The nonprofit group We Need Diverse Books has announced a new initiative to provide mentorship to emerging black children’s book authors and illustrators, Publishers Weekly reports.
The program will match unpublished Black writers and artists with volunteers who will provide help and advice for them. The initiative got its start with a tweet from Ellen Oh, the nonprofit’s executive director, which read, “Dear published authors and illustrators, are any of you willing to be mentors for new unpubbed Black writers and illustrators? If I were to try to put a program together quickly to match mentors and mentees, who would be willing to be active mentors?”
Dear published authors and illustrators, are any of you willing to be mentors for new unpubbed Black writers and illustrators? If I were to try to put a program together quickly to match mentors and mentees, who would be willing to be active mentors?
— Ellen "This is the Revolution" Oh (@ElloEllenOh) June 2, 2020
Hundreds of authors and artists volunteered, including Shannon Hale, Sabaa Tahir, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Laurel Snyder, and Gwenda Bond.
“I sincerely believe that if we have good children’s books with good representation, we can do a lot to change white people’s perceptions regarding race,” Oh told Publishers Weekly. “We know that children’s books have that power: it becomes more imperative that we have positive representation by people who live that life. Without children’s books, one cannot get to empathy.”
The program is the second recent initiative from We Need Diverse Books. In April, the group launched the Emergency Fund for Diverse Creatives in Children’s Publishing, which provides grants to writers, artists and publishing company workers who are facing financial difficulty because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That program is still ongoing.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.