sarah HANNAH gómez

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I’ve been way too swamped to blog, and I still am, but I want to blog and write all of the things and read all the things! Obviously I have not done my usual monthly roundup, and that’s going to have to change, as I’ve been reading TONS of picturebooks and the list will just be too long and cumbersome. So I think I’ll start just giving highlights of the stuff I think is really worthwhile.

This is because I now have a job that I can’t talk about that is everybody’s dream job – reading books and getting paid for it. And I don’t want to complain about it because I know it is truly a gift of a job. I’m also reading for an award committee I can’t talk about and also reading for The Horn Book , so that’s a lot of reading. And I have my fitness job and my new nonprofit job and the freelance writing, and I’m trying to finish my novel, so basically I’m swamped, but that’s also helping me be more productive overall.

Discipline when working mostly from home is really difficult to learn, but I’m slowly getting better at my time management and all.

I’m also officially matriculating in a PhD program this fall! And not currently anticipating quitting any of my jobs! Hahahahahahahaha that’s going to be hilarious. Stay tuned for my misadventures.

Anyway, will be back to normal soon, I promise!

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Lost? Read the Storify . Then come back. Also, don’t be scared by the troll below. #sorrynotsorry by my responses. People like that are part of the problem.

Still lost? Here is some background (more links to come):

caring is not trying, trying is not succeeding

you’re still just caring and trying

race is not enough

the all-white world of children’s books

or this gigantic collection that I’ve been curating for years

So here’s what I’m asking you to do. Publicly commit to spending a decent period of time (I would think three months seems enough to make a dent but also not change your worklife forever, since slush piles are also important) closing down your slush pile and using your existing contacts and Twitter followees to find people who #amwriting and are tweeting about diversity, marginalization, multiculturalism, and intersectionality.

If you cannot find those people naturally, you’re not following enough people. You are maybe new to Twitter, which is fine, but you will have to work to get better at it fast. Follow more people, and follow who they are following and retweeting. Twitter will also give you suggestions, and sometimes they are clearly sponsored to say that you should follow Donald Trump, but other times their algorithm is decent.

However, these are some of my favorite people, organizations, and websites to follow who have already made a point of promoting equity and social justice and retweet the voices of the people. These links are all to their Twitters. That’s because Twitter is Really Fucking Important. It’s where kidlit and YA people gather and socialize, for one, and it’s a platform that really does a lot better at welcoming and amplifying the voices of marginalized folks, so it’s important that you use it.

Book Riot

Disability in Kidlit

We Need Diverse Books

Justina Ireland

Rich in Color

Veronikelly Mars

Cake Literary

Kaye M

Debbie Reese

Daniel Jose Older

Preeti Chhibber

CCBC

Diversity in YA

Some DOs and DON’Ts of this challenge:

Be willing to be listed here and thus accept that writers from marginalized backgrounds may solicit YOU, and if they mention this challenge, you should accept their submission during this period. Rules. This is my thing I made up, so this is a rule now.

Cut it the fuck out with “diverse” or “multicultural” and start using the term “marginalized” to describe people and “social justice” or “equity” to describe what it is we’re trying to change. Also, learn what hegemony means. Also, recall that “diverse” when used as shorthand for “marginalized” includes race, ethnicity, gender, ability, sexual orientation, and religion, among others, and you’re either cool with all of those things or you’re not welcome here.

Make sure that your website, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc note prominently that you are specifically doing this challenge so that people don’t worry that you’re an illegitimate agent for soliciting authors directly. I’m not trying to ruin your reputation here, really. You could even say I’m trying to make you a hero, really.

Ask the marginalized people you’re following, especially if they are already represented and published, if they have referrals for you. Published writers have unpublished friends, all of them. And then you can avoid the whole “this agent is soliciting me out of nowhere, so they must be illegitimate” thing.

Consider working with people with partials? That’s something you have to decide for yourself, and I’ve never worked in publishing (wanted to intern, never got the opportunity) so I have no idea just how overworked you are (but like teachers, I can make the assumption you are overworked and underpaid unless you represent Stephenie Meyer), but I would think that if you’re into nurturing voices that have been marginalized, you maybe want to consider mentoring them, not just taking on a fully developed manuscript, though that’s based on your time and your interests and stuff. But at the very least I would hope that you’d also work with the people you solicit submissions from and help them find opportunities for MFAs, online courses, mentorship programs, or whatever. You have connections, and there are additional ways to utilize them for good beyond offering representation.

Say you’re going to do it and then back out. Say exactly when you’re going to do it. I’ll post that along with your information.

Pat yourself on the back too much. This is a #nocookies zone. I will pat you on the back and say thanks for participating, and I will mean it 100% sincerely, and then you will sit back and just do your job. This is your job.

Here is where you can sign up: http://goo.gl/forms/NhalP4TKlR

If you’re an editor, please make the applicable slight changes to the DOs and DON’Ts to make them apply to your work, and then sign up here: http://goo.gl/forms/8T9QSf5OxM

Lydia Moed , the Rights Factory (the emerita! The original signup!). Closing her slush pile from June to September. lydia @ therightsfactory . com

So. This thing .

If you know me in real life, you know that I have always been OBSESSED with American Girl. I can still rattle off the descriptions of items for sale in the catalog. I remember the magazine so well that there are still probably a few crafts and recipes I know because of it. I recall an especially chilling ghost story in one issue that was written by a girl my age. I remember begging my mother for a doll. I remember reading all the books. I remember starting my own, because you could buy blank books that looked just like the ones in the series (I only ever wrote two, but I hope I still have them somewhere). I remember the billions of letters and book proposals I wrote and sent, hoping to get published. I remember the two times I was published in the magazine. I remember buying the CD-ROM game that allowed you to make “theatre productions” starring the historical characters. I remember when they bought the rights to Amelia’s Notebook. I remember when they bought the rights to Angelina Ballerina. I remember when they launched their first Girl of Today (now My American Girl). I remember fucking everything from about 1995 on. And I loved it.

When I was finally lucky enough to get a doll, I picked Addy, and I don’t know why, because she was rather uninteresting. Actually, I know exactly why – because she was black, and she was my only option if I wanted a doll that looked like me. To be honest, the historical character that spoke most to me was Josefina, probably because her life in Santa Fe was more familiar to me as a Tucsonan than Addy’s life as a runaway slave and then living in Philadelphia was. Also, Josefina had personality and a story, and Addy had no personality. But that’s the doll I bought, and I pretty much exclusively played games with her that made her a contemporary character at boarding school, because that’s what I was into. My Addy lived in a world that was half contemporary, half historical, kind of like Pushing Daisies . I mostly made things for her myself, even going so far as to weave my own fabric that I hoped to make into a skirt (I bought all the character dress patterns when they went on clearance), though that part didn’t pan out. The weaving was beautiful, though, and I would show you if it weren’t at my mother’s house. The amazing thing about American Girl dolls were that they provided you with lots of cool stuff (I’ve always had a thing for miniatures – talk to me about Kitchen Littles, Polly Pockets, or Playmobils sometime) but also forced you to be very imaginative if you were going to have any fun. My friends and I staged photo shoots with our dolls, we wrote letters from one doll to another, we made them books and magazines (okay, that was mostly me. I was doing all of this from about 5th to 7th grade, when other girls were learning that boys didn’t actually have cooties). They were great.

But the company, for all that amazing stuff it does, is totally full of shit. Continue reading →

how i plan to resist during my self care downtime

#blackgirlsquibs

leon’s story

a lot of reading in review coming up

some followup to the horn book podcast

« Jan

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