Dream PublishingSite-specific publishing projectPortland, Oregon
2024–now
DREAM Publishing is a project I co-founded with school librarian Beth Schlegel in collaboration with KSMoCA (Dr Martin Luther King Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art), and Dr. MLK Jr. Elementary School.
During the school year we provide book making materials for students to illustrate and write their own stories as part of the publishing center we established in the school library. Students who are interested in continuing to develop their publications collaborate with Beth and me to further develop their work, going through the publication process from drafting, editing, proofing, publishing, and distributing their art and learning to the community in and beyond the school.
The project enacts poet and activist June Jordan’s advice to “bring the children into the library as writers…ask him to write whatever he wants everybody to know. Or ask her to write whatever she thinks is important, although nobody seems to care.”
The school motto is “the dream is alive at Dr. MLK Jr.” and it informs the mission of DREAM Publishing to make public the ways in which Dr. King’s words—and the world he envisioned—is embodied within students at Dr. MLK Jr. School.
In June 2025, we released Bugs by Kojo, written and illustrated when the author was in kindergarten. The 28-page paperback is in English and Ewe, the dialect spoken in the region of Ghana where Kojo’s father is from. During the book release event in the school library, father and son gave a tandem reading—Kojo in English, and his father, Koffie, in Ewe. They answered questions from an audience of Kojo’s peers in kindergarten and first grade, followed by a reception with donut holes and juice. Every student in those grades received a copy of the book to take home.
Our first title, Piggy Love by Raquel Hale, was published in June 2024. At the book release event, Raquel read her book to the kindergarten and pre-kindergarten classes, and each student received their own copy to keep.
Dream Publishing is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Office of Arts & Culture.