dodge

Sometimes I try to get out of things.  And sometimes the universe says, “Quit trying to dodge the work/gift I’m sending your way!”  You can’t avoid your destiny.  So yesterday I was talking to a friend who was upset over being left out of the loop; she learned some major news via Facebook, and felt she ought to have been notified personally.  Another friend was upset when she learned someone very close had opted to have a “family only” wedding.  I was full of sage advice, of course, but then had to follow it myself b/c I, too, fuss over moments of exclusion.  You’ve heard me complain about festivals that exclude writers of color—just last spring I met with the NYPL to discuss their teen author festival that always seems to be mighty white.  Well, here’s their fall lineup:

Fall Teen Author Reading Nights!

September 13 – B&N Back to School Bash, featuring Tiger Beat, with special guests David Levithan, Eliot Schrefer, and Eireann Corrigan (6:30-8, B&N Tribeca, 97 Warren St.)

October 6 — Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.)

Maria Boyd, Will
Matt de la Pena, I Will Save You
Kirsten Miller, The Eternal Ones
Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall
Samantha Schutz, You Are Not Here
Suzanne Weyn, Empty
Lizabeth Zindel, A Girl, A Ghost, and the Hollywood Hills

November 3 — Teen Author Reading Night (6-7:30, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave, at 10th St.)

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares
Sarah Beth Durst, Enchanted Ivy
Barry Lyga, Archvillain
Lena Roy, Edges
Kieran Scott, She’s So Dead to Us
Scott Westerfeld, Behemoth

I’m done.  My agent and I have discussed the heap of manuscripts I dumped on her desk, and her suggestion is that I leave the world of YA.  And when I see crap like this, over and over again, I have to agree.  Not that the world of adult lit is so much more egalitarian.  I’m just sick of the lily-white clique.  I’ve started writing again, so will focus on my own work instead of getting worked up over this b.s.

A couple of days ago I was asked to participate in a tribute to the late Virginia Hamilton at the upcoming A is for Anansi conference.  I was honored, but tried to dodge the job…then woke to find this email in my inbox.  It’s from another elder:

Now I will start Labor Day weekend on A Wish After Midnight.

I ordered Bird from Barnes and Noble.

It is the best children’s picture book I have read recently.

I shared it with two nieces and a great nephew–each reading a page with me reading the ending pages.

I love its poetry, its ethnic relevant references, its environmental new facts about birds, its ginger depiction of a young boy with his grandfather and older men, its poignant stark realism, and its artistic illustration (those Pinkney “boys” got competition and so has James Ransome and Tyrone Geter, the latter out of South Carolina where I used to teach)

I left it for my 51 year old brother, who works construction everyday and still pays the crack dealer!

I got all excited to take it with me for an 8 year old friend Elijah to read to the therapy dogs in the local library. But he wasn’t home…

Thanks, Dr. Elliott for writing in the “vein of the late Virginia Hamilton!”

She was brave enough to write about a young girl’s fascination with Africa and a black older girl way back in the early sixties in a children’s picture book format.

You were brave enough to tackle drugs and double deaths in a children’s picture book…

No more dodging for me…