By Angela Yarber
Queer Chicana feminist author, Gloria Anzaldúa, once claimed, “The world I create in my writing compensates for what the real world does not give me.” I’ve long connected with the revolutionary Anzaldúa, believing in the prophetic power of the written word to create new worlds, worlds big and wide and just and beautiful enough for all people. Worlds where the perspectives of the marginalized are brought to the center.
This is what I aim to do as a publisher and writer myself. It was a meandering path to get here, but on the cusp of a new year, I find myself finally in place with my calling and vocation where all my skills as an activist, writer, professor, artist, and pastoral presence are coming together.
Over a decade ago, after protests from Westboro Baptist Church and a thick stack of hate mail, I decided the pulpit was too toxic a space for myself as a queer clergywoman.
But it wasn’t the protests, or even the death threats, that caused me to leave.
Rather, it was the sexist and heterosexist microaggressions from within the church who proclaimed to support women and queer people in the pulpit. Around the time a congregant lobbed an offering plate in the direction of my head, I left for a life outside the institution.
Upon leaving, though, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where is my pulpit now? What is my platform for proclaiming the prophetic good news of liberation, equity, and social justice?”
During the ten intervening years, I published eight books, with five making their way to the Top LGBTQ Religion Books list. The pen became my pulpit, publishing my platform for spreading the good news.
But I realized that, even after working with four different independent publishers, there wasn’t a publishing company that understood the nuance or marketing involved in working with feminist and queer authors grappling with spirituality.
So, it’s more than publishing prophetic books and proclaiming prophetic stories. I’m learning that publishing is not only my vocation, but also a prophetic tool for making substantive change in the world. Truly. How many times has a book rocked your world? Opened your mind? Educated, galvanized, empowered, and challenged you?
My personal experience is backed by data—70% of all publishing employees are white; straight people account for 80% of all publishers; 89% of all published authors are white; and only 16% of authors are LGBTQIA+. In other words, the perspectives of marginalized authors are severely lacking in both publishing and book marketing.
So, I formed Tehom Center Publishing (TCP) to fill this gap. I transitioned my non-profit into a publishing house to disrupt the old-school, white, male publishing system and to provide a safe and brave space for feminist and queer authors to tell our stories.
Tehom Center Publishing is an imprint dedicated to publishing feminist and queer authors, with a commitment to elevate BIPOC writers.
At Tehom Center Publishing, it’s not enough that we simply publish these marginalized authors, though. In addition to traditional, independent publishing at no cost to authors, TCP also offers one-on-one and group coaching for book writing, book marketing, and leveraging books to brands to businesses for spiritual entrepreneurs.
This empowering coaching has surprised me in how much it overlaps with my previous pastoral ministry. I knew I’d draw upon my background as a professor, carefully crafting a syllabus for coaching clients and utilizing methods from radical and liberatory pedagogy. But what has surprised me, in working with authors-turned-clients from around the world, is how much I draw upon my pastoral skills in Tehom Center Publishing’s group and one-on-one coaching.
Whether it’s having the ever famous “non-anxious presence” while coaching a Palestinian American clergywoman through sensory exercises to aid her in birthing her grandmother’s story of living in Palestine in the 1940s, the empowering encouragement necessary to remind a pacifist author writing about avoiding burnout that feminist marketing can be a spiritual discipline for spreading the good news, or prophetically challenging writers to employ feminist editing strategies, my two decades of ordained ministry have shaped me into the publishing coach I am today.
So, it’s more than publishing prophetic books and proclaiming prophetic stories. I’m learning that publishing is not only my vocation, but also a prophetic tool for making substantive change in the world. Truly. How many times has a book rocked your world? Opened your mind? Educated, galvanized, empowered, and challenged you?
On the cusp of a new year, I can’t help but wonder if you have a story stirring inside you?
If you’re a feminist and/or queer writer, the world needs to hear it. Yours is the voice the world desperately needs right now.
Don’t keep your story inside. Share it. Write it. And consider publishing it with Tehom Center Publishing. Doing so is a prophetic act of compensating for what the real world has not given us.
Together, we just may write a new world into being.
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And since the Alliance and Tehom Center Publishing share in our mission of centralizing the stories of the marginalized, I want to personally invite any book proposal submissions or discounted registration for our Winter Cohort, which begins in January 2024. Simply use code HOLIDAY333 for $333 off; learn more and register here.
Rev. Dr. Angela Yarber is the Founder and Executive Director of Tehom Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Art and Religion and is currently an Affiliate Professor of Women in Religious Leadership at Drew University. She is an award-winning author of eight books, including five listed in the Top LGBTQ Religion Books. Though no longer practicing, she is an ordained, queer clergywoman who pastored churches for fourteen years.
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