Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 90

how I know I'm in Canada

1.  I've seen more than one member of my family every day this week.

2.  While being driven to the train station by my mother (who lives in outer suburbia) we saw a FOX calmly trotting across the street.

3.  I can't remember the last time I saw the sun.

4.  I'm wearing a borrowed sweater and pants over my nightgown just to keep warm.

5.  I paid $20 for a small, slender paperback book (After Canaan by Wayde Compton).

This is Day 3 of my spring trip to Toronto, and so far things are going pretty well.  I had a great time in Ajax yesterday–the city east of Toronto where I was born almost 40 years ago.  I got a warm welcome at both schools, and the students seemed engaged and interested in my journey from immigrant to author.  I always start my presentations with a little Q&A: I show them the shiny stickers on the cover of BIRD and explain the significance of each one.  Yesterday when I asked, "Who was Coretta Scott King?" not one student raised her/his hand.  Not one.  I mentioned Frederick Douglass and then realized they likely don't know who he is, either.  New York City Draft Riots?  The Civil War?  Not something Canadian students learn about in school.  So if I come back again, I'll have to tweak my presentation.  The kids up here seem very young; maybe NYC kids mature more quickly.  Still, I could tell it meant something to these diverse kids to have a black woman author visiting their school.  It doesn't happen too often, I don't think.  After talking about the awards BIRD has won, I ask kids to guess how many books are published annually. In the US, it's 5000.  In Canada, it's 500 (I laughed out loud when one kid raised his hand and said, "Two!").  And last year, black authors wrote less than 1% of the books published for kids in Canada.  Grim.  Do I think that's going to change?  Yes, but slowly.  Very slowly.  If, as Douglass argued, "Power concedes nothing without a demand," then folks up here have GOT to start making demands.  And that's not really "the Canadian way." 

I think it's supposed to rain the rest of the week.  It makes the birds happy, if no one else.

N.Y.C.

Lately I've been tripping down memory lane, in part b/c I'm heading to Toronto soon and in part b/c I've been reviewing "the novel of my youth," which was based on my experience as a teaching artist in Brooklyn back in the day. I started working with kids when I still was a kid myself—both my parents are schoolteachers, and I spent a fair amount of time helping out in my mother's kindergarten classroom. I typed up her report cards, helped put up and take down displays, and always vowed I would never work with kids that age. When I was thirteen my father had a son with his partner; they had another child two years later, and so I got to find out about warming bottles, changing diapers, and all that baby stuff. In college I volunteered in the Big Sister program and tutored a local schoolgirl—looking back on it now, I wonder whether she was intrigued by having a young black woman for a tutor; there certainly weren't many black people in that part of Quebec. I graduated from college and volunteered as a tutor in Toronto; my tutee, Richard, had recently arrived from Jamaica and he made me a wooden Canadian goose in shop class, which I still have. Then I moved to Brooklyn and joined the Nia Youth Collective; we provided tutoring and healthy snacks in our after-school program. We met on Saturdays as well and tried to instill pride in our students' black heritage. The summer before I started graduate school we collaborated with a filmmaker and ran the Youth Media Leadership Project; our teen participants made a video about the community (Ft. Greene before gentrification) and we designed and painted a mural. I first met Cidra that summer—she was one of our brightest members and I worked with her again the following summer when a group of feminists started a program for girls: Sista II Sista.  Now Cidra's the Associate Director of The Brotherhood/Sister Sol, an amazing organization that provides (among other things) tutoring and rites of passage programs for kids and teens here in NYC. They've traveled to Brazil and Ghana, they've been featured on Oprah—they're amazing.  Right now they're gearing up for a fabulous event you don't want to miss: Voices 7.  If you can't attend and mingle with the stars (Cornel West, Rosario Dawson, David Dinkins, Soledad O'Brien), then I hope you'll consider making a donation to support the important work they do with and for our youth.

(photo credit: Valerie Caesar)

one step forward…

I passed the UPS guy on my way into the building today and secretly hoped he had something for me in that huge stack of packages…turns out 4 of my proofs arrived today, but my favorite cover is totally out of focus because the resolution's too low, which means I'll have to shoot it over again.  Sigh.  The clerk at the photo lab gave me some good advice and I finally dug out my camera manual and READ IT so I now know how to change the settings.  I figured out how to change the interior file's spacing as well, so the book's no longer 500 pages—it's 386, which is still too long.  Sigh.  But spring break is almost here, so the ginormous task of editing will begin as soon as classes end…

The best part of today was having tea with another writer—sometimes it helps to hear about someone else's challenges and survival strategies.  And some people model graciousness without knowing it…

don't miss Kekla!

She's signing copies of Camo Girl at Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem:

BOOK SIGNING
Kekla Magoon, author of Camo Girl
Wednesday, April 20
6-7:30 PM
Hue-Man Bookstore
2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd (124th-125th Streets)
www.huemanbookstore.com


Subway directions: Take the A/B/C/D to 125th Street (then walk one block east) or take the 2/3 to 125th Street (then walk two blocks west)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Twelve-year-old Ella and her best friend Z are mocked by their classmates and considered the "weird" kids in their 6th grade class. When a new boy, Bailey comes to their school, he befriends Ella, giving her a chance to make new friends and join a more popular crowd. But to do so, she'd have to leave Z behind. Ella faces a difficult decision in this story about friendship, fitting in, and discovering that the right choice isn't usually the easy choice–and sometimes there's no easy choice at all.

"… a sensitive and articulate portrait of a pair of middle-school outsiders." –Publishers Weekly




"This elegantly crafted story features strong writing and solid characterizations….Ella and Bailey's racial identity is one element in a full and richly textured narrative." –Kirkus Reviews, starred


"Magoon writes with insight, wit, and compassion." –School Library Journal

cover girl

My friend Cidra agreed to pose for me this afternoon—thanks, Cidra!  Here are two more covers to consider.  I'm partial to the second one…what do you think?

picturing Brooklyn

I'm working on preparing an old manuscript for publication—what do you think of these two covers? I woke up this morning and took my camera for a walk. A lot has changed since I first came to Brooklyn, and I felt uncomfortable snapping photos of brownstones when I know that longtime residents are wary of newcomers invading and occupying their neighborhoods. I'm partial to the first cover, though I don't yet have permission to use that photograph. My ideal image would be a black woman shielding one eye with her hand, but I can't afford to hire Lorna Simpson and don't think I have the energy to find a model and shoot the cover myself.

One Eye Open is a novel I started in 1993 after spending my first summer in Brooklyn.  I finished it in 1999 while living in Toronto, but couldn't find a publisher and so set it aside (you can read a chapter here).  The manuscript needs work, and I may try to do some editing this weekend, but mostly I just want it to exist.  I want to leave behind a body of work—what if your life ended unexpectedly?  What would be visible and accessible, and what would be buried on your hard drive or tucked away in a drawer? We're doing a self-publishing panel on 4/21 in Toronto and I'd like to have proofs of One Eye Open to share. I'm a better writer today, but still feel proud of my first novel and want to quietly welcome it into the world sometime this spring.

upcoming Toronto event

THE CHANGING FACE OF PUBLISHING

How do recent changes in publishing affect underrepresented voices? Come hear three authors speak about their unique experiences in a changing industry:

Neesha Meminger, who was published by a large, mainstream press, then self‐published her second novel; Zetta Elliott, who self‐published her first

novel, then had it picked up by Amazon's publishing arm; and Vivek Shraya, whose self‐published debut novel was just listed on the American Library

Association's Rainbow List. Free and open to the public! This event will be webcast at www.womensbookstore.com.

April 21, 2011

6:30pm

Toronto Women's

Bookstore

73 Harbord St.

Toronto, ON

416‐922‐8744

1‐800‐861‐8233

remember why he died

The Crunk Feminist Collective has a great post up today on Dr. King's contribution to the labor movement. Below, union members marching in Tennessee in 1976.

2011 Day of Dialog

Thanks to Amy Bodden Bowllan for bringing this May 23rd School Library Journal event to my attention.  I'm going to try to attend the morning panel, but I teach in the afternoon and then have a Book Expo reception to attend in the evening.  Book Expo's always a busy time, so if you can attend the entire Day of Dialog, please blog about it and share a link!

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS


8:00-8:30 AM
BREAKFAST & REGISTRATION


8:30-8:35 AM
WELCOME, Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief, School Library Journal


8:40-9:15 AM
KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Katherine Paterson, National Ambassador for Young People's LiteratureBreakfast & speaker sponsored by Candlewick Press


9:15-10:15 AM
PANEL I: Diversity in YA Literature

Where we are and where we'd like to be.MODERATOR: Amy Bowllan, Director of Diversity and Educational Technology, The Hewitt School

AUTHOR PANELISTS:

Paul Griffin, Stay with Me (Dial)

Malinda Lo , Huntress (Little, Brown)

Cindy Pon , Fury of the Phoenix (Greenwillow)

Rita Williams-Garcia , One Crazy Summer (HarperCollins)


10:15-10:30 AM
BREAK


10:30-11:30 AM
Publishers' Pitch Part 1


11:30-12:30 PM
PANEL II: The Children's App Landscape

What is being produced and how can libraries use them?MODERATOR: Lisa von Drasek, Coordinator, School Services/Children's Librarian, Bank Street College of Education

PANELISTS:

Linda Braun, consulting coordinator for Libraries $ Educators Online (LEO)

Donald Crews & Virginia Duncan, Author & Editor Freight Train App (Greenwillow)

Deborah Forte, President of Scholastic Media

Scott Gordon, digital producer at Random House Children's Books


12:30-2:00 PM
LUNCH SPEAKER: Daniel Handler, aka Lemony SnicketLunch & speaker sponsored by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers


2:00-3:00 PM
PANEL III: Picture Book BiographiesMODERATOR: Martha Parravano, Executive Editor, The Horn Book

AUTHOR PANELISTS:

Matt de la Peña, A Nation's Hope (Dial)

Meghan McCarthy, The Incredible Life of Balto (Knopf)

Patrick McDonnell, Me…Jane (Little, Brown)

Melissa Sweet, Balloons Over Broadway (Houghton Harcourt)


3:00-3:15 PM
BREAK


3:15-4:15 PM
Publishers' Pitch Part 2


4:15-5:15 PM
PANEL IV: Stellar Debut AuthorsMODERATOR: Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief, School Library Journal

PANELISTS:

Adam Gidwitz, A Tale Dark & Grimm (Dutton)

Julie Kagawa, The Iron King (Harlequin Teen)

Thanhha Lai, Inside Out & Back Again (HarperCollins)

Dave Roman, Astronaut Academy (First Second)


5:15-6:00 PM
COCKTAIL RECEPTION & AUTHOR SIGNINGS

Questions? Contact SLJEvents@mediasourceinc.com

when the sun doesn't shine

You can actually see things more clearly.  A rainy day is the best time to visit the garden; I went yesterday afternoon and only saw two other people (who didn't make eye contact).  When it rains, you can dip the brim of your umbrella and disappear, see the world without it seeing you.  I was so busy looking at the ground that I forgot to look up at the buds on the trees, the raindrops suspended from dark, slender twigs.  Then I noticed the moss and the dry sides of trees, the sheltered places beneath branches that raindrops can't reach.  The bright pink rhododendron and star-faced daffodils were the only brights spots in the garden.  Mostly I was looking at bark…trees will tell your stories if you come close.  Writing again…