Monday, May 21, 2012

It's Complicated!

Blog series introduction and welcome by CBC Diversity Committee Chair, Nancy Mercado


One of my favorite things about being on the CBC Diversity Committee is hearing the stories, ideas and concerns that are shared around the table at our monthly meetings. The committee is working towards concrete goals, but it also serves as a good old fashioned consciousness-raising group. By this I mean that we are able to have honest conversations about diversity in children's publishing and elevate our own discourse by listening to everyone's experiences, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in the process. These closed-door meetings are incredibly useful, but we wanted to open up the conversation to a much wider audience. To that end, we are introducing a new blog series called It's Complicated!

The internet can often be a rough-and-tumble kind of place when it comes to complex and layered discussions, but we think it’s possible and necessary to have a respectful and open forum where we are able to chat about some of the challenges that we face, as well as the opportunities that exist when we come together as a community. So what are some of the challenges we face? Well, I’ll give you a glimpse into some of the things we’ve discussed around our table:


  • There aren’t enough diverse people working in the industry
  • There’s a perception that diverse books are too niche or that they don’t sell
  • Diverse books or authors can get pigeon-holed, both in house and in the marketplace
  • Authors avoid the portrayal of diverse characters for fear that they may perhaps not "get it right"
  • Editors worry that reviewers will heavily scrutinize books that feature diverse characters

To begin diving into some of these questions, we've asked an author, an agent, an editor, and a children’s literature advocate/reviewer to weigh in on an aspect of diversity in publishing that is meaningful to them. I'm pleased to say that we have terrific posts to come this week from author Cynthia Leitich Smith, agent Stefanie Von Borstel, editor Cheryl Klein, and advocate/reviewer Debbie Reese.

Please tune in this week and participate in what we hope will be an informative and insightful conversation! We really want to hear from you, our readers, about your experiences and concerns, and how you think authors/reviewers/publishing professionals/teachers & librarians/parents can work towards some of our shared goals.

13 comments:

  1. I am so glad to see this coming! I will be reading and thinking right along with you. Great line up for the week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent! What a super concept - diversity in children's publishing. I am very interested and excited to see “It’s Complicated”.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kudos for the continued dialogue. I look forward to it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I anticipate a thoughtful and passionate discussion ahead!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm looking forward to continuing the discussion!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm very excited about this discussion, especially because the participants are aware of and sensitive to the challenges of diversity.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Looking forward to this discussion, just as I'm preparing a school author's talk on writing multicultural stories!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very interested to read the posts!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I look forward to the continuing conversation. Thank you for doing this.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thank you for this topic. Yes, talking about issues surrounding diversity is complicated indeed! As a white person I've felt it's important to discuss white privilege with the college students that I teach, in order to avoid an uncritical "heroes and holidays" approach to multiculturalism. I've found that many of them (and other whites of all ages and backgrounds) are sympathetic regarding the past experience of marginalized groups, but resist the idea of their own present privileged status. Looking forward to reading more!

    ReplyDelete
  11. glad to have found this website via Anne Sibley O'Brien's blog. I look forward to hearing more from you.

    ReplyDelete