Interview by Caroline Sun
Please tell us about the most recent diverse book you published.
Please tell us about the most recent diverse book you published.
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| P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia |
Rita
Williams-Garcia’s P.S. Be Eleven will be coming out in June. It’s
the wonderful continuation of the story told in One Crazy Summer, and I
love it! In this story, sisters Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are back in
Brooklyn after a summer spent with their mother in Oakland, CA. Delphine starts
sixth grade, with all the perils that entails—a male teacher she can’t quite
figure out, the sixth-grade dance, a growth spurt that leaves her taller than
almost all the boys. And there’s the Jackson Five, this heavenly new group that
is going to be playing in Madison Square Garden… Although the book is set
in the late 1960s, it’s has a very universal quality. And the setting never
intrudes on the story—Rita is very careful about that. She is a master. We’ve
worked together on all of her novels, and I’m proud to be her editor. Love
Rita, love her books.
What’s
the biggest challenge for publishing companies who want to feature more diverse
titles?
Publishing
diverse books has long been a passion of mine. I’ve been around long enough
that I’ve seen the climate for publishing diverse titles get sunny, and then
cloudy, and then sunny again, and so on. I’ve been involved in publishing
Spanish-language and bilingual books at Penguin, and at Harper, through the
Rayo imprint. The toughest problem is selling the books and reaching the
market. I’ve heard a lot of publisher-bashing, which I feel is not entirely
fair—and I suppose I’ll be criticized for saying so. In my experience, I’ve
seen strong efforts to sell diverse books that are sometimes met with low
sales—and I’m thinking of Spanish-language and bilingual books in particular.
It’s likely that publishers don’t quite know how to reach the market. But
perhaps people who want publishers to publish more diverse books should make a
commitment to buy the books. The problem does not lie only on the
side of the publishers, although there is certainly more we can do.
