Surrender, Dorothy

My sister Dorothy is experiencing one of publishing's greatest annoyances: The Great Questioning. As the pub date for her anthology Sleep Is for the Weak gets closer, people are coming out of the woodwork to ask all kinds of hard questions to answer. As someone who has been in publishing, and as an editor for a collection of women's essays right at the beginning of my career, I know how this rolls. But here's the thing. My sister put a bazillion hours into this project. That's what it was: a personal project. No one hired her to do it. No one gave her a spec sheet. She went out there all by herself and found fabulous mommy essays to include in a collection. And then she sold that b*tch.

While she was working on the project, we talked about how to pay contributors, etc. I told her to offer a $100 flat fee for each essay and call it a day. That's what I did at my publishing company. There was a one-page contract, a check for $100, and 5 free copies. Done. At that point, she didn't have a publisher. I told her the publisher would take care of those things, but if she really wanted to do it, offer a flat fee. In fact, she could have just offered them nothing. Seriously. Even major publishers often crank out anthologies without payment. Writers know this. Just look at a Writer's Market sometime. Payment? Very very very little. We all know you can't make a living off being a writer unless you are Danielle Steele or something. Just sayin'. Rita went a different route and took care of her contributors quite nicely. Quite. Nicely.

So anyway, she puts this book together, works her tail off, sends it all over the place, and lands a publisher. And then the press starts to dribble. And then the questions come.

Recent question: Why aren't there more African American mommy bloggers included in the book? What started as an interesting Q/A session over at Blogher about race somehow ended up turning into a discussion about why Dorothy didn't engineer her stats properly in the line-up. For the discussion, go to the Blogher post here.

I have many different thoughts about the Q/A between Dorothy (Rita) and Kelly from Mocha Momma. I was a little shocked by it, to be honest. In this day and age, does Kelly really still have to deal with being marginalized because of her race?? Did she SERIOUSLY get a job just because she was Black? Perhaps I am just hella naive, but I have plenty of powerful, successful friends of other races, and I guess I just never thought to ask them if they still encounter racism. Maybe it's a given--I just know it's there. Just like I still get marginalized for being a woman. And just like I still get pegged as a slutty vixen because I'm a redhead. But I thought our culture had evolved in such a way that people weren't still dumb enough to fondle African American braids and ask a gazillion hair questions. (Of course, if I had a dollar for every time some old lady fondled my hair at the grocery store, I'd be a rich woman.) Kelly said on her blog that she feels perhaps people use hair as a jumping off point to discuss other questions. I can see that. But I have to wonder, do the people realize how dumb they sound beginning a discussion that way? Cause it seems kinda dumb to me.

Maybe it's because I lived in Portland and Chicago, but I got to know plenty of people from many different groups. One of my best friends in Chicago is Caucasian and her husband is African (and OH LORD THE CHILDREN ARE BEAUTIFUL). For years before that, my best friends in Chicago were a Korean couple. I didn't think I was fancy because I had "ethnic" friends. It didn't seem strange or fascinating or anything. It was just normal. Is it still "fancy" or "unusual" to have friends of other races? Seriously? Cause when I helped my African American friend pick out a Muslim outfit to wear to a Jewish/Nepali wedding, it didn't seem odd at all.

Or was it just that I lived in a big, urban city like Chicago?

Maybe it's also because I worked at a multicultural educational publishing house. When we created student books, we had statistics on how many stories and authors we could have of different races. We would have done this on our own, but these are also rules from state standards for text books. We carefully constructed our products to have a certain range of character races and author races. For example, we might have 30% Hispanic; 30% African American; 20% Caucasian; 10% Asian, etc. And not just characters. No no. It's really dumb to have a book with a Hispanic character written by a Caucasian. It's best to include authentic literature, so that's what we did. And it was just normal.

But that's a full-blown educational publisher who specializes in ESL (English as a Second Language), people. My sister? She just wanted to publish a book. Her dream. Her life-long dream of creating something beautiful. She sought out fun stories, painful stories, all kinds of things. I doubt race even popped into her mind on those late nights as she surfed through endless links looking for little gems that would bring mothers (of all races and creeds) some comfort. To let them know they are not alone. That being a mommy is hard for everyone. And funny. And normal.

It was a project. She had no agenda. She still doesn't. But now that press is picking up, here come the questions. She's already encountered many, including the recent race question. As a professional, my sister is brutal. But as a person? She's sensitive. She has a soft under-belly. What other kinds of questions will she face, and how will she address them?

I commend her. I feel her responses over at the Blogher forum are well thought out and interesting. If you're gonna go there, go. If people are going to ask you questions, answer them. And then pose more questions. I'm also proud of Kelly for participating. I met her at Blogher 2007 (Hi Kelly--I was the non-mommy freak over in the corner feeling all confused and needing a Xanax!) and was happy to meet another powerful, female blogger who was interested in the community.

But for anyone who reads their discussion, realize this: Rita does not represent the Big 5 Publishers. She has no control over the media. She is not responsible for who gets free marketing products to review. She's just a young woman, a daughter, a sister, a friend. She's just like the rest of us, trying to figure out the world and our place in it. And I think, so far, she's doing a damn good job.

Love ya, Sissy.