The Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 2.0) was created in 2019 by Lee & Low Books with co-authors Laura M. Jiménez, PhD, Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and Betsy Beckert, graduate student in the Language and Literacy Department of Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. According to the survey, 76 percent of publishing staff, review journal staff, and literary agents are White. The rest are people who self-report as Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (7 percent); Hispanic/Latino/Mexican (6 percent); Black/African American (5 percent); and biracial/multiracial (3 percent). This reality impacts the reality that less than 10% of new books published in the United States by publishing houses and presses are by Black writers.
Editors from Cherry Castle Publishing & Minerva Rising Press shared insight on navigating the publishing world and their own experiences publishing the work of Black writers. Moderated by Yvonne Battle-Felton.
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This virtual event is part of the Hurston/Wright 2022 Summer of Writing Series. From June 2022 to August 2022, we will be implementing 10 summer Writer's Week and Weekend writing workshop retreats virtually and on the campuses of Virginia Tech, Rutgers University and Howard University. Our summer fellows will have free access to our virtual and in-person events in the Hurston/Wright 2022 Summer of Writing Series that are also open and available to the public as well, some free and some for fee.
ABOUT US
The Hurston/Wright Foundation’s mission is to provide services, supports and opportunities that mentor, recognize and provide community for professional and aspiring Black writers. Workshops and classes taught by award-winning authors serve emerging and midcareer adult writers. More than a thousand Black writers have taken our classes since the first one in 1996, increasing diversity in the cultural community as they have gone on to create books and careers as professors, local cultural workers, and national thought leaders.
Our first program, the Hurston/Wright Awards for College Writers, has honored 92 students, 30 of whom subsequently published books. Among them are Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), Natalie Baszile (Queen Sugar,) and Nate Marshall (Wild Hundreds). The Legacy Awards has honored more than 400 writers since 2002. The annual program was the brainchild of the late award-winning novelist E. Lynn Harris, who recognized that work by Black authors deserved more attention. Free public readings and events since 2014 have afforded thousands of readers in Washington, D.C., the opportunity to engage with hundreds of talented Black authors.
Through a social justice lens, our work provides the necessary services, supports and opportunities for Black writers seeking to publish work within a publishing industry that has traditionally failed to publish work by Black writers proportionate to their population. We also recognize that our social activism aids in disrupting systems that hinder Black writers from having access to certain opportunities—from writing residencies to participation in quality writing workshops and craft talks.
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