Publisher's Notebook

‘Postcards’ clear up common misconceptions

You’ll find more pictures and videos from the event on Instagram @brownpaperpress.

Last weekend at The Little Literary Fair (LITLIT), we asked people who identify as members of a cultural minority to write a postcard telling us one thing people often get wrong about them.

We defined cultural minority as a race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious affiliation or any other identifying characteristic that lies outside the mainstream. Over the last several years, we’ve made a concerted effort here at BPP to move toward publishing books that challenge common misconceptions about cultural minorities; and we thought this might be a fun way to engage our audience of readers and writers.

We invited folks to hang their postcards on a tabletop tree we brought to the fair, or to mail them to us later. And we asked the most social-media literate to post images using the hashtag #YouGotMeWrong. (Shoutout to our friend Steve Wax, board chair at Heyday Books, for that little stroke of genius.)

Dozens of people happily obliged. As we learned, there simply is no shortage of people in Los Angeles who consider themselves "other" in some form. The answers were by turns fascinating, profound and incredibly sweet. The ones written by kids especially so.)

Below is a gallery with some of our favorite postcards from the two-day fair. Scroll through and enjoy. Endless thanks to those who raised their own voices so that we all might learn a thing or two.