getting around the gatekeepers
People around the world are waking up to the fact that a very small group of people holds way too much power over the rest of us. Whether it’s in politics or in publishing, gatekeepers determine what we’re able to access and the lack of transparency preserves the illusion of “free choice.” If you’re only given two options, how free are you really? I’ll be discussing these issues online and in person this month—hope you’ll join the conversation!
I’ve got a few links to share today. My essay, “Minstrelsy Is the New Black” is available now—get your copy of the latest Book Smugglers’ Quarterly Almanac! Ana and Thea started out blogging about the SFF books they love but they’re now publishing original content that’s far more inclusive than what the traditional industry produces. In a way, they got around the gatekeepers by creating their own platform and sharing it with diverse storytelling voices:
Collecting original short fiction, essays, reviews, and reprints from diverse and powerful voices in speculative fiction, THE BOOK SMUGGLERS’ QUARTERLY ALMANAC is essential for any SFF fan.
IN THIS VOLUME (JANUARY 2017): BECKY CHAMBERS, SHERRI L. SMITH, A.E. ASH, KATHERINE MACLEAN, NIGEL QUINLAN, ZETTA ELLIOTT, ALLIAH/VIC, KATE C. HALL, NICOLE BRINKLEY, ANA GRILO AND THEA JAMES
I’ve talked recently about bloggers who block self-published authors; The Book Smugglers have always opened their door to me and so has Cynthia Leitich Smith. I first appeared on her Cynsations blog back in 2009 and was thrilled to have a chance to discuss my latest novel THE GHOSTS IN THE CASTLE. Cynthia’s intern, Gayleen Rabakukk, came up with some fantastic questions—here’s one:
As an author/scholar how do your various roles inform one another? (Did this influence your decision to write this story for a MG audience?)
I wear a lot of different hats, but I definitely think about how the books I write could be used to start a conversation between kids and adults at home or in the classroom. My dissertation was on literary representations of lynching, so I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about trauma and its impact on Black people. I feel quite strongly that I have a responsibility to “teach the youth the truth” and that’s one reason I self-publish.
The Ghosts in the Castle is a book that likely would not appeal to corporate publishers and neither would Billie’s Blues (Rosetta Press, 2015), which gives lynching as one of the reasons for the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South. When I told my college students that I wanted to write a picture book about lynching, they were shocked. Yet many of those same students were furious that they’d never learned about lynching until they reached college. Children are taught about the Holocaust and some kids learn about slavery in the U.S., but many textbooks are sanitized or decontextualized.
There’s a real fear within the dominant group that if children know the ugly truth about the country’s history, they’ll become embittered and “unmanageable” (to borrow a term from Frederick Douglass). But I think young people are empowered by the truth, and so my challenge is to make events and figures from the past relevant to contemporary kids who think Harry Potter novels have taught them all they need to know about England.
Shanna Miles does it all—she’s an author, librarian, blogger, and BookTuber! Last month she ran a self-publishing series on her blog and she’s hosting a Twitter chat next week—join us! You can read my interview with Shanna here and Imani’s can be found here.
Next week I’ll be heading to DC for the annual AWP conference. I’m presenting with Rhoda Belleza and Mathangi Subramanian—if you’re attending the conference and are free Thursday morning, I hope you’ll check out our panel:
