Pathways into publishing and writing careers have begun to change in recent years. But much work had to be done to get to this point, and there is still much to be done. In Canada, one group in particular has been working for almost 10 years on improving pathways for authors, specifically authors from marginalized groups that have often found representation in the literary world lacking and agencies a major barrier to publication.
Enter the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD). Started in 2014 as the FOLD Foundation by Jael Richardson, it was expected by many to make waves in the world of book festivals. The festival officially launched two years later in Brampton, a large Ontario city with more than 600,000 people from more than 200 different ethnicities that nevertheless wasn’t usually on the list of cities for author tours.
FOLD’s mandate is to celebrate underrepresented and marginalized authors and storytellers who have been relegated to token roles at other fests: authors of color, queer authors, trans authors, disabled authors. While this approach was destined to make a splash in the usual festival lineup, what was harder to anticipate was the impact this festival would have on Canadian publishing.
Growing to include a reading challenge, an author visit series, and monthly online webinars, FOLD also began outreach to Canada’s youngest readers through the FOLD Kids Book Fest. Organizers put together a kid lit version of their Pitch Perfect program: budding children’s book writers were paired with editors at notable publishing houses or literary agents who reviewed a portion of their manuscripts and provided detailed feedback in private, one-on-one meetings.
One participant was the aspiring Colombian Canadian writer Cristina Quintero. During the height of the Covid pandemic, grocery stores across the country were running out of flour and yeast, as homebound Canadians took up baking as a hobby and attempted to master the art of the sourdough. Quintero, like many people, was looking for something to keep hope alive, her hands busy, and her mind engaged, and the baking trend had gotten her thinking about an idea for a book. She had already met Richardson a couple years prior, when she’d taken a writing workshop with her at the Surrey International Writers Conference. When she saw on social media that the festival was hosting a children’s book edition of Pitch Perfect, it seemed like ideal timing for her book idea. She got to her kitchen table to whip up a draft inspired by her childhood experiences growing up in an apartment building whose residents had immigrated from dozens of different countries.
Quintero submitted her pitch and was paired up with Samantha Swenson, executive editor at Tundra Book Group, the children’s imprint of Penguin Random House Canada. Penguin Random House Canada has been a sponsor of the FOLD since 2017, and was pleased to increase sponsorship support in 2021 in response to the incredible success of and work done by the festival. Swenson had been on the hunt for a picture book connecting cultures through food, and Quintero’s manuscript hit the spot: it celebrated all kinds of breads, from challah to bannock to bao.
In October 2021, Tundra Books announced a two-book deal with Quintero, the first of which was The Only Way to Make Bread. Filipino Canadian illustrator Sarah Gonzales was later paired with Quintero to provide the book’s mouthwatering illustrations.
This November, two years later, Cristina Quintero will return to the FOLD Kids Book Fest, where a crumb of an idea first became a reality. Among other events, Quintero will lead a food workshop in which kids can make their own arepas (a recipe that appears in the book’s back matter) and enjoy them with some Colombian hot chocolate as they read the book together.
The Only Way to Make Bread is a recent and small but concrete example of how the FOLD is having a marked impact on the publishing landscape and offering new and inspired pathways into the industry for authors. Quintero asserts Richardson’s festival offers a table where all get to break bread together: it provides time, space, and a place for writers of historically excluded perspectives to be heard and find a platform. “Some people open doors for others. Really thoughtful and compassionate people take doors off the hinges,” Quintero says. “And then there are people like Jael who knock down the whole wall.”
Evan Munday is publicity manager for children’s books at Penguin Random House Canada and author of the Dead Kid Detective Agency series.
