Dear Zora Work in Progress Book Release

About the Work In Progress Publishing Experiment by Rae Chesny

Inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s 1950 essay What White Publishers Won’t Print, Rae Chesny created the Work In Progress publishing experiment. As an author, a Johns Hopkins University Literary Consultant, and Social Education Expert, Rae believes that lack of representation in literature is directly connected to the lack of access to the publishing industry for historically underserved groups. Through her work, Rae has observed the negative impact on children as young as preschool as a result of the lack of diversity in books. She believes that adults aren’t much better off. In fact, adult literacy rates in her own hometown of Detroit, MI struggle to reach ,more than 50%. Rae quickly realized that these issues were not unique to Detroit or the children she was serving. Present-day, the publishing opportunities for historically underserved groups are still limited. Few people who are from historically underrepresented groups believe that they could even write a book because of the representation issue in publishing. The publishing industry affirms this belief through marketing and limited opportunities for non-white, heterosexual writers. 

Early in her career, Rae realized that the first step in resolving the representation gap in publishing would be to get historically underrepresented groups to believe they could write and publish books from a young age. To do that, she created the Junior Storyteller Program for children to teach them her creative process for coming up with stories. The program then turns the children's story idea into a keepsake book. Rae also writes children's books featuring main characters of color. In addition, she conducts community readings so that children can see her as an example of an author who looks like them. Additionally, she supports adults and children in self-publishing books one on one.

In 2021, Rae wanted to serve even more people. So, she decided to share and publish her own rough drafts of her manuscripts and later publish the finalized version. The idea is to show the journey from rough draft to finished book and dispel the myth that any writer's rough draft is perfect. The experiment will also show how many processes go into turning a manuscript into a finished book. Rae's first book under the experiment is Dear Zora, a memoir-style collection of letters she has been writing to Zora Neale Hurston since she first began presenting on her in 2018. Rae hopes that readers and participants in the experiment will also participate in her Facebook Group entitled the Work In Progress Literary Club to also learn more about self-publishing and her writing process.