diversity
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Toward A More Colorful Masthead
A new, work-in-progress database of contemporary writers of color created by Durga Chew-Bose, Jazmine Hughes, Vijith Assar, and Buster Bylander aims “to create more visibility for writers of color, ease their access to publications, and build a platform that is both…
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Unbearable Whiteness
Elisa Gabbert asks the hard questions for Electric Literature: When the VIDA counts come out and multiple publications are shown to publish far more men than women (with the numbers for POC writers looking even worse), editors make excuses about their submission…
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Tamara Winfrey-Harris
The reality is that there is privilege even within social justice movements.
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The Summer of White Authors
The New York Times‘s summer reading list has hit peak whiteness. The Gawker Review of Books has been tracking the Times‘s summer reading list and while the last few years have seen the list hover around 90% white authors, the 2015 list…
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We Need Equal Books
While in one sense the propensity in mainstream discourse to describe racial conflict with words like “tolerance” and “hate”—rather than “power” or “oppression”—has made it possible for greater numbers of people to conceive of how racism affects individuals on a…
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Diverse Books by the Numbers
Over at FiveThirtyEight, Amy Rothschild explores the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, and the many strategies advocates are using to make a lasting change in the landscape of children’s literature. While 2014 showed a hopeful bump in books penned by and depicting people…
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Science Fiction’s Diversity Makeover
For the Guardian, Damien Walter applauds the growing diversity of science fiction titles in 2014, particularly the work of Kameron Hurley and Anne Leckie’s debut novel Ancillary Justice. Of Leckie’s work Walter writes: Its unconventional take on gender politics helped Ancillary Justice make…
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Mirrors and Windows
Jacqueline Woodson responds to Daniel Handler’s racist watermelon joke at the National Book Awards with a moving and direct piece in the New York Times. She neither condemns nor forgives Handler, but instead focuses on her personal history with the…
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Diversity Matters
Daniel Handler’s (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) recent racist joke at the National Book Awards exposed an uncomfortable truth about the American publishing industry: its overwhelming whiteness. For the industry to survive, it must embrace diversity. Over at the Guardian, Carole DeSanti…
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The Importance of Diversity in Workshop
Workshop can be a stressful experience for anyone, but it can be especially stressful for a person of color. Matthew Salesses wrote this piece for NPR, highlighting the importance of making the workshop a safe space for everyone.
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The Hashtag That Changed BookCon’s Lineup
The inaugural BookCon event just took place in New York City in conjunction with the publishing industry’s annual trade convention. When the event’s entirely white lineup was first announced, the #WeNeedDiverseBooks Twitter campaign drew attention to the problem and led…