CBC Diversity Newsletter: September 2013 v. 2

Click to view CBC Diversity Newsletter September 2013 v. 2 on GLOSSI.COM

Character Development

An It's Complicated! — Authentic Voices guest post by 2012-2013 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Walter Dean Myers.

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What I knew about the character I wanted to create was that he was based on the Moroccan hero Tarik ibn Zayad. In late April, 711, Tarik led his soldiers across what is now known as the strait of Gibraltar onto the Iberian Peninsula. My problem was to keep the book as time specific as possible while making it interesting to today’s young reader.

Knowing the subsequent influence of Islamic and Moorish culture in Spain, I decided to take the trip to the areas I would be writing about. I took my usual research assistants – my wife Constance and our son Christopher. We flew from Newark Airport to Malaga where we spent a few days checking out the food and staring at the people. Christopher noted that many seemed to be of mixed race.   We then rented a car and drove to Granada.   

Granada is flat out beautiful, and I knew I wanted to include the lush scenery in my book. So throughout the book I made references to the vegetation and thus gave Tarik a careful and interesting appreciation of the wonders of nature.  

Tarik, in my story, is on a mission of vengeance. His family has been killed by Visigoth raiders and he is angry. But, needing to control that anger I gave him martial arts training from two people, one who teaches him to fight and the other who teaches him self control.  His character is coming along nicely, thank you. 

Take Four! A New, Two-part "It's Complicated" Conversation

As part of CBC Diversity's ongoing effort, we're pleased to present the fourth dialogue in the "It's Complicated!" blog series starting next week, and for the first time, it will run over two consecutive weeks, starting on Monday. This time we've invited five authors to share their thoughts about writing inside their cultural perspective, and five authors to discuss writing outside their cultural perspective.

I think most would agree that in an ideal world, the diversity depicted in books and of their creators would match the diversity of our world. But I know some might disagree on the best way to get there--what if that's not immediately possible? Is it better to have white/straight/able-bodied, etc. authors write books about non-white/LGBT/disabled, etc. characters? Can those characters truly be authentic? What if the only way authors of color can achieve commercial success is by writing books with non-diverse characters? And can those books be authentic, too? Are there any topics that should be "off-limits" to outsider writers? Do you trust an author you perceive to be an insider more than you would an outsider?

Industry Q&A with editor Phoebe Yeh

Please tell us about the most recent diverse book you published. 

The School for Good and Evil
by Soman Chainani

For the purposes of this response, I propose that we define “diversity” in a more expansive way.

I suggest that “diversity” should mean more than issue based books by authors of color about protagonists of color. (While I believe that these books are still needed, the definition of diversity in the 21st century needs to be broader. I encourage all of you to read Christopher Myers’ excellent Horn Book piece for more on this subject.

Please consider the work of the debut novelists Korean American Ellen Oh and Asian Indian Soman Chainani. They are part of a growing number of authors of color who are breaking boundaries with regard to the diversity of book content and genre.

Diversity 101: The Sidekick Syndrome

Contributed to CBC Diversity by our very own Andrea Davis Pinkney 

My Personal Connection
My teenagers are some opinionated people! I love this about them. It means they have strong ideas and that they’re speaking up about what’s important to them. That’s why I was very eager to write this blog post about clichés and stereotypes. As the mom of two teens, my daughter and son waste no time telling me what needs to be fixed in the YA books they read. As an editor and author, my kids like to stick it to me, thinking I have some magical power to correct each and every societal stereotype that exists in books for young people. While I don’t have a magic wand, I do know there is one cliché that annoys the heck out of me and my teens. Hopefully this post will shine some light on it.

Stereotypes/Cliches/Tropes/Errors

I’ll pose it in the way my kids put it to me ― in a question: “Why, in contemporary YA novels that feature groups of kids as friends, the black girl or boy is always a sidekick, secondary character, or nonentity?”

The way my daughter and son see it, this is the kid with no character development, no backstory, no emotional growth, no family, and dialogue one-liners that don’t amount to much.