Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 40

counting my blessings

I can’t seem to get a visual image for this slideshow, but the link is still active. Every year I say I won’t do another slideshow and every year I do…because it’s a useful exercise to sift through your photos and remember all the people who supported you and the places you visited. I feel truly blessed and will strive to make 2016 another year of growth. Happy New Year!

This free slideshow created with Smilebox

how I feel today

This is how I feel today. It’s raining, the neighbor’s dog is whining pitifully, and I am fighting the urge to crawl back into bed. But then I heard someone (my better self?) say, “Your voice is needed now.” So I will try to write today the essay I was planning to write next week. And I will let myself sound like a broken record because some words bear repeating over and over again. I look at Lucille Clifton’s words pinned to my bulletin board: “everyday/something has tried to kill me/and has failed.” Tamir is dead but we are still alive. We must testify. They kill one to cow a thousand of us into silence, but we will not comply.

check, check, & check!

I often complain about my neverending To Do list, but I’m happy to check ALL of these items off my winter break list! I’ve been binge-watching Vikings but took a break yesterday to walk around the botanic garden in the rain (#2). I don’t like this balmy weather but I do love waking up to a dark apartment and plugging in my pretty Xmas tree. Woke early but stayed in bed for an extra couple of hours this morning (#1), then went for a run in the park (#5), but first drank a cup of eggnog (check #7). I went to the library and got Re Jane (#3), which I meant to read earlier this year after hearing the author interviewed on WNYC; fortunately it came to my attention again when I found this great list of 10 Overlooked Novels by Women of Color in 2015. I fell asleep last night watching Scrooge (1951) so I’m watching it now—in stretchy pants and a t-shirt, which is almost like pajamas (#10). The goal today is to write, so that will satisfy #6. Or I could watch the Poldark marathon on PBS. A friend and I have decided to have a goal-setting session in the next few days, and Chani Nicholas provided some really helpful prompts on her website:

How do I want to feel about my work, relationships, body, spiritual life/relationship with myself?
What old paradigm do I want to outgrow?
What life affirming feeling do I want to grow into?
What bonds am I ready to free myself from?
What guilt, shame and self-doubt can I lay down?
What actions can I take to help my self esteem and quell my self-doubt?
What self-care practices can I give to myself considering the nature of my work?
How can I give that which I want to cultivate?
What do I need to become more sensitive to?
What might I need to have a thicker skin about?

It feels quite luxurious to have several days on the calendar with NOTHING penciled in, but I don’t want to waste the break by doing too much of  #11. It’s all about balance, right? Hope you’re enjoying the holidays!

fighting symbolic annihilation

Last February I flew to Austin, Texas to film a 10-minute segment on the importance of diversity in children’s literature. That talk for Blackademics TV aired on Austin PBS on November 15, 2015, and the video is now available on the KLRU website. You can watch the video here (my talk starts at 10:08). Some really great scholars participated in this program so be sure you check out their talks, too!

Blackademics TV

My talk for Blackademics TV aired in Austin on KLRU/PBS on November 15, 2015. You can watch the video here (my talk starts at 10:08)

my first bilingual book!

With the help of Oralia Garza de Cortes, Lucia M. Gonzalez, and my translator Vilma Álvarez-Steenwerth, I am almost ready to release a bilingual edition of Let the Faithful Come! And the Spanish edition of Max Loves Muñecas! should follow next week. I can’t speak or read Spanish, so I am very grateful for these Latina librarians/authors/scholars who so graciously shared their time and expertise with me. I’m working on 6 books right now and just applied for a residency in Miami, a conference here in Brooklyn, and I’m considering a trip to Antigua to conduct research on my memoir The Hummingbird’s Tongue. I made Xmas toffee last night and will start the more serious baking next week…the tree just needs a bit more tinsel…2016 is on its way!

holiday journey

When Kelly Starling Lyons asked me to write a guest post for The Brown Bookshelf, I figured I would write about Dayshaun’s Gift. But then weeks went by and Let the Faithful Come was published, so I decided to write about that book instead. I was listening to Pandora, as I often do when I’m writing, and “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey came on. Since I was writing about my evolving relationship to religion, I decided that would be a suitable title for the essay. I’m not a PK but I grew up in a large, devout Christian family, and the nativity story still thrills me even though I haven’t seen the inside of a church in quite a while…here’s a bit of what I wrote:

I don’t often talk about religion because it no longer plays such a big role in my life. My mother forced me to attend church every Sunday morning (“So long as you live under my roof…”), and I vowed I would never again go to church once I moved out of her house, which is pretty much how things worked out. Once in a while I accompanied my father to Brooklyn Tabernacle, but the megachurch experience wasn’t for me and mostly I just hoped he would take me to Junior’s for lunch once church let out. I still pray every morning and night, and at funerals can usually remember the hymns I sang as a child. But at 43, I find that many of my friends are atheists or prefer to think of themselves as “spiritual” rather than “religious” (according to the Pew Research Center, nearly a quarter of adults in the US identify as “nones” – a term for people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, or who say their religion is “nothing in particular”). I do have some friends who identify as Christian but they tend to be radical social justice activists and are nothing like those conservatives who think their time and energy is best spent complaining about the design of a coffee cup.

I hope you’ll take a moment to read the entire essay. We’re almost ready to publish the bilingual English/Spanish edition and I’m hoping this book will be a welcome gift for children who feel less than welcome in this country. If you’d like to support refugee kids, you can donate to REFORMA’s Children in Crisis project here.

write/read/teach LOCAL

With the holidays fast approaching, I’m seeing the occasional meme on Facebook urging shoppers to support artisans and small business owners instead of patronizing big-box chain stores. Books are a great gift if you have readers in your life, and I would encourage shoppers to “buy local” when it comes to literature as well. I often say that I’m all about “artisanal pickles”–I want to operate on a small scale and realize that means my books will only reach a local market. But that’s ok with me! I was in a chocolate shop last week and saw they had a whole section for chocolate produced here in Brooklyn. Those bars were pricey but at least you know you’re supporting local creators. I wish bookstores would have a comparable section for local indie authors. Today I got a nice email from a 3rd grade teacher I met last year; he has a classroom library and I’m proud to say that my books have their own bin! The kids are completing a unit on book reviews and apparently one student is stuck on a particular book of mine:

“Your books are very popular! I’ll be sure to share ___’s review of Max Loves Muñecas when he finishes. He borrowed the book the first week of school and has been re-reading it over and over again ever since.”

Sometimes I look at my first self-published kids books and cringe; I wish I’d known then what I know now, but I wasn’t confident when it came to art direction and let slide some things that really should have been fixed. But you know what? It doesn’t matter because at least one boy has found value in one of those books. I had Max Loves Muñecas translated into Spanish last summer and will try to get that edition out by the end of the year. Last Xmas I rushed to have copies of An Angel for Mariqua for the family holiday party at Rikers Island; this year I hope to send bilingual and Spanish language books to the children from Central America who are shamefully still in detention here in the US. Billie’s Blues is almost ready to go to print and I’m hoping to have the bilingual English/Spanish edition of Let the Faithful Come ready by the end of the month, too. None of my books is perfect, but perfection isn’t my goal. I’m trying to produce books that resonate with the kids in my community. Last week I presented before 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at The Weeksville School and the kids were positively buzzing with excitement when my talk ended and they came up to the stage to see my 18 books. I’m at 18 now! And will hit 20 before the new year begins. Last week I received a set of touching letters from the adjudicated boys I met in AR. So many said Ship of Souls was the first book they ever finished reading, and a few said they identified with D since they’re foster kids, too. I was really struck by how many asked about D’s absent father—at least one boy urged me to give D “someone to lean on.” I NEVER regret self-publishing—never—because my stories wouldn’t be out in the world if I hadn’t taken a deep breath and blown those seeds into the wind…

KidsLIVE at the NYPL

Join us tomorrow at the Columbus branch of the NYPL for KidsLIVE! The event is listed for kids 5 and up but since I’m discussing Bird and Ship of Souls, it really should be 8 and up. You can get a preview over at the NYPL blog. Hope to see you tomorrow!

give books for the holidays!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ninth Annual Children’s Book Fair

November 14, 2015

12:00–4:00 p.m.

Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion, 1st Floor

Join us for our annual Children’s Book Fair featuring your favorite Brooklyn authors and illustrators. This free event includes storybooks, picture books, graphic novels, and original hands-on art activities for all ages.

Readings and drawing with the illustrators in the Rubin Pavilion:

12:30 p.m. Julia Sarcone-Roach, author and illustrator: The Bear Ate Your Sandwich

1 p.m. Tad Hills, author and illustrator: Duck & Goose Colors

1:30 p.m. Abby Hanlon, author and illustrator: Dory and the Real True Friend

2:30 p.m. Scott Menchin, author: Grandma in Blue with Red Hat

3 p.m. Aaron Meshon, author and illustrator: Tools Rule

3:30 p.m. Michael Hearst, author (Young Adult): Extraordinary People

Other participating authors and illustrators:

Selina Alko, Artie Bennett, Sophie Blackall, Carin Bramsen, Peter Brown, Lauren Castillo, Mike Curato, Laura Lyn DiSiena, Zetta Elliott, Brian Floca, Gilbert Ford, Melanie Hope Greenberg, Meredith Hamilton,  John & Wendy, Nancy Krulik, Laura Ljungkvist, Yona McDonough, Christopher Silas Neal, George O’Connor, Kris Poluchowicz, Sean Qualls, Sergio Ruzzier, Daniel Salmieri, Louella San Juan, David Ezra Stein, Julie Sternberg, Naoko Stoop, Heather Swain, Dasha Tolstikova, Lesley Ware, Hyewon Yum