Embrace Race
As promised, here’s my conversation with Janine Macbeth of Blood Orange Press. “Healing the Child Within” is live over at EmbraceRace, so stop by! Here’s one question I asked Janine:
ZE: I self-publish with CreateSpace but Blood Orange Press just became an LLC; I only publish my own books but you have a growing list of authors. I often think of us as being on the same team, but traveling different paths. Can you talk about the path you’re on and how you see indie authors like us as being part of a movement?
JM: I was just at a workshop where they were sharing research on the common traits of successful social movements. One commonality between movements that fit their definition of success is that these movements were full of leaders. Power was decentralized and based in community efforts that spread far and wide.
Presses like yours, Reflection Press, School of the Free Mind, and Come Bien Books are only a few examples of efforts to take back our power as self-determining owners and decision makers in our work — to take back our power as storytellers.
I love that we’re just a few freckles or beauty marks in a much larger landscape of efforts for justice in children’s literature. From teachers, to librarians, to after school and community programs, to booksellers and families, and on and on, we’re all part of this ecosystem evolving change. Just thinking about it makes me happy.
