PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS… WITH KAREN HUNTER
Author and publisher Karen Hunter’s quest to save black literature.
Publisher Karen Hunter wants to bring new black voices to the literary world. Presented by Electronic Urban Report.
Presented by Electronic Urban Report.
Author/publisher Karen Hunter is on a mission to save literature. Backed by a 16-year stint with the New York Daily News and five New York Times best-sellers under her belt as co-author, Hunter is taking her own publishing company to the mat for a good read and good reason.
Launched in 2007, Karen Hunter Publishing, an imprint of Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, has released three books to date, including the recent “Love is a Two-Way Street,” the first novel by JL King. Hunter’s publishing company came out of her hopes and desire to find good literature, particularly from the African American community.
“I started writing books with celebrities and other noted people and personalities, and I started submitting proposals for books that I really wanted to work on and concentrate on; books that would inspire and motivate kids and adults,” she said. “I’m about empowering people. I would go out and do speaking engagements and I would say, ‘We should have a book about this and that.’”
Hunter said that she approached some of publishers she’d worked with in collaborating best sellers and books with celebs such as Queen Latifah, Al Sharpton, Donda West, Wendy Williams, and Cedric the Entertainer, in hopes of publishing books with empowering messages and ideas. However, the publishing houses kept turning her down.
“And then I saw the emergence of what we call ’street lit’; graphic ghetto novels and all of these books that are, in my opinion, illiterate blather,” Hunter said. “I grew up in a time when there were real urban novels. It’s not the subject matter; it’s the quality and the level of the work. I don’t have a problem with writing about a pimp. I’ve written a book with a pimp. But…
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