Life Lessons at a Media Conference*

The following was originally posted on March 29, 2011. It is being re-posted as part of our CHICKS ROCK! Holiday series.


This past weekend was a great one for media-making and activist women as it was the WAM! It Yourself mini-conference in select cities around the world. Here in New York, it was a fun-filled weekend with a happy hour Friday night, a conference Saturday, and a brunch on Sunday. For the second year in a row, I spoke on a panel for the Saturday conference and it was great to be back in a space with women (and a few men) committed to learning from each other and helping each other out.

The panels were about writing, media, and activism, but there were a few lessons that came out of the day and that still echo in my mind days later.

The first lesson came up a few times on the social media and activism panel I was on, and was repeated by several others (who weren't even at that workshop): use your authentic voice. Whether it's in the way you use social media or in your writing, being yourself and being authentic makes it easier to stand up for your feelings and beliefs when they're challenged, as they inevitably will be, and puts your real truth out there. It's harder to back up what you don't believe in, so why bother?

Another lesson is in the power of social media. As Deanna Zandt said in her closing keynote "technology will not solve our problems, we will solve our problems but we can use technology to do that." People are using social media every day to spark movements, stand up for their rights and the rights of others, and make people's lives just a bit better.

And the last lesson is that we can all be leaders and change-makers. In many ways, a lot of us are doing it already, we just don't give ourselves the credit.

Okay, so the lessons are not new, but it doesn't make them any less meaningful.

What lessons have you learned or been reminded of recently?

A Brush and a Mirror

So....dare I say we've all done it? Held a hairbrush (or whatever's handy) as if it's a microphone and practiced our Oscar-winning speech in the mirror? Oh. No? Not everyone? Just me? Well, that's embarrassing....

If you haven't guessed already, I was watching the 65th Annual Tony Awards on TV last night. I'm not an actor, but it's nice to dream. I'm not a playwright, either, but I dabble. Of course, watching the show makes me want to throw it all away and start writing The Great American Stage Play so that someday I might be able to get up on stage and cry and thank a bunch of people. The only thing that stops me is the knowledge that playwriting is not the medium in which I speak best. I'm a novelist because it's what I love, and what I'm good at.

But watching people who have risen to the epitome of their profession is always inspiring. It reassures me that all the hard work might actually be worth it in the end. For my particular world, the Tony/Oscar equivalent is the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards, which are announced in mid-winter and awarded in June at the ALA national conference. I'll be headed down to New Orleans for said conference in a couple of weeks. A few close friends/colleagues have been honored this year and I look forward to celebrating these honors with them.

Full disclosure requires me to admit that my first novel actually won one of these awards, a New Talent award under the Coretta Scott King Awards banner. (Yay!) I've even been to a televised award show (the NAACP Image Awards) for the same book. (Woot.) That was over a year ago, and I'm still very pleased and proud to have earned these mentions, but it doesn't stop me from dreaming of hitting the same jackpot again, and it certainly doesn't stop me from dreaming even bigger.

Who do you thank in your mirror acceptance speeches? If you sincerely dream of being on one of those famous stages, what are you doing RIGHT NOW that might help get you there?

Listening Big

I'm not a big radio listener these days, and when I do tune in I typically listen to music. So, I was surprised but excited when I was invited in for a cool interview on NPR last week. I've done radio interviews before, but I must confess that each time the experience takes me a little outside of my comfort zone. I'm used to talking about my books, but I'm used to talking directly to young readers--not into a fancy microphone!

I went on the Michael Eric Dyson Show to talk about my new novel Camo Girl (I managed to mention The Rock and the River a few times, too). The interview was recorded and incorporated into the episode that aired on April 1 in select markets nationwide (woot!). I listened to it when the podcast went up online, and I was pleased to hear that I sounded normal, maybe even intelligent. I had been really nervous going into the interview, so I'm really glad that it turned out well.

To be honest, downloading my own interview was one of the first times I've listened to a podcast. I hear people talking about them, and I've heard of many podcasts that sound intriguing to me, either by subject or concept or host. Yet, it's a form of media that I'm not sure how to access in an ongoing way. I have the technology, but I don't always remember to use it. I'm looking for ways to remind myself to try new things and stretch the boundaries of my experience, to move beyond books and conversations, to other media and ways of connecting. It feels like a wave of the furture, in some ways. I'd better get on board!

Are you a radio listener? What shows/stations do you enjoy? Follow any podcasts?

If you're interested in my Dyson Show interview, you can download the podcast or listen online. (If you don't want to listen to the whole hour, my part starts at 23:00.) Let me know what you think!

Life Lessons at a Media Conference

This past weekend was a great one for media-making and activist women as it was the WAM! It Yourself mini-conference in select cities around the world. Here in New York, it was a fun-filled weekend with a happy hour Friday night, a conference Saturday, and a brunch on Sunday. For the second year in a row, I spoke on a panel for the Saturday conference and it was great to be back in a space with women (and a few men) committed to learning from each other and helping each other out.

The panels were about writing, media, and activism, but there were a few lessons that came out of the day and that still echo in my mind days later.

The first lesson came up a few times on the social media and activism panel I was on, and was repeated by several others (who weren't even at that workshop): use your authentic voice. Whether it's in the way you use social media or in your writing, being yourself and being authentic makes it easier to stand up for your feelings and beliefs when they're challenged, as they inevitably will be, and puts your real truth out there. It's harder to back up what you don't believe in, so why bother?

Another lesson is in the power of social media. As Deanna Zandt said in her closing keynote "technology will not solve our problems, we will solve our problems but we can use technology to do that." People are using social media every day to spark movements, stand up for their rights and the rights of others, and make people's lives just a bit better.

And the last lesson is that we can all be leaders and change-makers. In many ways, a lot of us are doing it already, we just don't give ourselves the credit.

Okay, so the lessons are not new, but it doesn't make them any less meaningful.

What lessons have you learned or been reminded of recently?

Women Count

I suppose it's true in every industry that there is still some sort of glass ceiling, some limitation on women's contributions, or unequal pay for equal work. Among writers, this can be hard to gauge. As independent workers, we exist outside of many of the structures that would allow us to study and know about these discrepancies, plus the quality of our work is highly subjective, so it's often hard to compare ourselves to others--men or women.

I was saddened recently to learn that there are many powerful people in publishing who seem to believe--consciously or subconsciously--that women's writing is inherently weaker than men's. To the point where women writers have been excluded from some very important exposure opportunities. A non-profit called VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts has been studying women's representation in major literary venues, like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper's, and The New Republic. VIDA volunteers counted how many women were included in the 2010 issues of these publications, either as contributors, reviewers or review subjects. Literally, counted.

The statistics The Count generated might surprise you. They surprised me. In the majority of these publications, women's representation was down around 25%- 30%. REALLY? Sure, we've known anecdotally for some time that women get published less frequently than men, and that we get less attention for our work than do men. But having the facts and figures to back it up really makes the knowledge hit home. Hopefully, it also means we can begin taking steps toward greater equality of representation. Starting now.

To learn more about VIDA's Count, view all the pie charts, and participate in the discussion, debate and even dissention it has generated, check out:

The Count at VIDAweb.org

Do you think women are well-represented in print media? Any favorite publications you know that have a better ratio of representation?

Old School

I caught a bunch of articles over the weekend (here's one) about the controversy at Nettleton Middle School, in Mississippi--a public school where some Jim Crow-era segregation rules still remain on the books and active. Specifically, the school has issued written guidelines outlining which student government positions students of different races can run for. President: Whites only. Secretary/Reporter: Blacks only. (Oh, you're of mixed race? Sorry. Try again in high school...)

To be fair, I should say these rules remained active, up until this past week, when the national media caught on to the story. School officials say the rule was kept in place to ensure diverse representation on the student council. Okaaaaay.... But to set up a hierarchy where white students are always on top runs counter to the very ideas of integration and inclusion. It baffles me that any group of educators in this day and age--the day and age of our first black president, after all--would think that any form of segregation is a good way to promote diversity.

It also saddens me that I'm not surprised to learn of these situations. I know there are still schools where there's a black prom and a white one. I know that drama teachers in the south may be told not to cast interracial couples in student plays for fear of community reprisal. I know that in the nighttime corners of such places the Klan still rallies, spewing hate from underneath their hoods.

I want to give the school district the benefit of the doubt, but to do so makes me wonder about all the mistakes we make in trying to overcome prejudice. How many more will we uncover as time goes on? On the other hand, I'm suspicious of a group that--practically overnight--reverses a policy decision they claim to have believed in, just because a lot of people suddenly took notice. Did they really not know what they were doing?

What else can we do, collectively, to bring these situations to public attention, so that they can be corrected?