FPP spoke with Jennifer Baker via email about her new anthology, her advocacy in publishing, and much more! Come to Silvana on Monday, April 30th, and hear Baker read with Dennis Norris II, Cynthia Manick, and Sarah Perry. Silvana is located at 300 W. 116th St., near Frederick Douglass Blvd, on the SW corner. Take the B/C to 116th and you’re there. 6-8pm.

Tell us about your current work. Currently I’m a contributing editor for Electric Literature and do a podcast called Minorities in Publishing and I do write fiction/nonfiction on various topics of interest that don’t always hinge on race per se. At the moment though I am prepping for a bunch of publicity for the all PoC/Indigenous short story anthology I edited, Everyday People: The Color of Life, coming out with Atria Books on August 28th. It’s an honor to have so many wonderful and stupendously talented folks involved, including fellow reader Dennis Norris II. They’re all fab and I’m super proud of this anthology.

You have been a tireless advocate for representation in the publishing world. Could you tell us what inspired you to speak up, and what you’re accomplishing? Well, that’s a long story, but I think essentially recognizing more of what’s been happening in the world and expanding my own world as a woman of color with privilege allows me to see things in a much clearer light. I really do understand why people chose ignorance because there is a bliss to it in not having to think too hard or at all about the issues affecting so many and the work (both internal and external) that needs to be done. However, there’s comfort in knowing there’s a contribution being made to see things change in the positive and not necessarily to maintain status quo. It’s refreshing to see so many invested in that and to be part of that means continual growth, as an artist, as an editor, and as a person in general. I can say that having family who saw the KKK up close and hearing more of those stories has made me further attuned to the need to speak out. Silence can equal death for many people so my silence is not at all a prism of ambivalence that I want to be held within any longer. My voice is my strongest asset as I’ve learned.

If you could share one piece of your writing with all of America, what would it be? Why? At this point much of my writing is pretty available digitally. But perhaps it would be a short story I’m working on that’s speculative in nature about what we do, especially as Americans, with people we don’t want to deal with anymore. How easily we’ll let others do our dirty laundry to relieve ourselves of responsibility. Pretty freaky if I can get everything in play.

What should we be reading, viewing, or listening to right now? I’ve read some amazing work in the past few months which I feel very lucky about including The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, Tradition by Brendan Kiely, What it Means When a Man Falls from The Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah, and currently reading MEM by Bethany Morrow which comes out next month. I’m also looking forward to sitting with Nafissa Thompson-Spires debut Heads of the Colored People as well as Reese Kwon’s The Incendiaries and a bunch of new anthologies coming out from Roxane Gay, Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman, and Glory Edim!