In the last few years, there has been a big push for diversity that seems to have gone hand in hand with the Black Lives Matter movement. According to a 2019 survey , 76 percent of the people who acquire and edit books are white. When agents who are the gatekeepers within the publishing industry — in most cases the Big 4 publishers and their subsidiaries won’t consider novels without agents attached — are white, finding diverse voices they connect can be a problem. Human nature dictates we are all ruled by our biases, morals, and experiences. How can someone who hasn’t faced similar life circumstances because of their color or “otherness” judge our books and the messages within them? via GIPHY Zora Neale Hurston wrote an article in 1950 called, “What White Publishers Won’t Print” (over 72 years ago, people!)—let’s pause to take in this fact. This thing that happened for this exceptional black woman author so long ago that is still relevant today. via ...