We Are Stronger Together

Aligning with Other Indie Presses

I am fiercely independent and I’m drawn to those who are too. But no one can or should live without others. We are stronger together. And in these days we need our strength. We need each other, even in our independence. As I walk toward independently publishing my own children’s …

COMING OUT for our Kids in the Children’s Book Industry

Making Books that Center LGBTQ Kids

A Book That Shows How Creativity Can Keep You Strong When You’re Courageously Being Yourself The Boy Who Drew Dresses/the Very True Tale of a Perfectly Gay Little Boy will be published by Reflection Press in 2017 This is a story about my friend Paul Gallo. Today he is a …

Calling OUT Indie-QUEER!

Changing Voice in the Children's Book Industry

Two Books that Honor Mexican Heritage AND LGBTQ Experience Death In the Family and When We Love Someone We Sing to Them will be published in 2017 by Reflection Press. Written and illustrated by me, Death In the Family is not a Dia de los Muertos book with cultural references and …

Is Equality in the Children’s Book Industry Possible?

And Do We Have Time to Wait? (infographic)

When we look at CCBC’s statistics in the framework of how many books we need to make to stand in equity with white Americans, we begin to understand our real position. I estimate that the children’s book industry would have to increase its production level by 45% to accommodate an …

Why Children’s Books are a Radical Act

I just released Children’s Books as a Radical Act on Indiegogo to support my first 6 independently published children’s books. What makes these books radical? Why is it noteworthy that they’re independently published? Why children’s books of all things? Radical? Any time we center ourselves as POC, indigenous or queer …

If the Publishing World Were to Change Tomorrow, I’d Still Self-Publish

What if the children’s book industry changed tomorrow? And the number of books that actually reflect our communities was equitable with those of straight Euro Americans? What if I began getting calls that offered real advances and publicity for books with larger publishing houses? What if for some reason, after …

“I’m not an artist. I can’t illustrate my children’s book.”

4 books & a potato to coax your inner artist to come out and play!

As I get ready to start my Make Books Now! Action Program, I’ve been exploring fun and fast ways to create good-looking art that kids will love. I imagine there are folks out there doubting their ability to make art so I always like to provide playful ways for everyone …

Self-publishing is a radical, powerful act.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker I’ve met a lot of powerful children’s book makers over these past few years teaching The Heart of It: Creating Children’s Books that Matter. I decided from the beginning that whenever …

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