Ink and Ashes and Tu Books’ New Visions Award for YA Writers

June 3, 2015June 3, 2015 Constance Gibbs

This week we’re excited about two things: one is a book, the other an awesome opportunity.

For us readers: Ink and Ashes by Valynne Maetani came out this week. As a lover of mysteries as a child, I can’t wait to crack into this one!

And for us writers: the award that got Maetani published — The New Visions Award from Tu Books — also opens submissions this week! Tu Books is dedicated to diversity in genre fiction for young people and is under the banner of Lee and Low books, which publishes children’s books by authors of color. We definitely need more publishers with that goal in mind!

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Fantasy, Lit Week, Literature, School of Hard NOCs, Sci Fi1 Comment

Diversifying Our Kids’ Genre Bookshelf

October 24, 2013March 6, 2014 Jason Sperber

As the father of two daughters of color, finding reading material and other media that both reflect back at them and reflect the wider, diverse world of which they are a part is important to me. The discussion around what kind of stories get told about what kind of characters and who gets to tell them is, sadly, not relegated to the realm of speculative fiction literature or literary fiction. The dismal state of affairs in the world of children’s literature was recently put in stark relief by the good people at Lee and Low Books, whose tagline is “About Everyone. For Everyone.”

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