We preach to the choir too often as writers, talking about our concerns about diversity in publishing. I’m glad Mitali Perkins exists, and while I know it was a wrench for she and her family, I’m glad that she moved last year to the SF Bay Area from Boston. Now we have an outspoken, kindhearted and energetic person in the house, talking to the public.
… I am not good with talking to, er, people… *cough* Anyone who knows me knows I’d prefer to stand on the edge of the room rather than be in the middle, or, maybe even in a room where no one else is, but Mitali isn’t like that, and she was on the radio the other day, our local public radio station, KQED, San Francisco, along with a local Oakland librarian, and Christopher Myers on the phone from New York. I missed the original broadcast yesterday, but listened over breakfast. This is well worth hearing.
Meanwhile, hat tip, Tu Books, Teh Awesomesauce has a message for us all: Writers, be better than you are. DON’T be lazy. No, seriously, much of what she brings up stems from lazy writing:
“See, the problem with writing the other is you aren’t them. So you may not know the hurt your words inflict, the way you casually toss around stereotypes like they are culture, like they are the truth, instead of the tools of social control that they are.”