HarperCollins launches Heartdrum to better portray Native characters and stories
HarperCollins Children’s Books recently tapped Smith to lead Heartdrum, a new imprint set to launch in early 2021 emphasizing contemporary Native characters and genre fiction. She’ll work with editor Rosemary Brosnan to publish a variety of picture books, chapter books and young adult titles from Native authors.
Tribal presses and small publishers have focused on Native children’s books in the past, but Smith called it a game-changer for one of the “Big Five” American publishing houses to create an imprint like Heartdrum. Only one percent of children’s books published in 2018 include Native American characters, according to data from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We're not going to be publishing fungible books about Native people where we're trying to wrap a whole bunch of qualities into one person,” Smith said, adding that Heartdrum will keep books tribally specific to show off all the diversity that falls under the Indigenous umbrella. “Authentic Native experiences happen in reservations and urban areas, suburban areas, small towns, [and] military families that were like mine.”
Heartdrum’s launch will include “Ancestor Approved,” an anthology of short stories from an intertribal powwow, and “The Sea in Winter,” a novel by Christine Day, Upper Skagit. Future books will include debut novels from Navajo writer Brian Young and a three-part series of chapter books by Dawn Quigley, Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. Smith hopes Heartdrum will help break “hyper-reverent” and supernatural tropes about Native people woven through American pop culture.
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