Yes, yes, yes. I have been delinquent in posting. Almost a month! My apologies. One of the things that have kept me busy (beyond end-of-the-year deadlines) is the We Need Diverse Books Indiegogo campaign that started October 24th. As a team member and social media person I've been helping on that end and it's been go, go, go!
It's also been fantastic to witness the support online as well as in dollars and donations that people have been providing for their belief that We Need Diverse Books (WNDB)! Being part of the WNDB team has been so great. Everyone is very committed to the belief and pitches in. It's a family as much as it is a team and I am very honored to have been asked to be a part of it after SCBWI. (Thanks, Ilene!)
So what is #SupportWNDB? Where is the money for this campaign going? Well lots of initiatives but focusing on providing grants to emerging writers as well as established diverse writers (there are other diversity grants via SCBWI--which I won last year--and Lee & Low [New Visions & New Voices Awards] as well as the Speculative Literature Foundation) but We Need Diverse Books wants to add to that and not relegate the sole aspects of diversity to people of color.
There's also diversifying classrooms via partnerships with An Open Book Foundation, NEA, and First Book to bring diverse authors for school visits at disadvantaged schools; educational kits for librarians and educators on how to diversify literature offered and dispensed to young readers; in addition to funding the 2016 Diversity Festival we plan to have in Washington, DC! So many things and plans ahead to promote diversity and changing the course of thought for what is considering "mainstream."
As a writer of color this is something I believe in not only in terms of being an emerging diverse artist but being a reader who would've loved to see more diversity in what I read as a kid and clamor for it as an adult no matter what the genre. I very much believe and am happy to give my time and money in #SupportWNDB and I'd urge others to also.
So that's one reason I've been busy and if you'd like to find me I'm more than likely behind the @diversebooks account on Twitter. :o)