Hi, my name is Kadeen Griffiths and
I am an assistant publicist at HarperCollins Children’s Books.
Welcome to Office Hours, and this is what I do at HarperCollins.
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I am basically a book pitcher.
It is my job to intercede with the book and
getting it out to the media, hoping that they will cover the book or
allow the author to write a piece for their magazine that promotes the book.
I find it super, super rewarding because most of the books that we publish here,
they're for children.
And just knowing that even one child's life might be changed by what we do is
just the most incredible thing in the world to me.
At HarperCollins, we have a huge commitment to diverse stories.
I knew that HarperCollins was a publisher that had so many diverse stories.
This is where The Hate U Give is, this is where Dread Nation is,
this is where A Song of Wraths and Ruin is.
We are really one of the leading publishers
on the market when it comes to promoting these diverse stories.
And my job as a publicist is basically to go to the media, and to set up events,
and help with festivals.
And basically say, hey, this book is perfect for you,
this has a black girl in a ball gown and I know you love that.
Or it's an LGBT book and it has bisexual rep and I know you love that.
Everybody wants to find their new favorite book and it's kind of my job to be like,
well, here it is.
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The thing about the fantasy genre that really makes it my favorite has
always been the magic and the adventures, of course.
But growing up, all of my favorite heroes in fantasy,
the Katniss Everdeens and the Bella Swans and all of that, they were kind
of united by the same quality, which is their whiteness, essentially.
So I think that a lot of adults like myself get so much flack for
continuing to read young adult books and read young adult fantasies.
But young adult fantasy is so
much more diverse now than it ever was when I was a kid.
There are books really on my own shelf behind me where you have black girls
who are getting to live out Cinderella stories and overthrow the world.
And you have black girls who are meeting the love of their lives during
a competition where they have to kill them.
And you have black girls who are going on these adventures.
And I'm a big emotional baby, so
even now I just kind of cry whenever a new fantasy cover comes out that
has a black girl on the cover because I could never have imagined that.
In addition to loving to read, as a kid I also really loved to write.
But even in the stories that I wrote for myself, the main characters,
they were all white girls because that's all I had ever seen.
I thought you had to be white to go on these adventures,
even in my favorite books.
And now I get to see black girls on the cover, and on the pages, and
in these stories.
And how could I possibly move on from young adult fantasy when finally the child
inside of me is getting to see everything happen to somebody just like them?
And now little black girls who are the same age that I was when I first started
reading these stories after I moved here, they are getting the chance to basically
be in a world where they never knew that they were excluded from these stories.
That’s so important to me.
And that's kind of a pretty big important part of what I do, is making sure that
those children know that these stories are there and that these stories are for them.
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I love young adult books more than anything.
So it was an absolutely natural fit that I should wander over to the Epic Reads
section and tell them I love to read, is there anything you need me to do?
I have written articles for the Epic Reads site.
I have done social media posts.
I have been involved with interviewing authors on Twitter or on Instagram.
I made my job work for me instead of the other way around.
If I could speak to myself two years ago while I was still trying to get a job at
HarperCollins and tell her what I would make of this situation.
And what I would be allowed to do and
all of the things that I didn't think I would ever do, including this episode.
I think I would just be floored by how much I've grown in the last two years, and
how much I've been allowed to grow.
And, honestly, how much growing I still have to do.
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If you're interested to get into publishing, I literally have one word and
I am so, so sorry that I have to say it, Twitter.
You can find so many job listings that you may have missed.
So many job listings that are currently opening or about open on Twitter.
It is such a resource.
And I know, I know that it is a hell site.
If you are a professional who's looking to get into publishing, I really can't
underestimate how important it is to just give Twitter a cursory glance.
See if there's a new job opportunity, you can make connections there.
It changed my life because that's where I found out about the New to
Publishing open house.
And I was not following Harper on any other channels so I probably would not
have seen it otherwise, it certainly wasn't in their career listings.
A lot of people in publishing have Twitters and
make frequent use of their Twitters, and
you can learn a lot about the publishing world just from reading their posts.
So don't doom scroll.
There are still a lot of changes that I feel that
the publishing world needs to make.
I am really excited, I love how much diversity has come to be associated
with young adult novels, and with picture books, and with middle grade nowadays.
But that diversity really is not reflected behind the scenes the way it should be.
As a fantasy person, we just got a Jamaican
fantasy that's coming out next year called Witches Steeped In Gold.
And I lost my mind because that was the first time, I'm sure there have
been others, but that was the first time I got to read my exact identity on the page.
Patois is made into a magical language,
when in reality it was something that I was made fun of for
speaking in when I came over here and started attending kindergarten here.
They eat oxtail, and they eat goat, and they eat callaloo.
And these are things that I either got made fun of for eating or had people go,
what's that?
The way that we see the world, and the way that we think, the experiences that we've
had, and the things that have broken us over the years can't be replicated.
And just can't be understood by people who haven't had those experiences.
I'm honored to work among the ambitious, incredible,
and talented people that I work among.
But that doesn’t change that I am very tired by the fact that the diversity on
the page is not trickling upwards to the people who are putting those pages out.
And I hope that that's something that publishing as a whole
makes strides to fix.
Our world is so messy and chaotic.
It's very unfair.
There have been things that have happened that have made me and
many black people feel like we have no worth or value in this world.
And then I can open a book where a Jamaican-American protagonist or
a Jamaican analogue protagonist written by a Jamaican author is bringing magic,
and life, and light to all of the things that are of me.
It's a cliche saying, but you can't be what you don't see.
I never could have conceived of myself as a hero, or as someone special,
or worthy without the books that are coming out.
Books letting you know that you're not alone,
even when it feels like you are are so, so important.
And I may be getting them late, but I'm going to make sure that
every single Jamaican girl out there gets them right when they need them.
That's my job, and that is my passion, and that is all I wanna do.
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