#SupportWNDB – The Series
Earlier this weekend I had this idea to contact a bunch of writer friends I know, and some I don’t know so well, and have them guest post on my blog about their thoughts on diversity in literature and why it’s important.
Almost everyone I asked to participate said yes and quite a few folks were totally excited to share their thoughts. Over the next few weeks, expect to see guest posts from the likes of dystopian��writer Kayti Nika Raet, fantasy��writer Teshelle Combs, fantasy��writer Sabina Khan,��blogger Guinevere Thomas (half of Dos Twinjas), paranormal writer Laura Oliva,��writer Zoraida Cordova,��blogger Batools,��blogger Steph Swint, fantasy��writer Rose Montague,��writer Christa Wojo,��writer Thelonious Legend,��writer Jess Dukes,��blogger Deva Eddington, writer��TS Dann, and hopefully WNDB’s own Mike Jung.
That is what I call a motherfucking list. Just one more reason my friends are the bomb.
Basically, I told everyone I would make the series’ inaugural post and then I would turn it over to my guests. So long as they stuck to the overarching theme of diversity in literature, they could write on anything they chose. I wasn’t going to give them any further guidelines.
Oh, except to try and keep it around 700 words of less. But we’re writers and every so often we get all passionate and verbose about shit, so I told the crew that if they went over the word count, I wasn’t going to hold it against them.
I set them loose, giving a few folks deadlines, and promising to get this thing going first thing Monday morning. Then surprisingly, for the next few days, I could not think of what to say about diversity. Not because I don’t have anything to say, because god knows I do, but because I wasn’t sure how to top what I’d already written for��We Need Diverse Books’ official campaign Tumblr.
I was stumped and annoyed with the fact I was stumped which just made the state of my stumptedness (not a word, this I know) even worse. Then this afternoon, The Stepdaughter and I hit the movies and what I want to say about diversity came to me, just like that.
We were watching the preview for Ron Howard’s Into the Wood, which looks amazing and gorgeous and utterly fantastical and contains Not. One. Person. Of. Diverse. Background. Which struck me as such a shame because it’s essentially a fantasy movie and as such, offered Mr. Howard the perfect opportunity to fill his film with all kinds of actors of color, sexual identity, disability, and the like, but he chose to keep it safe and simple and maintained the status quo.
And that right there is why diversity – in literature, film, television – is important because it’s about damn time we shook up the definition of the status quo and started making it look a little more like the true fabric of our everyday world. Directing a film without any people of diverse backgrounds is about as realistic and close-minded as continuing to hold onto a belief that the only stories worth selling are those for and about white main characters.
Ellen Oh and the We Need Diverse Books campaign were the rumblings – they set the catalyst. Now it’s up to us to maintain the momentum, open up the avenues of dialogue, and fight to get our stories out there.
Because like I said before, the change is coming, I can feel it.
Join the movement, heed the call. #SupportWNDB.
Holla.
