Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 83

books beyond black & white

Compiling a good book list is *hard* work—but once they're ready (they're rarely ever "done"), they become an invaluable resource. A few weeks ago I met Malaika Rose Stanley through Wendy Meddour on Facebook; Malaika was putting together a list of PB, MG, and YA books that feature mixed-race protagonists and I asked my "team" to help out. Thanks, ladies—but get ready: it's almost time to put together the 2011 list of African American MG/YA novels, and once again I'll be tapping Ari, Edi, and Doret to help me out. But this weekend, I'll be grading…

Here are some of the lists we've worked on in the past:

African American Speculative Fiction for Kids
African Canadian Children's Literature (2000-2011)
African American MG/YA Novels 2010

Brooklyn Museum Children's Book Fair 2011

Children's Book Fair

Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 12–4 p.m.

Image from Every-Day Dress-Up, by Selina Alko

Over 30 Brooklyn authors and illustrators will join us at this year's book fair, featuring story books, picture books, and graphic novels. Come enjoy author readings, a game for children, and café service.

Participating authors and illustrators

Selina Alko, Ellen Bari, Artie Bennett, Cathleen Davitt Bell, Peter Brown, Melanie Hope Greenberg, Lisa Greenwald, Laura Lee Gulledge, Mike Herrod, Isabel

T. Hill, Tad Hills, Kate Hosford, Melissa Iwai, John & Wendy, Nancy Krulik,  Laura Ljungkvist, G. Augustine Lynas & Peter Vadnai, Meghan McCarthy, Torrey

Maldonado, Leslie Margolis, Matthew Myers, Johan Olander, Sean Qualls, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Fiona Robinson, John Rocco, Sergio

Ruzzier, Daniel Salmieri, Stephen A.Savage, Diana Schoenbrun, Steve Sheinkin, David Ezra Stein, Julie Sternberg, Colleen A.F. Venable, Dwight Jon Zimmerman

magic in the 'hood

Every time I see that Macy's commercial I find myself singing along with their version of Olivia Newton John's "Magic," which I believe is from the film Xanadu. If YOU believe in magic, check out The Rejectionist's fabulous series on women writers of speculative fiction. So far she's featured Ibi Zoboi, Andrea Hairston, Hiromi Goto, and Kat Howard. You should also swing by Vanessa Irvin Morris' blog to read her take on the merging of speculative fiction and street literature. A Wish After Midnight is included in her list of sci-fi/fantasy narratives set in the 'hood…

My cousin just left and I'm very sorry to have sent her back to Canada with my cold, but it was great fun hanging out with her for the past couple of days. We had two sunny days to roam around the city—we walked the High Line on Friday followed by a sumptuous tea at Podunk in the East Village. We ordered "la bonne femme," which came in two courses and required two tables—a pot of oolong tea with scones & clotted cream, paper thin cucumber sandwiches, cheese biscuits, savory pies, biscotti, sweetbread, cookies, more scones—we brought about half the treats home! I highly recommend Podunk, but go knowing that there's no bathroom and it's cash only. The owner's lovely…I then needed a nap so we headed home and later spent hours comparing teaching experiences (we both teach at community colleges), health issues, family histories/memories, and our respective research projects. I'm a silent, solitary introvert but having my cousin come to town is *good* for me because there's no way to disappoint her. Like all of my close friends, she accepts me however I am on any given day…

The next morning we started out in the garden, then walked over to the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza; Beth bought lavender sachets, sugar cookies for her niece and nephew, and focaccia bread for her husband; I bought my favorite triangular shortbread cookie (hamantaschen) and Bethany explained it's origins in the Jewish holiday of Purim. We then went up to the Upper East Side and stopped for a hot dog and pretzel outside the Guggenheim; the sparrows there will practically eat out of your hand! We shared a few crumbs and then went to see the Ezra Jack Keats exhibit at The Jewish Museum; photography's not allowed but I only found that out after snapping this shot of a life-size stoop where you could plunk down and read Keats' many books. The art was beautiful—such buoyant colors! We left feeling more confident about our own stories and our own ability to add beauty to the world. We talked about the struggle to find time to make art as we strolled through Central Park, then caught the train back to Brooklyn, shopped downtown for a while, and finished up with Thai food in Ft. Greene. Despite having a sore, red nose and the occasional coughing fit, my cousin managed to snap a hundred photographs of me while we were in the botanic garden, which means I finally have a new head shot. Three or four, actually. New website, new head shots—last week I had a conference call with the marketing team. Ship of Souls is one step closer to our February 28 launch date…

big sweepstakes at School Library Journal!

Head over to SLJ now and enter to win one of 15 prize packs of AmazonEncore YA and MG titles, including A Wish After Midnight! The grand prize winner gets all 15 books AND a new Kindle Fire. What are you waiting for?!

In other news, you can now pre-order your copy of Ship of Souls!

Dear Author

We still don't have a cover for Ship of Souls, which is frustrating, but I just went through the line edits and really appreciated how thorough yet practical "Emily" was. Here are some of the remarks from her editorial letter, which was only a page and a half:

Overview

This manuscript contains a lot of value within a relatively small number of pages. There are adventure, budding romance, history, and messages about religious and racial tolerance and healing, as well as true friendship. The only edits necessary were consistency of format or punctuation, which I have detailed below.

Structure/Plot Flow

The scope of this book is incredible. It not only informs readers about the history of the Revolutionary War but also about the African Burial Ground, and it ties in the tragedy at Ground Zero.

Characterization

The characters in this book are quite unique—real people, each with his or her complexities. The characters convey important messages in a way that readers understand: how teamwork and sticking together can change the outcome of a difficult situation, and that everyone wants respect, compassion, and friendship. The fact that D, Keem, and Nyla are young but capable of accomplishing so much is sure to be inspiring to readers.

You also introduce elements of everyone's home life that are not resolved when the book ends: Keem's strict father, Nyla's stepmother's gambling issues, and D's difficulty being himself with Mrs. Martin and the challenge of a new baby. This is true of real life, where problems and conflicts do not go away overnight, and it also suggests the possibility of a sequel.

I hope these edits and comments are valuable in helping the manuscript achieve your publishing goals. Good luck in your revision, and I wish you all the best for this manuscript and future books.

—Emily, Editor

Emily, you're my kind of editor…

the ethical professor

(l-r: J.E. Franklin, Rosamond King, Louise Meriwether, Angela Davis, Pamela Booker, Rashidah Ismaili, me)

On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Angela Davis; she was being filmed by OWWA (Organization of Women Writers of Africa) and that interview will be added to their collection at the Schomburg. We gathered at NYU at the Institute for African Affairs and Rashidah Ismaili started the interview by asking Dr. Davis to reflect on her childhood and the early influences in her life. We learned that both of her parents were school teachers and so Davis grew up in a home where she was encouraged to read and grow—she and all of her siblings left home as teens, with Dr. Davis going to New York for her last two years of high school. She moved in radical circles and learned from her family members not to talk to the FBI—a lesson that came in handy when she was later arrested as a fugitive. The remark that most stood out to me was Dr. Davis' assessment of her parents' vision for her; more than once she stressed the importance of the imagination and the need for young people to "not be too ensconced in the present." Dr. Davis' mother fought to secure an education for herself and then made sure her children understood that they had to prepare for a reality that didn't yet exist. The interview ended with a Q&A and Pam asked an intriguing question about the Buddhist principle of mindfulness: how do you stay present in each moment if you're constantly looking ahead? That's a big challenge for any creative writer because we spend so much of our time dreaming; as a writer of historical and speculative fiction, I'm often lost in the past or the future, and it can be difficult to stay on top of your responsibilities (like grading!) when you're trying to produce work that will hopefully create change. My question was related to an ongoing conversation I've been having with some friends on what it means to be an "ethical professor." One friend's college is considering merit pay, but if all faculty at the school are being underpaid, what does a two thousand dollar bonus for a handful of profs do to advance equity? Some friends teach two courses per semester and some teach three; right now I teach four, and others in the community college system teach five or six. That kind of teaching schedule doesn't leave a whole lot of time for activism! The academy is a conservative institution, so how can one be a radical and/or create change without being changed by the institution? Dr. Davis said she often heard academics who insisted they would do the work they really wanted to do just as soon as they got tenure—or just as soon as they got promoted—or just as soon as….and on it went. "What matters," she said, "is to do the work wherever you are." In other words, don't make excuses and don't let institutional constraints hold you back. Build community—that was her advice—build a network so that when things go awry, you've got people who will lift you up and support your work. Later at lunch I talked to the elder members of OWWA and told them about the challenge of teaching effectively with 38 students in the class. Yes, one professor can make an impact, but how much greater would that impact be if the students who most need quality instruction had a lower student to professor ratio? I'm often torn between wanting to do more for my students and wanting to get my own work done—that's been especially true this semester since my next book's in production and certain things need my attention. I wrote three sentences last weekend and wished I could disappear and immerse myself in that new project but I can't. Not until winter break. And maybe that will be my new writing schedule; maybe I'll only write short pieces that can be completed while I'm not teaching. Audre Lorde says poetry is the most "economical" art form because women can write it on the train, while doing laundry, while the kids are napping…maybe poetry and novellas are in my future. Today would be my day off but I've got a training at work so off I go. If I grade my last midterms on the train, I'll have a weekend FREE of grading!

splash!

Thanks to my good friend Shadra Strickland, I found a designer who was able to give me the splash page I've been wanting for months—you can check it out at www.zettaelliott.com. I decided on a splash page rather than a traditional website because I want to be able to control the content; I've got three blogs and a new book coming in March, and just wanted the splash page to direct people to the most accurate and up to date information on the web.

In other news, the BMCC Public Relations department did a great write-up of our recent trip to the African Burial Ground National Monument. The slideshow of photographs is fantastic, too. You can find the article and photos here. And if you haven't yet visited the monument, go NOW!

I had lunch with Angela Davis on Monday and need to write about that but a headache's been stalking me for days and I'm going to try to give it the slip by going to bed early. More later on Dr. Davis and my thoughts on being an "ethical professor"…

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lasting legacy

Do you ever wonder how you'll be remembered? I'm one step closer to forty (woo hoo! can't wait to be officially middle-aged) and yet fell out laughing when my aunt sent me this birthday email:

It does not seem like such a long time ago that you were born…I remember you as a little butter ball while I was waiting for Bethany to come along…and you have always held a special place in my heart.

When I'm sixty, there will still be people in my life who remember me as "butterball." It's a name that's stayed with me ever since I looked like this:

chillin' with cousin Bethany in the pool

too dazed to smile—and those cheeks were heavy!

It's hard to celebrate when your birthday falls in the middle of the work week, so I'm going to try to have some quiet fun over the weekend. There will be marionettes…

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blues woman

It's been that kind of month. Today there's rain, I can feel a migraine lingering around the edges of my eyes, and I turned two sets of papers back only to collect two more sets of midterm exams. In the midst of all this grading, I've also been working on revisions for my next novel. This time around, I was assigned an external editor and I *thought* the process was rather painless. But I just had some unpleasantness with my acquisitions editor, and that's got me thinking—again—about the role of an editor. Did you see that piece in The New York Times on how Amazon is transforming the publishing process? This is the quote I extracted to post on Facebook—it comes from an Amazon executive:

"The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader," he said. "Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity."

Hm. There's obviously something very appealing about that kind of direct connection between reader and writer. But I'm extremely grateful to have an agent, and it does still take a team of people to successfully launch a new book. I've worked with half a dozen editors at this point, and my last experience (writing a short story for an anthology on bullying) set the bar VERY high. It was my first time working with an editor who was a woman of color and I can't say whether or not that made the difference (though I suspect it did!)—what I know for sure is that she was clear about her ideas and expectations AND she respected my intelligence. She pushed me, but she also let me push back.

With Wish, I wasn't pushed. They took it "as is," and I felt proud to offer readers "organic writing." Not perfect, but genuinely my work. I guess some people find it odd that I'd be willing to offer imperfect writing to the world—arrogant, even. Personally, I find it odd (arrogant, even) that anyone would expect me to change my work "just because" an alternative was suggested. Or because someone was paid to look for flaws and point them out to me. What's a flaw to you isn't necessarily a flaw to me. And if reviewers tear the book to shreds, then I will still own my work. It's mine, and I'm responsible for it. No one else. AmazonEncore's motto is "author first," so we've moved past the unpleasantness. And when the reviews start coming in, you can remind me that I said I could take the heat…

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