Dhonielle Clayton

Dhonielle Clayton is an American author and chief operating officer of We Need Diverse Books. Her works include The Belles and Tiny Pretty Things, co-authored with Sona Charaipotra.[1][2][3]

Life and career

Clayton was born in Washington, D.C. She graduated with a B.A. from Wake Forest University in 2005, a M.A. from Hollins University in 2008, and a M.F.A. in creative writing from The New School in 2012.[4][3]

She co-founded the boutique book packager CAKE Literary with Sona Charaipotra, with whom she co-authored the Tiny Pretty Things series.[5][6] The series debuted in 2015 and follows three teenage dance students at New York's American Ballet Company.[7][8] Kirkus referred to volume one as "a page-turner with heart."[7] Tiny Pretty Things is set to debut in 2020 as a series on Netflix.[9]

Her interest as a teenager in magazines, beauty and how they affected how she viewed herself later served as inspirations for her debut novel, The Belles, released in February 2018. The fantasy young adult novel centers a 16-year-old girl and her sisters, tasked with restoring beauty to a colorless grey world.[10][11][12] The book was a New York Times bestseller and was named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus.[13][10]

Clayton is Chief Operating Officer of We Need Diverse Books, which seeks to increase representations of marginalized groups in children and young adult literature.[5] She also works as a sensitivity reader for children's literature and works to identify stereotypes or inauthentic portrayals of Black characters.[14] [15]She has also advocated for books to better represent people of color.[16][17]

In 2019, Clayton attracted criticism for negative Tweets about a student of Northern State University, who had advocated for the inclusion of three books by persons of colour, including Bryan Stevenson's memoir Just Mercy about racial injustice, instead of a YA novel by Sarah Dessen, in the university's 'Common Reads' program. Clayton later deleted the tweets.[18][19]

Awards

Clayton's The Belles was a finalist for the 2019 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.[20]

Published works

Authored:

  • Tiny Pretty Little Things (2015)
  • Shiny Broken Pieces (2016)
  • The Belles (2018)
  • The Everlasting Rose (2019)

Edited:

  • A Universe of Wishes: We Need Diverse Books Anthology (Penguin Random House, 2020)[21]

References
  1. Abron, Dawn. "The Belles". School Library Journal. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  2. "Cake Literary – stories from scratch". cakeliterary.com. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  3. "Dhonielle Clayton." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2016. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://link-gale-com.unr.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/H1000318714/LitRC?u=reno&sid=LitRC&xid=65e0a8a2. Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.
  4. York, The New School 66 West 12th Street New; Ny 10011. "Alumni Sona Charaipotra, MFA Creative Writing '12, and Dhonielle Clayton's MFA Creative Writing '12, Co-Authored 'Tiny Pretty Things' Adapted to Netflix Series". New School News. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  5. Elam, Bridget (2019-09-12). "Author Dhonielle Clayton discusses the need for diverse books". WS Chronicle. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  6. "Tiny Pretty Things". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  7. TINY PRETTY THINGS | Kirkus Reviews.
  8. Stevenson, Deborah (2015). "Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 69 (1): 16–17. doi:10.1353/bcc.2015.0668. ISSN 1558-6766. S2CID 145420721.
  9. Petski, Denise (August 6, 2019). "Netflix Orders 'Tiny Pretty Things' Ballet Drama Series Based On Book; Sets Main Cast". Deadline.com. Retrieved September 1, 2020.
  10. THE BELLES | Kirkus Reviews.
  11. Quealy-Gainer, Kate (2018-01-17). "The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton (review)". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 71 (6): 242. doi:10.1353/bcc.2018.0088. ISSN 1558-6766. S2CID 201722028.
  12. "The Belles". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  13. "Dhonielle Clayton on How 'The Belles' is Allowing Her to Explore Teen Issues". EW.com. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  14. Shapiro, Lila (2018-01-05). "What the Job of a Sensitivity Reader Is Really Like". Vulture. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  15. "Experts Or Censors? The Debate Over Authors' Use Of Sensitivity Readers". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  16. Valby, Karen (2019-07-19). "Why Have Novels About Royalty Stormed the Y.A. Best-Seller Lists?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  17. Ettinger, Savi (2019-09-05). "Women of color as artists: Kiran Ahluwalia vs. Dhonielle Clayton". The NC Triad's altweekly. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  18. Graham, Ruth (2019-11-15). "The 2017 College Grad Who Got Attacked by a Horde of YA Authors Had No Idea What She Was Getting Into". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  19. "Hey, young adult authors: writing for teenagers is no excuse to act like them | Julia Carrie Wong". the Guardian. 2019-11-16. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  20. 2019 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved April 1, 2020
  21. "A Universe of Wishes: 9781984896209 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.