Interview with Bestsellling Author Donna Hill by Marcia King-Gamble

 

Author Donna Hill

https://donnahill.wordpress.com/

I had the good fortune to work alongside talented author Donna Hill at BET, Kensington Publishing, Harlequin and again at St. Martin's Press. I am delighted to have had the opportunity to interview her. Donna has one of those voices writers envy. Please read what she had to say about her writing journey. 

1/ When did you first know you wanted to become a writer? 

I don't believe I ever thought I would 'become" a writer per se. I always wrote from way back in grade school.  I would write for my friends, I had books of poetry.  I wrote on everything I could get my hands on. But it never occurred to me to be a writer. it wasn't until the late eighties after writing a short story that I considered getting it published. I knew that I loved to read and write but becoming a writer was not something that was conscious. But when I began looking into getting  my short story published, and it was, then I kind of thought, "wow, I can do this. I can be a writer."

 

2/ Once published, did you set goals as to what you wanted to accomplish? 

To be honest, not really. I think I was just so happy to be able to do what I'd loved all my life, my only plan was to just write and hope that readers loved what I wrote. That was probably not the best goal! LOL. It wasn't until much later that I realized that my writing was no longer a passion project it was a business. There were contracts and deadlines and book tours and promotion. But, I still didn't have a plan exactly. I suppose the closest thing to a plan was learning to remain relevant. I partnered with other writers in anthologies back when they were not being done. I presented book projects to editors, I learned to write blurbs for the back of books. Studied my contracts for ways to be able to write for multiple houses, in various genres. That was pretty much what I did.

 

3/ You started off writing short stories. Tell us about that and the journey to having three books (I believe that was the number) turned into movies by BET? 

My first short story 'The Long Walk" was published by Black Romance Magazine. Nathasha Brooks-Harris was my editor. She was the one that gave me the opportunity to serve as advice columnist and edit the letters that came. The more short stories that I wrote the longer and more complicated they became and Nathasha told me that the stories were getting too lengthy for the magazine and maybe I should think about writing a novel. Ha! The idea had never occurred to me. But I started it and long story short it was ultimately published by Odyssey Books, a small black owned publishing company in Silver Springs, Maryland. Leticia Peoples was the publisher. My novel Rooms of the Heart, launched her contemporary line and Mildred Riley launched the historical line.  I did one more novel with Odyssey, Indiscretions, before going over to Kensington which had just launched Arabesque with Monica Harris as the editor. Sandra Kitt and Francis Ray (who'd both written for Odyssey) were the first two published by Arabesque. Eventually the Arabesque line was swept up by BET Books and thats when the movies deals came along. They picked three of my works for television A Private Affair, Intimate Betrayal and Masquerade.

4/What are some of the most memorable moments in your publishing history? 

Hmmm. After I wrote If I Could  I remember receiving a letter (yes a real letter) from a woman that said reading If I Could finally gave her the courage to leave her husband! Yikes. Another highlight was with my novel In My Bedroom the book was being used in a college classroom as a teaching tool  and woman approached me during a signing of In My Bedroom and confessed "this happened to me. thank you for writing this."

 

5/ You have a successful career in the educational world as well. That said, if you weren’t a writer, what would be your second career? 

When I was very young still in middle school I wanted to be a magazine publisher! LOL.  Right now, I'm doing my other love, teaching. I enjoy the students, the content I can create with them and seeing them shine. It's great.

 

6/ Many writers are no longer writing, especially writers of color. Why do you think that is?

 It's hard to say. I would guess lack of support from publishers, changing market and just plain exhaustion. Writing is real work and the job doesn't end with you hit sent to your editor. That's when the real work begins and it's exhausting.

 

7/ There have been so many changes in the industry. Publishers merged. Editors lost their jobs. eBooks took over. Do you see the Publishing world shifting again?

 Hmm, with so many book influencers I think that recognition for new authors and even seasoned ones are showcased. There is definitely a shift in every aspect. We don't mail in manuscripts anymore, we email them. Book tours are not what they once were. It's not a lone author at a table hawking books. Now authors are "in conversation" with someone during these events. There are ticketed events and QR codes and multiple levels of social media placement. Its a brave new world and social media is one of the driving forces. I guess AI will be "in conversation" with the author with virtual events in the future.  (that's an idea though).

 

8/ No one predicted that eBooks would take off the way they did, or that Indie authors would be on the New York and USA Bestseller list. What are your thoughts? 

I think its great. Traditional methods and traditional publishing . . .move over.

 

9/What advice would you give to beginning writers?” 

Hmm, decide if you are going to be a sprinter or a long distance runner. Read widely, travel when you can, listen to conversations, pay attention to the world around you and don't get trapped in writing to a fad.  Fads fade.  Read. Read. Read.

 

10/ Why do you think so many multi-cultural lines closed down? Was it the marketing?  

Hmm. Hard to say. The house will say it's the numbers. And it's the numbers for various reasons. 

 

11/ Finally, what’s next for Donna and her writing career? 

Well, I just submitted a novel to Harlequin entitled Unfinished as well as the synopsis for the next book. My next historical, Nola and Baldwin with Amistad is in and being edited as I type this. I am working on a followup to submit to Amistad. Debating whether to return to contemporary or do another historical. I just received Tenure at work my college Medgar Evers and have also taken on the role of Executive Director for the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College. So, trying to stay busy. LOL

The Way We Were.... Romance has Changed!

 By: Marcia King-Gamble

www.lovemarcia.com

Like me on Facebook  http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS

 In the background are Locks of Love ...lovers names are engraved and the keys thrown into the ocean!

As a writer of contemporary romance, I’m amazed at just how far we’ve come. I grew up for the most part on St. Vincent; a  small British island, that back then, few people even heard of. We had two book stores on the island, so if you were a reader you read whatever was on those shelves.

At age six, I read Mills and Boon novels and hid them under my mattress. I was an early reader, thanks to my school teacher mom. She would later tell everyone she didn’t even know I was able to read. She’d take me with her to classes and apparently I was catching on. But back to the subject matter at hand.

Contemporary romance at that time consisted of a boy meet girl scenario, some kind of conflict ,(usually a third person vying for the hero’s attention,) and the only hint of  lust were a few chaste kisses. These kisses increased the woman’s heartbeat and made the guy’s manhood throb.

Flash forward several years, and here I am writing the stories that I grew up with, except, oh, my, how much these stories have changed.  Now there is sex! And not implied either.

My first publishing opportunity came with the launching of the multi-cultural market.  Prior to that, few people who looked like me were even on the covers. With the nineties things changed. Kensington Publishing launched their Arabesque and Encanto lines and held their breaths. Other publishing houses quickly followed suit when they realized there was money to be made and the market couldn’t get enough.  They were shortsighted in that, they only marketed these books to the  African American and Latino community, not realizing that a good book is a good book, whether the faces on the cover are yellow, white or black. 

Back then Erotic or Erotica novels were something you did not read in public, or if you did, the book jacket was covered. I remember when books like Lolita and Lady Chatterley’s Lover were considered scandalous and only a 'harlot' read them in private or public.  Now today’s heat level would make even an exotic dancer blush. 

Today’s readers want it hot, hot. Readers for the most part want their sex, raw and explicit, although there has to be some romance driving that sex.  Readers want to read about both parties enjoying sex not women being taken, as had often been portrayed in the romances of the sixties, seventies and even eighties. Readers want to explore and maybe learn about something other than the missionary position.    Look at the success of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Contemporary romance also has hero and heroine meeting in unusual ways, just like people meet today….online... in coffee bars and in Internet cafes.  Heroines also have a multitude of careers. Gone are the days when the heroine was usually a nurse or nanny. Today she is the CEO and the hero might just be working for her. In Come Fall, one of my less known books, the heroine is accused by a subordinate of sexual harassment. How’s that for a flip?

Long gone are the romance novels that are completely vanilla, although the Inspirational Market, which is hugely popular, and very faith based, prefers sex not to happen without benefit of marriage.  But boy still meets girl and conflict happens. 

Romance today can take place on an alternate universe and love can happen between vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters. There are elements of suspense in romances and gruesome mysteries to be solved.  But the one thing that has not changed is that a satisfying ending must happen, and true love will prevail.

Contemporary romance has changed for the better.      

Food Isn't Everything

Hi everyone! I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 

I don't know if I'm the only Genre-ista who thinks cooking is a pastime invented by the devil, but  I do. So when I saw this month's topic, I cringed. Honestly I believe God invented restaurants and microwave oven for a reason.  In my twenties I accumulated a ton of cookbooks, I guess thinking the proximity might inspire me. Nothing. Most were never even opened. I watch Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen, mostly to get ideas of what to order when I eat out.

Yet, the characters in my books cook. In fact, after my fourth manuscript someone brought to my attention that my character's are always making spaghetti. (I admit its a personal favorite and one of the few foods I do actually cook because I can boil water.)

In my Work In Progress, entitled The Last Logan, my heroine, Beverly Jefferson, is an ace in the kitchen. She is also an ace Investigative Reporter in Chicago. She does everything from brew her own almond-infused Arabica bean coffee (because no coffee shop barista knows how to make coffee to her specifications and convenience is never an  excuse for compromise), to making multi-course

and supremely healthy meals for her nine-year-old daughter who longs for the taste of unhealthy snacks.

Frankly, if my mother fixed this "nutritious food" for my nine-year-old self I'd have plotted to run away and seek out so something supremely unhealthy myself. Fortunately the little girl in my story has a wonderful grandmother who helps her plot against her mother.


Even Beverly ends up fixing spaghetti as a special treat for the hero so the two former -- and soon to be reunited -- lovers can reminisce about their college days spent haunting a little off-campus Italian restaurant. (She also conjures up a mean Antipasto salad for their special meal.)

Different foods are valuable for different people in different situations.  And Beverly does spend a scene dining in a high-end Chicago restaurant for a meeting between herself and one of her confidential informants. 

Here's a scene from The Last Logan. In all honesty, this scene has been removed in favor of a much more private scene between the two women. That change is actually better for the story as a whole, but I am happy my Romancing The Genre readers will get to see the lunch in all it's original glory. (BTW, there really is a small out of the way, high-end restaurant that features this menu in Chicago, and yes, the food there is "to die for.") I hope you enjoy this banter between two friends, only one of which remains alive at the end of the book.

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Heroines Through History

Hi everyone! I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 

I've heard suggestions that we need a Woman's History Month.  Too few people know the important "her-stories," tales of the heroines that are just s important, if not more important that the male-dominated history. And while I write fiction instead of non-fiction, I love and appreciate a good heroine. I also study them, and, when appropriate, grab one's history or personality to help make my own characters more complex, interesting, and...well, more heroic.

I begin with  Fatima Al-Fihri, a Muslim woman who established the world's first University in the 9th century.  She turned her grief over the deaths of her father, brother and husband, into community work, using her personal wealth to found the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University in Fes, Morocco, a country in Africa. Muslim and non-Muslim alike have studied and received degrees at this school, including the man who later became Pope Sylvester II. To this day, the school continues to educate and graduate students. This princess whose dedication to education has shaped so many lives in the past deserves to be remembered.

Because I also love anti-heroes, my next heroine is Ching Shih, a nineteenth century female pirate who was more feared by her enemies (and her men) than the more well-known but less successful Anne Bonny. Ching Shih took control of her pirate husband's fleet after his untimely demise and went on to ravage shipping lanes in the early nineteenth century. 

She established strict rules for her the crews of her ships (yes, she led hundreds of pirates, called the Red Flag fleet) including rules prohibiting the rape of female prisoners. Men who disobeyed that rule ended up headless. And the former prostitute did not accept claims that the sex was consensual. This crafty woman even knew when it was time to retire. After negotiating a deal with the Chinese government that included amnesty and a nice chunk of cash, she lived to the age of 69.

One of my American heroines is Clara Belle Williams. Mrs. Williams had to earn her graduate degree in education from the University of New Mexico by taking classes during the summer because she taught elementary school the remainder of the year. She also had to attend many of those classes standing in the hall because many of her instructors would not allow the first black student at the University to enter their classrooms. Nor was she allowed to attend her graduation ceremony to pick up her diploma with fellow  students. But she went on to educate children at the Booker T Washington elementary school in New Mexico and raise three sons. Her sons all became doctors and founded the William's Clinic in Chicago.

I use Mrs. Williams as an inspiration to the kids in my current WIP who attend the made-up Clara Belle Williams school in a Chicago suburb. The teens in my book will learn the privilege of attending a school named after her, including one who looks at her picture in shock, telling readers that "she looks so young to have accomplished so much with her life." Truth is, she lived to be over 100, dying in 1994, but don't tell my character that. I want him to be inspired by her in spite of his youth.

My final heroine is alive and well and occupying the White House: FLOTUS, aka the elegant Michelle Obama. She is going to be a hard act to follow, no matter who occupies the White House next. She is appropriate for a romance blog because its obvious how close she and POTUS are (I just love those acronyms).

Recently her  Let's Move! campaign took her on field trips. Let's Move is an initiative designed to raise a healthier generation of kids. The video below shows her stopping at three sites to offer encouragement to kids and adults.

Her first stop in the video is at Watkins Elementary School, home to a schoolyard garden and students who grow, harvest, cook, and prepare nutritious foods. The First Lady join them in the school's demonstration kitchen and help make corn tortillas from scratch for tacos, along with a salad using kale harvested from their garden.

Next came John Burroughs Elementary School which has a vegetable garden and a newly planted fruit orchard. The final stop was a community garden cared for by Eriks Brolis and Linda Bilsens in the Brookland neighborhood of DC. Their garden fills an entire backyard and is used to help feed family, relatives, and neighbors.

Michelle Obama is at home at a state dinner and when encouraging the next generation.  And I'm sorry Romance Authors, but she's more fun than any story book heroine I've ever read. I guarantee she will someday make an appearance in one of my books. At least her personality and joie de vivre will land on the pages. Even if I have to package her under another name I will continue to utilize the stories of real heroines to enhance my characters.

The Passing Of A Giant

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline says it all - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 


Life keeps intervening in my posts for Romancing The Genres, or in this case death. This month the theme is writing collaborations which I thought timely because I am on the lookout for a writing partner.  Two heads being better than one, I would love the opportunity to work with another writer and see how/if my writing would go if I were part of a collaborative team. Partnerships sometimes move mountains. That's why I am on the lookout for a critique partner. 

I have just started writing a series of YA paranormal novellas about The Vessels, a group of  Black, Latino, and bi-racial heroes and heroines called upon to fulfill an agreement their souls entered into before they were born and give their lives to save the world from a demon invasion.  I wrote a small piece of flash fiction I called Final Choice that introduces readers to one Vessel (he doesn't know what he is yet). Final Choice was recently published in the summer edition of a local journal, the Arlington Almanac (Click here to read the story. ) It's only seven hundred words (this publisher is serious about word count) digested down from a four thousand word short story that gives you a lot more about Juvon's background and some of the demons he will have to face.

Click for Obituary

But last week one of my inspirations passed away. Walter Dean Myers. That changed the rest of what I was going to write in this post. 

He wrote more than 100 books for children of all ages, with two Newbery Honor Books, three National Book Award Finalists, and six Coretta Scott King Award/Honor-winning books. He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

At a time when people in the publishing industry may finally be hearing the message that #weneeddiversebooks the loss is a reminder that too few authors of color have ever been allowed on the center stage. His loss leaves a huge hole.  He was the go-to guy for all too many schools and librarians.  

Need a book for a black boy reader? Get him something by Walter Dean Myers. Oh, he’s already read that author's books and would like to see another well-written, quality book where he can find himself mirrored on the page? Sorry, no one else comes to mind.

Yes, I am being a little facetious, but only a little.  Try asking your local children's or teen librarian about black authors and see just how few they can think of much less have on their shelves for their kids to find.

I corresponded with some librarians over the holiday weekend who loudly proclaimed what a gem he had been. There would never be another one like him, they all said. I hope they are wrong. In fact, I’m sure of it.  Because if there is no one to take up the slack, what happens to the kids? Is it really true that the entire race could only produce one great children's author? Or is it just that the other authors labor in obscurity? Authors out there who are not afraid to write for this audience because “those books don’t sell” or “those kids don’t read,” and who are bypassed by publishers and the gatekeepers of children's lit and never seen or known. The thing I liked most about his books was that they didn't look down, or up, to anyone. They were all about relationships, parent and child, best friends, worst enemies. Characters who weren't the villains they looked like at first, and characters struggling to overcome villains.  Especially about building friendships and relationships between people who might not seem to have anything in common,  like Darius & Twig the most recent Myers book I read about the friendship between the kid who wants to be a writer someday (So I have to love him) and the kid on the way to a scholarship in track if he can get by the unscrupulous sports agent in his path.

In a few months I will be giving two workshops at a librarian convention.  One will be on ways to build up multicultural collections, including books that will provide both windows and mirrors for a variety of young readers. The second will focus on many of the invisible books by African-American authors.  I usually start that talk out by telling attendees there is one author whose name I should not even have to mention.  I will be giving him high tribute in October at the OELMA conference during both talks.

This man would have been number one on my list of collaboration partners.  Or maybe I would have just looked over his shoulder and watched him work, hoping to absorb some of his skill. Plotting, characterization, setting, he was a nimble craftsman who sucked you in and made you care about the story unfolding on the page. Both eager and reluctant readers were drawn to his words. And I know I am going to miss the joy of opening his future books. But I know there are other voices out there, and hope to see many authors building on his legacy.

PS, I'm still on the lookout for that critique partner.

When The Journey Is As Important As The Destination.

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns and since spring has finally sprung I, along with many of the other genre-istas, are thinking about vacations. I'm here to say that my favorite vacation is always the one in the future, and I have that one planned. 


A few months ago I was contacted by Bailey Ortiz, a teen librarian in Connecticut. She had heard about my 2013 talk to the 8th National Conference of African American Librarians (NCAAL) on Empowering the Voice of the Black Male in Children’s and Teen Lit. She wondered if I would be willing to travel to Connecticut to give that talk to the librarians attending the CLA (Connecticut Library Association)


Minor digression:
I happen to be a very shy person. That's why I started out as a Biochemist (closeted inside a lab) and then moved to Computer Science (holed up with a machine) and now I am a writer (a more solitary profession has not been invented). Only I quickly learned that writing also involves speaking, it's part of the promotion thing. Lo and behold, I discovered I liked speaking in front of large, anonymous groups.
Digression ends.

Of course I said yes. I've never been to Connecticut, so the crowd would be totally anonymous to me and I would be facing librarians, people with a mission I respect. And that meant I could treat this as a partial vacation. Which is good, because the stipend is pretty much non-existent. Seriously, it will cost me more to board my dog than the Honorarium I am receiving from the conference. But I get the opportunity to spread the message, because diversity in YA literature is important to me, to kids, and to the future.

And I get this nifty mini-vacation.


I will board a train and overnight it to Hartford, Connecticut. I get to walk in and go directly to bed (yes, I said bed) It will be shaky, but relaxing. I wake in the morning, shower, have breakfast and look out the windows to see a new landscape, the kind of thing you never see from the heights of an airplane. I'll meet people, because there is a difference between squeezing in up-close-and-personal with passengers in an airplane, and walking down the halls in a train, sitting at a table and eating, visiting the lounge car with people who are feeling as leisurely as you are. The other  passengers are not your competition the way they feel like on a plane. 

I'm taking Amtrak because I readily admit that I hate flying. It's not a fear of flying, exactly, almost more a fear of airports

• having to arrive hours in advance and taking off my shoes for TSA
• being squeezed into a too-small seat inside a crowded fuselage
• listening to kids crying because their ears are popping
• rebreathing air that has gone through smokers and people with colds
• lost luggage or just the struggle to get your suitcase into the overfull overhead compartment
• turbulence

The nightmare list is endless.

 

I get to look around and seek out potential characters for my next book.  And I get to spread the word about my books to new people, including the men and woman who work on the trains.  A year ago on the City Of New Orleans I sold two of my books to Amtrak  employees.

 I will enjoy my trip, see parts of the U. S. right outside my window, meet nice people, spend two days in Hartford with friendly librarians and return home unfrazzled.

Making Diversity Inclusive

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns dealing with yet another snowstorm after Mother Nature teased us. I spent the last month watching the academy awards and participating in an interesting discussion that I would like to share with you.  

Early in February I joined a group discussion at CCBC-Net, a listserv discussion group on issues related to literature for children and young adults. We were discussing the issue of diversity in fiction for children and young adults. The group included Authors, Bloggers, Booksellers, Editors, Educators, Librarians, Parents, Publishers, and other concerned parties.  One of the more telling points for me was the participation of publishers including Lee & Low who shared their Infographic on the lack of diversity in Hollywood Entitled - Where’s the Diversity, Hollywood? The discussion centered on ways to make Diversity an inclusive idea, not limited to one group or set of groups.

BTW, although the topic was scheduled for February, it bled over into March, long enough for the 86th Academy awards. That event included the moving speech by Lupita Nyong'o, the black actress who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. In addition, Alfonso Cuarón became the first Latino director to win an Oscar,  12 Years A Slave became the first Best PictureOscar winner directed by a black filmmaker, Steve McQueen, and Robert Lopez become the first Filipino-American ever to win an Oscar for his song “Let It Go” from the movie “Frozen.” All this was noted in the followup blog at Lee & Low: The 86th Annual Academy Awards Wins For Diversity.

The best thing about this discussion was that we came away with a set of practical, low or no-cost action items, a list of things that everyone, readers, librarians, booksellers, authors and parents, can begin doing immediately. Those action items are detailed by Debbie Reese on her blog American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL). I hope you will take a minute to look over her post on the month's activities and the action items and see if you might be able to participate in one or two. Many of the ideas focused on personal activism:

• actively buying books representing a diverse range of voices; 
• recommending and promoting diverse books to others; 
• asking for them at bookstores, schools and libraries; 
• using social media in those efforts and to draw attention to issues of representation; 
• writing reviews on Amazon, B&N and Goodreads; 
• stepping out of our personal comfort zones to make connections and advocate on these issues and books. 

Participants also suggested personal activism for writers and illustrators:

• stepping out of artistic comfort zones;  
• soliciting and listening to feedback from members of the communities one is writing about when going outside one’s own culture; 
• considering questions of cultural bias and representation while conducting research and evaluating sources. 

The same considerations hold true for those publishing, buying and using books with children, promoting books to parents and teachers, creating library and bookstore displays… etc. including whether those books receive the same quality and quantity of promotion, and whether they are somehow held apart from other books. I intend to spend 2014 living out some of those action items, beginning tomorrow (Thursday).  I am giving a workshop at the Illinois Reading Council in Springfield, Illinois to discuss book issues, including ways that more diversity in fiction can help bring more young people back to books. Minority of One, places a black gay teen in the midst of conflict that while he learns that he is not "the only one of his kind" and is so much more than the mere sum of his parts.

I have two additional workshop scheduled for this year, at library associations in Connecticut and Ohio, where I will speak about the need for more diversity in children's fiction. My own newest novel,

I ask you to check out the diversity resource page maintained by Edith (Crazy Quilt Edi) Campbell.  And to look at the smaller presses, including Cinco Puntos Press, RoadRunner Press, and Lee & Low Books. People also mentioned the importance of writers’ events and conferences, such as the Native American Literature Symposium, VONA Voices, the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Muslim Voices Conference, the Comadres and Compadres Writers’ Conference, and the Carl Brandon Society.

Along with such conferences, people talked about the possibility for individual outreach to writers/ artists.  People have also started an amazing array of blogs, websites and tumblrs that focus on aspects of diversity in children’s books. These include

• Diversity in YA
• Rich in Color
• American Indians in Children’s Literature
• CBC Diversity
• Lee & Low’s blog
• Cynsations
• CrazyQuiltEdi
• BookDragon 
• Latinas for Latino Literaturex
• Latin@s in Kitlit
• All Brown All Around
• Into the Wardrobe
• Shannar Reed Miles-A Blerd Girl Writes
• Bad NDNs
• Miss Domino
• Disability in Kidlit
• Visibility Fiction
• I’m Here I’m Queer What the Hell Do I Read?
• Kristi's Book Blog. 

This list in is not all inclusive, but it’s a start. It does not include the multitude of authors of color who blog or those who don’t devote their entire blog to diversity, but are there for the cause.

It Takes All Kinds To Make A World

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns. This month I feel privileged to lead things off with a special post on multicultural romances. 


I like old sayings. They usually contain a load of wisdom. One of my favorites is: De todos ha de haber en el mundo  (literally, “There must be of all [types] in the world”) This is from Cervantes of Don Quixote fame and gives us another way of saying that diversity is essential. Biologists know it, economists, and so does my broker who keeps after me to increase the diversity in my account. The world would be incomplete if everyone and everything was alike.

Adding layers and conflict

These young adult romances are strengthened by exotic locations (anybody been to Malawi, Africa, the location for Laugh With the Moon?) and populated by people of different culture's and ethnicities. This adds layers of complexity to stories and builds conflict, the meat and potatoes of a good read. I'm not talking about issue books, stories where the difference is the major conflict. I'm talking about romances that show how alike we really are while using the differences to suck a reader in and provide the something extra that many readers enjoy and search for. Not to mention a new set of hero and heroine names, like Almira (Bestest Ramadan Ever), Lupita (Under the Mesquite), Malik (Being God), Meena (Same Sun Here), Soledad (When The Stars Go Blue), Yolanda (Pull), and the totally hot Prince Kai (Cinder).

Many of the standard romance tropes can be refreshed and enlarged by adding a multicultural or diversity element. For example, Bestest Ramadan Ever gives us Romance plus Muslim culture and parental issues. My novel Being God gives readers the same with a teen who is a Black Jew (a.k.a. Hebrew Israelite). Books like the Demon's Surrender take readers into the life of a Black gypsy in England who uses her dancing skills to control monsters. Ship Breaker shows a Hispanic boy in dystopian future in a triangle with a Black girl and an Asian girl as all three struggle for survival in a dysfunctional world. In my debut novel, Pull, the dysfunctional world is the present, filled with Black, Hispanic and White kids struggling with the ultimate dystopia - an American High School.

My newest novel is titled Minority of One, and uses characters from various cultural backgrounds to examine the question, deals with the question:

What happens if you are the only one of your kind?

This question speaks to the source of so much teen angst that finding an answer is practically part of the rite of passage into adulthood. Since I want books that any teen reader can see themselves in, I gave Minority of One a diverse cast. One cast member is Sheila, a white student starting a new school that is predominantly Hispanic and Black.

“Will I be the only white student in this school?” My voice remains steady. Daddy would be proud.

“Almost eight percent of Farrington’s students are white, and twelve percent are biracial.” Mom loves statistics.

Biracial. Does that mean they fit in everywhere? Have no problems? Don’t feel like the only drop of cream in a vat of coffee? Eight percent of almost sixteen hundred students. Math was my best subject, but I don’t need those skills for this calculation. Maybe a hundred and twenty of us, spread out inside that massive building.

The second main character is Neill, who has his own reason for a feeling of alienation.

Every morning I wake up. Stretch. Kick off the blankets. Look in the mirror and stare into the eyes of a walking statistic.

Young. Black. Gay.

Three strikes against me before I’m even dressed.

By the end of the story a multi-racial cast of supporting characters that include doctors, educators, businessmen and fellow students help both Neill and Sheila learn they are not alone (and help them both find the guys of their dreams). While this is not a romance between Sheila and Neill, I tell people this is a twofer, two separate romantic journeys for the price of one.

The world of romance is expanding. I live in a pluralistic world, and I am happy that more books are being written that reflect that fact. Most of all, I am glad to be a part of that.

***Contest***

Five copies of Minority Of One are being given away on Goodreads, and another five to people who LIKE the AllTheColorsOfLove facebook page.  Enter either or both for a chance to get an early copy of Minority of One.  Copies will also be available at The Woodson Library in Chicago on February 15 where I will talk about using multicultural books to reach out to reluctant readers, and at the Illinois Reading Council on March 13, 2014 where I will give a presentation on library reading groups. 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Minority Of One

by B.A. Binns

Giveaway ends March 01, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Final Note

There are still some publishers who fear that American readers, especially teens, will turn away from multicultural characters on book covers. Look look at what multicultural covers give the world of romantic fiction.


Click on the picture to download a PDF with more information about the books shown.

These are the same publishers who don't believe kids of color read and that white kids will only read about other kids like them. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have found the opposite. I have heard teacher's say how their Black students devoured were in the Hunger Games, and how they mourned when Rue died.

As a YA author I visit many schools and libraries. In 2013 I gave a booktalk to a predominantly white teen audience at a library. I spoke about many of the multicultural books I have mentioned in this blog post. At the end of the talk, one white girl came to me and wanted to take out Pinned by Sharon Flake, a story about a female wrestler who falls for the wheelchair-bound team manager.  I told her of course she could take that book out and then I asked what drew her to a book with a cover character so different from herself. Her answer - Because I like wrestling.

Overheard on . . . School Applications

“Describe how your family would contribute to a diverse school environment.”

What better day, than the Martine Luther King Jr. Holiday to consider the important topic of diversity. As a family we are in the process of researching and applying for schools as we put our plans in motion for our move to Seattle this summer. The process of applying has been an eye opener for me. For one thing, it is, for the most part, automated. Compared to my last formal school application process (graduate programs for me), the updated process is much more streamlined. But some things don’t change. And even at the middle school level the applications request essays and answers from parent and child.

As a writer, most of my answers flew onto the pages with little need for revision. But when I came to this question I was stumped. How would our seemingly bread and milk family contribute to a diverse school environment.

My husband and I talked about it. We considered our family backgrounds and roots. We laid out all of the ways that we, as a family, may be different than other families. Ultimately, it all ended up sounding contrived and a bit patronizing. How could we suggest that raising an only child compares to the experience of someone who’s encountered racial prejudice?

Eventually it was our daughter that enlightened us. “Mom, don’t you write about journeys?”

It is true, my tagline is Journeys Inspired by Love. My writing is about what I love, physical journeys, yes- but also journeys of the heart and mind. As a family I want us to explore all sorts of ways of living and being so that these journeys are informed by the diversity of an expanded world view, rather than a narrow one.

One way that we do this is through reading. February on Romancing the Genres brings us all a chance to hear from some great Multi-cultural authors including, B.A. Binns, Terri Molina, and ShobhanBantwal. Exploring their perspectives gives us a chance to expand ours, both as writers and as readers. So my challenge to you this week is to search on multi-cultural fiction at your favorite book site and then pick one of the books to read. Then, report back on what you thought of the book and how it did, or didn’t, send you on your own journey of growth.

Bon Voyage!
Deanne
www.deannewilsted.com

Bloodless Coup

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns. This month I'm focusing on revolution: the bloodless kind. 

It’s the moment most parents live for, and dread. The day their child becomes his or her own person. I’m not talking about the eighteenth birthday, or going to college or any of the other external milestones. I mean an internal revolution, a day when the child looks around at the world, the values and ideas their parents have given them and realize they have their own different and distinct world views.

Authors sometimes have experiences like that. The day a character lets its creator know they have their own lives and feelings and desires, whether or not that fits in with the plot. Or, they jump onto the page fully formed and ready to take the story in a new direction.

That is what recently happened to me.

I was working on the final revision of Minority Of One, a contemporary YA novel that will be released in March. Seriously, the book was ninety-five percent set in stone. Then, suddenly, a character that had not even been on my radar jumped up, said “Here I am,” and attempted to take over the storyline in December.

Minority Of One involves a gay teen (Neill) and a straight girl (Sheila). No, it's not a romance between these two. Instead this is a parallel coming-of-age story where both kids rebel against family expectations and have their own separate romances.  In one scene Neill and Sheila attend a meeting of their high school’s Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual and Straight Alliance (Sheila calls it the alphabet soup group). This scene included a nameless bisexual girl who spoke approximately three lines. Suddenly, in that last revision, she took over the entire scene, gave herself a name and an attitude and let me know she had the hots for the story’s villain.

Huh?

It was like seeing the quiet kid in the last row suddenly jump to the front of the class and explain the theory of relativity. In single syllable words everyone in class could understand.

Her name, she told me, was Kesia Kasili. That’s significant, because her father, the school shrink, plays

Kesia, the real girl

a significant role in two of my other books set in the same school. According to my story bible he had elementary school children. And there was nothing about one being gender non-conforming, as Kesia calls herself. I tried to make her go back to being silent. No dice. The rebellious teen argues with other kids, likes who she likes, and refuses to follow the rules of the brain that invented her.

Sounds a lot like a real girl.

Then something hit me. The guy she likes suffers from depression (I had already written that into the plot). Kesia is the SK – the shrink’s kid. Maybe there is a new book, a teen romance matching these two. Of course, there is also the complication of her also being attracted to girls. I see conflict! Maybe the picture on her father’s desk is just an old picture. And maybe she was right when she performed an Athena and burst fully formed from my brain. After all, my tagline is Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men and the people who love them. That means the girls also get to be real enough to revolt against their creator's wishes and chose their own destiny. (Maybe it's related to typical mother-daughter conflict. The guys in my books never do this to me. I'm even teaching an online course called Man Talk through YARWA that is all about writing male characters during February because they perform so well for me.)

While I continue putting the final, final touches on Minority Of One, I have begun outlining the romance between Kesia and Spencer who played the bad guy in two of my books, both Being God and Minority of One. Tentatively titled The Child With No Complaint, from a line in a song by Jacques Brel (As you can tell, my taste in music is obscure). Kesia will get a chance to see if she learned enough from Dad to help Spencer shed his depression and bad-boy image without having to deny her own nature.  I see her taking center stage sometime in 2015.