D.C. indie publisher gives voice to marginalized communities
by Norah Vawter
It all started with a casual conversation in a coffee shop. Two old friends from college, catching up. Kelsea Johnson, a Black woman, was frustrated with the publishing world landscape as she saw it because she didn’t see herself represented in the characters she read about. To a lifelong reader whose mother took her to the bookstore every Saturday growing up, this lack of representation felt heartbreaking. Kyle Porro, a straight white man, had no trouble seeing himself reflected in literature, but he wanted a fuller picture of the world, and when those stories were written they rarely seemed to be marketed to him.
It’s the type of conversation so many of us have found ourselves in, when we look around at the world and realize the status quo is not fair, or even reasonable. Most such conversations never go anywhere. This one did.
In 2020, Kelsea and Kyle founded Stirred Stories, an independent press that focuses exclusively on telling diverse stories from marginalized voices, and doing that authentically. Neither has a publishing background—Kelsea has a political science degree and has worked at advocacy organizations while Kyle is an attorney—but they see that as an asset rather than a liability. Though the publishing industry made grand statements about championing diversity when the Black Lives Matter movement changed our collective conversation, Stirred Stories’ research shows that statistically nothing has changed and giant inequities remain.
They were joined by a third partner, Zina Fattah, and have published twelve books, mostly for children, but have branched into young adult titles and are open to books for all ages and in all genres. They work with a network of educators to make sure their books are age and reading level appropriate. Kelsea was kind enough to sit down with Washington Unbound cofounder Gregory Luce and me, and to answer our questions about this exciting, new, and ever-expanding publishing house.
How did you get into publishing?
Stirred Stories is a coffee shop conversation come to life. Kyle and I were chatting over coffee one day about our frustration with the lack of diversity and ethical representation in media in general. For me, that frustration came from being a Black woman who loves reading and consumes media. I was not seeing myself represented [often] in the books I read. ... I'm sure you are familiar with the data that to this day, children's books are still more likely to include animals and inanimate objects as protagonists than folks of racially and ethnically marginalized backgrounds.
I had not heard that before. That's terrifying.
It's a terrifying reality, right? I look back to my favorite books as a kid, and I'm so glad that I had these awesome series, but I was more likely to encounter supernatural characters in Twilight than people who looked like me. … My cofounder’s frustration came from a lightbulb moment he had in college. He's a straight white male from a suburb, and he considers himself to be very open-minded, but he took this course senior year that exposed him to these narratives he had never heard. … So we had these two different perspectives that led to a joint frustration with the landscape. On my end it was, why aren't these stories told, period? On his end, it was when they are told, why are they siloed?
For instance, Black voices are marketed to Black people while white voices are marketed to everyone? You were seeing diversity as a gimmick, rather than intentionally bringing everyone into the conversation.
We decided to do something about it. Let's start a company to tell the stories that we wish were told, and told in the way we think they should be. ... We came in blind to the industry. But I think that was an asset. Because the publishing landscape is systemically gate-kept, systemically non-diverse, and it's been that way for hundreds and hundreds of years.
I think it's an asset that we didn't know how to do it “properly” in publishing, because it allowed us to create this model that is unique and so desired, and that allows us to combat the system versus acquiescing to it. ... [We came in] a little bit naive. ... But because of that, I think we've created something really beautiful.
How do you attract writers, editors, and illustrators to work on your books?
When we launched five years ago, we put out a call in our personal networks, posting to our social media, just kind of asking around … We got super lucky with our first book, The Grocery Game. I think everything along the path of Stirred Stories has felt serendipitous, kind of meant to be.
Tori Murphy and Theodora Smiley Lacey—they already had a manuscript written, and they happened to be looking for somewhere to publish it. So that was kind of a serendipitous connection. They're a granddaughter-grandmother duo, two Black women. They had written this story that essentially is a metaphor for everything we're about at Stirred Stories. In the book, the grandmother and granddaughter are on a trip to the grocery store, and the granddaughter is asking all these questions about fruits, vegetables, things in the aisles. But it becomes a metaphor for the importance of diversity and why we should celebrate it.
Theodora Smiley Lacey, the grandmother, was pretty prominent in the civil rights movement and helped to desegregate Teaneck public schools in New Jersey. So it was awesome that we founded this mission-driven publishing house and our first authors happened to be two women who were so aligned with everything we’re about.
After we published The Grocery Game, all the dominoes just kept falling. We haven't had to do a call for submissions since. I think because our mission is so clear, and that book [so clearly demonstrates] what we're about, people who are like-minded understood right away and started reaching out to us.
Tell us about what authenticity means to you.
Tell us about what authenticity means to you.
We're really committed to not just publishing these diverse voices, but making sure the creative teams behind each book reflect the lived experiences that the author feels are important to tell their story with care. For every single children's book, we're looking for an illustrator who, yes, reflects the creative style the author wants, but also has a similar lived experience in some capacity. For example, The Grocery Game [was illustrated by] a Black woman. For our book My Mommy Is a He!, by Katherine Rosenblatt based on her family's lived experiences when her partner transitioned and inspired by questions their kids would ask them, that author [wanted to have a nonbinary or trans illustrator]. We made that happen. With the illustrators and editors, we are doing a little bit more outreach.... We are committed to having a different illustrator for each book, to keep each book fresh. At this point we have a good group of editors in our mix so sometimes we have the same editor for different books, but to value authenticity, we'll look for a new editor whenever necessary.
Are you publishing children's books exclusively?
No! We love our children's books, we're still taking children's submissions, and we don't intend to stop publishing them, but we are excited to expand. Two years ago we published our first venture away from children's. It's called my culture is not a costume. It's a coffee table read. It's an anthology, a collection of poetry and short essays about cultural diversity with a lens of encouraging the celebration of diversity without appropriating. I’m proud to say that it was voted a Young Adult and Librarian Favorite by the Children's Book Council. And since then, we released a YA memoir, Little Jade by Katherine Haas, who is a local author. She lives in Annapolis.… She immigrated to the U.S. and ended up in D.C. as a young child. … She had this years-long dream of becoming a published author, and at 86 she became a debut author with Stirred Stories, with her memoir about her immigration experience. Little Jade was voted a Teacher Favorite by the Children’s Book Council … And I'm really excited to say that later this year, we'll be releasing our first YA novel. So we are slowly expanding.
How do you decide what to publish when your scope is so wide?
A submission could be perfectly aligned with what we're about, but if we don't get excited about it, we're not going to sign it. Because part of [our mission] is doing a work justice. ... If it doesn't move us, we won't sign it, because that wouldn't be fair to that author. It would be counter to our mission. … We make sure that we feel like we can tell every story. We do sign with care.
That makes a lot of sense, and it falls into the authenticity theme. It also proves that you don't have to sacrifice quality. If you're working on a book, is there a requirement that the writer be from a marginalized background?
Yes. For us that's not limited to racial and ethnic [marginalization, or even categories as we normally think about them.] Our catalog has LGBTQ representation. It has immigrant stories. It has racial and ethnic diversity. It has religious diversity. One of our books that we love a lot is Baking Bread with Jiddo, written by a local author who’s based in Bethesda. Carrie Maslen, she’s Lebanese-American, and she wrote a children's book based on her experience as a child going to visit her Arab grandparents in Wisconsin and baking this Arabic bread, this ritual they did every summer. The added layer of diversity is that I’ve been told that within the Arab community, when there are children's books that represent family rituals, typically it's the grandmother showcased [but this book showcases a grandfather] baking the bread.… If a story is something you don't typically or easily find, but still celebrates the beauty of the human experience, we're looking to publish it.
So if someone sees themselves as a marginalized voice, you would encourage them to reach out to you. I'm guessing disability might also fall into this.
A children's book called A Friend Like Lucy is our first book that covered the disability space. The author, Lindsay Filcik has a daughter Ivy, who is about six and has Down syndrome. Like the author of My Mommy Is a He!, Lindsay couldn't find any stories that she felt were appropriate for her child. If there was a book about disability, it was either a book teaching a lesson for folks without disability … or it was a book where the person with disability was troped or stereotyped. In A Friend Like Lucy, the two main characters become best friends because one character is starting a new school. By design, not once do we say in the book that Lucy has Down syndrome. It's never explicitly stated, but it's intentionally communicated.… Also by design, Lucy ends up being the superhero of the book. She's the one who brings in the other girl and helps her get to know the new school.
For that team, we had a queer and disabled illustrator. … And the editor is neurodivergent and has a sister who has Down syndrome, so she was able to bring in her lived experiences by proxy. She also passed it on to her sister to do a read. ... Ivy, the daughter who inspired the book, she's not old enough to write her own book, but we tried to center disabled voices, especially voices and opinions of folks with Down syndrome, as much as possible during the publishing process. I've seen Ivy, the daughter in real life, and she loves A Friend Like Lucy, so I think we did a good job.
When you pointed out these sort of crossovers, of all these people involved from writing, illustrating, editing, and inspiring the story … it’s a perfect demonstration of intersectionality. Multiple disabilities, multiple gender orientations, everything. I know people talk about that, but I'm not sure that's ever really put out there in the forefront of why any one strand of this is important to talk about, because once you start pulling on it, you find these connections.
How have you gotten these books out into the world? How do you find readers or make contacts with libraries and bookstores?
It's been an uphill battle, but so worth it. A lot is just doing the research. We looked into the typical trade shows or festivals. As we're able, we show up in those spaces, being present and telling people who we are. Finding local indie bookstores that are willing to take a chance on our books, or do events with our authors. Connecting with organizations that are like-minded in some capacity. One of our books is about this child going back in time through history and meeting significant African-American doctors. It's fiction, but the doctors are real people, and we partnered with a local psychiatrist out of Howard University who has a reading program for children to help circulate the book.
Unfortunately, [because of the systemic problems within the publishing industry,] there is only so far you can go in publishing without having a distributor. … We've been distributing on our own, which has gotten us this far, but we’re looking to really move things forward with a distributor.
So much of this business seems to be about showing up, rather than worrying about being invited. Are you running Stirred Stories full-time, or are you working other jobs?
When we initially started, it was very much something we did before and after the nine to five. As it's grown, Zina and I have shifted to more of a full time capacity. … We just believe so much in this work. We hit this natural point where it was just growing so organically that we knew, in order to sustain this growth, somebody has to find a way to put more into it. We decided to give it a go, and it's been fun to see where it's taken us. It's not easy, but it's so worth it.
If you are interested in learning more, visit the Stirred Stories website at:
If you have a manuscript you think would be a good fit, you can submit it on their website here. Queries without completed manuscripts are also accepted, but if you have the book written, they’d love to see it up front. For all other inquiries, including booksellers, librarians, and educators interested in classroom visits, use the contact form on that same page.
Stirred Stories is a mission-driven, people-focused publishing company that is shifting industry standards for the better. By prioritizing authors from marginalized backgrounds, Stirred Stories offers an alternative to how things are traditionally done in publishing. The same stories have repeatedly been told. They’re here to stir that up.
Norah Vawter is the co-founder and fiction/nonfiction editor of Washington Unbound. She’s a freelance writer, editor, and novelist and is represented by Victress Literary. Follow her on Instagram and Threads @norahvawter and check out her Substack, Survival by Words, here.
