04/26/2014 ecmyers
Photo by I.W. Gregorio

Photo by I.W. Gregorio

Today, I was honored to speak to some amazing teen writers and readers at the Little Flower Teen Writers Festival about the importance of diversity and how to approach writing from perspectives other than their own. I promised to post some links to read more about this topic, and I hope these are useful to anyone interested in reading and writing more diverse books, even without the context of my presentation.

Art by Tina Kugler/ tinakuglerstudio.com

Art by Tina Kugler/ tinakuglerstudio.com

Read More About It

Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, Conversation Pieces vol. 8, Aqueduct Press, 2005

Blogs:

Diversity in YAhttp://diversityinya.tumblr.com/

Rich in Color: Reading and Reviewing Diverse YA Bookshttp://richincolor.com/

Articles & Data:

2013 Statistics, Cooperative Children’s BookCenter, University of Wisconsin  – http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp

Diversity in 2013 YA Best Sellers
http://www.diversityinya.com/2014/04/diversity-in-2013-new-york-times-young-adult-bestsellers/

Kid Lit’s Primary Color: White –
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2014/04/15/kid-lits-primary-color-white-report/

Diversity is Not Enough: Race, Power, Publishing –
http://www.buzzfeed.com/danieljoseolder/diversity-is-not-enough

Want More Diversity in Your YA? Here’s How You Can Help –
http://diversityinya.tumblr.com/post/82690608453/want-more-diversity-in-your-ya-heres-how-you-can-help

We Are Still Not Doing Enough for Diversity in Kidlit –
http://elloecho.blogspot.com/2014/04/we-are-still-not-doing-enough-for.html

Where’s the African-American Harry Potter or the Mexican Katniss? –
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/09/living/young-adult-books-diversity-identity/index.html

We Need Bigger Megaphones for Diversity in Kid Lit –
http://bookriot.com/2014/04/15/need-bigger-megaphones-diversity-kid-lit/

Why Hasn’t the Number of Multicultural Books Increased in Eighteen Years? –
http://blog.leeandlow.com/2013/06/17/why-hasnt-the-number-of-multicultural-books-increased-in-eighteen-years/

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is –
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

Why We Need Diversity in YA Fiction, Plus Book Recommendations
http://cherylrainfield.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/04/why-we-need-diversity-in-ya-fiction/

My Take on Diversity in Children’s Books While Growing Up:
http://diversityinya.tumblr.com/post/51072209934/guest-post-by-andre-norton-award-winner-e-c-meyer

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ecmyers

I'm a YA author who spends too much time on the internet.