How we are Redefining Children's Literature.

I first launched Modern Marigold Books in 2019 as a place to self-publish my own children's books. Since I didn't have a background in publishing, I learned along the way and saw the entire process from the perspective of a writer with stories to tell based off of my own life experiences.

Since then, I've gone from writer to author to publisher, we've won our first book award, and we've partnered with a distributor, but the way I look at the process and the industry is still the same.

For too long, the publishing industry hasn't been meeting the demands of our global community and the needs of our children. Instead of simply advocating for change, it's up to us to step up. We need writers to create quality stories, we need publishers to look beyond dollars and cents and for media outlets to widen their perspective.

It's my goal as a publisher to change the way children's books are created. Instead of finding books that are merely marketable, we search for books to publish that have an untold story. One example of how we're publishing differently is our children's book illustrators. For us, "own-voice picture books" doesn't just mean that the story comes from the author's experiences, but that the illustrator is also from the same community or has a strong connection to the topic of the book. Additionally, we aim for quality over quantity, even if it means producing 1 or 2 new titles each year. And the author's vision for their story is paramount to its creation.

It's our belief that the only way we can truly change what mainstream children's literature looks like is for publishers to create books more mindfully. Our new blog will be dedicated to this change.