Karen Douglass, Author

Karen Douglass, Author: Prose & Poetry

Tag: racial equality

  • Persistence & Politics

    Regular readers here will recall that from time to time I urge them to READ FOR EQUALITY. In our fractured, limping-along democracy this continues to be a responsibility, although some days I wonder why I bother. Then I read something like Tracy K. Smith’s new book, Wade in the Water, and I’m reawakened to the…

  • Citizen Writer

    Given all the static this past weekend, public and personal, I chose not to post on Saturday as I usually do. But that doesn’t mean my brain hasn’t been churning. It has, and here’s the big idea, not new, but worth repeating: writers have a unique opportunity to engage in the public debate. We can…

  • Fiction Comes to Life

    Characters live long if they catch the devoted attention of readers. Characters act and react and please and disappoint. “Don’t open that cellar door!” But the character opens the door and out leaps. . . a lost child. Characters take risks, and writers take risks when they breathe truth and texture to a character. When they…

  • Read for Equality

    It’s past time to think about inequality in the publishing business, the people of color under-represented in libraries, bookstores, on school reading lists, and in kiddie lit. The problem lies partly with white editors who “can’t identify” with characters of color. And then there’s the Market Effect. Publishers too often assume that only people of color…