Diversity is a hot topic in publishing right now. Though many have been working toward a more diverse and equitable literary landscape for years, there has been a significant increase in the number and frequency of conversations surrounding the topic in the past few months.
Arguably, the tipping point came when independent children’s publisher Lee and Low released their “Diversity in Children’s Books” infographic in June 2013. Based on the report and statistics of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, the chart made the grim reality of children’s publishing impossible to ignore. The graphic quickly went viral and has been cited in nearly every article about diversity in publishing released in the past year.
And there were many. So many, in fact, that this list compiled on BookRiot is not even close to exhaustive. That list doesn’t include:
- the September 2013 discussion of #DiversityinSFF on Twitter and and the related blog posts. (For brevity’s sake, we won’t even talk about the numerous blog posts calling for inclusion and equity incited by the string of SFWA controversies in 2013.)
- Zetta Elliott’s spot on NBC New York in February 2014
- Daniel José Older’s essay on the intricacies of race and power in the publishing industry in April 2014
And finally, when BookCon released a guests list that featured 29 white people and a cat (I shit you not), a group of industry insiders led by author Ellen Oh started the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign. The hashtag was a trending topic on Twitter for nearly four days (starting a full day earlier than expected) and the story was picked up by the Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post, and the major industry publications Publishers Weekly. The timing was impeccable as, that same week, the School Library Journal released its Diversity issue.
Raising awareness is the first step in any struggle. After a solid year of high-profile articles on the subject, I think we have reached a time when English language North American publishing professionals can no longer reasonably say they haven’t heard of the diversity problem.
So. Are you aware yet?
There comes a point where we have to move beyond saying there is a problem and begin actively working towards the solutions. All the effort and thought of this past year (and the many years prior) are incredible. But it would be a shame to simply keep rehashing the same work instead of building upon it.
Consider the stakes. The lack of diversity and equity in the publishing industry is not a theoretical issue for us to intellectualize over coffee. It is an injustice. The destruction of libraries and burning of books has historically been used to strip peoples of their history and culture. Those in power continue to limit the ability of those they have subjugated to share their stories. They retain ultimate control of the narrative and their power.
The publishing industry creates and disseminates stories. The fact that the industry neither includes marginalized people in those stories nor gives marginalized people enough access to share their own stories makes the industry itself oppressive.
And, by virtue of reading this piece and all the other pieces shared online this year, you know this.
So. What will you do?
Most of my work concentrates on those next steps. In an effort to connect various groups and individuals advocating for diversity in Canadian Literature, I facilitate weekly #DiverseCanLit twitter chats on various facets of the complex problem, during which we identify root causes and brainstorm immediate actions we can take to address them.
I would be more than happy to use this space to have the same sort of brainstorming sessions with all of you. What are the obstacles you face? What kind of support and resources do you need? (These are not rhetorical questions! Please reply in the comments.)
To start, here are two things to consider as you think about what you can do to help:
Center the needs and voices of people from marginalized groups.
This is key. Too often, conversations about diversity and equity in publishing, devolve into white writers wringing their hands about how, why, and when to include people of color in their writing. (The assumption being that discussion of diversity are always about race and ethnicity. This is false.) Stop doing that. Besides being annoying, it also assumes that people from marginalized groups cannot write their own stories. If we are to dismantle a system that is oppressive because it pushes certain people to the periphery, we must bring those same people to the center. Every action should be a response to the question “how do we as an industry give greater access to people from marginalized groups?” Don’t assume you know the answer to the question! So, ask. Listen. Help when you can. Get out of the way when you can’t.
Self-assess and recognize your complicity. Know when you’re in the way.
The sooner you admit that you are part of the problem, the sooner you can start being part of the solution (or at the very least quit being an obstacle). The Lee and Low graphic was important because it was an irrefutable assessment of the children’s publishing industry. It provided evidence for the conclusions that many had already deduced from experience. We knew it was bad, but we didn’t realize it was that bad.
Examine your most prominent role within the industry and do your own count. As a reader what percentage of the books your read were written by people from marginalized groups? What about the percentage of books you review as a book reviewer or blogger? What percentage of the books you assign as an English teacher, or the books you read to your kids as a parent are written by people from marginalized groups? These self-assessments provide a baseline for you to then set a target for improvement. Do these counts and report back in the comments. Challenge yourself and challenge each other to make a difference.
I, for one, don’t still want to be talking about this 20 years from now. We are not the first to realize that this is a problem but, if we work together, we can be the ones to find sustainable solutions.
Tags: books, diversity in publishing, leonicka valcius, literature, publishing
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What are the most interesting books by diverse authors about diverse experiences that you’ve read lately, Toast?
I know recently I enjoyed “Redefining Realness” by Janet Mock and “Nevada” by Imogen Binnie, which were recommended to me by brookshelley here on the Toast. But I would love more recommendations of what to read!
For YA, last year’s The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson was truly excellent. She brings a dystopian future Brazil alive, featuring people of color and fluid sexual preferences and vibrant storytelling. It has some mixed Goodreads reviews, but I found it to be an original and engaging read.
Are you looking for fiction or nonfiction or poetry or all of the above or what? These aren’t all new, but all are by living writers, and I tried to pick tonally / topically different books for each section. Here’s three of each:
NONFICTION
Jamaica Kincaid, Autobiography of My Mother OR Among Flowers (look them up to see which appeals more)
Amitava Kumar, A Foreigner Carrying In the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb
Samantha “the Toast of The Toast” Irby, Meaty
FICTION
Mariko & Jillian Tamaki, Skim
Kim Fu, For Today I Am A Boy
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
POETRY
Wendy Walters, Troy, Michigan
Angela Veronica Wong, How to Survive a Hotel Fire
Orlando White, Bone Light
SKIM!! Forever and always, Skim!
IT’S SOOOOO GOOOOOD. The pair has a new book out, too, called This One Summer. And Jillian Tamaki led me to Hiromi Goto’s Half World, which I’ll recommend to anyone who’ll listen.
Actually anybody jumping in with comics / graphic novel recs on here, or opportunities for cartoonists of color, would be great to hear from — I have a couple of students who would like to jump on that.
YESSS! This One Summer quietly broke my heart a couple weeks ago. And Half World is also fantastic.
I think lately I’m looking more for fiction? I’ve been going through some real stressful times and I like to find comic fiction, or at least, fiction that has a strong current of humor in it to help me carry on.
Got it! Skim has funny parts and painful parts. Might be worth a try. Lynda Barry’s 100 Demons, also!
Also, maybe, Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen? That has a lot of lightness to it without being empty.
Oh oh oh and How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsen Hamid!
White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead!
Pym, by Mat Johnson, its about a black literature professor who is obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe’s book,The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and his decision to go on an arctic quest with a all black crew. Its trippy and funny, sort of Vonnegut-esque. It’s really fun and quick read and it’s got a real biting edge and everyone should read it.
OH and I forgot but had to mention two short story collections, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans (again, I know this has been out for a bit, but I’m always late to every party) and Alicia Erian’s The Brutal Language of Love.
Seconding the Danielle Evans collection, some stories landed better for me than others but overall very good (and very Toasty.)
Haiti Noir, a collection of noir short stories edited by Edwidge Danticat
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is practically a modern classic at this point, but I read it only a few months ago and it is probably one of the first and few perspectives on everyday life pre and post-colonial contact I’ve read where the long-time residents were “normal” and the white colonialists were “crazy outside weirdos.” (Better students of literature may disagree with that take.) I loved it.
Soy Sauce for Beginners by Kristin Chen. Got this for free through an Amazon e-book program. It’s about a transnational (basically!) 30 year old woman from Singapore who is trying to come to grips with her divorce by returning to her family’s soy sauce factory. I knew next-to-nothing about Singapore, soy sauce, or the world of upper-class ethnic Chinese Singapore residents. Still don’t know if it’s really true to life, but this was an interesting slice of it.
Three by Atiq Rahimi is a devastating look at Afghanistan and the impact of wars.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead isn’t really about diverse experiences–although I guess being a survivor of a zombie apolcalypse is a different lifestyle–but Whitehead is a PoC and this book is one of the few zombie books that I think crosses into literature. (Whatever that line is)
I wonder if I reread Things Fall Apart now I would appreciate it more? I read it in high school and didn’t particularly like it, but maybe I just wasn’t old enough to really appreciate it. The same thing could probably be said of “The House of the Spirits.”
I definitely did not read either books in HS! I’m going to check out the latter tonight.
I have been reading the above books because of my kind of dormant quest to read books from around the world. I didn’t really know what to expect from Things Fall Apart but I can see how an HS teacher would make it less enjoyable. I read it in a day with very little preconceived notions about it, so I kept on moving from “uh, so what time period is this set in?” to “huh, okay, so maybe this period?” to “oh, so the English are around?” and so on. Maybe it’s because I read it around the same period as I was re-reading Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody series, but reading Things Fall Apart really reminded me how much I’ve internalized the whole “white person goes to land that is foreign to them” narrative.
N.K. Jemisin’s The Inheritance Trilogy is a series of fantasy novels strongly influenced by non-Western mythologies. Plus strong female protagonists and LGBT characters! Plus plus, I started reading them on the recommendation of a fellow Toastie, which always helps.
Have you read anything by Lynn Flewelling? She has some great LGBT characters and strong women. The Nightrunner series is about dudes, but they’re bisexual (actually one of them might be gay, I don’t remember but I think maybe he’s bi too, anyway). The Tamir Triad is a super interesting trilogy about a trans girl who grows up as a boy to be protected from a prophecy, and it’s a wonderful series that I have read at least twice.
For non-Western fantasy, I loved Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. In addition to being written by a WoC, having a WoC protagonist, and being rooted in a very different mythology from the standard western fantasy, it pretty unabashedly is focused on women’s lives and women’s experiences.
I need to try Nalo Hopkinson again — I read Midnight Robber in college and didn’t give it the attention it deserved.
Other good fantasy: I liked the Legend trilogy by Marie Lu, the Shatter Me trilogy by Tahereh Mafi, and The Iron King (start of a long series) by Julie Kagawa.
A short novel: “Woman At Point Zero” by Nawal El Saadawi. It’s about an unrepentant murderess who is on the Egyptian equivalent of Death Row, and it is GREAT.
Oh, and a couple others:
I LOVED Helen Oyeyemi’s “White is for Witching,” and I’m looking forward to reading her latest.
The tumblr News From Poems has been quoting excerpts of Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being” and it seems great. Haven’t read it yet, though.
Oh if you loved Oyeyemi you will FLIP for Ozeki! (Well, I did.) And BOY, SNOW, BIRD is fabulous in both senses of the word.
Also have you read Selasi’s GHANA MUST GO? I actually physically PUT THE BOOK IN MY MOUTH AND CHOMPED when I was done with it, it was so delicious.
If you’re up for poetry/essay, I’d highly recommend Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years and Deborah Miranda’s Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir. Both texts reflect on (rage against) the scars of colonialism and racism, as well as the fragmentary nature of identity (gender, race, sexual orientation). And they’re fucking amazing poets.
Full disclosure: I work at the press that put out Bad Indians so I feel kind of weird about recommending it here, but I truly think it’s a beautiful, devastating book.
I second that! Cherie Moraga’s Loving in the War Years is excellent. 🙂
Just in case you haven’t seen it yet, Leonicka, the Lee & Low and Tu Books writing contests seeking new writers of color are now open. Unfortunately for our friends outside the US, this is US-only, but Lee & Low and Tu also seek international writers of color through our regular submissions processes.
New Voices (picture books by a writer of color): http://www.leeandlow.com/p/new_voices_award.mhtml
New Visions (middle grade and YA mystery and SFF): http://www.leeandlow.com/p/new_visions_award.mhtm…
Speaking as a publishing person myself (the call is coming from inside the house): DAMN there are a lot of white people in publishing. And yeah, that leads to a certain… uniformity of output. Breaking into publishing often requires at least one, and sometimes a series of, unpaid internships. This path is really only doable if you have rich, indulgent parents; as you might imagine, many of the people who go this route are young white people. If you work at a publishing house, agitate for paid internships (or, if that’s a complete nonstarter, for part-time/flexible schedules that will allow your interns to get another paid job.) It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s a start.
This is definitely my experience. I interned at a fancy schmancy publishing house and was absolutely only able to do so because my parents paid my rent that summer. It was full-time, four days a week, entirely unpaid (though if you tally up the free books I pilfered, I guess I got a few hundred dollars). It’s almost impossible to survive in New York City, where most major book publishing happens, like that. Then the paltry entry level salaries once you actually get a job. The industry needs to 1) pay its interns and 2) make entry level salaries livable, and we should see some more diversity in editorial. In the meantime, are you a POC who writes smart, funny nonfiction? Do you have a literary agent? Get at me.
Full disclosure, in case it wasn’t clear above: I am one of many, many relatively privileged white girls in publishing.
I work in computer publishing (as in, books about learning to code and using certain software), and our diversity problem would be obliterated if women and people of color had more access to and encouragement in the tech industry. All the white dudes of Silicon Valley are on such a pedestal these days, so it seems that no one else is “allowed” to be into computers.
Hahahahaha yes my office is like 90% dudes (this may be an exaggeration but it’s probably at least 80%) and basically 99% white and Asian, hello software company.
Thank you for this article! I work at a small press with a focus on publishing books written by Native California authors, and a lot of the points you raise are at the forefront of our consciousness. In fact, I’m printing out a copy right now so I can take it to staff lunch with me.
What’s the name of your press? It sounds great!
It’s called Heyday and it rules! (I’m trying to stay on the good side of reckless promotion here, but I have a lot of happy feelings about where I work and it just kind of comes out.)
I’m SO flattered! If you feel comfortable, please come back and tell us some of the discussion points/actions that came out of sharing this article with you coworkers. 🙂
I do photo research for educational children’s books (school library materials, mostly), and I’m glad that my company is engaged in producing representative content. Yes, it’s more work to find images that represent more groups of people, but it’s definitely worth it.
This is one of those jobs that I did not realize exists, and now that I know, it sounds very cool!
oh, also, for readers: make an effort to seek out translated books, especially works that are translated from languages other than French and Spanish (the two most frequent origin languages for the US market [not sure about UK, sorry]) — the Three Percent blog is a good place to start: http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/thre…
Especially seek out translated women authors, who only account for 26% of translated authors in the US (works in translation being only a measly 3% of all books published each year anyway). http://wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article…
To add: Ann Morgan did a great project along these lines with an enviable reading list. One book from every nation in the world. http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/
I review and much of my work is with self-published books which are a straight-up GOLD MINE in terms of diversity, but suffer gravely because people are publishing what could easily be good, compelling stories without subjecting them to any editing whatsoever. I’m continually writing pieces about the value of editing, trying to get your idioms and English on point (if that’s the language you intend to publish in) and being certain you can connect with your audience, and it all falls on deaf ears because everyone thinks they’re the next J.K. Rowling. The international scope of what I get to see is mind-boggling, but most of it will go nowhere without complete rewrites and line edits. Publishers looking for rising stars can find great potential there, though, and I hope they’re looking despite the work ahead for everyone involved.
This is a great comment filled with a lot of layers. First I like the mention of self-publishing because as many note (check this article from PBS http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2014/06/self-publis… ) many marginalized groups choose to self-publish when traditional publishing avenues fail.
However I also like the mention of the need for editing which, to me, is part of the larger problem of lack of knowledge about book production, marketing and distribution.
What tools and resources do writers who choose to self-publish need to in order to produce, market and distribute the work most effectively?
Okay, I checked my spreadsheet. Of the 92 books I’ve read in 2014:
Fewer than 9% are by authors of color. I knew I started tracking that stat for a reason.
17.4% are by white men
3.3% are by men of color
5.4% are by women of color
72.8% are by white women
(1 is by a white couple – statistically insignificant)
Of the 19 books I’ve blogged about this year:
5.3% are by men of color
5.3% are by women of color (1 each)
36.8% are by white men
52.6% are by white women
So now I know my almost-mid-year stats. Damn sure intend to change some things over the next few months!
Thank you for sharing!
Postcolonial critique AND wanton snogging? SOLD.
White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
This is one of those jobs that I did not realize exists, and now that I know, it sounds very cool!
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead!
(The assumption being that discussion of diversity are always about race and ethnicity. This is false.)
Thank you for noting this.
Malinda Lo keeps a decent list of diverse YA books on tumblr, which address I don’t have bcuz at work. But as for more grown-up fiction by a diverse set of people:
1. Octavia Butler – Xenogenesis trilogy. It is a crying shame Kindred is not a movie yet (Lupita Nyong’o is an easy pick for lead, though I wouldn’t hate any # of black actresses here), but I really loved this trilogy.
2. Nicola Griffith – Hild is amazing, the bisexuality is there, and she brings Anglo-Saxon England to life.
3. Roz Kaveney – Rhapsody of Blood series. It’s a pity these are from a small press, but they’re great. Trans author.
4. Caitlin Kiernan – The Drowning Girl – this has a narrator with a mental illness, author is, I believe, trans, and it’s a weird, cool ghost story to boot
5. Seconding Brown Girl in the Ring. I really liked that a lot.
6. Haven’t read Half of a Yellow Sun yet, but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus is amazing (devastating but amazing)
7. Reading the first Inheritance trilogy book, liking it.
8. Kate Bornstein is also awesome. I thought her autobiography was awesome.
9. Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death. I was more mixed on it, but the language is beautiful.
10. Next on my list is Zoo City, which is an SFF book by Lauren Beukes, WOC protagonist.
11. I also have Angelica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial on my Kindle – she was apparently the queen of South American SFF. Ursula K. LeGuin did the translation.
Here it is! http://www.diversityinya.com/ and http://diversityinya.tumblr.com/ by Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo.