I'm a teacher, and I love my job, but do you want to know my true love? Writing. Namely, writing fiction. I have an awesome agent, and she’s doing her best to get my stories out into the world.
But, as a Black author, that isn’t always easy. Things seem to be getting a little bit better for authors of color, but I definitely felt like I connected with Jeffrey Wright’s character in the Oscar-nominated film, American Fiction , in a number of ways (it wasn't that long ago that people were writing about how white the book industry is ) . That said, I also found that I didn’t connect with him in certain regards.
Here’s why. Why I Relate: It Really Does Feel Like The Book Industry Is Constantly Chasing Trends Though the novel, Erasure , that this movie is based off of came out in 2001, it’s extremely relevant. Or maybe, the book industry has just always been chasing trends.
Nevertheless, Erasure feels particularly prescient since it kind of foretold the growing pains that the industry would go through when publishers were seemingly seeking out novels from BIPOC authors. This was following several events of police brutality, which made frequent headlines. In fact, I remember prior to finding my current agent (who I adore), some of the agents who I queried wondered if I could change some details in one story so that the police could be antagonistic toward my main character.
Now, while I’m well aware that there are some cops who don’t exactly follow the rules when it c.