BIPOC Book Fair Highlights Diverse Authors and Audiences

Many avid readers can recall with breathless nostalgia the excitement of attending the school book fair. But as local author K. Tempest Bradford notes, low-income and marginalized kids don’t always have such fond memories.

“A lot of the social media posts I had been seeing, mainly on TikTok, were about how marginalized people didn’t always have the best time at the Scholastic Book Fair, because they didn’t have the money to buy books and they felt really left out,” Bradford told The Skanner.

“I was thinking, if there’s going to be a book fair, there should be a way for every kid to leave with a book.”

She also wanted young readers of color to have a selection of books where they felt more represented – by authors or with characters who looked like them.

“The only other criteria I had for inclusion was I wanted to make sure that we didn’t have too many books where the focus of the book was unhappiness or strife because of identity,” Bradford said. “Because that’s so prevalent. I want there to be a room full of books about BIPOC kids going on adventures, going to space, solving mysteries and having a good time. There just needs to be more than that. Marginalized kids also deserve to know they can just have fun.”

Bradford worked with Sistah Scifi, an Oakland bookstore specializing in work by BIPOC science fiction writers, to put together a list of around 100 books to be sold and distributed at Norse Hall on Dec. 23, the first inaugural BIPOC Book Fair. 

Volunteers from SMART Reading will be available to help kids find the right book for them – and children and teens who attend will each get one free book of their choice. 

“We believe that all children deserve access not only to quality literature, but to books that reflect and affirm their identities, families, communities and cultures,” SMART Reading Program Director Rashelle Chase-Miller said.

A Winning Idea

Bradford first put together the book fair concept in an application to an EventBrite contest, which would award the winning idea with $10,000.

Though she made it to the final round, Bradford was not ultimately selected. But her idea had gained a lot of local support, and one friend had told her that if EventBrite didn’t award her the $10,000, he would.

He made good on his pledge, and Bradford organized the book fair with the sponsorship of the nonprofit Carl Brandon Society, which promotes racial and ethnic diversity in the genre of speculative fiction -- both among writers and among readers.

Bradford herself was raised by an avid Star Trek fan. 

“I just love how much science fiction, and to some extent fantasy, is such a transformative genre, in that you can show the world that you want to see,” she said. 

Her debut novel, 'Ruby Finley Vs. the Interstellar Invasion,’ is aimed at middle grade readers – an outcome that surprised Bradford.

“It was accidental in that I didn’t mean to write that book, but that book kind of knocked me over the head and jerked me into the house and was like, ‘Write me!’

“I wanted my character to be a young Black girl who’s a genius, and I wanted her to have an adventure that included a whole community, because that was how I grew up. My book takes place generally in the present time, but it takes place in a version of the neighborhood where I grew up that I want to see in the future. They’re not there yet. I enjoy being able to put out there what I want, how I want things to work.”

BIPOC Authors In Attendance

Anita Crawford ClarkBradford will be present with a number of other local BIPOC authors at the book fair, including Nisi Shawl, author of ‘Speculation,’ a fantasy that follows a young woman who inherits a pair of glasses that grant speculative, "what if?"-style wishes; David F. Walker, comic book writer and author of ‘Naomi: Season One’ and ‘Naomi: Season 2,’ a graphic novel and TV series about a young woman discovering her own miraculous origin story; Diana Ma, author of 'Heiress Apparently' and 'The Unbeatable Lily Hong,' stories that follow Chinese-American protagonists as they counter harmful cultural stereotypes and find joy in their culture; and Anita Crawford Clark, whose first picture book, ‘Old to Joy,’ hit shelves in September after percolating in her imagination for two decades. 

“I wrote the manuscript in ’98, I sent it off to a few publishers, it was rejected,” Clark told The Skanner. “Between then and 2020, I dabbled in it, but it wasn’t until 2020 during COVID, as a teacher, that I finally had time to write and illustrate the book, and that’s when I picked it up again and polished it off and tweaked it, and started connecting with the children’s writing community.”

An educator who holds masters’ degrees in both creative writing and media psychology, Clark said she felt drawn to Beatrix Potter books when she was a child.

“Maybe because the characters weren’t White, they were animals, and I could relate to them.”

She was entering the “kids lit” field at a time when representation of Black characters and Black stories still lagged far behind that of White narratives, but 2020 was a year when that began to shift for the better, Clark recalled. She found a supportive community on Twitter, specifically through what is known as Black Creators HQ. 

“All these Black creators, we all started coming together, and we would bring in agents and editors and established authors, and they would tell us and teach us how to break through in this industry,” Clark said. “This was people of all colors and different backgrounds that would come and speak to us, and editors would give us opportunities to submit our work to them, get on top of the ‘slush pile,’ as they call it.”

In June of that year, Black author L.L. McKinney launched the hashtag “publishingpaidme,” which encouraged BIPOC and White authors to share the amounts of their publishing advances. 

When compiled, the numbers made obvious the huge discrepancy between how White and Black authors were paid – often, award-winning authors of color were still paid far less than virtually unknown White writers. 

“The difference was staggering – not in the thousands, in the tens of thousands,” Clark said. “For the same level of work. And the reason the book companies were (giving) was because, ‘well, people don’t read books with Black characters.’ And ‘Black people don’t read books at the same rate.’”

Clark said, “When that hashtag came out, people were getting exposed, publishing companies were getting exposed. And then you really just saw a flood, a really concerted effort, to be more inclusive. We’re still not there, but there’s been some improvement.”

Clark said her own experience documenting her book on social media undermined the publishing industry rationale that non-Black readers don’t pick up works by Black authors.

“When I posted pictures of my work in progress, I was blown away by the response from people who aren’t Black. Even though the focus is on Black culture and my character is Black, the experiences are germane to people of all cultures. All cultures experience joy and heartache and grief and sadness and elation and love. And that’s when I realized, wow, that’s really what picture books do. This is something we can all identify with.”

Bradford is hoping to make the BIPOC Book Fair a yearly event.

“What I would really love to do is to be able to do this event every year here in Portland and do this event in other cities,” she said. “Each city is going to have different resources, and my hope is that we will be able to create a blueprint and say, ‘Please go and create a BIPOC Book Fair in your town.’”

The inaugural BIPOC Book Fair will be held Dec. 23 from 12 to 4 p.m. at Norse Hall (111 N.E. 11th Ave., Portland). The event offers books by BIPOC authors, of every genre, for early readers to 17-year-olds. Tickets are $5, and low-income families can request a fee waiver. Masks are required for all attendees. Tickets and more information available here.