#kweli journal

[sssseren]

Grateful to @kwelijournal for giving me the opportunity to write about my experiences loving people that have struggled with addiction 🙏🏾 To read the piece in its entirety, click below 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾:

WHEN LOVE MEANS WALKING AWAY BY SEREN SENSEI

[weneeddiversebooks]

Registration is now open for the third annual Kweli Color of Children’s Literature Conference, the nation’s largest children’s/YA creators’ conference exclusively for creators of color or Native Nations, to be held April 6-7, 2018, in New York City. Two hundred writers and artists are expected to attend, where they’ll have the opportunity to hear from more than sixty authors, illustrators, and publishing professionals on topics relevant to writing and publishing great books today. More information here!

[authortoberecognized]

WRITER’S FORUM  WRITERS OF COLOR

                        WEBSITES HELPFUL TO WRITERS This is a series of posts which, I think, will be beneficial to writers. But first, I would like to include my usual warning about using websites. Whenever you check a website you are, in my opinion and I talk from experience, being put on a list for sale. So, expect the possibility of being bombarded by ads from companies you, perhaps, have…

[minoritiesinpublishing]

2020 CBC Diversity Awards: 'Experience, Strength, and Hope'

Members of the children's book community gathered virtually on November 5 to celebrate the Children's Book Council's third annual CBC Diversity Outstanding Achievement Awards.

“CBC membership manager and Diversity Committee liaison Ryan Mita introduced the five 2020 winners: Kait Feldmann, editor at Scholastic’s Orchard imprint; Ebony LaDelle, associate director of teen marketing at HarperCollins Children’s Books; Christopher Myers, creative director of Make Me a World at Random House; Laura Pegram, founding editor and publisher of Kweli Journal and director of the Kweli Color of Children’s Literature Conference; and Jamie Tan, senior publicist at Candlewick.

Author, v-p and executive editor at Scholastic, and 2019 CBC Diversity Award winner Andrea Davis Pinkney then took to the virtual stage as moderator, opening with a reflection on how she was the only individual of color at the CBC annual meetings when she had joined in 1995.”

[parkersmood]

It is really important for me to document the impact of colonialism on the Black body. One thing that I’ve mentioned before was Black women’s bodies. My book really documents the exploitation of the land itself as a tourist economy. However, that’s also parallel with the exploitation of women’s bodies. I really wanted to capture this in Here Comes the Sun and I also want to capture this in my other works, especially the sexualization of our young girls. We exist in a culture where men look at young girls as sexual beings before girls see themselves that way. For me, it’s really important to put that out there so that my countrymen and women can actually take notice of the fact that we are quick to condemn homosexuality, while pardon pedophiles. These men can walk freely and no one do anything to them on the island. This sends a loud message to our young girls and young women about our worth. In Delores’s monologue, she mentions that no one loves a black girl, not even herself. She mentions this to her teenage daughter, Thandi, who is committed to bleaching her skin thinking that it will make her more worthy, valued. I think about what is going on in the United States with Black Lives Matter. For implicit in the act of bleaching, is the internalized messages we’ve gotten for generations—the fact that we don’t matter unless we are white. So, imagine the invisibility of an individual who is black and female.

‘A Heartbeat Longer’ interview with Nicole Dennis-Benn by Laura Pegram for Kweli Journal 

[minoritiesinpublishing]

I’ll be one of the speakers, leading a panel on the Publishing industry, at this year’s @kwelijournal POC Kid’s Lit Conference! Schedule and tickets are available. Entry also includes meetings with agents/editors for critiques! 

[malcolmfriendpoet]

Two Poems - Kweli Journal

I’ve got two poems in the latest issue of Kweli Journal. They’re both Afro-Seattleite Fragments, one about Richard Sherman and the other inspired by Sir Mix-a-Lot, cause I’m Seattle til I die. Check em out!

http://www.kwelijournal.org/poetry/2016/11/14/afro-seattleite-fragment-2-richard-sherman-by-malcolm-friend

http://www.kwelijournal.org/poetry/2016/11/14/afro-seattleite-fragment-6-prayer-in-the-mode-of-sir-mix-a-lots-posse-on-broadway-or-south-end-kid-returns-to-capitol-hill-six-years-after-graduating-high-school-by-malcolm-friend

[sackettstreet]

An online journal by and for writers of color.

Latest issue of @kwelijournal includes great prose, poetry, and interviews from emerging PoC writers. Submissions currently open!