From Publishers Weekly: Outraged by the exponential increase in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of Asian American children’s authors has sought to make change—literally…  Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now! 

For Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature winner Stacey Lee, “The last straw was when my cousin told me she was spit on in public as she was taking a walk on her birthday.” Lee, a co-founder of the nonprofit organization We Need Diverse Books, immediately contacted her friend Kat Cho, founder of the Asian Author Alliance—“a group of Asian kid lit authors of which I’m a member”—to brainstorm if there was anything to be done. “Within a day,” Lee said, “[Kat] was already putting a plan into action.”

The duo decided upon an auction because of successful precedents, such as Kid Lit Says No Kids in Cages. “Auctions are brilliant,” Lee explained, “because they can raise funds quickly, and also bring together communities—in this case, the book community, writers, readers, publishers, illustrators.” After announcing the call for donations on the Asian Author Alliance Twitter page on February 21, Lee and Cho, along with National Book Award finalist Traci Chee, Debbi Michiko Florence, and Van Hoang, got to work bringing the auction to life.

The group took to WordPress, creating individual posts for 450 items ranging from calls with authors, editors, or agents, critiques, copyedits, advance readers copies, framed illustrations, signed books, and more. Interested parties could bid on the items between February 26 and February 28 by commenting under the appropriate post. Winners received their prizes after sending proof of their donated bid amount to either Stop AAPI Hate or Hate Is a Virus.

Lee had been following Stop AAPI Hate “ever since its inception in 2020,” as “they provided one of the first reporting systems to monitor” the increasingly common crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, she said, as well as offering multilingual resources and supporting “community-based safety measures and restorative justice efforts.” Cho brought to Lee’s attention #HateIsAVirus, another movement founded to combat xenophobia and racism against Asian Americans and raise funds for BIPOC community organizations, and so they decided to benefit both.

Read full post at Publishers Weekly