Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 60

Boxing Day Deal!

In Canada, the day after Xmas is when stores hold their biggest sales. We don’t observe Boxing Day here in the US, but Amazon is holding a sale on children’s and YA literature. A Wish After Midnight is one of the featured titles and the e-book is only $1 from now until January 31st! And the e-book of The Deep is 99 cents, too. If you’re looking for a great holiday read, now’s the time to stuff your stocking with e-books…

a long walk

Yesterday I turned in my last set of grades, handed out Xmas cookies to some people in my building, and then rushed downtown to see Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. When Nelson Mandela passed away last month, I immediately thought of my Irish-Canadian grandfather and the way he used to save his copies of Maclean’s Magazine so that I could clip out articles for a school project on apartheid. High school wasn’t a happy time for me, but my senior year was memorable in part because I became “the” authority on apartheid in my mighty-white school. Like many “Black weirdos,” I had people in my family who felt I wasn’t “Black enough” and so did their best to undermine my self-esteem. I loved New Edition and Michael Jackson but I wasn’t into rap (unless you include The Beastie Boys) and I also listened to Duran Duran, Simply Red, and Depeche Mode. Occasionally my white peers would ask me about a rap group I’d never heard of, but mostly they accepted that I was just an “expert” on MLK and Mandela. I didn’t always attend school dances but when I did, the song most likely to get me out on the floor was “Sing Our Own Song” by UB40. The reggae song ends with a chant of “Amandla! Awethu!” My investment in the fight to free Mandela was, in a way, my only legitimate claim to Blackness—or so I thought.

As I left the theater yesterday, I realized that I stopped following Mandela’s journey after I graduated from high school. I don’t remember writing anything about South Africa in college, but I do recall writing a long op-ed for the campus paper about my disenchantment with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The college I chose to attend was even less diverse than my high school, and I knew I’d made a mistake almost as soon as I arrived. But I graduated with a determination to change course and a year later I was living in the US, taking classes in Black Studies at Brooklyn College. I volunteered with a youth collective and started tutoring kids in an after-school program in Fort Greene. I started paying closer attention to the tales my maternal grandmother used to share about our “Negro ancestors.” I realized that the door I’d been searching for—the elusive portal that would admit me to the world of Blackness—was for those with a commitment to social justice. It wasn’t about the music I liked or the clothes that I wore. I went natural that year and stopped perming my hair, but even that wasn’t as important as my growing awareness of the global struggle for Black liberation. And I realized yesterday that that was what Mandela did for me—the fight to end his imprisonment gave me a way to connect with something so much larger than myself and my sad little world where relatives teased me for having “cow lips” and “a white heart.” There’s no way to measure the impact Mandela had on the world, but I’m so, so grateful that his rise to power coincided with the start of my own search for a sense of purpose and belonging.

braveheart

Ed Spicer posted an article on my Facebook page earlier this week; the author encourages her fellow writers to “come clean” about the often unseen privileges that make their writing life possible. Well, it’s not easy being a black feminist writer but I do enjoy certain privileges that make it possible for me to put my work out into the world. I just finished watching Miss Potter (for the third time, I think); yesterday I went to see The Hobbit and after each film I had time to sit and reflect on what I’d just seen. All of that is possible because I’m a tenure-track professor. I complain a lot about my job but I do also thank the universe at least twice a day for giving me this life. I’m still marking papers—two sets of grades have been submitted and I am determined to submit the last set tonight. But when I’m slogging through student essays I often reward myself with favorite films and/or food. I’ve eaten a WHOLE lot of chocolate this week and will be very glad when all my Xmas cookies are delivered to their rightful recipients so I can stop popping one in my mouth every 3 hours. I eat a lot when I’m stressed out and December has been a pretty stressful month. Yet when Edith Campbell asked me to write a short essay about courage, I immediately knew what I wanted to say. She’s running a series about courage on her blog and my guest post is up today. Here’s some of what I had to say:

Self-publishing does take courage—a recent opinion piece in The New York Times gave this wry definition of self-published authors: “Treated as Crazy Ranting People: either ignored or pitied by the general public until they do something that is brilliant or threatening.” Independent authors are often treated as pariahs—our books aren’t reviewed by the traditional outlets, won’t be considered for any major awards, and most bookstores won’t stock our titles. Publishers often look at indie authors as “tainted” and no longer viable, though there are exceptions to this rule.

The truth is, even people of color who KNOW the publishing game is rigged will look askance at a self-published book. To some Black writers (and readers), self-publishing is gutless, the most shameless surrender. “Just be patient,” they’ll say after you’ve faced a decade of disappointment. “Try harder!” they’ll exhort, as if the publishing industry were an actual meritocracy. Others assume there must be something lacking in your work but won’t read your book in order to dismiss or confirm that assumption. 

So why self-publish? I explain my motivation in the acknowledgments section of THE DEEP:

I felt sure that there was a teenage girl somewhere in the world who needed this book yesterday. I never found anything like The Deep when I was scouring the shelves of my public library as a teenager, but it’s a story that might have changed my world—or at least my perception of myself. Black girls don’t often get to see themselves having magical powers and leading others on fabulous adventures.

G. Neri was Edi’s first guest. Be sure you follow her blog for the rest of this month to see what other authors have to say!

 

Plunge into THE DEEP for 99¢!

From now until Xmas you can get the Kindle edition of THE DEEP for 99 cents! I hope you’ll also consider giving a copy of the paperback to the teens in your life. I received this heartwarming letter from a 6th-grade student whose school I visited last week:

“Dear Ms. Elliott, I went to your presentation. It was fun. I like the idea of your book and I can’t tell you how much happiness I felt when I found out your characters are African American. After the presentation me and my friend kept talking about getting your books. A segestion: Bring more copyies of your books to sell because I would have bought it. Please come back next time.” Sincerly, Asante

I just learned that A Wish After Midnight is part of the 12 Days of Christmas promotion on Amazon.co.uk. So if you’re across the pond, you can get the e-book for £0.99! It’s also on sale in Germany for EUR 0,99!

Give books for the holidays!

 

“Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, 2″

Black feminists have a range of opinions (just ask one about Beyonce), and so it’s always invigorating to share ideas on the topics that matter most to me. Bitch Magazine‘s blog recently published a conversation I had with writer Ibi Zoboi about race and representation in The Hunger Games and YA speculative fiction. Our 45-minute talk amounted to over 5000 words and we had to reduce that to under 2000 words for the blog. We’ve decided to post the rest of our discussion here, and the full podcast will be available on the Bitch Magazine website in 2014.

Part II

IBI:       My first contact with speculative fiction was the stories I would hear my family tell. They happened in Haiti—political stories intermingled with loogaroo stories, which is like a vampire-type figure in Haitian folklore. There was always a sense of magic and darkness and fear in those stories. There was always somebody who didn’t come home and it was usually associated with the tonton macoute (a bogeyman with a sack), or a loogaroo who came to get somebody’s child. I had two mystical, folkloric figures woven into these political stories about family and friends, so that line between what was real and what was not was never clear.

ZETTA: In my childhood, that line between fantasy and reality was very clear because I was reading British novels in Canada—C.S. Lewis and Frances Hodgson Burnett, which isn’t exactly fantasy. But her work featured these wealthy, white children living on the moors in England and was so far removed from my reality. And because those books didn’t serve as a mirror, fantasy was very much something that happened to other people. I didn’t really imagine magical, wonderful things happening to me because everything that I read said it only happened to kids of a certain color or a certain class. In terms of gender, at least girls were having adventures, too, so that was a good thing.

You and I are both writers and we’re obviously trying to generate our own stories. Is there a way for us to make an intervention in the field of YA fantasy? How do our stories reach our kids?

IBI:       I’m seeing it play out on the institutional level. I have children in a diverse school and I see it played out on a very small scale. Not necessarily with the students, but with the parents. When it comes to decision making—like having an author come into the school—they’ll say, “We don’t know of any authors of color. Can you help us?” They have the luxury of not thinking about anything that exists outside of their own—

ZETTA: Bubble, essentially.

IBI:       Yes. We cannot do that. If we do, it’s to our own detriment.  In order for my children to be successful, they need what Melissa Harris-Parry calls “proximity to whiteness.” Which is one of the reasons I’m going to grad school—

ZETTA: In Vermont!

IBI:      In Vermont! It’s not a conscious decision to be closer to whiteness, but I realize there are some skills that I may need to know.

ZETTA: And social connections.

IBI:       It is about social connections. I’ve learned a lot. I’m going to school with editors. I can say, “Hey, what’s going on with this diversity thing?” And get an honest answer. “As your classmate, tell me what’s going on. Tell me the truth.” And I don’t think I’d have those kinds of relationships if I weren’t in grad school in Vermont.

ZETTA: They’re lucky to have you, which brings me back to Tina Kugler’s illustration. That little white girl perched atop that stack of 93 books—it’s harmful to her because white children grow up thinking they’re the center of the universe. And that then makes it very hard for them to communicate cross-culturally because they haven’t had to have that experience, just as you were saying.

IBI:       Very true. My daughter likes fantasy. She’s doing a report on Nnedi Okorafor’s Zahrah the Windseeker.  She likes that book. To her it seems like there’s more diversity because of what I intentionally put in place around her.

ZETTA: You surround your kids with multicultural books.

IBI:       So she doesn’t see a dearth because on our bookshelf there is abundance. I buy books that feature girls and boys of color. Already I set that foundation and they see me writing about kids of color. In terms of what we can do, I think it has to start at the ground level. I see it in the classroom. The teachers don’t know what books are out there. And if the teachers don’t know, the kids don’t know, their parents don’t know.

ZETTA: Librarians, too.

IBI:       And on the other end of that, when I ask agents what’s going on they say, “We’re just not getting any submissions.” There’s a huge disconnect, and I wonder who is out there—besides the people we know—who else is trying to write?

ZETTA: That’s one of the reasons I chose to self-publish my latest novel. If we don’t take that route, if we’re afraid to self-publish, then what happens to all those other authors out there who haven’t had a book published but are desperate to see their work in a child’s hands? When I walk into a classroom as a black feminist writer, I know that I embody possibility. Kids looks at me and say “Wow—she’s one of us.” Or they come up to me and say, “You look like my cousin.” Or, “I have asthma, too!” They connect in a lot of ways.

So I feel like it’s important to me as an author who did the traditional route and the nontraditional route, to say, “You know what? I’m not waiting on the system any more because the game is rigged.” And I do encourage people to consider all their options: go the traditional route, wait and see if that works for you. But after ten years of waiting to get a book into print…I was done. I go into schools and I meet kids who need these books yesterday. They can’t wait another 3, 5, or 10 years. And there’s a long, black feminist tradition of self-publishing—Kitchen Table Press—all those scholars and writers and artists who didn’t want to have to wait.

IBI:       I address that in my thesis. The Black Arts Movement started with writers self-publishing. I’m thinking on the other end, too, where I kind of want to call the gatekeepers to task. Not to say they have to do something—

ZETTA: They do!

IBI:       Ok. They do, but at the same time there’s a lot of talk about diversity. When I do become serious about sending my work out, I want to document my process. “Ok, you say there needs to be diversity. Well, here I am. I just graduated—”

ZETTA: From a prestigious MFA program.

IBI:     I’ve worked with some of the best people in the field and I’m submitting to publishers. Let’s see what happens.

ZETTA: I think there needs to be greater transparency.

IBI:      I would want to have my process open to other aspiring authors. Because I don’t know what other people are going through. I’m one of two black women in my program and I’m getting an idea of what the different processes are. I’ll say, “Nobody gets six-figure advances any more.” And my white classmate will say, “ Uh, I did.” And I see that it’s possible.

ZETTA: It’s happening for some people.

IBI:     Then I’ll talk to my black author friends and it’s a different story.

ZETTA: I think when we talk about what’s happening in our professional lives, that also can lead to greater accountability within the industry. Because there are all kinds of editors who pay lip service and say how desperately they want fantasy and speculative fiction from writers of color. Yet when I submit to them, I’ve been told my work is “unoriginal.” They make excuses. And I just think, when you have an advanced degree and you’ve won awards and you’ve gotten grants and you’ve published before—what really is stopping you from publishing in this market? And I have to say, I think it’s racism.  And nobody really wants to talk about that. We need greater transparency and greater accountability: “I sent it to Agent X and she rejected it. Has Agent X taken on any writers of color?” For me, self-publishing is going to become more and more important. I’m open to publishing the traditional way, but I just have so much material and the demand in our community is so great, I don’t know that I have time to wait for the progress that may be on its way.

IBI:       I don’t know. I want to see what lies ahead in terms of holding people accountable. I know from my program at VCFA there’s an agent who donated $5000 per year as a scholarship to have more diverse students come in. And that’s great, however—

ZETTA: However, you are already in the program. And once you graduate, are you going to get that six-figure deal? Are you going to have that contract? Are there going to be editors saying, “Ibi Zoboi! She’s won awards and grants, she’s traveled the world. Let’s see what she’s got.” You have how many manuscripts at this point?

IBI:       Just three. A lot of people pay lip service to this idea of diversity. But I’m looking for that next author who is acclaimed, who’s winning awards, who’s got that much notoriety. In the UK, Malorie Blackman—

ZETTA: Who is the children’s literature laureate right now.

IBI:      Right. She is the highest-paid Black entertainer in England. She’s the most highly respected.

ZETTA: And yet we have Walter Dean Myers. He’s the children’s laureate right now for the US. I feel like that’s part of the same system we have here in the US where we can have a black president and that increases diversity, but it doesn’t increase equity. What I’m looking for is for more people to have an equal opportunity. And the way the publishing industry is structured right now, that’s not going to happen.

IBI:      I’m way more optimistic than you are. I see it happening with the new Common Core standards. Parents are speaking out, teachers are speaking out.

ZETTA: It’s going to take that kind of collective pressure because it can’t just be three authors of color who couldn’t place a manuscript saying, “There’s a problem with the publishing industry.” It’s going to take parents and teachers and librarians and kids saying, “This is what we want. We’re asking you, as an industry, to provide us with something we’re willing to consume.” I don’t understand how publishers can be walking away from that much money. Every other corporation is going after the Latino market and the Asian market and the African American market, and publishing just seems to be saying, “We really just don’t care. We have a guaranteed market with white readers and that’s what we’re going to go for—and we’re going to assume that white readers don’t want to read about people of color.”

I do think it matters that we have narratives where girls are empowered and are leaders. I just taught After Earth, and I often think about Will and Jada Smith with their production company Overbrook. They decided to create projects that serve not only as vehicles for their kids’ talent, but that also produce the images we know are missing from society. I can just imagine what it means to Black boys to look up at the screen and see Jaden Smith in a spacesuit with two gigantic swords, vanquishing the alien. When have we ever seen a Black girl doing that?

IBI:       That would take a movement. I think both the film industry and the publishing industry need to realize there is demand. I am a fan of Madea.

ZETTA: Oh no!

IBI:       But it doesn’t have to be dumbed down in that way. You see how Divergent is coming to the big screen. The Mortal Instruments.

ZETTA: Beautiful Creatures was just on HBO the other day.

IBI:      When is there going to be a girl of color in the lead role? We need a movement where a book becomes a movie and the whole country rallies around it.

ZETTA: But After Earth didn’t do well commercially. Are we going to be able to find an audience for that Black girl film? I don’t understand how young white kids can consume hip hop and watch Will Smith’s movies generally, but movies that are empowering to our kids don’t seem to get their support. When I think about those teenagers complaining about Rue or Beetee being played by Black actors, I have to wonder if white America—including the younger generations—is ready for a Black heroine.

IBI:      It has to come from the bottom up. Like with hip hop. None of the artists was getting rich but they were ’hood rich. No one was thinking how to sell it to white suburban kids.

ZETTA: Big Hollywood studios are not the way to go, then, because they’re going to want that guaranteed profit.

IBI:       For me, if I’m writing fantasy, I want to write about that Black Haitian girl from the ’hood in Brooklyn and really focus on my audience in Flatbush.       And it’s what you’re doing, too. You’re focused on your immediate community. It’s what nonprofits call, “Local impact, global change.” Somehow there’s a ripple effect when your work is true, and honest, and really comes from the heart of a people. I didn’t see After Earth, so I don’t know how much it would resonate with the kid in Brooklyn who goes to the basketball court.

ZETTA: Your son would love it!

IBI:       But there’s another element. I don’t know how to vocalize what I think. It has to capture the essence of what Black kids are going through today.

ZETTA: But that goes back to Rudine Sims Bishop’s idea about mirrors and windows. There are moments when a kid wants to open a book or go see a film and find a mirror—to see his or her community, and self, and family represented. I’ve gone into a special education classroom and seen Black and Latino kids reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. Fantastic book, but the cover has an old white man who looks like Santa Claus. And I just thought, “You can’t give that book to reluctant readers!” Then the teacher gave them my picture book Bird and they said, ‘That’s my world—brownstones! The park! He’s in Harlem on 125th!” They totally recognized the world of the book. But you also want them eventually to pick up a book like The Giver and say, “This isn’t a mirror, it isn’t showing me my world. But I’m looking into another world and I can find a place for myself there.”

IBI:     They have to be side by side. They need to see both options to make those literary connections.

ZETTA: We have a lot of work to do.

IBI:      There’s a lot of work to do, and I’m glad people are already out there doing the work. I’m so thankful for Melissa Harris-Parry!

ZETTA: She making space for Black women’s voices to be heard.

IBI:       I need our girls to know you can speak up for yourself and learn to think about the media critically.

Give books for the holidays!

I have a new essay up on The Huffington Post: “5 Things You Can Do to Promote Literacy over the Holidays.” I notice their editing team made some small changes but the message is clear—GIVE BOOKS! Here are a couple of suggested actions:

1. Give books as gifts!

All children need books that can serve as “mirrors and windows.” Books that reflect a child’s identity can boost self-esteem, and books about people who are different can teach a child to respect diversity. If your local bookstore doesn’t have what you want, ask them to order titles for you so they know there is demand for diverse books. You can also find dozens of multicultural titles at The Birthday Party Pledge.

2. Make room in your home for books.

Books are valuable, and should be treated with care. Assembling and decorating a bookcase can be a fun family activity. Whether your shelves are made of wood or milk crates, creating a place to grow your home library ensures that books will be treated with the respect they deserve. A bookcase also signals to visitors that books are a welcome gift in your home!

We’re also in the middle of updating the BPP site, so stay tuned for more great ideas and activities. Last night I was honored to attend the birthday celebration of Summit Academy Charter School. The student winners of their readathon were honored and the school presented the Red Hook library staff with a check for $1000! The library was closed after sustaining damage from Superstorm Sandy, and the students wanted to show their support. Heart-warming! As was the young man who came up right after my presentation and asked for a copy of Ship of Souls. Black and brown boys DO read. When I left the Crispus Attucks school yesterday morning, a 5th-grade student was reciting my summary of The Deep to the rest of his classmates. The librarian there sent me off with swag: a t-shirt, pen, and cap! More love…

It’s snowing this morning. I have a 9am school visit and my first final exam is scheduled for this afternoon. No cancellations!

where is the love?

It’s the end of the semester and that means students are starting to panic. I have the usual knot of dread in my belly as I wait for a student to dissolve in tears or explode in a fit of rage over something for which s/he refuses to take responsibility. Yesterday an enraged student took a shotgun to a school in Colorado and shot a female student when the teacher he planned to kill wisely left the building. I’ve visited three middle schools so far this month and I have four more visits next week. At first I worried I wouldn’t have enough energy to interact with kids after grading mountains of essays and journals and reports and portfolios. But yesterday I realized that public schools are sites of love for me. I often say that teaching is like parenting in my mind: it’s a one-way street. Teaching can be rewarding, but many students treat their professors like their own personal valet. You’re there to serve and in the mind of many students and college administrators, the customer is always right. Tressie McMillan Cottom writes,

But hurt feelings can be bad for business. And a lot of powerful people think colleges should act more like businesses. When they do, students act more like customers…If I want to piss off the majority of higher education’s customers, then defying the natural superiority of men by being a female authority figure…would seem like a good way to go…

Teaching what people would rather not learn is especially tough if you are a woman or a minority professor. Research shows that our customers rate Asian-American, Hispanic, black, and women professors lower than white male professors across all subjects. Most disturbingly, student evaluations of women of color are harshest when customers are told that the results will be “communicated to a third party for the purposes of evaluation.” Our customers are not only disinclined to like tough subjects; they’re also inclined to take their discomfort out on minority professors, who are the least likely to have the protection of tenure or support from university administration.

Now, I teach Ethnic Studies to students who are Black and Latino. When I do have white students in my classroom, they’re usually there because they have a progressive attitude toward race. I don’t generally get any push back from my white students. But I do consistently have black male students who don’t feel they have to respect black women. And when I go into a middle school here in Brooklyn, I do wonder how long it will take for some of the sweet boys I meet to turn. They often approach me after my presentation has ended and they’re full of praise (“You’re a really good reader!”) and quiet revelations (“I’m working on a novel, too”). Yesterday I spent close to two hours at a school in Bushwick and from the moment I arrived, I was warmly welcomed and embraced. I don’t think of myself as an egomaniac, and not all schools put up signs and displays with my photo and book covers. But there is LOVE in those libraries and classrooms and auditoriums. It’s palpable. And maybe that’s why I’d rather be an aunty than a mom—I get all the adoration with none of the drudgery. I don’t feel taken for granted as an author. And even when kids are buying my books, they act like *I* am giving them a gift. And as I prepare to leave, the host teacher or librarian will almost always say, “The kids are going to remember this forever.” With my college students, I’m often left wondering if I’m even making a dent—if they even care about the work we do together in class. It’s not a nice feeling. But the semester is almost over and I at least have the assurance of knowing I did all I could to help them learn. I’m just going to keep soaking up the love I get from these middle schools. And once all the grading is done and my students’ demands/complaints have stopped, I will go back to doing what it is I do best: write.

Sankofa!

I had another amazing school visit on Monday and as I munched on gingerbread men in the librarian’s office afterward, I realized how out of sorts I’ve been as of late. I don’t think it’s still grief—it definitely could be stress—but Christmas is my favorite time of year and I’m usually feeling very festive in December. I spent today grading and the dogs in neighboring apartments were barking and then my other neighbor decided to fry fish…my mood became *really* foul and so I ventured out into the snow. There isn’t much left, of course, but I decided to head to the grocery store so I could buy ingredients for Christmas cookies. I only bake once a year and that always gets me in the Xmas spirit. When I got back home there were two packages crammed into my little mailbox and one turned out to be my issue of Sankofa! I’m very grateful to the editor, Meena Khorana, for including my essay in this issue. We met last fall at the second A Is for Anansi conference at NYU and she immediately expressed interest in my work. Two other editors had rejected this essay on Black Canadian children’s literature, so I’m glad it finally found the right home. Tomorrow my conversation with Ibi Zoboi will be published and I think my Jeunesse essay should be out soon…I wish I felt something other than relief! ‘Tis the season for joy—and gratitude. Let’s see if I can whip some up in the kitchen…

precious moments

I don’t do many school visits in the fall but this month I have quite a few lined up and today was my first. I returned from Toronto early Sunday morning and worried I might be too emotionally wound up to face this full week. But my aunt’s funeral on Saturday truly was a celebration of her life—complete with tambourines for the mourners!—and my short trip was full of love and laughter (and food). I came back to Brooklyn feeling tired but truly blessed to be part of such a loving family.

Today I spent the entire day at Brooklyn Prospect Charter School and was so impressed with the school, the staff, and the students. It’s definitely one of the MOST diverse schools I’ve ever visited and the building itself seemed to have a different kind of energy. Before each presentation the Humanities teacher, Ms. Beerman, asked for a student volunteer to lead the class in a simple breathing exercise—they opened their hands, took a deep breath, exhaled, and prepared to be strong communicators! Despite getting off to a rocky start (I said the US had 52 states) I soon felt at home with the 7th-grade students and truly enjoyed hearing about their historical fiction projects. I presented before 4 classes and led more intimate writing workshops with 3 small groups. Here are the day’s highlights:

During my second writing workshop, the black girl next to me saw my copy of Bird and said, “Oh! I read that book over and over at my aunt’s house. She writes for kids, too.” Me: “Really? What’s her name?” Her: “ Jacqueline Woodson .”
During the Q&A at the end of one of my presentations, a young man kept asking about Ship of Souls . Him: “But is D ever in mortal danger?” Me: “Are you sure you want me to answer that?” Teacher: “You can get the book at the library.” Him: “OUR library?” The period ended and within TWO MINUTES that boy was back in the classroom with the library’s copy of Ship of Souls. Him: “The librarian wants to know if you’ll sign this book before I check it out.”
I had a chance to play the trailer for The Deep and had to smile as the kids immediately recognized Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and started bobbing their heads and tapping their pencils to the beat.
On my way out I asked the friendly security guard how to find the F train and she walked me out to the street to give me directions. A tall, tenth-grade student overheard us and said, “I can take her to the train.” And so we walked there together and she told me about the books she liked and how her teacher took them to see The Hunger Games after they read the novel in class. Before parting ways I handed her one of my postcards and told her to check out some of my books. “You mean you wrote these?” she asked, clearly surprised. Fingers crossed she also makes a beeline for the library…

And now—back to grading…

Buy Books on Cyber Monday!

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my third novel

for young adults. THE DEEP is a companion book to

SHIP OF SOULS and reunites readers with D, Nyla, and Keem.

It’s the summer of 2011 and the new school year looks

promising: Nyla’s falling in love with strong, sensitive Keem

and she’s one of the few Black students to be accepted into

elite Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. But Nyla

can’t ignore the strange visions she’s been having, and when

a man named Osiris promises to reunite Nyla with the mother

who abandoned her at the age of four, Nyla follows him into the

deep—a dangerous realm miles beneath Brooklyn where

members of a secret league fight to keep evil from reaching

the earth’s surface.

You can watch a trailer for THE DEEP here.

Read my essay on Black “geeks & freaks” in YA literature at