Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 92

Nyla

It's hard switching gears…I've been revising Ship of Souls and feel like I'm still in their world rather than mine.  This picture (above) helped me to develop Nyla's character. And this picture (below) will likely be the basis of my next book–an elevator in Brooklyn?  No, it's a new public toilet…but still–the possibilities are endless…

Act of Grace

Good morning!  Spring is on its way, and there are new books sprouting from the minds of creative, persistent people!  Meet Karen Simpson and learn more about her debut novel, Act of Grace.  Welcome, Karen!

First I would like to say thank you Zetta for this opportunity to talk about my novel. I truly appreciate it.

In some ways, this is an exciting time to be an emerging author. Can you give us your take on the publishing industry and your path to publication?

It has been a long, interesting journey. I had considered myself a writer since I was twelve, but I didn't get serious until about ten years ago when I started Act of Grace. In some ways I'm glad I've arrived now because the past ten years weren't particularly great for writers of color seeking a foothold at traditional publishing houses. Now e-publishing and social media have, in some ways, leveled the playing field for all writers who want to get their work into readers' hands. Strong small presses are springing up and self-publishing has become a more viable option. I find it heartening that a very small press published this year's National Book Award Winner in Fiction. I'm happy I'm being published and championed by Plenary Publishing, a small multicultural press that has an exciting vision for the future of African American fiction.

Tell us about Act of Grace. Why did you choose to represent racial violence in the north?

Act of Grace is the story of Grace Johnson, a bright, perceptive African American high school senior who saves the life of a Klansman named Jonathan Gilmore. Everyone in her hometown of Vigilant, Michigan wants to know why. Few people, black or white, understand her act of sacrifice especially since rumor holds that years ago a member of the Gilmore family murdered several African-Americans, including Grace's father. Grace wants to remain silent on the matter but Ancestor spirits emerge in visions and insist she fulfill her shamanic duties by bearing witness to her town's violent racial history so that all involved might transcend it.

Grace begins a journal, but she warns readers upfront that if they are looking for a simple or rational explanation for her actions then they need to look elsewhere. She knows that her accounts of her ability to speak to the dead, along with her connections to a trickster spirit name Oba, will be hard for most people to believe. With insight shaped by the wisdom found in African American mythology and the book, The Velveteen Rabbit, Grace recounts a story of eye-for-an-eye vengeance that has blinded entire generations in her hometown.

Grace is loosely based on a violent incident that erupted during a Klan rally held in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan some 15 years ago. Ann Arbor is a very liberal and diverse town and yet the Klan showed up and a near riot broke out. Northerners tend to want to believe that overt racism and intolerance are just southern problems. However, these problems were and still are deeply woven into the fabric of the rest of the nation. Lynchings, racial cleansing of towns, as well as overt and covert racism were also a part of northern life and history. The numbers of hate groups are increasing all over our nation, not just in the south. For example, my own home state of Michigan is ranked about fifth on the Southern Poverty Law Center list for numbers of hate groups. If we were to ask most people I don't think they wouldn't place Michigan that high because it's in the north, but the facts speak for themselves.

My students and I are currently considering the legacy of slavery and the potential for redemption through storytelling/testifying. What do you hope readers will take away from your novel?

Ah…there is great power in testifying. In my novel, Grace is told by the ancestors that she must write about why she saved Johnston Gilmore's life. She doesn't want to say anything about her experience but she is made to speak because the ancestors know that only by relating her story can she and others heal.

I write speculative fiction, in part, because it offers innovative avenues for looking at the world's problems. It is my hope that my novel Act of Grace leaves readers thinking about justice, community, tolerance, love, family, struggle, and healing in new and different ways. I also hope my novel will enable readers to have more honest and hope-filled conversations about these universal issues.

a bit of joy

Found on the side of the road, thriving amidst the trash and muck and dead leaves…I feel another novella coming on.

girlfight

When women don't get along folks line up to see the sparks fly, but what about when women collaborate and support one another?  Two great interviews celebrate the strength of reciprocal relationships between women:

Ari at Reading in Color talks to Neesha Meminger:

When we create stories, part of what we do is create new possibilities and realities through the rules of the world we create. Women and girls have had functional, loving, caring, nurturing relationships for centuries. Women can work together in teams and partnerships where there is respect and compassion.

And at Women Doing Literary Things, Farzana Doctor writes about the lessons she learned from the "promo squad" that helped launch her new book:

Being a member of my communities means that it's possible to create a Promo Squad and receive its generosity. It also means that I need to be generous in return, and I take this commitment seriously. I believe that we all have to open space for emerging writers, promote them, offer advice when asked. We should endeavour to be non-competitive, open-hearted with our colleagues. We need to use the privileges that we earn or stumble upon to pave the way for others. We also have to work on our internalized oppression so that we can see that our sisters' (and brown brothers', and trans siblings') work is just as relevant (and sometimes more relevant) than those who hold power in our society.

 

Women Doing Literary Things

There's a new blog you should visit—today's contributor is Y.S. Lee!

Women Doing Literary Things is a weekly blog series where women write about their involvement in the literary world. The series features essays by novelists, poets, editors, librarians, journalists, academics, booksellers and more, on the topic of being a woman in the literary arts.  The first essay will be posted here tomorrow, March 8 2011–the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.

If you've seen the VIDA statistics demonstrating the under-representation of women in most major publications, you know that women aren't getting a fair shake in a field that is nurtured and sustained by them. The WDLT series aims to celebrate and reaffirm the depth and breadth of women's involvement in literature, and to consequently highlight the fundamental wrongness of the gender disparities in the literary world. Perhaps the gatekeepers of publishing will hear what we have to say–and then do something about it.

I just finished my essay on the representations of blacks in Canadian children's literature.  I was stunned when I found this interview with Marlene NourbeSe Philip in which she makes this disturbing admission:

When I finished Harriet's Daughter, for instance, and sent it out, I was told by one of the most prestigious publishing houses there that they liked the writing but they had a problem with the characters being black – which sent me into a tailspin for about a year and a half. If they tell me the writing is bad, I can fix that, but if they tell me they have a problem with the race of the characters it's like telling me they have a problem with my self.

What do we do when the gatekeepers blocking the way are women, too?  WDLT promises lots of different perspectives on publishing, so stay tuned.

Women's History Month

Of course, we celebrate women's contributions all year round but the blogosphere's abuzz with special features you won't want to miss:

at Crazy Quilts , media specialist Edi is posting non-fiction titles about remarkable women of color
Doret at The Happy Nappy Bookseller joins the team of bloggers and authors at Kidlit Celebrates Women's History Month
Nathalie at Multiculturalism Rocks! has interviewed yours truly about my feminist role models and fascination with the past…
later this month I'll be giving a talk at Bard High School Early College ; I'm their Visiting Scholar and will give the inaugural Peterson Lecture in the Humanities—if you're in NYC, come out!

can you hear me?

It's hard to write when you're unsure of your audience. Who needs to know about the representation of blacks in Canadian children's literature? If I write a traditional scholarly paper and submit it to an academic journal, it'll be read by a handful of people. If I post an informal essay on my blog, then anyone who searches for Canadian children's literature will be able to find this data. But how do I reach the powers that be and/or the general public in Canada?

My examination of middle grade and young adult novels published in Canada since 2000 reveals a curious preoccupation with slavery.  Of the 25 novels I was able to find, 8 are written by black authors and 17 by white authors; 3 of the 8 black-authored novels are on the subject of slavery; 2 are set in contemporary Africa, and 3 are set in the contemporary Caribbean.  Only 1 is set in contemporary Canada, and judging from the cover, it is unclear whether this black-authored book features a black protagonist (I Have Been in Danger by Cheryl Foggo; 2001).

Of the 17 novels written by whites, 10 are historical novels set in the era of slavery; 6 are set in Africa (5 contemporary, 1 historical), and one contemporary novel (Jakeman by Deborah Ellis; 2007) is set in the United States.

What does this tell us about the way black children figure in the (white) Canadian imagination?  In these 17 novels, black youth appear as fugitive and/or former slaves or as African refugees fleeing from war and disease.  Why is it so difficult for authors of any race to situate black teens in contemporary Canada? Are such manuscripts being rejected by Canadian publishers in favor of stories set in more "exotic" locales, or do they not even exist? What could explain this silence from writers in the black Canadian community? In the US, women writers are responsible for the majority of black-authored MG/YA novels. It's hard for me to name any contemporary black female authors in Canada—there's no Canadian equivalent of Edwidge Danticat or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or Zadie Smith (novelists under 40). So perhaps the lack of MG/YA novels has something to do with the larger absence of black women from the Canadian literary scene…

it's all coming back to me…

I can't quite remember the last time I sat down and wrote a traditional conference paper (Powerpoint has totally changed the way I present). I took on too many conferences this semester, and now I have to retrench; when you're paying your own way and teaching two courses, you have to be realistic about what you can do—and do well.  The paper I'm writing now is a little old; I first proposed it for a 2009 conference in Frankfurt, and it was accepted but I couldn't afford to go.  Then I turned it into a blog post, and now I'm reworking it for a panel on African Canadian literature.  And we all know what happens when I write about Canada…

But so far, the irrational rage is taking a back seat to actual statistics:

according to DiverseCity: The Greater Toronto Leadership Project, "only 4.8 per cent of editors, senior management and board members are visible minorities." ( Globe & Mail )

If that's the state of affairs in the publishing industry (which is based in Toronto), then it's no big surprise that only ONE black-authored young adult novel was published in Canada in 2010.  And why is that one novel set in Ghana and not in Canada?  Perhaps because representing black people living IN Canada (not as fugitive slaves) would suggest that there ARE black people who belong in Canada:

"In popular parlance 'culture' in multiculturalism is code for 'non-western' and non-white, much in the same way that ethnicity or 'ethnics' typically refer to non-whites. The erroneous assumption is that new immigrants in Canada (mostly non-white) have culture or 'ethnicity' in contrast to the 'mainstream' or 'normal Canadians'. In this social construction, those belonging to non-western cultures are socially produced as not fully belonging to the nation, as not fully Canadian." (Tania Das Gupta, FEDCAN blog )

So in a way, to celebrate multiculturalism within children's publishing is to focus on people who are NOT Canadian, not fully here, not contributing members of the "mosaic nation."  Even though (or perhaps because) the country's cities are rapidly changing:

"When Canada marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017, one in five Canadians will be a racialised minority. And projections show that by 2031, racialised minorities will make up 63 percent of Toronto's, 54 percent of Vancouver's and 31 percent of Montreal's population." (Malinda S. Smith, FEDCAN blog )

I'm not fully convinced that traditional scholarship can correct the problems I see in Canadian children's publishing, but it's good to lay things out and make it plain.  I've got my notes, I've re-read the two novels I'm critiquing, I've got statistics and tables.  Now I just have to sit down and write the darn thing…

two great giveaways

The Book Smugglers are holding a giveaway—enter now to win a copy of Shine, Coconut Moon and Jazz in Love by Neesha Meminger.  Then head over to Cindy Pon's blog to win a copy of Akata Witch and Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, as well as Huntress and Ash by Malinda Lo.  I'm reading Who Fears Death now and it's fantastic…

sunny day

Nothing makes up for a sleepless night like a sunny morning and a wonderful review!  Colleen over at Lavender Lines is only the second Canadian book blogger to review Wish (thank you, Colleen!). Here's some of what she had to say:

I have a confession to make: while I read A LOT, I don't tend to read books with main characters from different cultures and backgrounds than my own. It's something that I want to work on, to change. A Wish After Midnight is my first attempt at broadening my literary horizons. And if every subsequent book is as tightly written and captivating as this one I should be a more well rounded reader in no time.

Maybe Doret's right—maybe more and more book bloggers are throwing their support behind writers of color!  It's definitely appreciated.  In other Canadian news, I'll be at the Toronto Women's Bookstore next month along with Vivek Shraya and Neesha Meminger.  I'll post more details about the April 21st event ("Changing the Face of Publishing") as it draws near—you'll be able to watch it on the store's website if you're not up in the Great White North…