Females of Fiction Awards & An Inside Look at Hindi's Libraries

And, as a mom, I'm sure you guys can't imagine if your child didn't have a suitable book that's appropriate for their age, that's appropriate for you know their worldview, that's appropriate for them to get their hands on. And she realized that she needed to do something. So to date they've donated over 425,000 books.

Welcome to the Moms who Create podcast. I'm your host, kelly Hile, and I am thrilled to share a podcast that celebrates the incredible moms who are pursuing their creative passions. Are you a mom who feels like you just can't balance your creative pursuits with the demands of motherhood? Each week, I'm bringing you interviews with accomplished and talented moms who have made their creative dreams a reality. I talk to writers, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs who have successfully found a way to do what they love while raising the ones they love. Some of the writers I talk to are New York Times bestselling authors, while some are self-published first-time authors. I also share my own insights and resources to help you navigate the unique challenges of being a mom who creates. So, whether you're an early bird or a night owl, a seasoned pro or just starting out, I want you to know that you can pursue your creative passions and be an amazing mom at the same time. Grab a cup of coffee, a notebook and get ready to join our community of like-minded moms who are on a mission to live intentionally and create with purpose. This is the Moms who Create Podcast, and I can't wait to share this journey with you. Hi everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Moms who Create Podcast. Back in episode 27, I spoke to Leslie Geng, the co-founder of Hindi's Libraries. Leslie is a mom and so is the inspiration behind it all. In August of 2018, the Long Island community faced a sad loss. As I said goodbye to an amazing person, dr Hendy Krinsky. She was only 32 years old. To keep her memory alive, her family and friends decided to build three libraries in her children's school. They asked the community for gently used books to fill these libraries. And guess what? Within just two weeks, they got around 500 books. But that was just the beginning. It turned out to be way bigger than they thought. Since 2018, they've collected over 400,000 books. They are almost to that half a million mark. They've teamed up with over 750 organizations all around the world, in every state and even beyond the borders. Now they're working together to keep Hindi's love for reading alive. They're sharing that love with thousands of children everywhere. It's a beautiful way to remember a special person and spread the joy of books far and wide. Today, I'm chatting with Brooke Young, a publicist for Hindi's Libraries, to give us an update on the organization, let you all know how you can get involved, and also to tell you about the Females of Fiction contest they're running. You're gonna like that. Hindi's Libraries is important and I wanted to share this update to keep giving awareness to them as they give out free books to children all over the world. Linked in the show notes is everything we talk about today and I encourage you to get involved or even donate one of your books, because I know a lot of you listening are authors. Thanks for supporting Hindi's Libraries and I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Brooke, thank you so much for joining me today. On the podcast, I've talked to Leslie in the past, talked to her about all of Hindi's Libraries, all the amazing things that go on. So thanks for joining me today to kind of give an update on Hindi's Libraries.

It's been a lot since you talked to Leslie and thank you so much for having me here as a refresher, in case someone didn't listen to the previous episode. Hindi's Libraries is an international literacy nonprofit. They serve as the entire United States as well as portions of the Middle East, africa, puerto Rico and things along that nature. Now, the organization really was started by accident. It wasn't a situation where the co-founder said I want to be in charge of an international literacy nonprofit. It was in honor of a woman named Dr Hindi Krenski who passed away at 32 years old and just imagine how young that is as a mother to five children, and I know that's really going to touch the heart of so many moms here. She loved literature, of course. She was a doctor in English and she taught students for a living. It's really interesting. They had a Today Show segment a couple years ago and all of her former students were talking about how she always pushed them to read different types of books or get involved in literacy in a new way. So in honor of her they wanted to do a little free library at the school where she taught, and they didn't expect anything magical to come of it, but the books kept coming and coming and coming to the point where they didn't know what to do with them. So Leslie Gang, who she just mentioned is a wonderful woman, started to research literacy statistics and she was fairly harrowed by what she saw. Is that 60, some percent I can't remember it 60, some odd percent of children and low-income families don't have suitable reading material, and as a mom, I'm sure you guys can't imagine if your child didn't have a suitable book that's appropriate for their age, that's appropriate for you know their worldview, that's appropriate for them to get their hands on. And she realized that she needed to do something. So to date, they've donated over 425,000 books across, like I said, the United States and other parts of the world, and we have done some really exciting and amazing initiatives recently. But I wanted to give a recap on who they were. That's a lot of books. They're shocked, weren't you?

That's literally almost a half a million books.

that's a lot of books, and we're very hopeful for the half a million mark soon. Currently we're running a book drive with Zoo Atlanta and down in Atlanta, georgia, and they're doing three separate book drives where they're going to work with their summer camp and work with general patrons of the zoo, where they're going to be bringing books that are suitable for children and then they're going to be a part of that 425. We also did a partnership with DHL, which is a shipping company, and during Black History Month and we overshot on that one. So we were shipping individual books to children for Black History Month, and Disney publishing was really gracious in giving us some great books. We even had Princess and the Frog books, which I was excited about, and we shipped those individually to children's homes. So the people that we've been working with most recently have been the Miss America Volunteer pageant. We had a great partnership with Teran Delaney, who is Miss New York, dhl, the shipping company, zoo Atlanta, and we have a lot of other fun things in the work as well as the contest that we are doing all throughout 2023 and we're very excited about that.

Oh wait, I want to go back for a second because I'm remembering the statistic you said and that is so sad. That's a lot of children who don't really have books, Like I'm thinking about my daughter. She has. I mean it's an explosion of books we're big readers and stuff. She has her normal bookshelf that is just overflowing and then so we have stacks on the ground. I have some in the living room. I have them all over. It's pretty much anywhere you go You'll see a stack of books. So it really it really like hurts my heart to hear that.

And there's you know a lot of factors like literacy deserts. That's something that I have learned about since working with them, because prior I wasn't really aware of the fact that literacy deserts existed. It sounds very thorough to wearable country and that's not the case at all. So literacy deserts. We also don't think about children that are in like domestic violence or homeless shelters. If they don't have suitable reading material, those children don't get it in Title I schools. If they don't have enough books for children to check them out of the library, they can't take a book home and read in the same way that other children can, and that just further perpetuates that learning gap. Right, but you know you have girls. They want to read stuff about the little mermaid, they want to read about Elsa. You know they don't want to read material that's not suitable. So that's suitable is really important too. And at Hendy's we make sure the books aren't ripped. We make sure the books don't have a bunch of highlighter in them. They're things that a kid would be proud to own, but they're also suitable for their age and they're appropriate everybody. But they're suitable to what a child would want and be excited to read, or that's our hope. What happens when the books come in because they're newer, gently used donations and gently used means we have to check everybody's definition of gently used, and so we're making sure that there aren't pages ripped out. We're making sure that there isn't, you know, tremendous highlighter marks. We're making sure a child didn't scribble their name 700 times in a book. And then, after they're approved, what we do is we put a sticker on them that's a Hendy's library sticker that shares a little bit more permission and that's assigned to those volunteers that they're able to be packaged and then shipped. And shipping, by the way everyone, is our number one cost. Most people say shipping a book is very inexpensive and that's true. But when you're shipping 50 or 100 books in a box, that adds up very, very quickly, especially with shipping. Inflation, which is part of the reason we started the Females of Fiction Contest is this contest is solely to raise funding for the shipping, because the books come at zero cost to recipients. If you, let's say, you lived in Norman Oklahoma I know they have some Title I schools and literacy deserts there If we are sending books to Norman Oklahoma and it costs us $200 or $300, there's zero cost to those recipients and they absorb all of the shipping fees. So we were thinking of a creative fundraiser. We said let's do Females of Fiction Contest, which is for female children's book or female young adult authors to enter their books into our contest for a small fee, and then we're going to be able to use those fees to fund the shipping, which is very expensive. I have learned a lot about shipping recently.

Wow, what a neat contest to do. It's like a win-win for everybody. It really is. That's incredible. We have some very great judges.

So we have a TEDx speaker whose TED Talk has gone viral multiple times on TikTok and Instagram, and she has a whole company centered around educators and empowering educators. We have a few bookstagram influencers. If anyone knows, Guys, I'm one of the judges. That's what we have. We have some amazing women that are judging these submissions, and the criteria to be involved is, of course, you're a woman that wrote a young adult book, a teen book, a child book, a picture book, then you're able to submit into that Females of Fiction Contest and we have a tremendous amount of different categories. So best illustrations, best cover art, best overall story, best theme. Not only, like you said, it is a win-win because not only can you use that to market and publicize your book and say my book, Floppy the Dog, was a part of the Hindi's Libraries Contest and you can leverage that in your hometown for TV appearances, for podcast appearances, for media appearances, but if you are one of the winners, we have $100 gift cards, we have prizes and you also have that notoriety to say I won something and as a publicist, I know winning things goes a long way and then we're also going to be doing email blasts of the winners and press releases, all of those things to get those winners' names out there. But even for the people that are simply entered into the contest and maybe don't walk away with a win this year, it's really, really important to note that you can take the fact that you submitted and the fact that it was honored and you can use it to publicize for podcasts or publicize for TV or whatever it is that you're seeking. Even I know a lot of authors want to do author visits. I do a lot of those. If you want to use it on your social media, there's a wide range of ways that you can use that to get involved and to further promote your book. So really, like you said, is a win for everyone, and even as far as the judges, it's a win for them to put books into their hands, because they are people that make decisions around what books are placed on TV, what books are placed in schools and homes.

And to know that your entry fee, whether you win or not, is going towards such a good cause, like just the shipping costs to send these books to all these children. That's another part of the win-win-win-win.

It's very pure. I have a quite offbeat funny story. When I was in high school, I used to be called Cinnamon Bun or Cinnamon Roll one of the two and I would say oh Brooke, you're so pure, You're a Cinnamon Roll. That's a little bit how I feel about Hendy's as an overall organization From getting involved with them which I have been since 2022, they're very pure, and especially Leslie. She's one of the co-founders. Her heart is very pure around getting books into the hands of children that would not get a book otherwise. There isn't a ton of ulterior motives and they really, really do run things very, very, very tight. I am the only person that's paid, the only person, wow and I even do a nonprofit rate for them. Hendy's really does put all of the money that they raise into that shipping, which is part of the reason we're really pushing these females of fiction, because we want people's contribution and we want their donation to pay off for them Right and we want to make sure that you get something out of it and leverage the right way. I promise you can get something out of it and if you have questions about how to leverage, you just hit me up and I'll let you know.

So how much longer is the contest running, how? How much longer do people have to enter? Sure, so through November 2023?.

We're doing it as a pretty long form contest and right now, our judges are reviewing the books. So we've been reading books, we've been taking notes on some of the books, but there is definitely time to get your entries in. I would really really suggest that people start to consider getting their entries in and the next month or two, okay, and where can they go to enter? Sure, so they can go to wwwhendyslibrariesorg and if you see on that top what's it called? Sort of like a header there's going to be a place to click the females of fiction contest. When you go there, you're going to be able to see the rules, you're going to be able to see the prizes, you're going to be able to see the categories and then you're going to choose what it makes the most sense for your book.

Okay, nice, seems simple. In the in the show notes of this episode I'll put the link to that so you can just tap on it. I don't think people really listen to podcasts like on your, maybe on your laptop, but usually I just say tab It'll, it'll open up the website and you can just look from there. Oh, thank, you.

Thank you because, who knows, if I said the website right when I was reciting it, it'll be a lot of fun. But we can dive as well into other questions.

Some of the initiatives we've been doing so say, someone Loves the idea of Hindi's libraries and they just want to donate, especially authors. What if they just want to donate some of their books that you can send out to children? How could they? Would they be able to send you some of their books to donate?

Absolutely, and we're always grateful for book donations. So as far as a general overview of how to get involved, there's definitely a couple different ways. Number one like you mentioned, donating books is a wonderful way to get involved. If you would like to donate books, you can go to our website or you can email Leslie at hindi's libraries dot-a-work and I'll send that for the show notes and Leslie is going to be able to coordinate. You know that donation, some of the other ways to get involved. If, let's say, you're an author and you love this idea, or you're a mother and you have a lot of friends who are mothers. Similarly, you can host a book drive. We are always in native, like I said, suitable reading material great books, great picture books To donate to children. So you're absolutely able to run a book drive, regardless of where you live, and you're able to ship those books to us and we will make sure those get into the hands of children who need them most. Number three if you feel obligated or if you feel called and it is aligned for you, we do always accept financial donations and those go directly to the cost of shipping to absorb those shipping fees that I mentioned prior are very expensive. So financial donations. And then, number four, getting involved with some of our initiatives. So that looks like the contest. We also opened an author affiliate program and within the author affiliate program we are promoting some of our favorite books to our followers. We're doing email blasts and social media campaigns in exchange for a small portion of that author sales Through a direct period of time and if you're interested in that, you can always DM our Instagram account. Me or Leslie will get back to you, or you can email Leslie at hindi's libraries stop work.

What a wonderful thing hindi's libraries is doing like. Honestly, this is just so, just so helpful and just so kind. I think kind is a really good word to describe what hindi's libraries is doing.

I think that all children right deserve access to books. I remember when I was really pretty young I used to read books all of the time and I credit that to who I am as a person today and I wish that I read more today. But every child Deserves the chance right not only to get lost in a story, to experience what that feels like, but to see themselves represented. And so we do focus really hard on representation of books. We think about what do children need to read? What will expand a child's thinking? How can a child see themselves reflected back? And during our black history month initiative, we were really strange on the fact that the tidiler characters needed to be, you know, people of color. That made the most sense at that point.

Yeah, so we're very strange.

Try to be focused and aware and open to everything, and we're always open to new ideas. We get asked a lot how do you decide when you partner with it? It really is when we find people that are like-minded, that have a like-minded mission, that have a like-minded heart. Those are the type of people we partner with. So if you have an organization in mind, if you're the leader of a girl scout's troop, of course, dm the account and talk with one of the two of us about getting a partnership set up. In my case, I think that I was very undereducated about literacy statistics. It was funny. I guess I always considered myself educated around most things, but the truth was there was a huge gap in my understanding and a huge gap in my knowledge about literacy and its availability for children in every socioeconomic background. I'm from Ohio, I'm from an hour south of Cleveland, cleveland. When I looked up the literacy statistics we're pretty harrowing. I think they were worse than I thought they were. It was eye-opening and challenging to my brain to realize what I had been missing for so many years. So I really encourage authors, mothers, parents, do your research around. Where do children not have books? How can I get books into the hands of those children, because, as we're trying to create a society with a happier, healthier, more harmonious society, that starts with making sure that children feel loved, making sure that children feel cared for and making sure that children have adequate resources. If they don't have a book, how can they see, how can they learn, how can they become that person? So I think that is what I would encourage anyone to do, and it's so important because it's right under our nose, all these statistics, and unless it's brought directly to our attention, we do not know it's a problem. Secondarily, if you feel called, please reach out to us. We are friendly I promise Leslie might even be friendlier than me and we are ready to get you involved in females of fiction. We are ready to get you involved in an author affiliate program. We're ready to put your book into the hands of children who need it most. However you'd like to get involved, we would love to make that happen with you. Overall, I think we feel very honored to be close to the half a million marks of books, but we know that 425 is a huge number, but it still hasn't made a dent in how many children need it. So that's what keeps us going.

Hindi's library is actually really popular. If you Google it, it's all over all these news and I think you said the Today Show.

We've been really fortunate. We've worked with the Today Show and with people I'm in a multitude of other really great so PIX 11, which is local to New York City. We this morning, at 10 am EST, a huge press release was going out in Atlanta about our partnership with Zoo Atlanta. So we're really fortunate to get media and press. One of the really unfortunate parts about media hits, though, is that, of course, it's SEO optimized, but we go up in a spike and then we have to find a way to maintain that, which is why, when we build a loyal base of fans, if you even don't feel called at this time to do anything, but you like our mission and you like what we're doing, I really encourage you to give us a follow on Instagram, to give us a follow on Facebook, because the more people that we have advocating for us and the more people that we have spreading the word, the more children we can help. So, even if the most you can do today is give us a follow, I really, really encourage you to do that, and if you have questions about the contest, don't hesitate, like I said, to DM the Instagram or to DM the Facebook or send over an email. But, as she mentioned that contest link will be in the show notes and I really, really encourage people to open their mind and give it a try, because it is going to be so much fun.

Guess what? Guess who has a book coming out September 5th? It's me. Hi, I'm the author. It's me, my day at the pumpkin patch. My second children's book will be released September 5th. I'm too excited. I'll give you the link when it gets closer to time if you want to buy it. If not, it's cool, but if you do, that's even more cool. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate every single one of you. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen. That super, super helps me out and helps me get a further reach. Also, follow me online on Instagram and Facebook at mom's secret podcast. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I'll see you next week.