Publishing in Three | Step 3: Interview with Sydnee Monday

In this series, “Publishing in Three,” I aim to shine a light on the experiences of an author, literary agent, and editor to learn about each of their perspectives on how books are made.

Second only to the author, themself, the editor of a book is a key player in the process of a book transforming from a manuscript draft into a bound book. Editors carry the honor of providing readers with the quality stories that they deserve, and they have great responsibility of using their platform to promote voices that will interest and inspire readers. In considering Windmill’s mission to foster a community that uplifts underrepresented voices, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the editorial process and how some imprints and editors are using their platform to uplift marginalized voices of the entire book community.

The following article is a conversation with Sydnee Monday, an assistant editor at Kokila, a children’s and young adult imprint at Penguin Random House. As an editor, Sydnee is in search of manuscripts that tell the story of what it feels like to live in your skin, disillusionment with crumbling facades, and how we move towards utopia. A graduate of Howard University, she mentors young people with Read Ahead and the Governor’s Committee on Scholastic Achievement. She also serves on the board for the POC at PRH employee resource group and the Communications & Events Committee for People of Color in Publishing (Kokila 2020).

What interested you about working in publishing and how did you begin working as an editor?

I studied film at Howard University, but I actually came into Howard as a journalism major and always kind of thought that I would be interested in working with stories. My only kind of knowledge of a career field that could sustain me working close to stories was through journalism and nonfiction, like news reporting. As I matriculated through college, I realized I was actually more interested in kind of blurring that line of reality, so I ended up doing film as my major Howard and my minor was in English.

From there, I really found myself gravitating towards children's books. I've always had kind of a soft spot for childhood. Part of the reason why I wanted to go into journalism was that I've always really wanted to contribute to the media by and for marginalized people.

Both sides of my family are from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we own the Oklahoma Eagle, which is a black community newspaper that's been around since the 20s. So, I grew up with the importance of making media that really reflects oppressed people's realities. As an important life skill, I really wanted to see how I can contribute to that kind of family purpose and passion in my own career, so I thought maybe I should think about working in children's books.

As an acquiring editor, do you have a specific story or voice that you want to use your platform in publishing to highlight?

Right now, I'm really interested in actively searching out well research, immersive and engaging histories of black, brown, queer, and disabled artists, writers, thinkers, organizers, and revolutionaries. I think that goes for the holistic Kokila; we're all really interested in kind of like layered narratives that hit a kind of the duality and hybridity of life. I think for my list right now, I'm really hoping that I can use the privilege of being able to acquire books as a space to really push the boundary and acquire products that haven't necessarily been supported by the traditional publishing sphere because of things like “marketability or solubility.” I'm most focused on producing really fresh subversive books that might speak to a young person where they're at right now.

In considering your mission to highlight marginalized voices, do you find yourself wanting diversity to be the focal point of the narrative or just the human experience first?

For me personally, my experience of being a person is tied up in my identity and my lineage. So, to me, it's never really felt like an either or. Something that I do think about a lot is that I would rather have a book on my list that is a person from a marginalized community talking directly to their community or talking with their community, having conversations with their community instead of talking about their community or for their community.

Publishing, in the past few years, has opened a lot of doors to be less exclusive, yet it still lacks a great deal of diversity. As a person of color, what has your experience been like entering the publishing industry and establishing a name for yourself?

I mean, publishing is a very white industry, and it's very present in all of it. What attracted me to my specific imprint, which is a small creative team of all women of color from different backgrounds, is I now have the responsibility of taking up the mantle to do my research, and I think that we're all very committed to really doing our research and acknowledging when we have blind spots. Our process at Kokila is super collaborative. Even if I'm someone's editor, we go through at least two team reads where the author and illustrator get feedback from all of the women on the team, which I think really, really affects the work and the publishing experience for the better.

From your experience on the board for the POC at PRH employee resource group, how do you anticipate the industry making strides towards diversity in the coming years?

All of these initiatives can't hurt. As well as hiring, we need to make sure that the environments in which we're hiring into do right by our black indigenous employees of color. Really investigating the ways in which we've let those employees down and seeking to rectify that is a good first step, and I hope that in the years to come, we see a higher retention rate for people of color in publishing.

From your experiences breaking into the publishing industry yourself, do you have any advice for someone who is aspiring to enter the publishing industry?

Wherever you are there's always something to learn, so just be curious and hopeful that all of the experiences that you are gaining can help you in some way, even if you can't necessarily see the path right now. Also, I would say to do your research and continue building your community horizontally. Finding mentors is always great, but I really think that my career has been supported exponentially more by my peers. Just like the community that you form, with people who share the same kind of mission as you do, I would say check out like all of the organizations doing really great work, like LatinX in Publishing and POC in Publishing.

Is there one book that impacted you the most as a child?

Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. I just remember what it felt like to turn the pages of that book. It’s about a black girl with a big head and big feet who dreams of being the dancer who gets the starring role, but throughout the whole book, she's just dancing in the wings, waiting for her moment. That book was really touching for me as a young person, and it turns out that one of Kokila’s sister imprints, published that book in the 90s. It's funny how life works out.

What are you currently reading and/or about to read?

I just finished Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman. She is brilliant, and when I think about really honoring the histories of unsung black, brown, and queer people, I think she just gives us a new language for how to bring narrative to folks that in some circles are considered like the opposite of the talented 10th.

A lot of times, I feel like white people, in order to present a marginalized character as “good,” they made them flawless and self-sacrificing and just a display of the perfect kind of caricature of what a human is. That's not really humanizing at all. I think that just reading Beautiful Experiments, and seeing how Hartman used court documents and psychologist reports and landlord diaries to really paint a picture of black people living in tenements on the East Coast at the turn of the 1900s really was a pivotal read for me this year.

Right now, in my lineup I have The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. I also have June Jordan’s, Directed by Desire, Paradise by Toni Morrison, Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall, and Disability Visibility, which is an anthology of disabled folks' experience from all different backgrounds, edited by Alice Wong.

I am so very grateful for Sydnee for taking the time to speak with me on this subject. To learn more about her and keep up with her upcoming projects, you can follow her on Twitter @sydneemonday.

Cecilia Gray is a member of the 2020 Windmill staff. She is currently pursuing a BA in Publishing Studies and Writing Studies at Hofstra University. To read more publishing and writing -related articles by her, follow her series, The Writer’s Toolbox, at Firstdraft.com.