I was half way through writing a very different blog post last week when UK publishing had a rather drastic explosion on social media. I won’t go into the details but it started with someone commodifying the work of vulnerable children whilst writing about those children in terms that were racist, ableist, weirdly appearance-obsessed and basically pretty cruel; and ended with a very, very high profile white male author calling women of colour Taliban/ISIS terrorists for expressing (politely, courageously) their discomfort with the book.
It’s not been a fun few days to be a ‘minority’ author, watching the great and the good of the world you are trying to navigate throw people like you to the wolves to protect those they see as righteous (hello white saviours) from the slightest slight. And no, ‘throw to the wolves’ isn’t melodramatic, the bigot bots were out in force against the women of colour at the centre of the backlash, which made the deliberate comparison to terrorists even more despicable.
The thing is, this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened. And although this incident is the industry playing its cards very openly, we know that even when the black squares and the rainbow logos etc are up, the cards don’t necessarily change. You don’t have to look very far to find statistics which prove that. We know that such a damaging book made it through countless hands on its road to publication & award, so what proportion of those people were from marginalised groups? What proportion were uncomfortable with the text but felt unable to speak up, or were ignored when they did? What proportion didn’t see anything wrong with treating vulnerable children that way at all? Will any of that systemic bias actually be changed by the publisher’s talk of ‘revising the book for re-issue’? These are not encouraging thoughts to have if you’re marginalised, or comfortable ones if you’re a decent person from a majority identity, and so it’s very easy to feel powerless to do anything. And, incidentally, afraid of doing anything. These are powerful people, they can shape your publishing prospects, and it’s frightening raising your head above the parapet. Other than express my views in a Twitter post then, what can I, a newbie and fairly insignificant author, do?
Not an awful lot, really. Buy books from marginalised authors? Well, that’s the majority of my books already. Not buy books from those authors who’ve shown their bigot card? Yes, I’ve got a new name to add to that list, sadly.
The one thing I can do is this: try to help other marginalised writers. The only way books like this will get dealt with before they do harm, the only way better, more positive books will make it through the system is if more marginalised voices are in the room – both the literal editorial meeting room, and the figurative UK publishing community space. I can’t do anything about the former, but perhaps I can do something about the latter.
I’ve been wanting to provide some sort of service to other under-represented writers for a long time, but not done anything because … well, the Big & Recalcitrant Imposter Syndrome, basically. But I decided when I signed my publishing deal for This Is Our Undoing that once the book was out and I was officially A Published Author, imposter syndrome could go jump in the sea & I’d Do Something…
…The book came out last week, UK publishing did a giant racism/ableism and I guess there’s no better time than the present.
So, I’m going to start out small, partly because I have no idea whether there’ll be any demand, and partly because I have to manage my own health and there’s only so many extra commitments I can take on. But here’s the page outlining what I can offer, and how it will work. Let me know what you think.
Shadows on Water 