New EWN E-Panel

Dan Wickett of Emerging Writers Network sends us this link to the latest e-panel he’s moderated. This one puts together two Southern women writers and two lit bloggers to discuss (what else?) labels. The writers are Quinn Dalton and Tayari Jones (both of whom have second books out shortly) and the bloggers are Carrie Frye (of Tingle Alley) and Gwenda Bond (of Shaken and Stirred). A small sample:

Quinn Dalton: I guess cross-shelving works well if they are going to stock more than one copy of your book.

Carrie Frye: I can see pros and cons. Malaprop’s has a huge Gay/Lesbian section, and it’s meant as a service to customers.

Dan Wickett: I think at times it makes it difficult to find certain authors.

Tayari Jones: Well, I think only difficult for people who don’t really look for these writers.

Gwenda Bond: Anything that helps the audience find the books. It’d be great if one big bookstore with no categories did, but in practice I doubt it would work.

Tayari Jones: It kills me how people say, I was looking for Toni Morrison and I had to go to the black section!” I always wonder how many years they’ve been shopping and only now realized that the “Literature” section has no diversity.

In related author news, Quinn Dalton recently contributed a guest essay on Beatrice.com about whether authors should hire indy publicists.