African Voices Summer 2017 AV Summer 2017 Digital Issue | Page 32

my hard drive. I was uncomfortable serving as art director at first but grew more confident after the first few illustrated
books and found talented artists who understood my vision. Now I have an agent and she sold three books to corporate
publishers last year, but those books won’t come out until 2018 or later. I still self-publish because I have stories that I
know will never appeal to mainstream editors who are overwhelmingly straight, White cis-gender women who don’t
have disabilities. Most reviewers are White women, most educators and librarians in this country are White women,
and I suspect most booksellers are, too. I can’t wait for people who aren’t from my community to recognize our
“urgencies,” to borrow a term from June Jordan.
AV: We see you as a literary activist, you are very vocal about the lack of diversity in children’s books. Have
you seen any positive changes in children’s lit since you started? What more needs to be done?
ZE: I haven’t seen positive changes in the publishing industry; in fact, the stats show that while the number of books
ABOUT Blacks has soared, the number of books by Blacks has actually gone down. So when you just say, “We need
diverse books,” the industry responds by giving more White writers more opportunities to write outside their race/
culture. We still aren’t addressing issues of equity and access to opportunity.
You know what Frederick Douglass said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” and we don’t have a
movement that’s demanding change. It’s not unlike police forces across the country—you can’t “fix” the issue of
police brutality simply by hiring a few more Black and brown rookie officers because the problem is culture and
systemic. Publishing remains an overwhelmingly White profession and no one is holding them accountable for that—
and a few more brown interns won’t create real change.
We’re seeing a new “trend” in books that are marketed as Black Lives Matter narratives, and those authors are
“getting paid,” but that doesn’t mean our actual lives and stories matter to publishers—they’re just trying to sell
books (to Whites). I’m an advocate of community-based publishing and organic writing. We can be creators and
not just consumers of books packaged by cultural outsiders. I look at television and see so much change—more
ways for creators to tell their stories online, on cable, on Netflix, Amazon, etc. I think we need multiple strategies
and that means not giving up on integrating the Big 5, but giving equal energy to small presses, self-publishers,
digital publishing, and using our own platforms (podcasts, blogs, web magazines) to review and market our stories.
I have 26 books for young readers and most aren’t eligible for review, which means librarians won’t acquire them
for their collections, bookstores won’t stock them, and folks generally just don’t know what’s available. Home
libraries improve kids’ academic performance so we also have to focus on changing the culture of consumption in
our communities—books are an investment in the future (unlike sneakers). We have to create a new generation of
dreamers so we have multiple visions of what this country can become.
AV: Wild card: what music are you listening to these days?
ZE: I generally write with the TV on! But sometimes, I turn it off and listen to Pandora instead. My current station is
a mix of Emeli Sandé, Alice Smith, Solange, Sia, and Lianne La Havas. Sometimes, I get hooked on a particular song,
so I had “Formation” on steady rotation for a while and “Rental Love” by Lake Street Dive.
32
african Voices