Welcome to the April Newsletter!
First thing I want to tell you about is Story Sunbirds!
A little while back, a group of us in the kidlit community wrote an open letter to The Society For Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) because, like so many other literary organizations at this moment (PEN America, the Author’s Guild, The Bologna Children’s Book Fair, to name a few), they’ve been absolutely useless about the genocide in Palestine, contrasting sharply with their enthusiasm to take a stand a few years back when Russia invaded the Ukraine. Hundreds signed it.
We were really just asking for the bare minimum, to be honest, and SCBWI’s response was even less than that. To say I was disappointed would imply I had much hope they’d actually step up, and really…this wasn’t surprising. Calling a genocide that’s taken over 15,000 children’s lives a bad thing seems like it’d be just a very straight forward thing for a children’s book organization, but here we are. White supremacy is a hell of a drug, I guess, and zionism is nothing if not white supremacy plus settler colonialism with a very specific geographic focus.
People within these organizations have said we’re “attacking” them, they’ve hidden behind their non-profit status, they’ve pretended that they’re always neutral when a) that’s not something to be proud of and b) it’s not true. None of this is true. Having a 501c3 doesn’t prevent you from calling a genocide a genocide — being cowardly and/or committed to normalizing genocide does. As for attacking, I guess we have different definitions of that. Critique is not an attack, even sharp critique.
Genuinely, with no snark, I believe that calling out an organization is a gift. We are committing the time, the risk, the effort, the creativity to say what we want to say and say it right so that a these groups can live up to their actual mission statements, so they can truly serve the communities they claim to. Orgs pay consultants good money for that kind of feedback, and here we are doing it for free! And catching hell for it too. Wild. If we didn’t care at all, we wouldn’t even be having the conversation.
But look — it’s past time we move beyond these orgs that didn’t care that much about us in the first place. There’s only so many different ways you can go back and forth with an entity that’s utterly committed to the bit when the bit is ignoring an ongoing genocide.
So those of us who wrote the open letter to SCBWI went ahead and started something new — it’s called Story Sunbirds and we’re still figuring out what exactly it’s going to be, but we know it’ll be for all the kids, not just the white ones, and we know it’ll be for freedom and for Palestine (the sunbird is the national bird of Palestine). And we’re excited. Much more on that ahead, but if you’re interested in learning more and reading the correspondence, you can do that and sign up for our newsletter here: https://airtable.com/appgMC1CTRupSRHjj/shrtFWWxMCamPvzvL
AND NOW FOR SOME STAR WARS STUFF
This time last year I was in London for Star Wars Celebration to talk to creators and fans about our collective love for The High Republic. In the past year we’ve come a long way—from the beginning of Phase III to the release of The Acolyte trailer, there is a lot to be excited about! I’ve got a lot of updates for you today so sit tight.
NEW RELEASES
DarkHorse’s Crash Landing one-shot hit shelves at your local comic shop last week, so just in case you missed it, pick it up quickly before it sells out. I had so much fun writing this wild, dark, chaotic, hilarious story of war and finding yourself in the aftermath. I love Crash and her crew and loved getting to revisit them, along with one of my favorite of Alyssa Wong’s characters, rogue Jedi Ruu!
The High Republic Adventures Issue #5 releases April 24th. This issue features a variant cover by illustrator Priscilla Bampoh. To get an inside look into Priscilla’s process of creating this stunning comic cover, check out this exclusive Sketchbooks and Scratchpads interview:
Just a year after her debut, my wife Brittany N. Williams is releasing her sequel to That Self-Same Metal; Saint Seducing Gold comes out on April 23rd, which means that there is still time to pre-order! Pre-orders are really great ways to support authors, and this book is too brilliant to be missed!
APPEARANCES
On April 13th, you can find me and Brittany at BAM Book, Art, & Music Festival in W Palm Beach Florida. I’ll be speaking on the Rise of Graphic Novels and Comics panel at 12 PM (where I’ll be talking about a new project that hasn’t been announced yet!), and then the Alternate Universes: Creating the Worlds We Love panel at 2 PM. Come say hi!
THE ACOLYTE
Working on The High Republic series has been so creatively rewarding and I’m ecstatic to have our stories expanding with The Acolyte streaming only on Disney+. If you missed the trailer for the limited series, you can watch it here.
SKETCHBOOKS AND SCRATCHPADS
Along with Priscilla’s interview linked above, Sketchbooks and Scratchpads interviewed artist Cherriielle this week. The paid subscriber tier here on my Substack has a lot of fun things coming including more Artist Spotlight Interviews and an upcoming post about how I wrote like a bazillion words last month.
That’s all for this month! See you in May.
—D
LINKS:
Guante’s resource for artists who want to speak out on Palestine but aren’t sure how: https://racketmn.com/for-artists-and-musicians-who-want-to-speak-out-about-palestine-but-arent-sure-how
A moving open letter from Jewish students at Brown: https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2023/11/an-open-letter-from-jewish-students
Writers Against the War on Gaza:
https://www.writersagainstthewarongaza.com/
Take action with Jewish Voice for Peace:
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Take action with the Palestinian Youth Movement:
https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/
Support Boycots, Divestmest, and Sanctions: