Launched in 2020, the Black Creatives Fund supports emerging and established Black writers and illustrators.
About the Black Creatives Fund
As of 2018, only 10% of children’s books published in the U.S. depicted characters from African/African American diasporic populations, according to statistics from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To address this lack of representation, WNDB established the Black Creatives Fund to provide programming that directly services Black creators. These initiatives include:
- The Revisions Workshop, which helps aspiring Black writers edit their manuscripts over a six-month period and get their work ready for submission to literary agents.
- A Mentorship program, which connects aspiring writers with published authors who provide critiques and guidance about publishing.
- Seasonal workshops for published authors, which cover pertinent industry topics like how to market their books and how to break into IP work.
- Ongoing author visits and book giveaways, which help to boost an author’s income and provides their work to students.
WNDB warmly thanks Penguin Random House, the Estée Lauder Companies, and BookBub for their support of these initiatives.
