turn the page

I’m tired this morning but I felt energized on Saturday following a wonderful conversation with alumni of Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas invited me to present on my books following her own presentation on The Dark Fantastic—an important, accessible, and affordable scholarly book that has already sold out just weeks after its publication. I came home feeling more hopeful about my future as an author in Philly; it’s been hard to get into local schools so I was pleased to meet educators and administrators interested in scheduling an author visit. I sold most of the books I brought and then went to lunch with Ebony and our friend Akosua. Sometimes I feel like we should record the conversations we have over meals because they are intense—in a good way! Sometimes we wind up taking notes because we’re sharing resources and theorizing solutions to problems…I feel incredibly lucky to have friends who push me and lift me up and show me other ways of being in the world. When I posted this screenshot of my opening slide, several folks on Instagram asked me where I was going to publish my talk. It’s a slideshow but I *could* turn it into an essay…that’s not high on my To Do list right now, but I appreciate that folks are interested in what I have to say.

I’m not feeling that way about one of my publishers right now. The good thing about having four books in production this spring is that I can compare how different publishers invest in and promote me and my work. I’ve had quite a few challenges with Disney on the editing side of things, but their marketing team is amazing; Say Her Name doesn’t come out till January but they’ve already successfully pitched me for panels at NCTE, LRA, and YALSA, and will cover the cost of attending. I got sixteen ARCs back in March—compare that to the 5 copies I got of The Dragon Thief in February. That book comes out in October, but am I going to ALA this month? No. Has anyone on my contact list received a copy of *either* dragon book? No. Will there be a third dragon book from this publisher? Right now it doesn’t look good. At this point in my career I’m not interested in being treated like a second-class citizen by my publisher. I’ve done too much work on my own as an indie author to have to hustle just as hard because some marketing person isn’t doing their job and/or has decided my books aren’t worth the investment.

The new workbook is done and available on Amazon! I’ll be sending out a newsletter later this week but for now I’m working on an Afrofuturism session I’ll be facilitating on Thursday at the NYC Department of Education’s second annual Sexuality, Women and Gender (SWaG) conference. I was hoping to have copies of Find Your Voice to share with participants, but apparently UPS damaged the shipment I ordered last week so the books won’t arrive in time. Talking to teachers is one of my favorite things to do so I’m really looking forward to this conference even though I’m running on fumes at this point in the school year. I think the key is to push myself to present on new topics, which is what I’ll be doing this week. I can deliver most of my book talks with my eyes closed and feel myself going into autopilot some days. The workbook will push me to develop new poetry-writing workshops and maybe talking about my Viking novel will get me back on track. Summer’s coming and I need a clear writing agenda. I’ve watched almost all the episodes of Time Team on YouTube so I need to get out my literary trowel and start digging again!