I feel lucky and honored to be a member of the Chicago North RWA chapter. Doubly lucky because Sonali Dev is also a member. She is one of the 2013 Golden Heart ® finalists with her Contemporary Single Title Romance – The Bollywood Bad Boy. Sonali agreed to visit my blog and discuss the manuscript […]
Interview with 2013 RWA Golden heart finalist – Sonali Dev Read More »
The Pirate Tree, a group of Children\’s and YA bloggers, selected Being God to review for Valentine\’s Day. The reviewer, J. L. Powers, admits the book is \”an unlikely choice for Valentine’s Day but a good one nonetheless.\” The review says: I would hate to see this complex novel reduced to any of the “issues”
Today I put together the speech I will be giving at the 2013 Virginia Hamilton convention in April. I will be covering ways parents, librarians, schools and concerned citizens can enhance collections to make them more diverse, and why that is a good things. Just for fun, I popped my speech into a neat tool
Diversity and multiculural collections Read More »
Sorry about not posting for a week. I attended the Indiana Library Federation (ILF) meeting in Indianapolis where I spoke on Multicultural Collections, then came home to prepare for Thanksgiving. Let me just give thanks that Thanksgiving is over. In this post I will share with you some information from that ILF presentations. Of course, I shared
Multi-cultural books Read More »
While at a librarian conference yesterday, I attended a session entitled Pushing the Envelope With Urban Literature. I\’m not sure what I expected, but what I got left me sad. The first assumption was that if it was \”urban\” YA literature, i.e. African-American, i.e. had black kids on the cover, then it was scary and
Why is Teen Urban Lit considered dangerous Read More »
So what\’s your definition of multicultural? I talked to a number of librarians, teachers, authors and readers, and we didn\’t totally agree. That\’s why my first step in the multicultural workshop at OELMA on Friday is to poll attendees. My former job taught me the value of what the bosses called \”Level Setting.\” Getting everyone
Multi Cultural Books Read More »
Poison Tree by Amelia Atwater-RhodesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars First the cover attracted me. Although this book actually involves four protagonists (Two couples) they cohose to picture the one who is of African-Asian heritage (a tiger shapeshifter) on the cover. That meant I had to read it. The book did not disappoint. It has
Thanks to everyone who entered the contest, and double thanks to people who gave me the names of new books featuring Heroines of Color. I was not yet aware of. I\’m now on a crusade to find them and read. I was specially pleased to find out about TU Publishing, an imprint of Lee and
And the winner is… Read More »
I just returned to Chicago from the American Library Association meeting in beautiful–and incredibly hot–New Orleans. When I arrived I was greeted by the news that this morning, at the OK RWA breakfast during the Romance Writers of America contest in New York City, PULL was awarded first place in the National Reader\’s Choice Awards. I wish I
PULL Wins the National Reader\’s Choice Award!! Read More »
Today I\’m in Baltimore Maryland at the dazzling Romance Slam Jam conference. This conference of African American romance writers included workshops on Creating Memorable Characters by Marilyn Tyner, and Sexy Banter from the awesome writer Gwyneth Bolton, and What\’s the Hype about Romance from Denise Jeffries. I also spent time on a panel talking about my
Romance Slam Jam Conference Read More »