A Note from Our Interim Director

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Hello All,

I want to start off with a huge thank you to Patrice for founding this organization and for the many years of vision and guidance she provided in steering People of Color in Publishing. We would definitely not be where we are without her and while I am sad to see her move into an advisory role, I know she’s going to continue the work of advocating for BIPOC in publishing as an agent and author.

Also, hi! I’m Christine Hung, the new interim director of People of Color in Publishing. I’ve worked in publishing for over 13 years at Penguin Random House in various roles and recently became the executive director of audience development at the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. I joined POC in Publishing back in March 2018 as part of the Communications & Events sub-committee, then took on the co-chair role before moving into this interim director role. It goes without saying that I am extremely passionate about diversifying book publishing and I’m looking forward to being able to focus on making publishing a more equitable and inclusive place for BIPOC professionals.

I now have the exciting job of introducing you to our planning committee. Before I do, I would love to thank Saraciea Fennell, another “advisory” member who is and has been extremely involved with structuring POC in Publishing for success. Those of you who know Saraciea know she’s a wonder woman who works basically ten jobs and makes it look easy. She also oversees/chairs our Social Media sub-committee, which has the ongoing job of keeping our Instagram and Twitter fresh and focused on elevating fellow BIPOC in publishing.

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In addition to Social Media, we also have Mentorship & Retention as well as Communications & Events sub-committees. Mentorship & Retention is co-chaired by Saba Sulaiman, an agent with Talcott Notch Literary Agency, and Carolina Ortiz, an associate editor for HarperCollins Children’s Books, and focuses on our mentorship program for aspiring publishing professionals which accepts applications in August and sends out mentor/mentee matches in January. 

Communications & Events is co-chaired by Jasmine Miranda, an assistant marketing manager for Bloomsbury, and focuses on hosting events that are educational and allow our members to connect with one another. This sub-committee also updates our website and handles gathering content for this newsletter. 

Aside from the sub-committees, we also have planning committee members who handle specific work, like Claire Yee, our new Secretary who is an associate editor at Callisto Media. Her detailed notes have already proven to be extremely helpful, and I’m glad we will have an archivist again. Another position that was recently filled is Treasurer, by Jalissa Corrie, a marketing and publicity manager at Lee & Low Books. She’s a longtime POC in Publishing planning committee member whom we are grateful to have back tracking our finances.

We also have Kait Feldmann, who is our Special Projects director as well as a senior editor at HMH Books for Young Readers. She has worked on one big project that you will all be hearing about soon, and will be working on other projects which will be announced in coming months. It wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t secret, right?

In our next few newsletters, we’ll be showcasing more of the hardworking volunteers who are part of each sub-committee and I’m so happy we can shine a spotlight on them in thanks for the amazing work they’ve done so far.

Thanks,

Christine