By DeeAnn Veeder
So this happened. Just a couple of weeks ago. At Book Expo America 2015 (BEA) in New York City, at the Javits Center. I was attending the conference with the newest member of our BooksEndependent (BE) team, Samuel E. Woods-Corr, our Digital Marketing Administrator. This was the first opportunity we’d had to connect as a team, and I became more and more impressed with this young man over those two days. He is enthusiastic, smart, and charismatic. He is knowledgeable and confident in areas that complement my ability to work a typewriter. He’s a super people person, asks questions easily and sees the big picture fast.
This particular incident happened when we were each attending separate seminars. Before the session started, Sam was standing off to the side talking to David Parker, author of The More You Do, The Better You Feel, when a woman approached Sam and asked if he could turn the air conditioning down. Now why did she ask Sam to do that? Was it the strong feeling of capability that Sam exudes? Was it his friendly demeanor, his killer smile, his light blue polo shirt? Was he standing next to the thermostat? Or was he the only black guy in the room? Mr. Parker apologized to Sam on behalf of all white people. Sam related this story to me in good humor, but, really…ouch.
Ironically, the seminar I attended was WNDB: Be the Change You Want to See. WNDB (We Need Diverse Books) was a campaign conceived last year in response to an oversight of BookCon’s organizers; diverse authors were absent from their Blockbuster Reads panel, which was all white authors and one cat. The people in charge stretched right on past and over people of color, disabled people, LGBTQ people to a cat. Grumpy Cat. I love cats but, come on, is it even a calico cat?
It’s tremendously gratifying and exciting to see how fast WNDB has grown in a year. Their website http://weneeddiversebooks.org/ is now a fantastic resource, and there are some seriously talented, prolific, award-winning authors involved in every facet of the organization.
Ellen Oh, one of WNDB’s founders, was the moderator of this conference and on the panel were Lamar Giles, Linda Sue Park, Matt de la Pena, and Tim Federle. This was by far the most entertaining, exciting, and important panel at the show. The discussion was animated, brilliantly insightful and relevant. They talked about the groundbreaking WNDB Publishing Internship Program headed by Linda Sue Park. They presented WNDB in the Classroom, and appealed to the gatekeepers, the teachers and librarians, to understand how vital it is to bring diverse books to every school and library in this country.
Now back to Sam’s seminar, Public Libraries, the Publishers’ Friend in the Digital Age; the white lady who thought Sam was a janitor could very well be one of those gatekeepers, a librarian. I can only hope that she attends WNDB’s conference next year. Or better yet, maybe she heard about them this year and is reading up on their mission, their worthy efforts; maybe she’s perusing their Summer Reading Series right now; maybe she’s checking out their Booktalking Kit. Maybe she’s ordering all kinds of diverse books so she can avoid hurting someone else’s feelings in the future.
posted by Valerie C. Woods
on June, 17
The post BE and WNDB and BEA 2015 (Guest Blog) appeared first on Valerie C. Woods.