lost & found
One good thing about having anxiety issues is that I almost never lose things. I check and double check my bag before I leave the house. I’ve never lost my keys or my wallet, but yesterday I lost my phone. It was a cheap Blackberry knock-off with a scratched screen; I’d had it for years but I was still surprised when I realized it was gone. Last fall my friend and I vowed we would catch up with technology and finally purchase a Smartphone. I decided to wait until winter break when I would have time to compare plans and models. Then suddenly it was March and I questioned whether I really needed a new phone—the old one still worked, I liked the easy-to-text keypad, and my monthly bill was under $30. But when I realized last night that my phone really was gone, I finally stopped making excuses and bought a Smartphone online. It’s the most basic kind—very few bells and whistles—but that’s all I need.
Living with anxiety is helpful sometimes—it keeps me vigilant but I realize it also prevents me from embracing change. I hate to shop and so I wear the same three items of clothing until they don’t fit any more. I hate the stress of searching for a new apartment and so I’ve put up with a less than stellar landlord and neighbors with yappy dogs. Sometimes it takes a crisis to knock me out of my comfort zone and guess what? The publishing industry is in crisis. I’m avoiding Facebook for a while because friends keep sending me links to two op-eds written for The New York Times by Walter Dean Myers and his son Christopher. Both pieces are well written but getting them over and over makes me feel the same irritation I experience when colleagues ask me to plan an event for Black History Month. I teach Black Studies all year round—I don’t need extra work for 28 days. Ask someone in the Math department! When it comes to diversity in publishing, I’ve spent the past 5 years blogging, and publishing articles, and presenting at conferences, and developing initiatives like The Birthday Party Pledge. Women generally have been doing this work for decades, but it takes a certain kind of privilege to find a platform like The Times. I’m glad the Myers are speaking out and I agree with everything they said. And maybe male voices will be heard in a way women’s voices have not.
This weekend I’ve been communicating with an artist in Honduras. I’m going through the 20+ manuscripts on my hard drive and selecting those I can publish on my own. Many of them are picture books, and unfortunately self-pubbing in color is prohibitively expensive. But some are chapter books that a 3rd grader would love, especially if I add a dozen black and white sketches. My goal is to have at least three $5 books ready by next fall. Why let these stories sit on my hard drive when kids are clamoring for books like mine? Imagine what First Book could do if instead of giving a million dollars to a corporate publisher like HarperCollins, they started their OWN press and bought manuscripts directly from authors of color. We need to stop waiting for the publishing industry to change. It’s racist to the core and not interested in serving our kids. Time to let go and find another way forward…
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