A lil' preview of the remix: A More Diverse Universe

For the past two years, I've hosted the A More Diverse Universe Blog Tour, a tour that focuses on highlighting diverse authors of science fiction and fantasy.  The first year, there were more than 50 participants, which was amazing.  Last year, it was a shorter time period and much less organized, but it was still a pretty fantastic event.

Regardless of how much #Diversiverse has impacted the reading habits of its participants and observers, it has had a massive impact on my own reading.  After hosting the event the first year (with a ton of help!), I made a concerted pledge to read more diversely all year long, not only in fantasy and science fiction, but in all my reading.  Now, I read about 50% diverse authors, and it comes naturally to me to seek out non-white authors.  This is a massive change from where I was three years ago, when I read almost exclusively white authors.

I wish my new habit did not require so much seeking out, that I could default to best sellers or critically acclaimed novels and know that I was reading books by a wide array of authors.  But that is not the case.  If you want to read books by authors of diverse backgrounds, you have to be very conscious about doing so.  If you stick with the best-seller lists or most award-winners or the books that people tend to talk about, even on blogosphere, you are looking at a very monotone set of authors.

So in thinking through this year's iteration of the A More Diverse Universe blog tour, I wondered what it would take to make more people participate, and to motivate more people to read diversely all the time, not just for an event.

There are a lot of reasons people use to defend the lack of diversity in their reading.  The most popular one seems to be that of the "moody reader."  Someone says, "I'm such a moody reader, I just don't want to put rules up that would drive me away from reading altogether."  I used this excuse myself all the time.  I didn't want to change my reading habits because I enjoyed what I was reading, and why should I have to change something that I did for a hobby?

I explained the "why" for changing this habit in pretty great detail two years in a row.  I'm sure I'll do it again as we get closer to the #Diversiverse dates.  For now, let me just say that the "moody reader" argument doesn't really make sense because it implies that diverse authors do not write books that meet your current mood's criteria.  This is unlikely.  I cannot make this clear enough:

You may have to change your book-finding habits to include POC authors in your reading rotation.  You absolutely do not need to change your book-reading habits.

Let me explain.  Have a thirst for epic fantasy?  There's a growing number of books available to you.  Science fiction?  A small but strong contingent.  Non-Fiction?  For sure.  Memoirs?  Definitely.  Graphic novels?  Absolutely.  Travel writing?  Got you covered.  Romance?  Yup.  Women's fiction?  Mystery?  Thrillers?  Historical fiction?  Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  Whatever genre you enjoy, you can read diversely within that genre.

Thus, the A More Diverse Universe Blog Tour is evolving into something bigger and more inclusive than it was previously.  Instead of being focused on science fiction and fantasy, now #Diversiverse is about expanding your entire reading universe.  And instead of being a blog tour, it's more of a challenge.  The criteria are simple:

• Read and review one book
• Written by a person of color
• During the last two weeks of September (September 14th - 27th)

That's it.

I'll make an official sign-up post, because, well, that makes it official.  It will go up in early August and will include a lot of reading suggestions, organized by genre.  Consider this your Save the Date :-)

Also, if you would like to help promote or organize or do anything else, please let me know!  If you have authors you want me to highlight in the sign-up post, or genres you want to make sure I include, or if you want to tackle one genre with author suggestions, or promote the event on Twitter or Facebook or ANYTHING, I am completely open to and absolutely grateful for your help.  Just leave a comment here and I will come find you!  

And if you know how to create buttons or know someone who does, and if you or that other person would be willing and able to make a fun button/badge for people to use when they post reviews for A More Diverse Universe (#diversiverse), I would be very grateful.  I need a refresh so that people know it is not limited just to speculative fiction, and so that people know the dates are in 2014, not 2012.

But really, what I most need (and seriously, I do need it, not want it) from you is to commit and sign up and EXECUTE this reading challenge.  The more we vote with our dollars, our library cards, our reviews, and our recommendations, the more diverse our bookshelves will become, until it's second nature to all of us to read in technicolor.  Let's DO this.