Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 37

Thunderclap!

Greetings! I’m not too tech savvy but with the help of social media master Sofia Quintero, I’ve set up a campaign on Thunderclap to help promote my new novel. Here’s a description of what Thunderclap does:

It allows a single message to be mass-shared, flash mob-style, so it rises above the noise of your social networks. By boosting the signal at the same time, Thunderclap helps a single person create action and change like never before.

The campaign will only launch if I get 100 supporters in 13 days, so if you’re willing, please sign up here. You’ll be asked to select a platform (Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr) and on May 20th, Thunderclap will send out one message—just one time—on your feed. You’re basically donating a tweet or post to me.

Thanks in advance!

15 manuscripts and counting…

Thanks to Beth Phelan and her #DVpit initiative, I’ve got a new agent! I’m happy to be represented by Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency who impressed me with her honesty about the industry’s problems and its potential. Next week we’ll be developing a strategy for my many unpublished manuscripts (I’ve got 11 picture books stories and 4 novels in progress). Then there are the projects I haven’t started yet that keep tugging at my brain: Dragons in a Bag is about a Brooklyn witch who carries four miniature dragons in her purse (like I do!), and All I Have is a picture book story that might end up being a short poem. And I spent a whole day last week dreaming about my Black girl shieldmaiden/Viking from The Ring (I’ve even designed the cover of that book). I find that when I have a project to finish—this month it’s The Ghosts in the Castle—then I start coming up with new ideas as a way to procrastinate. I got 2000 words written on Tuesday but then found out that my uncle passed away in the Caribbean; yesterday morning I got up early for a school visit and found an email from my mother letting me know my aunt in British Columbia had passed away, too. I’m not able to be with my family as they grieve, but this morning I went for a run and then came home and threw out the gummies I’ve been snacking on all week. We’ve lost so many people this year and it’s made me think about my own mortality (and the contents of Prince’s vault). What would be left unfinished if I died tomorrow? Would I have any regrets? Have I said all that I need to say? I intend to continue self-publishing; even with an agent, I won’t be able to get all of my stories out into the world unless I publish some of them myself. Some are more urgent than others, and some won’t appeal to a mainstream press. It’s good to have options and self-publishing will always be there if doors continue to close (I’m cautiously optimistic but agents can only sell what editors are willing to buy). Tomorrow isn’t promised, so give the stories inside of you a chance to live in the world…

giveaways

Want to win a free copy of A Wish After Midnight or The Door at the Crossroads? Then stop by the El Space blog and enter Linda’s giveaway by May 5! While you’re there you can also read the interview we did. Here’s a glimpse:

El Space: In a recent Huffington Post article, you stated, “Self-publishing is, for me, an act of radical self care—and self-love.” Could you unpack that a little for us?

Zetta: Audre Lorde once wrote that self-care is political warfare because it is an act of resistance. When you live in a society that is committed to destroying and/or denigrating Black people—and Black women in particular—then choosing to be gentle with yourself means a lot. It means you reject all the messages you’re receiving about your worth. Self-love insists that you are worthy and deserving of care and kindness and compassion. Black women do a lot for others but we don’t always remember to make ourselves a priority. Then add publishing to the mix and you’ve got an industry dominated by white women that largely excludes Black women. When I self-publish, I’m pushing back against the implicit message that my work doesn’t matter to them. It matters to me and it matters to the members of my community, so I don’t need to look outside myself and my community for permission to tell my tales.

I’ve also set up a Crossroads giveaway on Goodreads but that won’t start until May 2 and winners will be announced on May 23.

I had 4 blank squares on my calendar this week but, of course, my days filled up and so now it’s Wednesday and I haven’t yet worked on The Ghosts in the Castle. I’ve got over 6K words written so there isn’t much more to write. Wish I could hop across the pond and finish the novel in London, but I really need to stay put for a while. Charity Russell, the illustrator who worked on Wave and Let the Faithful Come, used to live in Windsor so I’m hoping I can get her to do the b&w illustrations. But first I have to finish the book…

Dear Beth,

I don’t know Beth Phelan but she organized Monday’s #DVpit, which encouraged marginalized writers to pitch their completed manuscripts to participating agents and editors. I first thought about sending Beth a tweet to express my appreciation for this initiative, but then I thought about writing a longer letter because I have mixed feelings about my experience and wonder what her hopes and expectations were. Until a moment ago, I didn’t realize Beth was a woman of color; another woman of color, Hannah Gomez, called agents out a while back, asking them to solicit work from excluded writers instead of complaining about the lack of submissions. Could white women—who dominate the publishing industry—have come up with these ideas? Of course. But they didn’t (as far as I know). Many of them got on board and that’s encouraging, because we can’t expect different outcomes if industry professionals aren’t willing to change their ways. But when I heard about Hannah’s plan my first thought was, “Agents aren’t enough.” Because agents only take on clients who write material they KNOW they can sell. So if editors—and marketers and sales directors—aren’t on board, too, then what can a handful of well-intentioned agents really achieve?

I wasn’t planning to participate in #DVpit but then I started a new picture book story, “Milo’s Museum,” and figured I might as well share it with the Twittersphere. And that’s what really matters about #DVpit—it was PUBLIC. I pitched four of my twelve unpublished PB manuscripts, and everyone who follows me or that hashtag could see what I have to offer. Librarian Angie Manfredi boldly called out agents on my behalf:

Seven agents and one editor favorited my pitches and I followed up with all of them (incorrectly addressing one query, so no doubt that got deleted immediately; note to self—don’t send queries late at night). I heard from one enthusiastic agent immediately and we made tentative plans to talk in the near future. Some of these agencies are new to me but most of them are not. I’ve queried them more than once over the past decade so what will be different this time around?

This morning I woke up thinking about the role of the publisher. An editor friend explained recently how hard she has to fight for a story she loves, “selling” it to the acquisitions team plus sales and marketing. What if we radically altered the acquisitions process? What if an editor could go straight to her publisher and get a thumbs up or thumbs down—and then the sales and marketing team just had to make it work? What if we removed all the loopholes/excuses that lead to stories by PoC getting shot down? No one has ever told me I can’t write. No one has accused me of being a bad storyteller. It’s almost always been, “This isn’t right for our list” or “There’s no market for this.” Well, what if a publisher issued an executive order—like President Obama getting around a do-nothing Congress: “We’re publishing this book because I said so. It’s now ON our list, so FIND or DEVELOP a market for it.” Imagine how THAT would transform the publishing industry…

In the meantime, I’m grateful to Beth for coming up with such a unique alternative to the query process. I’m not holding my breath and I’m prepared to self-publish more of my stories, but it was refreshing to finally see signs of innovation in an industry that’s been stuck in the mud for too long…

coming up

I have some public events coming up in the next few weeks. If you’re in or near Baltimore, check out the Reginald F. Lewis Museum’s African American Children’s Book Fair on May 14th. You can find information about the participating authors and illustrators here. In June I’ll be in dialogue with the inimitable Debbie Reese at the 2016 ACL Institute—and look who’s giving the keynote! If you’re in the Bay Area, do drop in…

overdue

I had my annual physical yesterday and picked up a flyer announcing free meditation and yoga classes at my clinic. I’ve got to try SOMETHING because running every other day helps me manage my anxiety, but I need some additional tools. I am completely wound up right now and should have gone for a run as soon as I rolled out of bed, but instead I ate some leftover pizza and now I’m too full to hit the park. There’s a Bernie Sanders rally in Prospect Park at noon, which means there will be loads of people and I really want silence and solitude today. My To Do list is wearing me down and I’ve made some progress this morning, but I don’t even feel satisfied once I scratch a task off the list—probably because I’m already stressing about the next thing I have to do. Learning to be present in each moment would be a good thing for me. I confess there were times at my launch party on Thursday when I was thinking ahead, wishing I could speed the clock up even though I was extremely grateful that folks took the time to come out and celebrate the release of The Door at the Crossroads. Even as I was reading from the novel, I felt my mind jumping around and had to force it to settle down. Monkey brain—that’s what Buddhists call it. Or is it drunken monkey brain? The point is, we have the ability to control our thoughts and I think some serious brain training is in order for me. Yesterday I participated in a symposium at the African American Museum in Philadelphia and each presenter had 15 minutes to talk about how s/he is reaching new audiences in the era of Black Lives Matter. There were some fantastic presentations but by the end of the day, I felt like someone else held the remote control for my brain and that person was flipping through channels instead of landing on one. Afterward I met friends for dinner and we talked about the importance of The Colored Girls Museum; Ebony suggested the museum founder produce a picture book and immediately I started constructing a narrative in my head. By the time I sat down on the train back to NYC, I’d chosen a title: Milo’s Museum. It’s about a Black girl who notices there aren’t many people who look like her at the museum, so she creates her own museum in her bedroom closet. Another friend of mine, Gabrielle Civil, once gave a performance in her closet and my other friend Marie is one of the artists featured at the CGM in Philadelphia. What Milo needs is a tete-a-tete with a Black woman artist—maybe a neighbor or a relative. One of my super talented artist friends came out on Thursday night; Cozbi brought her equally talented daughter, Jana (pictured above), who informed me she makes her own books! Jana’s the kind of girl who could easily open her own museum. Vashti DuBois founded the CGM in her own home, and over dinner last night we talked about how so many Black women still wait for outside approval instead of making things happen ourselves. One reason is that many of us have internalized the endless messages that tell us we’re inadequate or that our efforts are illegitimate without white and/or male authentication. Other times we want things to be perfect and so we wait until everything is in order—and everything is NEVER going to be in order. I’m not good at spontaneity and I try to be flexible when I’m teaching, but “just go with the flow” is a tall order for someone with anxiety. Children don’t worry about being perfect and they don’t overthink things the way so many adults do. I am a grown-up—I have to finish filing my taxes today—but I need to cultivate more of my child attributes. I doubt I’ll ever be “carefree” again, but maybe I could find more joy in each moment instead of trying to be “responsible” and “productive” all the time…

let it go

I just broke my favorite plate and dropped my dinner on the floor. I don’t keep the kind of kitchen floor you can eat off of, but I scooped up my chickenless tenders and ate them anyway! This week has taught me to let a lot of things go. Up until 7pm last night, I didn’t have ANY books for tomorrow’s launch. Then the UPS guy arrived with 9 boxes for me, and the 10th box arrived a few hours ago. So now I have books. The cover for Crossroads isn’t perfect, even after we made a last-minute fix, but it’ll have to do. The Kindle version that I did myself was apparently hard to read on some devices, so I pulled it and will repost on Amazon once the conversion has been done by a professional. I couldn’t find a plain black top to wear with the lovely skirt I bought expressly for the launch party, so I’m going to wear a less festive dress instead. I don’t have any jewelry to match the dress, but oh well. No one’s coming out tomorrow to inspect my jewelry. My skin has broken out—again. My hormones are as unpredictable as the weather, but what’s a girl middle-aged woman to do? The universe is definitely keeping me humble. Yesterday I had a full day and left the house feeling stressed. It was raining and our host librarian at the high school was absent, but our small group still met and those young people made me forget all about the zillion other things on my To Do list. I had 4 back-to-back appointments and at each one, I found myself laughing and hugging people and receiving assurances that everything would be okay. When I was in graduate school, a professor delicately pointed out that my excessive expressions of gratitude proved that I came from a dysfunctional family where kindness was rare. She was right—when you’re accustomed to being mocked and diminished, sometimes it’s hard to believe that people can be caring and considerate without expecting anything in return. So as I prepare my remarks for tomorrow night, I’m thinking about kindness, and gratitude, and how it’s okay to be imperfect. And how showing up and owning up to your mistakes is sometimes just the kind of example young people need to see.

My last guest post about The Door at the Crossroads, “A Girl Like Me,” is up over at Diversity in YA. April is National Poetry Month so I ended with a poem by Lucille Clifton, and I think I’m going to read it aloud tomorrow night. Maybe twenty people will show up—maybe a lot more since the event was covered in The Brooklyn Reader. But either way, I know *I* am going to have a cupcake and celebrate the fact that this novel didn’t destroy me and all the years of rejection by publishers didn’t stop me from getting it into the world. There’s always another novel waiting in the wings but for at least one night, I’m going to celebrate myself and my book and all the people who are part of this wonderful community of readers and writers.

potential & possibilities

The Kweli conference yesterday was AMAZING! So many great people gathered in one place, including two author friends from Canada: Nadia Hohn (left) and Carol-Ann Hoyte (right). The panels were engaging, and it was encouraging to meet so many aspiring writers of color. The room was full of people of color, and I only wish the publishing industry were equally diverse. I decided to point that fact out on my morning panel: “Publishing Industry Overview.” The conference organizers did an excellent job finding people of color from marketing, publicity, sales, and editorial departments, but their existence in the industry doesn’t mean they’re likely to play a role in the submission to publication process for most writers of color. White women dominate the industry and I felt it would be dishonest not to point that out. Still, it was nice to be in a space where we formed the majority—for once! This past month I’ve really felt the “self” in self-publishing, so it was great to be surrounded by other voices and ideas and so much positive energy. And I want to thank Laura Pegram and her team for inviting me to share my self-publishing perspective. It’s not for everyone, but it’s a valid option—and sometimes the only option when all others doors close. My favorite moment from yesterday came after the morning panel. I’d had some trouble with my microphone—in fact, the two mics closest to me went berserk and it took a few of us to sort it out before I could have my say. A conference attendee told me afterward that he was a reiki practitioner and knew something about energy. “When the microphones went crazy I thought to myself, ‘That woman’s a force.'” I’ve mostly felt like a spent force lately, but hope to get my second wind this week. I’ll need it because the launch is on Thursday! Tomorrow I search for the best cupcakes…

alternatives

I’m heading up to Scandinavia House for the Kweli conference this morning–hope to see you there! I’ve already connected with a great bookstore—WORD UP—that’s entirely volunteer-run and operates without big book distributors. Community-based publishing, community libraries/booksellers…so many possibilities! I’m looking forward to talking with The Book Smugglers soon about their relatively new role as publishers. They posted an essay of mine on Thursday in which I discuss what it means to “reach your readers:”

Last month I talked to students at Harvard who read AWAM in their American Studies class, and the following week I had an equally rigorous discussion with book club members at a homeless shelter in Manhattan. When that editor says “success” what she really means is sales, of course, though she forgot to mention that AWAM was never reviewed by any of the major outlets. My next novel with Amazon, Ship of Souls, did get reviewed by Booklist, who named it a Top Ten Sci-Fi/Fantasy Title for Youth in 2012. Did it successfully reach “my readers?” I suppose that depends on how you define “success.” I’ve found that when I dare to step outside the traditional publishing world, I find other “outsiders” who understand that publishing isn’t just about profit—it’s about power. I know how Black youth feel when they finally find a book in which they are the hero and they wield the magic that saves the day. Connecting “my readers” with my books can be a challenge, but self-publishing for me is an act of resistance in an ongoing battle to change the (mis)representation of Black youth.

Okay, I better hop on the train or I’ll miss all of Edwidge Danticat’s keynote address! You can find the entire program here. Only a few of my books will be available at the conference, but you can finally order your print copy of The Door at the Crossroads online.

spread love

Tomorrow I’m heading back to Massachusetts to participate in Clark University’s Youth Summit. There’s snow on the ground there right now, but I think we’re expecting rain by Thursday. This spring has been very unpredictable and as I noted yesterday, I’ve been all over the map, too! I don’t enjoy traveling but I love being in new places, and I’m really looking forward to meeting the diverse kids who live in Worcester, MA. I interviewed for an academic job there years ago and it felt very white, so I’m happy to hear the city’s kids come from many different communities. I’ve got a couple more train journeys coming up (Philly on the 16th and Baltimore next month) and I *just* checked the price of an airline ticket to Stockholm! I didn’t get into the residency in Denmark so I went online and searched for writing residencies near Birka, which is where the Viking woman wearing the Islamic ring was found. Turns out there’s a writers retreat ON the island of Birka and I’m hoping I can manage to spend a week there this summer.

Last week I wrote a guest post for a kid lit blog and felt really good about it once it was done. I also knew that it was probably too radical for that particular blog and sure enough, they took a pass. Binder friends gave me some great suggestions and the essay caught the attention of a Black women’s website, but when I didn’t hear back from them, I decided to post it on HuffPo. You can read “What’s LOVE Got to Do with It?” there, and here’s a little taste:

For me, self-publishing is a radical act of self-care because it redirects my energy away from a toxic engagement with those who are oblivious to the “urgencies” of my community (I am indebted to Robin Bernstein for this definition of obliviousness: “not merely an absence of knowledge, but an active state of repelling knowledge”). Self-publishing stops me from knocking on a door that will never open—or only open grudgingly.

Telling my own stories in my own way is also, for me, the ultimate act of self-love because it is an act of resistance. It is a rejection of the implicit messages editors send along with their “Thanks, but no thanks”: you’re not worthy, you’re not one of us, you have nothing meaningful or important to say.

All the files for The Door at the Crossroads have been submitted and I’m waiting on the second printed proof to make sure the cover fits properly. In the meantime, the e-book is available in the Kindle store. My Viking novel will NOT be 400 pages—I promise!

My latest newsletter went out yesterday. You can find it here.