Thank you all for sharing so intimately

So true!

I must leave now, but I thank you for sharing your time.

Thank you!

So much goodness in here my hand is cramping from taking notes! Since you can’t see us, just sharing that this is a phenomenal discussion.

@Jess, thank you!

Not just white lead characters but white saviors…

Black is the body by Emily bernard

minor feelings

Cathy Park Hong

Just Us, Claudia Rankin

Audre Lorde

Bell Hook

bell hooks!!!

@thanks, Linda. My chat kept capitalizing her first name. :)

It’s all good

Thomas Jefferson's, Notes on Virginia

Not sure what the questions was, but The Nation Must Awake (my witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921) by Mary E. Jones Parrish

Pose - the TV series

@Linda, reading, resources, and media you’d recommend is the original question?

How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith visits a number of historic locations in the US and asks how they are contending with the legacies of slavery. The first chapter is set at Monticello and engages with Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia at length!

Love POSE, the TV series

@Jenn, I keep recommending that book for my book club. I’ll wear them down!

I am the rage

Tanya Ko Hong, "the War still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora"

The essays of James Baldwin! YES.

If anyone is looking for a craft book on deconstructing western workshopping practices with great writing exercises included, Matthew Salesses’s book “Craft in the Real World” is a wonderful resource! (Public library worker - I can’t NOT offer readers advisory. For an activism note, encourage your local library to purchase these books by authors of color and look for them in their displays. You’ll see how truly motivated they are to be inclusive.)

bookshop.org

@Jess, it’s on my shelf now!

https://www.antiracistworkshop.com/

Thank you

Charis Books and More in Atlanta -- They have the best email about new titles every Tuesday.

https://gailvidahamburg.blogspot.com/2020/02/stay-in-your-own-lane-storytelling-will.html

Very insightful conversation

This has been a really engaging discussion. Thank you all for your nuanced, in-depth sharing. I really appreciate it!

great question. I see that in my guild/community as well.

@Ariana, thank you so much!

Thank you so much for all of these suggestions. I teach at a small liberal arts college in Michigan and I have sent several of these links to colleagues. I really appreciate the community SOMOS is creating.

@shelli, thanks for sharing the word!

To Jan’s question: I am excited about the Taos Writer’s Conference hopefully being in person next year BUT- it really helps to have online sessions to make the program more widely accessible.

@Margaret, that’s a great point that should be explored further.

I have a question/issue for the panel I’d love insight on - as much as we’re seeing positive shifts in publishing with more works by diverse authors/stories, what’s the best way we can respond to authors who profit on diversity for diversity’s sake? I’m seeing a trend of white authors with book covers featuring Black characters and then I go to their social media and there’s nothing about that community, BLM, racial equity, or worse - maybe they even oppose it, but they’re profiting off that diversity as “buzzword” route. Advice for readers to respectfully (or not perhaps?) call that out, and then who do we address that to - the author? the publisher?

Paid internships during the school year coupled with attendance at the conference in the summer and after Covid have readings and discussions in non-traditional spaces, beauty parlors, barbershops etc.

For sure!

As examples - I see a lot more picture books with diverse children, but white authors. And sometimes, it can work. But then I’m also seeing white authors writing sci-fi/fantasy with Black witches on the cover. They might be self-published. I got mad and then didn’t know what to do with that anger.

@Frank, that’s a great idea!

With the corporation of journalism and newspapers and the disappearing of book reviews, book clubs and book list are more important than ever…

LOL - thanks. Picking fights on the internet is my superpower, so I appreciate the sound advice to NOT do that.

Thank you so much everyone! Cheers.

Great discussion--lots of food for thought. Many thanks to all the panelists and participants.

This was great. I took lots of notes. Thank you to all the panelists for your time and talent!

Thank you everyone!