press briefings.

Not only are Asian Americans fearing the actual virus like other Americans, she said, but they’re worried about the spike in hate crimes.

“I had some of that feeling myself this last week,” she said in the video about the fear of racism.

During this time, a user types “Chinese virus” in the group chat. Kelly said she felt personally attacked by the comment.

This is not ok! Today I went on Instagram Live to give a free online writing class to teens to support the community during this time of #Covid19 #SchoolClosures and I got called a Chinese virus. In case there was any doubt that racism is happening against Asian Am, here it is. pic.twitter.com/P9i6nyfP66

— Kelly Yang (@kellyyanghk) March 23, 2020

Fellow authors, friends, and fans shared their apologies to Kelly in the tweet’s comment section. She later tweeted, “I spent most of today crying and even though it happened to me, it’s a reminder to all of the racism happening.”

The user who typed the offense continued to type random comments and emojis that were not offensive throughout the duration of the chat, including a comment claiming he’s Asian and cosigning on the discrimination problem.

Hate crimes are up against Asian Americans amid the pandemic. The Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council in Los Angeles and Chinese for Affirmative Action is asking individuals to report any alleged racial incidents related to the coronavirus in California.

Kelly has two books coming out this year: Parachutes slated for May and Three Keys for September.

Tags asian women authors, asian women writers, author interview, front desk, kelly yang, parachutes, three keys

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Ashli St. Armant Jazzes Up the Girl Detective Tale

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date January 20, 2020

Inspired by the girl detective stories from her childhood, Ashli St. Armant recently released her debut audiobook Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons on Audible.

Viva is a California teen girl visiting her grandmother, Gram, on her summer break in New Orleans. Thinking Gram is a bore, Viva embarks an adventure to solve the mystery of another family’s inheritance she reads about in a newspaper article. The only clue the article mentions is the Miss Mary Mack nursery rhyme, which takes her throughout the vibrant city of New Orleans stringing together the clues she’s discovering on her own.

Ashli, an Orange County, California native, based the story in New Orleans, a place where she said her mother’s side of the family goes back seven generations.

“Just like Viva, I didn’t grow up there. New Orleans felt like this really mysterious, mystical place. It felt like a really good place for a mystery also because New Orleans is kinda mysterious already,” Ashli told she lit. “That’s how I felt about it as a kid. But like Viva’s grandmother, [to] my family that’s from New Orleans and live there, it wasn’t a mysterious place. It felt like a small town in the South. So going there I often felt frustrated because I was like, ‘C’mon, this is a really cool place to explore,’ but they didn’t see it that way.”

She spoke to she lit about the inspirations behind the story and its characters and the music.

she lit: How did Nancy Drew and other girl detectives inspire you to create Viva Durant?

Ashli St. Armant: I grew up with a lot of girls-in-a-series like The Babysitters Club especially and Nancy Drew as well. I wanted to create a series for young girls like the way I had series like that. I wanted the main character to be a young Black girl because I hadn’t really seen that when I was a child. I can’t necessarily speak to say there’s not any of that around today, but I certainly didn’t know any when I was a kid. So I wanted to create a world that felt familiar but also had an element of mystery and build a new world from there.

she lit: How did you come up with the concept to tie the mystery around the Miss Mary Mack nursery rhyme and New Orleans history?

Ashli St. Armant: There aren’t any particular ties from that poem to New Orleans and also there’s no known suggestions that poem, or the song, is related to some kind of hidden treasure. That was something I came up with on my own.

However, my other job is I perform as a children’s music artist, so I’m constantly doing deep dives for music that was created by children or by children and how do we create it for the stage and how do we create it for performances. I have four albums out; the first three are mostly original content. My fourth album is called Swing Set. All the songs from that album are not original songs of my own, but they were all created by African Americans over time. They’re almost all created by nonmusicians, so songs created on playgrounds, worker songs, and things like that, and I really wanted to highlight where these songs come from.

Some of these songs are a part of our common vernacular, especially for children, but we don’t realize a lot come from Black experiences. Songs like “Coming Around the Mountain”—that song comes from a Negro spiritual. I really nerd out to stuff like that. So Miss Mary Mack is one of the songs on the album, but that song is a playground song. By nature, it was deemed so long ago, made by children, made by Black children and girls, that makes a recipe for not knowing where those songs come from because nobody is recording that stuff by people of color, by girls, by children, etc.

But what we think the song is about a child who had an experience going to a funeral. The idea of this black dress with buttons in the back and front gives the impression it might’ve been funeral clothing, so it might’ve been this child’s idea of reflecting on that experience and bringing that back to the playground. That clearly happens to a lot of children’s music.

So anyway I also find it interesting that there’s this mystery around children’s music where we don’t really know—not necessarily children’s music but songs created by children over time, children’s folk music—we don’t really know where these songs come from or what they mean, so that lends itself to mystery, too. So I reinvented what I thought we can say what the song can be about but really we’re not sure. Then it might be around hidden treasure!

I wanted the main character to be a young Black girl because I hadn’t really seen that when I was a child. I can’t necessarily speak to say there’s not any of that around today, but I certainly didn’t know any when I was a kid.

she lit: Did you do any of the music in the book?

Ashli St. Armant: Yes and no. This has been an interesting project for me because this is my first full-length writing project. I’ve been writing since I was twelve, starting with poetry then songwriting and short plays. This is my first novel and it’s on a platform like Audible where adding music is tied into that.

I do have a band and I have a wonderful producer that I work with here in California. His name is Chris Schlarb from Big Ego Studios. I worked closely with him to create music for this piece, so you’ll hear some of our original work throughout the piece, but we found that it requires a lot more music than we originally anticipated.

Luckily for us Audible has this wonderful library for music that we were able to pull from. You could never listen to all of this thing; it’s thousands of hours of music. But we hired another sound engineer to work with us. Between the three of us, we were able to find the music that we felt fit this piece. I wanted to have music that not only reflected New Orleans, a jazz style, but I also wanted it to reflect what was happening in a scene whether it was serious, creepy, or funny. I wanted the music to reflect that too but also say it in a jazz style. That’s how we pulled the music together.

she lit: What was it like the first time hearing Bahni Turpin narrate your story?

Ashli St. Armant: I teared up. I loved it. I feel like she really reflected Viva in a really poignant way I wasn’t expecting. But moving backwards a little bit, I originally wanted to narrate this book, but for several reasons it was presented to me to bring on a professional narrator, which isn’t in my wheelhouse yet. It was like handing over my baby. I don’t know if I want to do this.

But then they gave me a shortlist of people that they were suggesting, and I was currently listening to a book narrated by Bahni Turpin. It’s called The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. I was so moved by that piece and how well she did that. It’s a really deep novel and she did so well. She had to do the voice of a slave owner, a runaway slave, and then girl, then man, and I thought she was so remarkable in that piece.

I never really thought about the job of a narrator until I heard that story. And when her name came up on the list, I was It has to be her. There is this lightness and playfulness in her voice that I just don’t carry. At the end of the day, when I finally heard her voicing the character of Viva and the grandmother, I thought, Omigosh, she’s great. I was happy. It was painful at first, then I bought it. I got to meet her in person, and she was special and lovely, so that worked out well.

I wanted to have music that not only reflected New Orleans, a jazz style, but I also wanted it to reflect what was happening in a scene whether it was serious, creepy, or funny.

she lit: Was Gram based on your grandmother or a variety of people?

Ashli St. Armant: No. Gram is based on some other folks in my life. My godmother—we’re not blood-related, but she’s a family friend—I call her Grandma VJ. She’s still alive. She’s 104. She’s not from New Orleans; she’s from Texas. Her personality is like Gram’s. She’s stern and more structured, but she doesn’t see herself like that or she doesn’t see it as a bad thing.

I think as she’s got older and got past 100—actually when she hit 90 then 100—I had thought, Wow, she’s really a treasure. And it’s something to be learned about how to live that long and how to live that long fruitfully because the fact she still makes her own carrot cake, she makes Christmas cookies. She’s still cooking herself. She plants her own vegetables. She will remember things back from the 1940s and that kind of thing.

When I was a kid, I thought she was so boring. She won’t let me eat McDonald’s. But now I’m in my thirties and thinking long-term, I’m like, Wow, I really have this treasure of a person in my life and I really need to learn something from her. I really want to glean on what she did to live this long, to be so wise. I think that’s what I wanted to reflect in Gram.

I really wanted to show that idea of while we undervalue our older people, sometimes they’re caring for us and imparting this wisdom onto us that we don’t even realize. That’s where that came from. My grandmother passed on, but she was wonderful, but she wasn’t like that at all. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She’d let you do anything you want. It’s the combination between my Grandma VJ’s personality paired with my experiences visiting my Grandmother Edna in New Orleans.

Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons is available now on Audible.

Tags ashli st. armant, audible original, audiobook, author interview, black women authors, black women writers, children's books, children's literature, deep lit, kidlit, novels set in new orleans, viva durant and the secret of the silver buttons

experiences

‘Queenie’ Author Candice Carty-Williams Discusses Heavy Themes in Her Popular Book

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date December 17, 2019

Emil Huseynzade

Guest contributor Kidan Araya talks about seeing Queenie author Candice Carty-Williams on her Nov. 19 D.C. book tour stop.

Candice Carty-Williams, the Jamaican-British author behind one of the most widely discussed books of the year, made a stop in Washington, D.C. to discuss her debut novel Queenie.

Solid State Books, a relatively new locally owned bookstore that personifies the hipness of my generation by serving local kombucha, staying open late hours for people to study and meet, and having awesome bean bags, hosted the author in its northeast D.C. bookstore. It was a full house with a few standing attendees, which included mostly women of all races. The event was structured as a Q&A with Candice and local bookstagrammer Jamise Harper.

The audience jumped into questions and comments about Queenie. Many people praised the cover of Queenie and loved the “unapologetic Blackness” of the cover. When Candice was asked if she ever considered how the cover—an image of a Black woman with braids—could be a determining factor for certain demographics never picking up the book, Candice confidently stated she did not consider that at all. She also said she had received encouraging emails from readers saying the cover was the first time they had ever seen a Black woman in natural hair on a book cover and it made them feel more confident about wearing their own natural hairstyles.

There was also a discussion on the power of female friendships. Queenie’s friends and how their personalities offered something unique that helped Queenie significantly overcome her struggles. The audience also expressed their disappointment that Queenie never had a triumphant moment with Tom, her boyfriend who leaves her at the beginning of the novel. But Candice said she wanted the book to be as realistic as possible and most of us do not have a triumphant moment with our exes. Point made. Everyone also agreed that the comparisons between Queenie and Bridget Jones’s Diary were a bit hollow, as Queenie delved into so many different topics of our time such as racial tension and mental health.

Furthermore, the attendees also praised Queenie for its accurate depictions of mental health. In the novel, Queenie decides to see a therapist to help her cope with job stress and relationship drama. Specifically, the therapist helps her understand her behavior of why she chooses toxic relationships and hookups and how to become resilient after Ted, the married man she has an affair with, forces her job to place her on leave. The reader sees Queenie go through a variety of emotions with her therapy sessions: being uneasy at first; describing the anxiety of booking your first appointment; breathing techniques; discussing how earlier life trauma with our families actually influences our behavior; and continuing therapy even when her life starts turning around for the better.

When an audience member asked why Queenie only dates white men in the book, Candice described how growing up in the U.K. in Black Caribbean communities, many people are told that “the closer you can get to whiteness, the better,” including marrying white partners.

She also excitedly announced that Queenie is being adopted into television! She said Queenie will have a diverse array of love interests in the TV show.

Overall, the book discussion was made more excellent as Candice was a very candid and humorous author that was just as personable as the character Queenie (even though she swears that Queenie is not a biographical account). Everyone left happy and looking forward to hearing more news on the Queenie television adaption.

Tags author event, author events, author interview, black new adult novels, black women authors, black women writers, book tours, candice carty-williams, deep lit, indie bookstores, new adult, new adult novels, queenie, solid state books

what's lit

Women Authors Attack Sarah Dessen Critic in Social Media Uproar

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date November 17, 2019

Burst

This past week, young adult author Sarah Dessen tweeted a quote from a college article by a woman who campaigned against her books in a campus reading program years ago. Many authors including Roxane Gay and Siobhan Vivian came to Sarah’s defense—until fans clapped back when the woman was being called derogatory names by top women authors. The authors backpedaled with some Twitter users accusing Sarah of white female victimhood and the authors of attacking readers with opinions on their works.

As of the weekend, the discriminatory tweets have disappeared from top authors’ Twitter feeds, including Siobhan Vivian, author of YA book We Are the Wildcats, who tweeted “Fuck that fucking bitch” about the quoted woman with Sarah saying “I love you” back.

Dhonielle Clayton, author of multicultural fantasy YA novel The Belles and co-founder of We Need Diverse Books, called the quoted woman a “raggedy ass fucking bitch.” Tiffany Jackson, author of YA novels Allegedly and Monday’s Not Coming, agreed. Siobhan’s Twitter account doesn’t exist anymore and her professional website has been made private, and Dhonielle’s account, which was very active with thousands of followers and tweets, now only has tweets from Nov. 14.

The Nov. 12 article in question came from The Aberdeen News on Northern State University’s Common Read program. Brooke Nelson, now a master’s degree student, says in the article:

“She’s fine for teen girls. But definitely not up to the level of Common Read. So I became involved simply so I could stop them from ever choosing Sarah Dessen.”

Brooke, according to the article, helped with the 2017 selection, which became Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, a memoir by a civil rights lawyer in pursuit of justice which will be a movie starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. Sarah’s 2016 novel Saint Anything was in the running, a Vulture article reported. After Sarah mentioned the criticism in the infamous now-deleted tweet, the university issued an apology on Twitter in support of Sarah and against the free speech of an alum. Even the reporter apologized for adding the quote.

We are very sorry to @SarahDessen for the comments made in a news article by one of our alums in reference to our 2016 Common Read. They do not reflect the views of the university or Common Read Committee. (1/4)

— Northern State University (@NorthernStateU) November 13, 2019

https://twitter.com/kgrandstrandAAN/status/1194307799385300998?s=20

The Washington Post was one of the first news outlets to see the Twitter feud unfold. The reporter interviewed Brooke, who said the quote was taken out of context with her emphasizing she didn’t think Sarah’s book was appropriate as a top book for her college crowd, and asked for her input:

Nelson, for her part, said she hopes the controversy draws more people to read books that will encourage them to think critically about pressing social issues.

“If anything comes out of this larger conversation,” Nelson told The Post, “I hope it is that others will make it a point to read books like [‘Just Mercy’] that push them beyond their usual perspective and challenge their assumptions of society.”

https://twitter.com/sarahdessen/status/1195431073892749315

https://twitter.com/rgay/status/1195405484905250817

https://twitter.com/pronounced_ing/status/1195742500369162240

https://twitter.com/jodipicoult/status/1195744857047928840

https://twitter.com/jenniferweiner/status/1195470675034685441

https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/1195745641768652800

Not everybody is going to like your book. And sometimes like in Sarah’s case, your book may be heavily scrutinized in some scenarios, even in a small-town news story about a small-town university’s book program. This comes with the territory.

Also, this story shows even as outspoken writers you have to be careful about what you decide to share publicly. Social media is an important asset to connecting with fans and readers, and now some of the authors involved have chosen to start over or take a break while most just deleted the first tweet in support of Sarah and tweeted an apology instead.

Ignore the haters if you don’t have anything nice to say; if it’s threatening in any way, then report the tweet and block the user, but just breathe when you see something constructive that you don’t like. Let it go, and if someone asks about the criticism, don’t respond or say something diplomatic because at the end of the day not everyone is going to like your work and they have the right to say so.

The unfortunate Twitter saga has some followers promoting a boycott, so we’ll keep a watch on how the authors involved will be impacted. Earlier this year, Netflix announced making three of Sarah’s novels into films.

https://twitter.com/Felicity_M2/status/1195602749959933952

Tags author interview, celeste ng, deep lit, dhonielle clayton, diversity and inclusion, jennifer weiner, jodi picoult, lessons learned, nk jemisin, roxane gay, sarah dessen, siobhan vivian, social media, tiffany d jackson, twitter feud, writing lessons, young adult, young adult authors, young adult writers

what's lit

Well-Read Black Girl Founder Glory Edim On ‘Cultivating Joy’ In Her Growing Book Club

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date July 20, 2019

Well-Read Black Girl holds an event at Reparations Club in Mid-City, Los Angeles, to discuss the book club coming to the city.

Renowned Black women’s book club Well-Read Black Girl is coming to Los Angeles, with the New York-based founder welcoming the local affiliate last Sunday at the Reparations Club in the Mid-City neighborhood.

Book Soup, the West Hollywood indie bookstore, will house the LA book club as a part of the organization’s program with the American Booksellers Association to create local affiliates to support Black women readers and writers. The first book is fantasy young adult novel Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi for July and the second book will be The Travelers by Regina Porter for August.

Glory Edim, the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, joined Tameka Blackshir of Book Soup and Jazzi McGilbert of the new Black artisan boutique Reparations Club to discuss the book club’s partnership with indie booksellers across the country and how it was important for the group to maintain its safe space status for Black women.

“I felt really particular about going to LA and not knowing the community. Since I don’t live there, does that mean it’s going to be less real, less authentic?” Glory said, adding she needed the local affiliates to be run by local supporters. “Does it mean I’m not investing in the way that I need to? … It just means we need conversations, and it needs to be done where it’s authentic and real and not me just popping in like, ‘Hey, guys! I’m here!’ So when the opportunity going about partnering with independent bookstores [came up], it was ‘OK, boom! You know your bookstore, you know what’s important.'”

With the base in Brooklyn, Glory said she started the book club with promoting a free space where all women from mothers to college students can afford and enjoy the book club. She also said she wants the organization’s annual festival in Brooklyn—which has featured award-winning authors Jacqueline Woodson and Tayari Jones in the past—to be a “family reunion,” uniting Black women from other cities in one place. Besides LA, these cities so far include Washington, D.C.; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle.

“We’re not excluding people, but this is a space for Black women. That question has been coming up a lot, especially in small cities that are not as diverse,” Glory said about expanding the group. “Another thing I’ve been working through is the idea of how we cultivate joy in these spaces.”

She said cultivating joy is a priority though most of the books selected for the meetings contain traumatic themes.

“When I was curating the anthology [Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves], I was very clear about I want to hear both sides of the story. I want to know the things that are troubling and have shaped an identity but also how you were able to overcome that because when you go through something that’s not the only thing that defines you,” she said. “It helps to uplift you out of that. It’s that experience and the challenge that pulls you into another space that allows you to be brighter and bolder for sharing your story without reservation.”

The first book club meeting in LA will be at Book Soup on Sunday, July 28 at 4 p.m.

Tags #book club, #book clubs, #well read black girl, american booksellers association, anthology, author interview, black women book clubs, book clubs, book soup, children of blood and bone, deep lit, glory edim, indie bookstores, regina porter, reparations club, the travelers, tomi adeyemi

experiences

Author Event: Laura Dave, Robinne Lee and Gretchen Bonaduce for National Reading Group Month

Post author By SHE LIT EDITOR
Post date October 20, 2018

The Women’s National Book Association Los Angeles chapter held its annual Great Group Reads event at Skylight Books last week to ring in National Reading Group Month. Along with the announcement of the books we as an organization designated as must-reads over the next year, our chapter welcomed three notable authors to share how they navigated the imperfect road to publication.

The author of best-selling Hello, Sunshine and Eight Hundred Grapes, Laura Dave said though she has several novels now under her belt she had lost her first book to a liquid spill on her laptop. Only the first chapter was backed up. Despite the pitfall, she started over with a new novel while juggling 15 gigs at the time.

Also on the panel was Robinne Lee, an actress recognizable for her roles in the Fifty Shades of Grey series and Seven Pounds, who is experiencing debut novel success with The Idea of You. The top-ranking “romance” novel took her 15 months to complete. How did she do it? She said she lugged her laptop everywhere from movie sets to Starbucks, taking advantage of every free moment to write.

Former celebrity wife and reality star Gretchen Bonaduce gained fame from being married to Danny Bonaduce of Partridge Family fame. So when she decided to write a memoir after people told her she could tell her story in comical way, she said it was hard to get published. Like a lot of writers, she said she didn’t realize the amount of rejection she would see. Weighed down by rejection, she said she looked for alternative ways to publish her book and found an indie publisher for Surviving Agent Orange: And Other Things I Learned From Being Thrown Under the Partridge Family Bus.

The major takeaways from this event:

Back up your work – Use programs such as Google Drive to keep your work in the cloud in case your computer or flash drive go missing. Also, save on your computer and flash drive. Have a “receptacle” document or program where you can place extra chunks of work for later or keep notes, then back that up, too.
Carve out time – Within your busy schedule, see if there’s a block of time you can take for yourself to write. Anywhere from half an hour and up every day or a few times a week can propel your novel. Treat this time like it’s a fixed class or job, so you can stick with it. When it’s not sticking anymore, change it. Writing time might not be fixed with changing every week, but carve out the time ahead of the week to drop in it into your schedule.
Look for alternative avenues – Querying can mean a mountain of rejections. Some authors keep going no matter what while other authors look for indie publishing and self-publishing options. With more and more authors taking advantage of self-publishing models through outlets such as Amazon.com, the traditional route may not be ideal for every author.

WNBA-LA organizes events featuring great women authors who luckily reside in the Los Angeles area. What’s so great about these events is that authors share their adventures and misadventures of trying to get their work out there in the world. These pearls of wisdom could be enhanced with actually interacting with the authors in person, more personal than social media exchanges. Follow @wnba_la on Instagram and @WNBA_LA on Twitter.

Tags author event, author events, author interview, eight hundred grapes, hello sunshine, laura dave, national reading group month, robinne lee, skylight books, surviving agent orange, the idea of you, women's national book association