Columnist, editor, award-winning journalist, cancer survivor, community leader and cat shelterer is adding a new title to her CV: publisher. Her new imprint, Tiny Satchel Press aims to provide smart, thoughtful books for young LGBT readers especially queer readers of color. We chatted via email about her newly released anthology of African-American short stories, Greg Herren's new YA novel, the classism of e-books, and vampire cats, among other things.
First, you're also a mystery editor for us, you maintain a cat sanctuary in Philadelphia, and now you've launched your own imprint! How do you juggle all of those roles?
I write two columns for newspapers in Philadelphia, a column for two political blogs, I do several TV columns, including one on queers and politics for the San Francisco Bay Area Reporter, which has to be the best independent queer newspaper in the country and I do monthly columns and features for Curve, where I have been a contributing editor for 20 years.
I mention these things because it's important for writers to have their work constantly in print and not just online. We need to stay in all forms of print media. I also write books, publish a lot of short stories and essays in a variety of anthologies and academic journals. And I teach. I'm just driven to do it. I don't know what to do if I am not working.
Let's talk about the new imprint. What was the inspiration behind Tiny Satchel?
I'd been acquiring and editing young adult books for five or six years for a mainstream publisher. I was enjoying doing it, but I kept being aware that some books I pitched would get the "we don't think there's a readership or audience for that." And consistently it seemed to me to be books with characters of color or queer. It started to irk me. My own fiction always has a political undercurrent I just don't think anyone can be too young to have a range of characters with whom to identify. I wanted more range. So I wanted to provide books that I would want to read if I were nine or 12 or 15.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from young readers and parents is that there are few middle-grade books coming out with LGBT themes, why do you think that is?
Fear and money. Publishing is unbelievably expensive. Printing is expensive. Marketing is expensive. Writers and editors have to make a living. The tried-and-true is easy.
Stepping outside the box scares the people who make the money decisions. I was told repeatedly, "Get me a new vampire book!" Everything is white on white and middle class and incredibly straight. A peripheral queer character is good, but a main queer character is best. And ten peripheral queer characters just do not make up for zero main queer characters. I was at a book signing for one of our recent books and a lesbian couple who have a few children between them were talking about this issue and I said "Don't worry, we'll have books for your kids in a few months."
Greg Herren is an established mystery writer, not to mention a multiple Lambda Literary Award winner, how did this new Young Adult novel, Sorceress, come about?
Greg and I go back about 13 years, since he was the editor at Lambda Book Report. We have been very good friends since.
Greg is incredibly prolific. He publishes about 5 books a year. I am in awe of his productivity. When I decided to do Tiny Satchel, I asked him, "So, how about doing a young adult book for me?" The worst thing he could do was say No. Turned out he'd wanted to do a YA book for years.
Sorceress is a whole new genre for him. I'm thrilled to have the book. We are working on another project together as well, this time for boys.
Book Printing
Printing in China
Notebooks Printing
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