Minorities in Publishing

Bev and Jenn talk with Indian American Sona Charaipotra and African American Dhonielle Clayton, founders of Cake Literary and authors of the upcoming Tiny Pretty Things series from HarperTeen (2015), about their decision to create a book packaging company focusing on diverse voices and high concept stories, their thoughts on why diverse representation in books is so important, and their work with the We Need Diverse Books campaign. 

Jenn & Bev talk with La Casa Azul Bookstore owner & manager Aurora Anaya Cerda about the background for La Casa Azul and why it continues to thrive in terms of educating those within (and outside of) the East Harlem community on Latino culture in addition to promoting artists of color. Also discussed is the importance of publishers and authors to recognize and reach out to booksellers, no matter the demographic.

Jenn & Bev talk with former and current graduate students of publishing programs at private universities Tqwana Brown and Ebony Harding. Tqwana and Ebony share their experiences in their program, the lack of diversity, how to potentially help increase diversity in publishing programs and the industry, and what they wish these programs would include in the future.

Bev and Jenn talk with African American Ivan Lett, a marketing manager of fiction, biography, & memoir at one of the Big 5 Publishers, about his thoughts of promise in terms of growing diversity in the industry as well as our respective takes on Publishers Weekly's recent release of their 2014 salary survey that for the first time included race statistics.

Bev and Jenn talk with Bengali American Joy Mizan, an assistant marketing manager of humanities titles, about her experience in publishing along with her struggles and successes in the industry and also ask what Joy thinks may be a step in the right direction of increasing diversity and community in publishing. 

In the first episode publishing professionals Beverly Rivero and Jennifer Baker discuss their respective backgrounds (over 20 years' experience) and their reasoning/inspiration for the Minorities in Publishing podcast, as well as what listeners can expect to hear in future episodes, specifically interviews with publishing professionals on how publishing can be more inclusive in terms of diversity not only of authors but of those who work in the book industry. In addition there's a mini bookclub for Roxane Gay’s debut novel An Untamed State from Grove Atlantic.