Ypulse Books Guest Post: Paula Chase Hyman, The Other Urban Fiction
Posted by alli on 10-20-2008
Today’s Ypulse Books Guest Post is from author Paula Chase Hyman. If you work in the children’s or young adult book publishing space and would like to write a Guest Post, just email us.
The Other Urban Fiction by Paula Chase Hyman
The line “I’m not gay…not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Seinfeld circa nineteen ninety something comes to mind often these days. It’s the sort of line you utter when you’re trying to distance yourself from categorization without judging the category or in the case of the Seinfeld episode, a lifestyle.
“Hi, I’m Paula and I don’t write urban lit…not that there’s anything wrong with it.”
I, in fact, write that “other” urban fiction. Yeah, I don’t know what that means either because in reality I write ‘burb fiction featuring African American characters. Confused?
So are readers.
Chalk it up to the necessary (?) evils of niche marketing.
I am African American therefore I write urban fiction, even if I sort of don’t.
I’m not alone. Many Black authors writing contemporary fiction for teens find themselves reminding people that what they write is not urban/street lit just because they’ve featured an African American protagonist in a present day scenario.
The culprit here is the use of the word “urban” to describe everything-African American. I’ve never cared for the description, because urban, to me, has always meant city. So where does that leave those readers from the suburbs, small towns and rural USA?
I-n-v-i-s-i-b-l-e, that’s where.
Urban once served as a beacon for African American consumers symbolizing that a product was culturally significant. Now (maybe it always has) it unfairly lumps literary choices together, making for mad confusion among librarians, teachers and parents looking for good reads for young African American readers.
Some see a cover with two sassy, sista-teens and go running for the nearest copy of Christopher Paul Curtis or Walter Dean Myers to hand to their young reader instead.
While others sit back, satisfied that a student who previously had no interest in reading, is now nose deep in a novel.
In our haste to categorize books we ignore the fact that teen readers, no matter the race, are as diverse in their reading tastes as adult readers. And we continue to market to African American readers as if all of them share the same exact taste in literature.
What I’d like to see is a broader promotional effort (hello, ALA?) dedicated to shining the light on the diversity among what’s out there for young African American readers. Every summer, my library system hands out book marks for different YA genres listing the genre’s most popular authors. But the African American book mark features only traditionally literary authors: Myers, Curtis, Rita Williams Garcia, Mildred Taylor et.al.
You’ll find no L. Divine or Coe Booth listed.
Including more contemporary authors on such a bookmark is a start. But dare I suggest taking race out of the equation? Simply include books by African Americans within the existing promotions for other YA sub-genres.
Offer posters, special web pages and other material showcasing books by and for African American readers within the traditional niches of romance, sci-fi, fantasy, chick lit, horror, mystery etc… That would be more helpful. And, novel concept, would also expose the books to non-African American readers.
African American teen readers are definitely looking for stories that feature and include them, but ultimately they’re looking for stories about romance, mystery, drama…you know, the normal stuff people pick up a book for. Directing them to a good story is where we start, though it’s not necessarily where the marketing currently lies.
Until it does, I guess I’ll continue to introduce myself like this:
“I’m Paula and I don’t write urban lit…not that there’s anything wrong with it.”
About the Author: Paula Chase Hyman has written for Girls’ Life, Sweet 16, and Baltimore Magazine among others. In addition to her background in corporate communications and public relations, she founded the Committed Black Women, a youth mentoring program for 14-17 year old girls and launched The Brown Bookshelf in 2007 to help increase awareness to those African American authors writing for children, flying under the radar of gatekeepers and parents.
Her Del Rio Bay series, helped launch Kensington Books YA line in 2007. It joins the growing number of popular fiction YA books targeted to multi-culti suburbanite teens. The five part series includes the ’07 debut, So Not The Drama. Chase calls her brand of teen literature, Hip lit, a nod to the diversity spawned by the MTV-watching, 106th & Park-ing, pop culture hungry hip hop generation. The author lives outside of Annapolis, MD with her husband and two daughters. Visit her and learn more at:
Paula Chase Hyman
The Brown Bookshelf
Categorized under: Books & Print, Books Freestyle
October 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Hi Paula,
That was a great post. I think a lot of it is a lack of education on the part of booksellers and librarians. In my past three jobs as a YA librarian, I’ve worked in suburban/urban (not inner city, but not your typical suburbia either) towns. My readers are white, black, latino, asian, middle eastern, and other. I’ve made it a mission to find books for all of my teens to read. I have your books, and Drama High (never ever on the shelf) and most of the Kimani Tru books and the Bluford series. I’m in a consortium of 75 different libraries and only the three larger, more urban libraries have these books. I buy the Walter Dean Myers and Jacqueline Woodson books because they are fantastic, but I buy the real fun contemporary stuff because that’s what my teens want to read. And any librarian who doesn’t have Coe Booth on their shelf isn’t doing their job. (Seriously, Kendra is even better than Tyrell and I didn’t think that was possible!)
Now if someone could publish a few Simon Pulse romantic comedies with diverse characters THAT would make my life. Lighthearted fun romances that are clean reads, not focused on racism, drugs or poverty, about girls who have crushes, get in arguments with their parents, and get the guy (or girl) in the end are EXACTLY what my teens girls of all colors want to read.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Really great post, Paula. And Keri’s comments are spot-on too. I just wanted to add my “Nicely said!” comment.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:03 am
Keri, thanks for sharing. I’ve found most librarians to be very enthusiastic about the growing number of books for Af-Am teens – but as you pointed out, there are still plenty of voids. I’m hoping we’ll see those voids slowly close in the next few years. I believe Dafina (my publisher) and Kimani Tru are among the front runners, currently, when it comes to the straight contemporary for readers of color. But I’d love to see Simon Pulse and MTV Books offer a bit more diversity.