lauriehalseanderson:

weneeddiversebooks:

On Wednesday, We Need Diverse Books™ advisory board member Jacqueline Woodson—author of the marvelous Brown Girl Dreaming—was one of several authors honored with a National Book Award. As has been reported on various websites, host Daniel Handler made a number of racist remarks during that night, including regarding Jacqueline Woodson. Handler has since apologized and said:

My remarks on Wednesday night at #NBAwards were monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist.  It would be heartbreaking for the #NBAwards conversation to focus on my behavior instead of great books. So can we do this? Let’s donate to #WeNeedDiverseBooks to #CelebrateJackie.  I’m in for $10,000, and matching your money for 24 hours up to $100,000. Brown Girl Dreaming is an amazing novel and we need more voices like Jacqueline Woodson.

Many people on Twitter have urged Handler to donate to our fundraiser, and we’re glad to see this has had an effect. For twenty-four hours starting at 8AM EST on Friday, November 21, Handler is doubling donations—up to $100,000—made to the We Need Diverse Books™ campaign. If anyone has been intending to donate, we’d like to suggest they do it within this time frame to let their donation count double.

Among many other goals (detailed on the fundraiser page), we intend to use these donations to fund publishing internships for people from diverse backgrounds in an effort to diversify the publishing industry behind the scenes. We believe that’s an important step toward making the industry more welcoming to people of all backgrounds and prevent mistakes like Wednesday’s.

To center this conversation back on National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson and her astonishing accomplishment, we have added several special today-only #CelebrateJackie perks to our fundraiser. Donors can choose to receive signed books, including her most recent release Brown Girl Dreaming.

Please spread the word and #CelebrateJackie!

All hail Jackie and WNDB for turning this into a teachable moment that will help develop lasting change. And thanks to Daniel for recognizing the impact of his words and doing something that will make the world better for everyone.