Authors, Booksellers: National BookExpo Lacks Diversity
*This has been an issue for many years, but it has recently increased in visibility, intensity. Latino authors have a wealth of creativity, beauty, vision, wisdom, and experience to offer. America is short-changed by the lack of publishing opportunities for Latino authors, editors, and publishers. We are change agents, and at the lead of change are our poets, storytellers, artists, musicians, and film makers. VL
From Wednesday to Saturday, thousands will gather at Jacob K. Javits Center in New York for BookExpo America, a convention predominantly organized by whites, spotlighting books predominantly written, edited and published by whites.
Diversity in publishing has been in the news recently. A study from a University of Wisconsin-based commission reported that just a tiny percentage of children’s books last year featured non-white characters, and a recent essay in the New Yorker by Pulitzer Prize winning fiction writer Junot Diaz attacked the “unbearable too-whiteness” of creative writing classes.
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