Organized by authors and book publishing professionals, a new silent auction, Authors for Black Voices, will auction off exclusive book-related collectibles and services to raise funds benefiting nonprofits working to fight racism in publishing, education, and literacy. More than 50 items will be auctioned off from August 3-31.
Authors for Black Voices was established in June 2020 by novelist Andrea Bartz (The Lost Night) and nonfiction author Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (Seinfeldia) in an effort to organize the publishing profession to fight systemic racism in the book industry. All proceeds from the auction will be donated to 10 501(c)(3) nonprofits focused on elevating African-American voices and supporting efforts for racial justice by a variety of organizations.
The prizes and services being auctioned were donated to this effort by authors and book professionals. Items to be auctioned include hand-annotated, personalized copies of Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive and Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, in addition to exclusive galleys including Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl and works by other writers. Other prizes on the auctioneering block include commissioning Random House copy chief Benjamin Dreyer for copyediting services, reading a deleted chapter from Carolina Kepnes’s Hidden Bodies, and receiving personalized advice from "Ask Polly" columnist Heather Havrilesky.
Among the ten selected nonprofits are Barbershop Books, which donates books to barbers shops and other male-focused spaces aimed at Black boys; the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the celebrated Black historical research organization founded by Carter G. Woodson in 1915; We Need Diverse Books, which advocates for diverse literature for young readers; and Black Girls Code, which is focused on encouraging young Black women ages 7-17 to enter STEM fields.
