Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Diversity In The Publishing Industry 20240712

Welcome. My name is Vivian Schiller and im the director of aspen digital. Were blunt glad you could be with us today. The New York Times bestseller list can often seem to be a veneer of the National Psyche and this year it seems to reflect a nation going through an awakening on matters of race. Books written by people of color and about matters of race and racism have filled those lists, both fiction and nonfiction. Thats the good news. Sadly the Publishing Industry does not necessarily always reflect that reality. The recent twitter protest hashtag publishing pay me exposed the disparity in the industry between black and nonblack authors. There are few people of color who serve as publishing staff or literary agents and even fewer who operate at decisionmaking levels and for those who are published, sometimes the marketing exposure can be sub optimal. This year of National Reckoning on racism were going to take a look at the industry, the book Publishing Industry and whether it can bring more racial diversity to the field. This is part of our changing the narrative series that looks at issues of race through the media. We had one program on the news media and upcoming another program about the entertainment industry. We explore the challenges but importantly we also look at the new possibilities in this case for employing and publishing more books by and about people of color. So im about to introduce our panel and then our moderator for today but before i do just a reminder, this is a live program. Youre going to hear a conversation among our moderator and our fantastic panelists but then later in the hour were going to take your questions so if you look down at the bottom of your screen you can see a button thatsays q and a. You can click on that button and enter your question. We would ask that you add your name and affiliation if youre comfortable doing so. It just adds a little more texture to and context for the question. We will then curate these questions and provide those two are wonderful moderator who will then post them to our panelists so again, anytime just click on it starting now. Now let me introduce our panelists so we can get started. We have with us regina brooks, founder and president of Serendipity Literary Agency in brooklyn. Her agency has established a diverse base of clients in adult and young Adult Fiction , and childrens literature. Miss nicole dennisbenn is the author of your comes the sun, a New York Times notable book of the year and lambda literary award winner. Her novel cassie is a 2020 lambda literary award winner, a New York Times editors choice, Financial Times critics choice and on cutlass best book of the year lists. Lisa lucas has been director of the National Books foundation and is the incoming Senior Vice President and publisher of pantheon and schocken books. Prior to joining the Foundation Lisa served as publisher of gattaca, a nonprofit magazine focused on writing that explores the intersection of art and politics with an international and diverse focus. We have with us errol mcdonald, Vice President and executive editor in the not doubleday division of random house where he worked in various editorial capacities for three decades. Among the distinguished authors he has published are jack henry at it, paula covino, sam leibowitz, Toni Morrison and many many more. And finally im so pleased to introduce my colleague atthe moderator for today ,adrienne brodeur. She is the head of executive director of aspen words. Shes also the author of the memoir wild game which is in development for a film. During her 15 years in the Publishing Industry adrian founded a literary magazine with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and was an editor at harcourt and served as a judge for the National Book awards among other literary contests. Shes been published far and wide in magazines. Shes been with aspen since 2013. Aspen word is a literary nonprofit of the Aspen Institute which includes the apps been words literary prize. Were pleased to have you with us adrian. My beloved colleague and i turn it over to you and the other panelists. Thank you vivian for the introduction and thank you for the aspen words and Aspen Digital Team for hosting this event and to all of you, our panelists and all of you who are zooming in today for your interest in changing the narrative, something longoverdue inthe switching industry. As an fyi all of you watching this group met yesterday to have a little pregame conversation and we decided as much as possible wed like to make this forward thinking solution driven conversation so in other words, while were not going to sugarcoat any of the facts for the loss over the historical situation surrounding the racial inequalities that exist in publishing were also not going to spend too much time rehashing the obvious. The obvious being one, the Publishing Industry has always been predominantly white , 76 percent according to a recent survey and that figures higher when it comes to the highest division in the industry. And two, as a result of that power structure and the fact that white people have been the primary arbiters of literary culture, black writers and other writers of color have had a harder time getting published. There are of course other issues, cultural appropriation, disparities and pay as vivian mentioned in what publishingpaid me. Twitter protest. So were going to have lots to talk about but before we dive into the conversation, it feels important to acknowledge that i am a white woman and im sure have blind spots in terms of my own privilege and im working hard to become more selfaware as we all need to do at this time but with that, lets begin. As all of us on this call no, we are lucky enough to work in one of the most fascinating, exciting, wonderful industries. Publishing, the world of literature and storytelling and letters and what id love to start with is with you talking about what drew you to the literary world and what the Publishing Industry needs to do now to open up opportunities to people of color. And regina, i thought we start with you and maybe youd be able to talk a little bit about your experience athoward University Press books publishing. Thank you so much for having us, im so excited to be on this panel. When i think about the genesis of how i started in publishing, it was very serendipitous and i guess thats the name of my company, Serendipity Literary Agency. I have a background in engineering as an Aerospace Engineer and i have the summer off and i said i was going to take this Publishing Program at Howard University. And it really changed my life and changed my world upside down. Always had kind of background interest and i think background but background interest in books. I was just interviewed probably about a week ago trying to think regina, youve always been a people person who goes to the library, there was a library around the corner from my house and i realized that i asked my mom to go upstairs and she found this, it was a certificate i had given James Baldwin and award. So ive always been a part of the publishing space as far as books but i ended up at the Howard University Publishing Institute and the institute no longer exists today the. Thats how i was introduced to the publishing marketplace. As an engineer i started out working for john wiley and sons and i started in sales and eventually they moved me to new york and i became an editor and i worked in the engineering disciplines, mechanical, chemical, electrical but its so funny because again just thinking back to the genesis, there are two people that i met at that Publishing Institute who are still in the Business Today and one of them is a Business Partner now so one was marie brown. She was a literary agent. She and i have our own imprint call open lens now and also i met cheryl hudson. Shes a publisher with her husband wade and they again still are in the business. So theres something to be said about the longevity of being in the business as a black person. Theres also something to be said about the fundamentals that were learned that Publishing Institute. Like i said, Howard University Publishing Institute no longer exists today but when i think about what kind of things could industry do to really bring more people into the business , and also sustain them, i think it would be an awesome idea to reinvigorate and institute. There are still other institutes that exist like the denver institute. Columbia i think has a program, and why you. I think numerous publishers aretrying to figure out how do we get to the talent, how do we get to the talent . Theres no bigger and better way to do that than to have the institute again. I did read just today in publishing perspectives that harbor collins echo in partnership with cynthias presweeney created a publishing diversity fellowship which is new i believe as part of the columbia publishing parcel but that still is a smaller organization and the one that youre talking about. It also segues nicely something lisa was mentioning yesterday which was really about bounty jobs in publishing we dont really necessarily all know are there without some kind of education in the field because most of us that writers, editors and the one stock at allabout that lisa . I was joking yesterday when we had our precall but if somebody told me a job like a literary scout existed i would have been aliterary scout. What, what did i miss . I think its a complicated industry and im still learning. I didnt start working at literary magazines until i was 33 so i came from outside the industry although ive been with them since then it was and it was a real education and all the things no one told me and we have to be thinking about diversifying industry with decisionmakers and executives and publishers and editors we also need to think about our marketing folks and our publicity folks and think about design and legal and hr and all the things that go into and sales. There are so many pieces. Every book, you see the book and it has the imprint and it has a title of an author and you think this person made this book but it takes an actual enormous team to make a lot of these books and if you dont have diversity at every level, you dont have the checks and balances to prevent embarrassingmissteps from happening. You dont have a diversity of information about where there are challenges, whether its in hr or blind spots are all throughout so i think we do focus on the authors and the editors and i think we have to be thinking broadly about what an entire team that makes a book possible or in imprints possible for a Publishing House possible for the agents representation. Regina is so important. You need people who understand the challenges so you have to educate people about what books are. One of our films, problems is the work of teenager and they were interested in becoming filmmakers and the most important thing we did was demystify what it looked like for below the line jobs and what it meant to be a director or editor or producer two people have an understanding of what was happening and we are very happy to team with me we make magic, everyone whose artists,michigan magical, an art form that i work in and no one can figure out what we do. That all of skewers that there are rules for people to fill and that there are job categories and i think where parents of a child might not support them if they want to be an author and editor, they might understand what it means to be in hr in a Huge Corporation or to work in the arts with a long degree or whatever it is. I think it goes from high to low, doesnt matter whether youre talking about a job inside a warehouse orthinking about operations or sales or marketing. We have to start educating people about what publishing and the whole literary field including the very nonprofits used to look like for it to be equitable and reflective of this society we live in because we are telling the stories and i think we think about only the arts but theres so much that has to happen for that are to live and we need to educate people about those roles as well. Maybe we can turn to the artists, nicole and ask you sort of what your career journey was like and was it hard for you to find traction in the industry in the beginning . Finding and editor in the beginning withyour first novel . It definitely was a challenge. Im also thinking aboutwhat lisa said, demystifying industry. I knew nothing about the industry. Im coming from a Public Health medical background so course as a first generation immigrant youre told that what you have to do but i always wanted to be a writer. I didnt have at any avenue whatsoever, didntknow any writers growing up , especially writers of color so i think in the us and of course after college and grad school, thats when i got into the nsa program and was surprised that i was one of two black students in that program. Long story short we are told getting agents were the hardest thing and im thinking that the only hurdle that you have to jump through to get into the realm of publishing and thats far from the truth. As lisajust mentioned youre an editor and you have to sell, all those things so it took me a while. I also got the right person, that person ended up telling me to take the jamaican pot fly out of my book because a woman in michigan would never understand what im talking about being a young writer i thought that was the end all be all and i had to do that to be successful so i did and of course reading my books, itdidnt feel like , luckily i had a mentor recent golden and she was that had where i had a fellowship and she called me nicole, let this one go. As a writer its part of the game to getrejection so go back to the drawing board. Get on the computer and just submit to the agents so thats what i ended up doing. I ended up writing a wholenew book actually. And resubmitting to agents and of course, i was in the writers database and a couple of weeks later i got tips from free agents and i was so happy that julia happened to be one of them because one thing i was looking at is that my mentor, is important to have mentors but one thing marissa said to me is a relationship. A lot of young writers, thats what youre told and you want to get to be successful but its important to have somebody who gets your work and especially as a black writer, a black immigrant writer as well into some very dark issues of sexuality, all thesethings. Of course you have to get it to sell the book well and i had the luck of having having. Julia sold my book but the thing is not many Publishing Houses were latching onto it. Here comes the sun was ahard sell. And in fact, the only publishers that latched onto the book was katie adams from live right because i was getting messages like its too commercial or dont understand why a black writer is speaking her skinso again , in terms of diversifying publishing, i think if i had other, more black editors perhaps in houses who were looking at the work and saying oh yeah, we get that, we understand the importance of seeing the other side of the socalled paradise that people see about bob marley and all those things but i was getting deeper into who we are, i feel like nobody got that except for one woman who happens to be white. For two women who happen to be white but also allies as well, but one thing that happened in 2020 that i was happy about given i got my foot in the door and was that he or she is in her new position as dana kennedy, shes sitting here and i thought young me and not know these people, young nicole coming out of the mfa program knew nothing about this and were here on this level, the individuals have no place in higher positions and interviewed dana kennedy two weeks ago and she said to me the change has to happen from the top. It has to trickle down butthe top is where it happens for. And so i honestly believe that and im so happy that shes now sitting at the top and looking at people, mfa courses or forget mfa, youre a writercoming into the game. If you could see yourself in other people, you can do this as well, you can achieve that because there are people behind thoseschool stores are rooting for you. And thats really where i come from. Thank you and carol, youve obviously beenin the industry for some time, 40 years. Why has the industry been so slow to diversify and what other initiatives need to be developed to achieve greater inclusivity . Theres so much news out there about publishing in general and publishers have done a lousy job of counseling for and describing industry. I dont know where to start. Let me begin by simply saying that to conflate publishing with literary publishing per se is a nonstarter because publishing is a huge universe of categories. That most people dont Pay Attention to. The press is mostly interested in literary and commercial fiction but i think publishers can increase diversity and inclusion by advertising jobs in a multiplicity of categories and a multiplicity of functions. So i echo what lisa says. That along every aspect of the publishing chain, we should think about it reflecting america. Reflecting how america looks. And right now, the emphasis is strictly on decisionmaking. That should not be. If its going to be our decisionmakers should be on decisionmakers in publicity, and marketing, in sales and in the booksellingcommunities. Thats very true and it is such an enormous industry. I like to for a moment sort of turned towards very current moment we are existing in and i think it is, i think we can agree is a unique moment in time or a special moment right now but in recent weeks, black authors including isabel wilkerson, brett bennett, Ibrahim Kennedy and Michelle Alexander amongst many others have surged to the top of the bestseller list. I know we wish all of us at this moment had been brought on by this racial reckoning took place in the aftermath of the murders of innocent black people. George floyd, breonna taylor, ahmaud arbery. Does this still feel like, i mean do you think this one is going to last . Doesit feel like a moment and what can black professionals do to continue to sustain recognition of authors of color so its not just sort of uplift that winds down it is a moment and i dont believe its a reflection in the history of publishing. One remembers that books by black writers were hugely popular in the 60s and 70s. In the, during the Civil Rights Movement and during the black powermovement. And that went away. Right now, were at a moment when the narrative is still being defined to a certain degree by people in power so that those books that are on the bestseller list are there mostly to educate whites, okay . Whites who have taken on these books as if they were a selfhelp program. I believe that interest in these books will extenuating but i think their appearance on the bestseller list has increased interest in acquiring more books like those. Okay. And then regina, why do you think the black stories have been riskier but more recently than white stories, im talking the past and like , this isnt how it works in the Music Industry for instance. What can we do from your perspective or the literary agents perspective to change this. You are on mute. Sorry about that. Im just saying that the big question. There are a number of giveaways i canapproach answering that question. That going back to what we said before is its very difficult for people to penetrate the market place if there is a lack of understanding. Of the content. So as literary agents one of the things ive consistently asked editors is if you know that theres an audience for a book and you know that the book is going to sell but the book is not necessarily something you would read or you would go pick up in the bookstore, would you acquire that book . And more often than not, editors say it doesnt resonate with me and its not a book i feel like i can truly champion, and im not the best editor for that book. So theres a true understanding from an agent and editor standpoints why they may say that. But that is a big part because most of the people again that are in these positions of power to make decisions are white and that doesnt mean what people can enjoy books that are written by people of color but generally speaking, the people that they do wake up and buy books from our celebrities that are people of color. And so that is one big obstacle. So it starts editorial side. The other thing that i to is the fact that even if they were interested in buying the book, understanding how to position the book once it is acquired, thats a big issue and what do we mean by positions . Eating what do we we get it out into the marketplace so the audience is going to be interested in this book actually knows that. This is both in the childrens, young adult, of the marketplace. All of the different areas within publishing do we have issues. And again, staffing issues so if there are people in the sales department, people in marketing , people in publicity were people of color, there could be a lot more understanding of how those books could be positioned. I was on call today where i was talking to a marketing director and explaining that im okay with this point that you dont know how to position this book but im here to stand in the gaps. I have my finger on the pulse of certain communities and i want you to use me as an ally to help position some of these books. There are a lot of people like me, first of all ages typically dont help with marketing the second thing is when they do, the structure is not set up to allow agents to have that kind of access to the marketing department, to the publicity department. Its really with the editors so for instance. Nicole, since you have a solidly white team, marketing marketing, publicity, sales, who was helping you withthat gap . Did you have someone help with testing . Both of your books have been very successful but was there something, did you have the equivalent of regina to guide you through some of that . My agency did that as well, somehow she stepped into that gap but i had a good publicist who miraculously, he had his fingers on all the pulse but this time around, more people knew and i felt like i saw more on the board so for example i was like, wheres everything, they fell on that list, the pockets that i wanted to also pick as well as a jamaican who wanted to read the book as well. They also got past me and i think that was for me, i think it was your book that did that. I had a jamaican actor who read the audiobook and i had all of these jamaicans saying we have to have the book as well so all those things, i think its multiple factors came into play and i was so happy that all the stars were aligned. I did listen to yourbook 2 and it was wonderful reading. Lisa, in terms of you, youve obviously been credited with revitalizing the National Book award and the nathaniel award. I think in 2008, authors of color swept allfive categories, is that right . 2018, sorry. Didnt mean to add a decade to your work but why do you think theres a disconnect between the recognition and the perception of marketability for authors of color . I think thats to the point that errol made earlier if you want to facilitate change at the top you need to think about marketing and publicity. So functionally the National Book award is a publicityring of books. We make noise about books, we tried to serve readers. When a publisher facing, we are not author facing, we are reader facing and where audience facing our job is to widen the audience for book. I think thats about the way that we have panels, the way we present our show. The different programs we do, whether or not we are giving books to people in Public Housing or doing middle School Programs for Young Readers or we are selecting books about mass incarceration and coming up with interesting ways to get people to read those books though they know more about the incarceration system in this country. These are always to connect readers and books and i think that ultimately, one of the reasons why we see some of the problems that we see is about a failure to imagine a different or new audience and i think that the foundation is nimble enough and small enough that we can do that really easily. I can go to a job and say i think we can reach a bigger audience and somebody will put me on the news and i can say that an offender will give us money and we can reflexively start doing that new program and its not as difficult to implement change. I think on the publishing side where i have not yet been but will soon go, i think one of the things is there seems like such a resistance to people in literary publishing as errol pointed out widely to think of what we sell as a commodity. We are making a transaction between consumer and seller and if you were apple and you said there it seems like black people dont like the ipad so were not going to sell them ipads. For going to focus on who likes ipads and sell them ipads with an everincreasing black population were just going through that money in the garbage and say not worth it, they dont like ipads and it feels to me like a bit of what publishing has done. It says we know that black folks will buy this kind of book and that can guarantee us a sale and everything else, its never going to happen so maybe theres a shot in the pan, flash in the pan, the worst mixed metaphorsbut there is a flash in the pan. Or whatever the expression is. And this happens to be a big bestseller but it will never happen again so lets go back to selling your grandma in iowa book because we know she will buy it but the question for me is how did we get your grandmother in iowa to love books . How did we get her to know shes going to love a specific kind of book . Thats market research, thats working on how to ensure that a community is consistently well served and we have all our business to continue serving that cash cow that is that particular demographic segment of america. And in our continued refusal to actually consider that we might seek market share by doing more innovative business i think that we do the greatest disservice we could possibly do to all our black and browncommunities , to our rural communities. I think that we really often fail on that front and i think the thing i keep coming back down to which is we like to sell things, yes, sir no . Do we want to sell morethings . Are there people who have demonstrated again and again that we over index on all cultural consumption and we want to sell them things, yes, sir no . Do we like stories, people in of color in america . We love television, we love books to and how do you transfer that actual factual information into sales of the product . That in so far as i understand is our job and i think that were just, the continuation to sort of we were talking earlier about all these books telling off the bestseller list, our job is to keep them on the bestseller list, to continue pumping things into the reading population that actually doesnt face the white gaze consistently. We need to adjust our cultural apparatus and talk about the fact there are a few black and latino booksellers, few indigenous booksellers, few bookstores that servethese communities. So what do you do with that . Its like the whole thing is structured only to look at white people and its a big shift and you have to systematically look at where those points are where we are continually failing and adjust not just for equity, not just for justice but at the very baseline mostcynical level for money. To any of the rest of you want to add something . Lets focus on the books on the bestseller list. These books on race and racism, because even those books which are described as socalled black books are in fact addressed to white readers. I havent seen a lot of black people who have read how to be an antiracist. I havent seen a lot of black people reading white fragility. So we have to understand that publishers need to broaden their understanding of what books matter to black people. Absolutely. Anyone else . Id argue that we as a country decide that black People Matter for we can decide that black folks deserve good culture. Its just the exclusionary history. It is suppression. I think the thing is we use this language that is so soft, even in harsh language, this is cultural suppression. There was article that came out about the criteria collection and the inclusion of only four filmmakers that were black, two of them living since the 1980s and and andnormas collection of the best films on planet earth. And its like, the fact that those books, those films have not been canonized, not been given the same treatment, we are excluded from what is considered the best. That is suppression. When you think about julie dash, not to go on a film tangent, you think about just another girl on the irt and so many of spike lees films and all of these incredible things that have shaped black culture and shaped Black Thought on the film side and their actual exclusion is incentivized as participation. You cant win so why play. It fails to educate the american population. Theres so, but at the end what it does is suppress our real voices, if we are not saying something that speaks to this gatekeeper and it is not of value and that person is able to articulate what value is through culture, to everyone and then we become devalued so i think the dangerous nature of this sort of thing, i think thats the thing people dont understand. Even people who are making these decisions dont understand it. Its not just in equal, if not just unjust, it is also a violence done to people who live in this country. Of all times and that might be slightly slightly off tangent it feels like we have to understand that foundation about sort of being cynical about whether, what black people will read. And artificially manufacturing a Cultural Landscape that suppresses the real black voice in so many different instances is part of what is destroying our country. Go ahead. I was just going to say, Toni Morrison brought me to leticia and i watch her interviews or read her essays and you know, she always said its not right for the white gaze, dont write your stories, right through the heart and i think what errol just said are the kinds of books that made the bestseller list are teaching white people so i remember talking to a friend of mine. Even though their critically acclaimed ive didnt get any award. And so it wasnt like bestsellers or New York Times bestsellers, i mentioned just human but it was interesting and she said to me, what would Toni Morrison say and i said she would give us checks because as an artist is to stay true to our form and so i think thats very important but at the sametime i do understand that yes , i do see the book and the list. I do see that pattern of okay, i love most of the people who are on that list, their friends and colleagues of mine but when you do look at the issues, it tends to have that element in their unhappy to give it that much thought as errol just said but i do think its a lot of pressure on the artist sometimes to think youre a young artist and youre wondering this question all the time and panels so what if we are writing and nobody wants to read whatyou write . Just continue pushing, continue writing and take part in discussions like this one. This is a great discussion but you dont want to worry your head, just right so i guess my perspective as an artist is listening to this conversation, just write. Know that there are people, gatekeepers in place that will hopefully listen to what we have to say. Im glad youre part of this conversation. And before i realized that we are getting close to morning to turn it over to the audience q a but i just wanted to ask one last question is sort of a stalwart optimist and id like to know what does give you hope about the industry these days and are there things that really are, i think youve mentioned some but are looking up that you feel hopeful about and i dont know if any of you can chime in on. One of the things im really excited about is on a part of, im on the board of the association ofauthor representatives. Aneye on you . Im on the board of the association of author representatives and we are doing quite a bit to try to bring more people of color into the agent thing world because there the gatekeepers within the Publishing Houses but also in order to get into most of these mainstream Publishing Houses, you do need an agent. And a lot of times for people of color it can be difficult getting an agent and just being an agent is a very difficult thing to because of the way thebusiness model is set up. So not too many people of color are able to live in new york city, unfortunately thats shifting and beware their salary is set up based on you eat what you kill. So as an agent, i get 15 percent of the monies that my authors get in advance and thats my commission. So you mentioned earlier the publishing pay me hashtag so as an agent im working with clients that i have a combination but if im working with black archers whose work is being evaluated and were getting only a small percentage, its a very difficult business to be in but theres a lot of changes that are being addressed and that part of the business and im super excited to be one of the people are helping to make some of those ships. Thank you, anyone else . What one of the things that excites me or the two things that excite me , one is that there is a generational shift in the Publishing Industry. I was really heartened by the attempts at insurrection by some young people recently in making certain demands of publishers and i think its not unhealthy that an older generation which adheres to certain narratives, i dont think its unhealthy that generation might be dying out. I agree, id say the thing that gives me the most optimism is not necessarily the older generation leaving but the new generation coming in. I think im 20 years into a career, hopefully a while left to go so kind of happily in the middle. But you look at, i came up the way i came up. I had to change the way that i said and the things that i accepted that i feel ashamed of now in many cases. Theyre growing up believing this to be unacceptable. The narrative is different for them. The lower landscape is different from them so even i as a pretty outspoken and range person feel and think and do, they are so much more radical than i could ever dream of being and i just cant wait. I think the thing that i can give is ive had many mentors , many of them from the old guard. I lost one was more of a model that a role model than a technical mentor but to try and really seek outyoung people who can change this. And to give them whatever information or context or contacts i have, to empower them as they stage their great shakeup of the cultural world, that they have all the tools they could possibly have that one point theyre going to say youre too conservative, youre not doing enough, youre not changing fast enough and i welcome it as they deserve the power to be able to make this world a little bit more just and i think that i grew up in a different world. I was born in 1980. I went to high school in the 90s and i think it must be so different and still very frustrating in 2020 to be that age i do think we have the opportunity to change a few things and i think the book, i think that people have demonstrated that they still value the book. I wish more people did what its like people think about the book. The news cares about the book a more than it did maybe 10 years ago and i think intersection of young people who care about literature, no name for instance, the rapper from chicago was incredible, whos taken a deep and profound interest in getting books into present and talking about anticapitalist books and doing a book club and thinking about who were speaking to and being spoken to by, its like i want to see what that looks like and im just really excitedfor that future. And it may not even include me in the degree i would like it to. I think we have lots to thank the four of you for for the resurgence of thebook. I am going to look at these questions that are in the chat line and ask you some of these. Here we go. Libraries are part of the larger book ecosystem and collectively have significant buying power. How can Library Staff advocate for push for change in the Publishing Industry . How can libraries advocate for and push for change in the Publishing Industry . Any thoughts there . I mean, you get the same role in many ways as a bookseller. You have a community of people coming in who want to participate in the book so what your shelves look like, what you are buying many copies of, how you are presenting those books, theyre all going to speak to how welcome someone is or isnt in the space and i think at a place to start area who is this space for . Who are we creating these faces for and i think when you designed spaces with the Real Community in mind and the real openness to what that community might want to receive culturally, i think that you start the conversation. Librarians are doing bad work honestly, i dont have a whole lot less critique for the Library Community on the diversity issue because its like thats ground zero for where people go to get books so its like i love the library and i think you do walk into the library and you say who is this set up for . And then to continue, if you are a senior librarian, nurture young staff and empower them. Let young people know, they knowmore than we give them credit for. They are living, theyre building a more equitable world so i think sharing power when you have two generations that are doing two totally different or having two different conversations about equity, we have to allow young people who are more progressive on these issues to rise and do things on their own independently and i think that often fills a lot of spaces as well but i love the libraries very much and i have a lot to critique. And i think mentor shipis one of the big takeaways from this talk. We have another question from erica whos a writer. What other activism needs to happen in order to throw back other jobs within publishing west and mark i dont know that theres much to add beyond what we said or did you have somethingregina . I do feel like it would be super advantageous to have and not to be redundant but to do something with the publishing because you cant talk about all the different positions that are available within the industry. I think that having people come in and talk to young people about what opportunities exist, a lot of it is just access and knowledge and being ableto see it. I agree with that. Quickly i want to say look, ive worked at nonprofits for 19 years. Ive never worked at a publisher. That is not what ive done rid i still cant make heads or tails of who does what. Im trying to figure it out at night from the internet on zoom many people work there, who does what. Who works at which imprints and how it all works together. Its totally obscure. Theres no way to figure it out from outside and i literally have the job. So if i cant figure out what in the world, how would anyone else and how do you even start to address those issues when there is no transparency about how it works. Its just like, i have to say that i was a little bit flabbergasted. Who does what, where . Howdoes this work . Its like that internally and externally. How many times do i have to explain what a literary agent actually does . And then there are multiple ways that literary agents approach the business so it is very verynontransparent. I just am speechless at how little i actually know and how hard it is to figure out and its not because people dont want to tell you. Notthat kind of thing. Its just very complex and theres nothing you can read or download thats going to be like oh, got it. This is exactly how this works and these are the jobs andthis is what needs to happen. I made this point earlier that to really do a job, talking about what our industry is. Not just ourselves, not just for future staff just so that people know how books are made. Like dance organizations have classes and schools to explain what dance is. Imagine if dance was like we are like books and every child needs us to learn how to read. We have such access, this is such a big part of everyones life and the fact that they truly are like these magical objects that we dont really understand how theyre made or where they come from is really concerning and i think even within the Publishing Industry if you were asked five different editors how you build books youre going to get five different answers. Just in working for different places. Some things are fundamental that i think even that is challenging and why would you ever want to grow up and the book jacket designer if you dont know how that works or that those jobs exist . Its difficult. Sounds like we should be inviting any of the big five publishers who are watching to support the reinvigoration of howards program. It would be helpful. Let me read another question. Michael julius and donnie whos an author. What can be done to make pursuing publishing careers accessible to passionate and talented firstgeneration College Graduates and those from workingclass backgrounds who may also have to contribute to supporting their families and this is from the iowa writers workshop. Errol . I think that the industry is going to be changing dramatically as a result of covid19. I think its going to change in ways that we cant even imagine. I think working at home is going to become prevalent for certain functions and i think that might open the door to some constituencies that heretofore have thought selfpublishing could be attractive so i dont know that definitive pronouncements can be made right now about how to bring people in but i do know that the industry is changing dramatically and people should keep their eyes out. Keep their eyes open for opportunities. And in fact because of pandemics i have a fellow whos working from belgium and i also have someone husband in washington dc and an agent right now whos in san diego so i know that from an Agency Perspective theres going to be much more openness to people working remote and im internally building a system so that i can educate people about the Agency Business and how to become an agent even if theyre not onsite. That is great, i feel like its what weve learned from the situation that were all figuring out how to work in other places. The final question is so long and very complicated and ive been reading it and still havent quite found the question so im going to go back to something we talked about yesterday which has to do with language and the language surrounding some of our goals, the goals publishing to be more inclusive and it builds up language of supremacy but also about how to make things more inclusive on that particular level. Is that something youd want to . Lately ive been reading a lot about the changing of the guard for obvious reasons. And people talking about what we need to do in publishing and the we that they are using is notthe we that includes me. And i think that is like, when we talk about if were talking about americas literature, the worlds literature and so when we are saying us andthen , its up to us to do this to make sure they feel this way. This is, we failed. Its over. We still havent started the conversation. And i think we have to learn how to on that level talk in language that actually acknowledges that the table is shared as opposed to im going togive you a seat at my table. This is the table and we must speak about as such. And i think secondarily that we industry wise as there is a majority and a very small minority, that majority talks about books by the other as though it is the other how can you sell that . Youre not selling to another community. We are all one community. And i just dont understand some of the words that i hear are or read in the newspaper or that people say to me in discussions on panels and how other guy feel not because my feelings are hurt, my feelings arent hurt, ive been called worse, worse things have been done to me but because it just seems the point has not been taken. This very loud, very moral, very clear point that has been made over and over and over again for decades. And the fact that we with our language betray that we still dont understand the very fundamentals of working in an us and them environments means that you still believe yourself to be super which you are in fact not. Left out of that language is one word which is equity. Diversity, collusion and equity, okay . And publishers have had a hard time with that word. Yes. Absolutely. I cant find the lie, as they say. I think its a wonderful note to pen the questions on. I think vivienne is going to be coming back in. Its 4 00, but i want to thank you all so much for participating, for lending your voices, for being a part of this discussion. Its been really wonderful and educational and helpful. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Though such an incredibly powerful conversation. So thank you so much. So grateful for your moderating. I want to thank dolmen who is designed this entire series about looking at media through the lens of race and our producer. The video will be posted either later tonight or tomorrow pick you can find it on at aspen digital. Will have the link on our twitter accounts, for those of you who registered we will also email to you. Thank you so much, everybody, and well see you next time. Booktv continues now in cspan2, television for serious readers. Good evening. My Nimbus John Kenyon and i i m the executive director of the iowa city unesco city of literature organization. Welcome to two nights talks if it featuring the author joseph campbell. Book talk specifications are is present but city of literature and i was at a Public Library featuring authors of books that deal with topics of political or social engagement. In his new book lost in a gallup polling failure in u. S. President ial elections campbell looks at the long history of polling and its failures. You may recall Dewey Defeats Truman or the shock of the 2016 Election Results but campbell goes deeper looking at how polling methods and ways polls are covered in