After browsing through my Google alerts, I came across an interesting article in Publishers Weekly that veteran African-American writer, Donna Hill (one of my favorite authors) has launched her own e-publishing company, InnerVision Books.
The first thing that popped into my mind was Stevie Wonder’s (and I’m dating myself) “Innervisions” album because it was a collection of lofty songs such as, “Higher Ground”, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” and “Living for the City.” IMHO, these were songs of hope, struggle, achievement, and love.
InnerVision Books will publish fiction, poetry and non-fiction in a digital format. Its name, which is reminiscent of Stevie’s songs, implies (again, IMHO) that it might also offer hope to authors—veteran and aspiring—who write multicultural characters and plots, but are struggling to achieve success.
With a publishing company dedicated to highlighting “multiculturalism in a global society,” authors have a chance to work with a company that understands that multicultural literature is expansive and layered, and shouldn’t be placed in one section of the bookstore.
And InnerVision Books doesn’t want to stop at e-publishing. Eventually they would like to publish trade paperback editions as well. Woohoo!
It’s wonderful to see a publishing company dedicated to working with authors of the multicultural genre.
Perhaps well-written multicultural stories that don’t make it to the larger publishers, because they’re not, “a good fit” or “not what they’re looking for,” will fit perfectly with InnerVision Books and be exactly what they seek to publish.
Bravo to Donna Hill and other publishers, who look for ways to tell these stories and embrace them.
