Hindsight from 2021: Dispatches from 2016; still relevant: Diane Browne's latest - West Indian children's guides to self acceptance: Sunday Observer, May 15

 To get myself restarted after this long absence from blogging, writing and even reading, I thought I'd look again at  some old posts from long ago which still had relevance. Many of them still do. And if, like many writers, you have found that covid has sapped your energy and the desire to create, hopefully this will help us.  I feel that perhaps  I can start again, that maybe my downsizing and having to clear out the study is possible without falling flat on the ground amongst books and files from every workshop I've run. I have takers for the Jamaica Journals! What more could one ask! I read some of my stories left untouched  and actually liked one very much.  No, I have not deserted my latest love. It is a YA. So I invite you to come with me as I see what all these changes, one top of the other, uncover creatively.

The launch of the prize-winning The Happiness Dress and Abigail’s Glorious Hair took place on May 10, at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library. The launch was lovely; much thanks to all those who helped with it and participated in it, and those who attended it. The guest speaker, Dr. Kim Robinson Walcott,  made an excellent  speech. It is published in Bookends in The Sunday Observer today, along with covers of the two books launched, as well as other book covers of mine. Thanks to Sharon Leach of The Observer for the coverage of Kim’s speech and my books. Kim’s speech and the launch will provide content for more than one blog, because she touched on so many things which impact the writing and publishing of children’s books in the Caribbean.  Quote from her speech: I wish books like these were around when I was a child. I wish books like these were around when my children were young. This is the type of material that we need to engender pride in our culture and ourselves.

The headline in The Sunday Observer is shown above. I have to thank Sharon for that headline. It is such an astute point of view, and changed the direction of this blog.  Apart from the two books being launched,  the other books highlighted on the page are Island Princess in Brooklyn, Ebony and the Auntie of the Starlight, a Caribbean Cinderella story,  and Cordelia Finds Fame and Fortune. I know that many of my stories focus on  identity and  celebration of ourselves,  but it wasn’t until I read that headline that I fully understood the variety of ways in which we can say "I am me and that’s very fine." 

 Cordelia is teased  because she is different from the other children in her village. She discovers that once you accept yourself the teasing stops, and that what is different about her  can be what contributes to  success.  Princess struggles against having to  replace her beloved Jamaica with Brooklyn, and fears she will lose her concept of who she is. She discovers that her self-concept will not be lost or replaced. It will only grow, and that you can love both Jamaica and Brooklyn like all the other Jamaicans in the diaspora, and that she can love her mother as well as her granny. Ebony, from a children’s home,  proves children from children’s homes can be successful, and she escapes  the traditional Cinderella story, by not only marrying a man worthy of her, (it isn’t that she has to be worthy of him), but earns shares in his spice factory, and trains and employs other girls from the home to work with her in the company.

In The Happiness Dress, Carolyne proves what she already knows,  that it’s okay to accept that you reflect the Caribbean even when you are in another place, and she is the happiness of her Daddy’s heart. And finally Abigail! To quote Kim: Abigail's poufy hair is nothing like a Barbie doll's, but Abigail  doesn't care two hoots about that. What a wonderfully self-assured little girl, in love with her own glorious hair, and by extension her own glorious self. You just have to look at Rachel Moss’ illustration of Abigail looking at herself in the mirror, to be assured of this.  It’s a wonderful synchronicity that most of these books have been illustrated by the talented Rachel Moss, who is gifted  at interpreting what  the writer imagined.

And now, guys, you know how we wonder if Caribbean children’s literature makes a difference, even though we, the writers, know that it does. But how do you quantify it, we ask, to prove its importance to others?  Okay! I have news for you! One of my friends bought the books at the launch for her grandchildren. She just sent me an email and photo of her little granddaughter who  wanted her hair let out for church this morning, just like Abigail's. Truly guys!  We have to continue writing.  As Kim said in her address: The road is long but we have to keep on going. For the sake of our children’s self esteem, we don’t have a choice.

 

Photos: top left of Dr. Kim Robinson Walcott, courtesy of Michael Reckord. Me, signing books: courtesy of Camille Parchment

Why write if nobody is going to read it? If a tree falls in the forest . . .

 

You’ve seen this question, or versions of it, asked before: Would you still write if you knew that no-one would read it? It reminds me of the question first introduced to us in university. If a tree falls in the forest , and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? We were young; how we pondered that question, our introduction to philosophical thought. That was long ago. Today’s students would know the answer to that, and no doubt have far more serious concerns. Little did I know that that question might arise again. It has, after what I call the failure of the great Amazon experiment/expedition (for another blog).

A fellow writer, no doubt feeling as low as I did at the time, asked if people aren’t buying our books why write? She indicated that writing was her life, so what now? At the time,  I was concerned with unexpected family affairs and had no time to even consider the matter. However, I think I have an answer, and it is this. There is always somebody, reading. Have faith in that, and if even one person/child reads you story and finds comfort, finds himself/herself, finds something of merit, perhaps a glimmer to light his/her way through life, then it is worth writing. And in a way, like workers in some ancient colony or social organization, we have to write; that is our destiny. Perhaps this is worth a coffee morning of discussion with fellow authors.

A few weeks ago, I read a column by a young columnist in one of our newspapers. It was after The Olympics and we were just full up with gratitude to our athletes, and especially happy for our Usain Bolt. The writer said that he had read this book when he was in school about great sportsmen of the world, Mohammed Ali and Pele ( I think he mentioned those), and he wondered if he would ever see any greats like that again  in the world, and here he was seeing  our own Usain Bolt, as great an athlete as ever there was in the world. I was amazed. I wondered if he was referring to the Dr. Bird Series (he remembered the books arriving at his school in a box), provided by the Ministry of Education, and written by Peggy Campbell (of blessed memory), Karl Phillpotts and I.  This particular non-fiction piece, Some of the World’s Greats,  was written by Peggy or Karl, not by me. ( I thought that the title included  . . .in sports” but it isn’t written like that on my list, so apologies to the writer or heirs , if the title isn’t quite right). I could see the book, I searched for it in my collection of originals (so I could scan it for this blog), but there was no copy there. I concluded that I gave it to a library when I was doing one of my ‘culling of books exercises’, when I decided that I would only keep copies of those that contained stories written by me.  Hard decisions like this have to be made when you perceive that there is a danger that one day you may not be able to get into your study because of books, books, books, everywhere.

The point is, guys, the book made a lasting impression on him. He remembered it even as an adult. Finally, he had his own ‘world’s great in sports’. I think that is reason enough to write.

Here is another example, just in this last week, as a comment on one of my blog posts:

I am the quality person I am today because of your inspiring writings. My ability to ready had more to do with the interesting and captivating plots in your  short stories that had me engaged as a child. Now as an adult, I would like to collect them all. How possible is that?

By the way, I get requests from people about how to get the Dr. Bird Series ( I presume the above is about the Dr. Bird Series).  We get no royalties from these books, but I count it as one of the greatest blessings of my life that I was able to write on that series, with two great writers.

Then there is Abigail: Abigail’s Glorious Hair  created quite a stir. I thought it would be The Happiness Dress, the Commonwealth Prize winner. But Abigail is the one that touched a spark in us about our hair, brought back memories for some, made little girls absolutely sure that they had glorious hair. Earlier this year, I read at the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) conference held here in Jamaica, (along with Diana McCaulay, (Gone to Drift – see my previous blog), and A-dZiko Simba Gegele (All Over Again), both Burt Prize winners.  Again, there was that wonderful reception for Abigail. Someone from Belize asked that in signing her copy of the book, I also write, “You have beautiful hair”. This, she said, was for a little girl who didn’t think her hair was beautiful because it was too curly. Aah, my friends. Definitely reason enough to write?

But, you say, you are talking about books that people are buying and reading. Yes, guys, but when I wrote Abigail I had no idea. It was for my grandchildren, inspired by them. ( Rachel Wade, whose illustrations are so delightful, was actually sent pictures by me of my granddaughter’s hair, so that she could get the image right.) As I said, I thought it would be The Happiness Dress that would carry the two books. And in truth, children have found happiness dresses in their closets, and wear happiness dresses to my readings, as a couple of the girls did for  a recent reading at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library. The  important thing is, you never know when a book will drop a ray of hope or love into a child’s heart or mind.  Definitely reason to write!

 As a postscript, at this time, hopefully Abigail will  enlighten, comfort, sing a hallelujah chorus. A story can quietly make a mighty noise.









Credits for image of forest: :https://www.google.comjm/search?sourceid=navclien

Despatches: Diverse books, diverse dolls - knowing we are beautiful

 

I promised more posts arising from the address by Dr. Kim Robinson Walcott at the launch of Abigail’s Glorious Hair and The Happiness Dress.

 Dr. Robinson Walcott spoke of the images we saw as children in our books, all foreign, all white, with long straight hair, nothing like us, nothing we could ever be.  She  pointed out that at that time our ‘culture’ was imported from England, but now, direct quote  . . .Thank heaven we have advanced beyond  that age of darkness, right? Flash forward  to today when we see how popular weaving and bleaching are in 2016, we realize how much work we have to do. A few days ago in one of our newspapers there was a photo of a tiny tot, maybe one or two years old, dark-skinned and with big eyes, in a children’s home, caressing her prized possession: a little white-skinned blue-eyed platinum-blonde, kindly donated by some well-meaning charity organization.

I saw the picture too, and I was disturbed. Not only by the doll, but also because I know that if the child had been given a black doll, a number of people might have been offended. The giver would have been accused of racism, anyone else who thought a black doll was an appropriate gift would have been equally charged with treating the child from the home as ‘less than’.

 I think of dolls as representing  us, so to speak, so shouldn’t they look like us? Of course, for others, they might be part of a fantasy land, hence any doll will do. However, I think we fool ourselves if that is our explanation.

Both of my daughters are adults,  and the first doll ever brought into our house was a black doll named Suzie. Suzie was so loved that she was still with us when the girls were in their teens. After Suzie came dolls of various colours; one of the things I enjoyed doing was, starting in September, to hunt though the stores for beautiful black Barbies  for Christmas. You had to start in September, because very few black dolls were brought into the island. Yes, my granddaughter also has dolls of all colours. Diverse dolls!

Aha! You say the merchants do not bring in enough black dolls. You have found the scapegoat. One year, no doubt, in some fantasy  of  signs of self acceptance, the merchants brought in black dolls. Black dolls can’t done!  I was thrilled. At last, at last, my people were on their way. After Christmas heaps of black dolls were still in the stores. I asked; the merchants said no one wanted them. They haven’t made that mistake again. Many of us know of the American psychologists Clark and Clark and their experiment with black children with black and white dolls in the 1940’s, in which the black children preferred the white dolls and ascribed to them more positive characteristics. I gather other experiments have been done since then, and other interpretations ascribed to their study. However,  not a lot has changed it seems. 

What do we do about this? What can anyone do? Some may have stopped reading this by now in annoyance. Some may now view me as subversive in some way. I used to be upset by people not understanding the importance of this. I even suspected that there were those who railed against slavery and our colonial past,  but probably had no black dolls for their children, nor had they bought any local children’s books. Diverse books! One of the good things about getting older, I have found, is that you begin to realize that you really cannot change people, and you do not mind. 

Do I think local books, diverse books can influence our children’s thinking about themselves? I do. However, you be the judge.

And here is the good news in despatches: It is reported that having read The Happiness Dress, little girls are finding dresses which they consider  happiness dresses in their cupboards. Lovely! And those who have read Abigail’s Glorious Hair, have concluded that their hair is glorious also, and want it loose like Abigail’s. These reports are numerous. One mother/grandmother concluded that a particular little girl knew she was beautiful, but now she believes it.  Even more lovely!

 

Photo top left: Dr. Kim Robinson Walcott, courtesy of Michael Reckord
Photo upper right: me, courtesy of Camille Parchment

Diane Browne's latest - West Indian children's guides to self acceptance: Sunday Observer, May 15

The launch of the prize-winning The Happiness Dress and Abigail’s Glorious Hair took place on May 10, at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library. The launch was lovely; much thanks to all those who helped with it and participated in it, and those who attended it. The guest speaker, Dr. Kim Robinson Walcott,  made an excellent  speech. It is published in Bookends in The Sunday Observer today, along with covers of the two books launched, as well as other book covers of mine. Thanks to Sharon Leach of The Observer for the coverage of Kim’s speech and my books. Kim’s speech and the launch will provide content for more than one blog, because she touched on so many things which impact the writing and publishing of children’s books in the Caribbean.  Quote from her speech: I wish books like these were around when I was a child. I wish books like these were around when my children were young. This is the type of material that we need to engender pride in our culture and ourselves.

The headline in The Sunday Observer is shown above. I have to thank Sharon for that headline. It is such an astute point of view, and changed the direction of this blog.  Apart from the two books being launched,  the other books highlighted on the page are Island Princess in Brooklyn, Ebony and the Auntie of the Starlight, a Caribbean Cinderella story,  and Cordelia Finds Fame and Fortune. I know that many of my stories focus on  identity and  celebration of ourselves,  but it wasn’t until I read that headline that I fully understood the variety of ways in which we can say "I am me and that’s very fine." 

 Cordelia is teased  because she is different from the other children in her village. She discovers that once you accept yourself the teasing stops, and that what is different about her  can be what contributes to  success.  Princess struggles against having to  replace her beloved Jamaica with Brooklyn, and fears she will lose her concept of who she is. She discovers that her self-concept will not be lost or replaced. It will only grow, and that you can love both Jamaica and Brooklyn like all the other Jamaicans in the diaspora, and that she can love her mother as well as her granny. Ebony, from a children’s home,  proves children from children’s homes can be successful, and she escapes  the traditional Cinderella story, by not only marrying a man worthy of her, (it isn’t that she has to be worthy of him), but earns shares in his spice factory, and trains and employs other girls from the home to work with her in the company.

In The Happiness Dress, Carolyne proves what she already knows,  that it’s okay to accept that you reflect the Caribbean even when you are in another place, and she is the happiness of her Daddy’s heart. And finally Abigail! To quote Kim: Abigail's poufy hair is nothing like a Barbie doll's, but Abigail  doesn't care two hoots about that. What a wonderfully self-assured little girl, in love with her own glorious hair, and by extension her own glorious self. You just have to look at Rachel Moss’ illustration of Abigail looking at herself in the mirror, to be assured of this.  It’s a wonderful synchronicity that most of these books have been illustrated by the talented Rachel Moss, who is gifted  at interpreting what  the writer imagined.

And now, guys, you know how we wonder if Caribbean children’s literature makes a difference, even though we, the writers, know that it does. But how do you quantify it, we ask, to prove its importance to others?  Okay! I have news for you! One of my friends bought the books at the launch for her grandchildren. She just sent me an email and photo of her little granddaughter who  wanted her hair let out for church this morning, just like Abigail's. Truly guys!  We have to continue writing.  As Kim said in her address: The road is long but we have to keep on going. For the sake of our children’s self esteem, we don’t have a choice.

 

Photos: top left of Dr. Kim Robinson Walcott, courtesy of Michael Reckord. Me, signing books: courtesy of Camille Parchment

Despatches: The Great Amazon Expedition! Children’s Publishing in the Caribbean, a Cottage or Boutique Industry

 I cannot believe that my last post was last year.

That was when I was going to do a dramatic push with my two latest books on Amazon, The Happiness Dress, the story that won the Special Prize for a children's story from  the Commonwealth Foundation in 2011, and Abigail’s Glorious Hair. Picture an expedition into the somewhat unknown.

That did not turn out as well as I had anticipated. First, there was a new app offered by Amazon, Kindle Kid’s Book Creator, which was brilliantly simple to use. Even I could use it, and proceeded to do so. Both books looked fine right up to and including the review of the book. However, once they were up on Amazon, the type was not as clear as I wanted. My friend, Hazel Campbell, who usually uploads my books, had to rescue one by putting it into Word first, which required rearranging of the layout.  I was greatly disappointed in my efforts. I gather that other people have been complaining about this aspect of the app. We know that this won’t matter to Amazon until they have worked through this kink, somewhat like an experiment. In my opinion, nobody in technology  cares about these complaints really. They just continue working to build a better mouse trap. So in my annoyance and disappointment, I did not promote the books much, and consequently got little sales. So Amazon and I fell out, unbeknownst to Amazon. Whose nose was cut off, eh! I suspect that my failure to do regular posts on my blog had something to do with this. Cut off your nose once; cut off your nose twice.

 However, I still believe that it is near to impossible to get the traffic to and interest in the Caribbean children’s books on Amazon. And self promotion continues to be a challenge for me. Nobody is to blame. As they say now, ‘It is what it is’.  So I set out armed essentially with my imagination of what could be. And now the great Amazon expedition is over. I’ll still upload books; it is a place to locate them. I suppose I will still promote them now and then.

 I was, therefore, convinced that I needed to produce print copies of these books. They deserved it. With a monetary gift from a relative, I have been able to do so. They are now printed and are lovely. I plan to launch them early in May, Child Month. However, without that gift I could not have done so. Even then, I could only afford to print 500 copies of each. This means that the unit cost is high. The market cannot bear more than a certain selling price. Consequently, I will not even make enough money to recover costs and do another print run. In other words, my expectation is to be able to cover costs. Without the monetary gift  . . .etc. 'It is what it is'.  And of course, I still have to promote and sell them. I think it  should be much easier than dealing with cyberspace. I’ve done it before . . . albeit some time ago. Let's hope it’s not another expedition of the imagination.

The finances explained above lead me to conclude that nothing has significantly changed in the production of children’s books in the last 30 years. Sorry! No! Something has changed; there are far more writers in the field, which is a very good thing, and many of them are doing self publishing. And there are some young publishers, one in particular, who has published a number of prizewinning books. In fact, there is quite a bit of activity in other Caribbean islands. So there has been progress and there is excellence. Generally speaking, however, publishing of children’s books will continue to be for the love of and passion for it, a cottage or boutique industry. Prove me wrong! Please prove me wrong!

 

No, I’m not disillusioned. Writing for children  is a passion. Passions have to be pursued. And that the next generation is carrying on this passion is truly wonderful.

Kingston Book Festival also speaks to the vibrancy of the literary scene. From the opening readings  on March 6 at the University of the West Indies, which featured Olive Senior reading from The Pain Tree, which has gone on to win the Bocas Award for Fiction, award winning poet, Vladimir Lucien, from St. Lucia, previous YA Burt Award winning writer, A-dZiko Simba Gegele, Mel Cooke, poet and Tanya Shirley, poet,  to the final Bookfair on Saturday. I read from my latest children's books at the National Library of Jamaica Open Day and the Bookfair turned up the most delightful group. They are called Kozy Korner. They have a great idea, a Kozy Box. They  will produce and deliver a gift box of books, accent on local books, with a few international items  to a very lucky child that you know. Fantastic! How innovative! Each generation brings something new to the table. I wish them every success. You can email them at: KOZYKORNERBOOKSJA@GMAIL.COM. I think they will need corporate sponsors as well as the general public.

To go or not to go with e-books on Amazon. What, again? Still asking that question?

 

Ages ago I said I was going to give Amazon a try for my books which had gone out of print. They would now become the latest thing, e-books.  Not surprisingly I did not promote any of the books very much, and to date, have no idea how much of any title I’ve sold. Why? Part of the problem is I only sell one-one, as we would say, and I really would need to know the total sold for the entire time the books have been on the site. However, if you don’t promote . . . In addition, I get very embarrassed that I’m actually promoting my own books. Clearly an attitude from some medieval time before the digital world. It took me ages to send out promotional messages to those in my mailbox. Embarrassed caan done! Consequently, I’ve been philosophical about it all. ‘It’s somewhere to put my books’, and 'Oh, but I really did not expect to sell anything, you know.'  Borrowing phraseology from this clever new world, ‘So if that’s your attitude, it’s the attitude, stupid!’  

However, that’s not totally true. 

1) We know that the majority of people have no visibility on Amazon because there are simply too many books. (Prove me wrong, if you dare).

2) So for us from the Caribbean, visibility could be expected to be even more challenging. The Caribbean is known for sun, sand, (sex?), music, athletics, and in some circles - for adult fiction. But not for children’s stories, and attaching visibility to any of the above would seem to be difficult. I know you can write the prescriptive children’s story about music, tourism, etc. but I think we want to be about more than that.

3)There are all sorts of offers on line to market books, at a cost which we cannot afford (and we do not know that it works), and Caribbean sites promising visibility  have not yet proved that they can achieve this. I’ve asked individuals here if they wouldn’t like to take on the marketing of e-books, but I conclude that they’re not interested, and understandably so. Too much effort for little or no return, certainly not to pay them for their time.

No, I’m not blaming a soul. These are just the facts. So why am I about to put two more children’s books on Amazon, and new ones at that? Well this time I’m going to really try. My change of mind came about because of the digital conference I attended (see posting for Nov. 14). I concluded that the digital age was indeed here and I should try to see if I could get along with it.

So I shall promote my books by writing all the people in my address book, I’ll go on the sites which I’ve joined, try to understand their rules for posting, and endure seeing the book on my timeline every time I post. (Already I’m feeling faint;  waiting for the queasy stomach, threatening headache, breathlessness, tightness of muscles in body - any or all of these symptoms. )

There’s history to these two books, and along the way I changed my mind many times.   Would they just be e-books?  Would they just be print books? Would one be one, and one be the other?

The Happiness Dress is the story for which I had won the prize for the Special Award for a children’s story from the Commonwealth Foundation, 2011. A significant achievement. The Commonwealth! I was honoured and very pleased. Big up Jamaica again! They produced it as audio for distribution to Commonwealth countries. It seemed a shame for it not to be in print. I was pleased when it seemed that I and a local publisher had decided that perhaps it could be published here. But local publishing can be fraught with obstacles, one of the main ones being lack of money. So when things seemed to be lost, I took it over, and the rest is history unfolding. Families, but especially fathers, need to read it.  Fathers and the validation they can give their girls are so often forgotten.

Ah, Abigail! I love the name! Abigail’s Glorious Hair. This story celebrates us, our hair, our rituals, how what might seem to be tedious can be so filled with love. This is the story that I started writing after Talking Tress Literary Festival this year (see post of May 29).  The fact that it’s almost ready to be uploaded is a celebration in itself. The idea had been there for some time. We’ve got to settle this hair business. But it was words said and feelings experienced in Barbados and  the creative inspiration of Talking Trees that suddenly produced it. It deserves to be read by all of the family, but especially mothers and grandmothers who comb hair,  and little girls whose hair is combed. It deserves a post of its own and it will have it.

These two books are both happy books, and we so need happy. They are also about love and families, whatever shape your family takes and whatever role each person plays.

Illustrations by Rachel Moss are happy too. Scheduled date for e-books on Amazon end of November, in time for Christmas. Keeping fingers crossed. Print, early next year, but so far only to be available in Jamaica.

Having written the draft of this last night and felt the requisite queasy stomach at the thought of the marketing I’d committed myself to, this morning I remembered two experiences,  by way of some encouragement.  I  have been privileged to be part of these important developments for children’s literature.

 1) I wrote on the Dr. Bird Reading Series, the first major set of books which were about our own children and their lives. (Ministry of Education,1980). Many other publishers followed our example. Since then Jamaican and Caribbean writing and publishing has grown, even if somewhat sporadically.

 

 

2)  In 2006, I was privileged to manage the process for the next major publication of a series for children, celebrating their lives, Literacy 1-2-3. (Ministry of Education 2008).This gave expression to a new generation of writers and artists. Many gorgeous illustrations; this time, in full colour. Since then Caribbean children’s writers and publishers have continued in their awareness with bright young persons getting involved. Some competitions specifically  for children’s/YA writing are now available to us.

Considering this, should I then  let a little  shyness stop me from taking this next step. My friends, I invite you to join me as we seek to make an impression for Caribbean children's books on Amazon, or anywhere else, for that matter.