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March 26, 2018, from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm

âBlack Feminist Interventions in Children’s Fantasy: Recovered Histories, Literary Representation, and New Publishing Technologies,â with Zetta Elliot

Event Information

How do we move childrenâs fantasy beyond the racialized and imperialist norms of the genre? In this interactive presentation, author/educator Zetta Elliott will discuss âthe trouble with magic.â After spending her childhood consuming British fantasy fiction, Elliott began to decolonize her imagination and has dedicated her writing life to reconstituting âBlack magicâ as a powerful force to be celebrated rather than defeated. Elliott uses the historical fantasy genre to revise, review and reclaim the (often traumatic) histories of Atlantic enslavement and colonization. She is also an advocate for community-based publishing and will reveal how print-on-demand technology transfers power from the industryâs gatekeepers to those excluded from the publishing process.

Born in Canada, Zetta Elliott moved to the US in 1994 to pursue her Ph.D. in American studies at NYU.Â Her essays have appeared in theÂ Huffington Post,Â School Library Journal,Â andÂ Publishers Weekly.Â She is the author of over 25 books for young readers, including the award-winning picture booksÂ BirdÂ andÂ Melena’s Jubilee. Her own imprint, Rosetta Press, generates culturally relevant stories that center children who have been marginalized, misrepresented, and/or rendered invisible in traditional childrenâs literature. Elliott is an advocate for greater diversity and equity in publishing. SheÂ currently lives in Brooklyn.