Creative 4/22/2022

This week, Bad and Boujee (emphasis on the bad), the Book Review gets existential, and an iconic typo at LitHub.

UP FOR DISCUSSION

“BAD AND BOUJEE” PULLED BY PUBLISHER

This week, Wipf and Stock Publishers decided to cease publication of Bad and Boujee: Toward a Trap Feminist Theology, a new title by white theology professor Jennifer M. Buck. The publishers yanked the title within days of social media outcry, as critics accused Buck of racial and cultural appropriation, The Cut reports.

The controversy prompted questions over who has a right to tell which stories. Christian podcaster and writer Jo Luehmann raised such concerns, asking Buck in an Instagram post, “Can you help me understand how you are qualified to write this book?” The pair went on to have an exchange via DM that the podcaster has since shared and highlighted on her Instagram stories. Luehmann alleged that Buck “delete[s] comments” and negative Amazon book reviews.

Critics also questioned the book’s cover — a photograph of a young Black woman with an Afro — and described this aesthetic hat trick as “intentionally misleading” and “profoundly racist,” according to The New York Times. Roxane Gay chimed in on Twitter, writing, “Look. Write what you want buuut that first line of Bad and Boujee is quite bad and if you write like that you’re going to be rightly criticized.” The first two lines of the book are: “A trap queen is a woman who is down for the cause. She was born in the ghetto, raised in the ghetto, but she ain’t that ghetto.”

THE NYT REVIEW OF BOOKS SEEKS DIRECTION, IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

This week, I was intrigued by a lengthy feature in The Nation spelling out the existential questions facing the New York Times Book Review, which seeks a new editor-in-chief to replace Pamela Paul.

The piece offered an overview of the “centrist” legacy of the New York Times Book Review, which has long seen itself as ranking fourth to competitors The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The New Republic. I was curious to learn about the shared uncertainty around the Book Review’s ideal audience. For years, the mag attempted to grab the attention of average readers – that is to say, to wield influence on a large scale – rather than catering to “the kind of audience that doesn’t need convincing to read a lengthy essay on a book instead of watching a TV show,” The Nation reports. But there are plenty of examples of media orgs that shuttered in the last year, like The Believer, Bitch Media, and CNN+ that might explain the NYT Book Review‘s reluctance to take the same approach.

It’s not to say that people aren’t reading – that’s not the problem. Rather, elite tastemakers like the Book Review have lost some of their sway with the public. As one bookstore buyer told The Nation, “Bookstagramers and BookTok influencers are as much in conversation [with] readers now as The New York Times Book Review.”

“THE 9 BIGGEST MYTHS ABOUT NONFICTION TRADE PUBLISHING, DEBUNKED”

I wanted to give a special shoutout to Summer Brennan’s eye-opening Substack post, which details what writers can expect in terms of book advances, a “book launch” thrown by their publisher, who pays for fact-checking, who decides the book’s cover, and more. If you’ve been in this business long enough, these answers may not surprise you, but they’re still really good, useful tidbits to know for those of us hoping to build *gulps* a career in this industry.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH – WEEK THREE

-National Poetry Month rages on/against the dying of the light! I was thrilled to see this typo at LitHub, certain they had commissioned an ode to poetic flatulence:

(It’s supposed to say “roots.”)

-In honor of this blessed month, the New York Times offered a lovely little anthology striving to answer the question, “What is poetry?”

-Read the latest in The Baffler’s “Poems From Palestine” series.

–The Rumpus is featuring works by a poet a day this month, including Camonghne Felix and Yanyi.

–The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan reminds us of a poem by Louise Glück, on Twitter.

–Poets & Writers shared a poetry prompt, courtesy of Kemi Alabi.

-Also on Twitter, Despy Boutris asked, “who’s an emerging poet you love who deserves way more attention?”

BEST OF LIT TWITTER

-At The New Yorker, Naaman Zhou spotlighted the British couple behind @SecondMentions, an “account [that] tracks the ways that writers strive to express the same thing differently, with examples taken mostly from newspapers and magazines around the world.”

-Emily Gould, author of Friendship, and Perfect Tunes, considered the unique advantage British fiction writers have over their American counterparts (hint: it involves tea).

-James Tate Hill offered some encouraging words about a writer’s right to use an exclamation point.

Q FOR YOU

Can anyone explain why Goodreads was trending this week? Was it a less-than-successful makeover? A proliferation of scammers? Racism in book reviews?

AWARD ZONE

Lauren Groff, author of Matrix, Arcadia, and Fates and Furies received the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, a $50,000 award given to “a mid-career author of fiction.” Meanwhile, Poets & Writers received a Literary Arts Emergency Fund grant from benefactors including the Mellon Foundation, Poets.org, and the National Book Foundation.

CRAFT CORNER

-For Catapult’s “Don’t Write Alone” series, Katie Runde wrote about motherhood and moving to Iowa City to write without being a student. “I had a plastic cup of wine at the public library fundraiser with Maureen Corrigan from NPR and asked her for a book recommendation, and I did not tell her about my final.docx,” said Runde.

-T, the New York Times Style Magazine published an interesting feature called “24 Hours in the Creative Life,” with dispatches from American painter Faith Ringgold; musicians Caroline Polachek, Saweetie, and Kid Cudi; writer Louise Erdrich; and Jonathan Bailey of “Bridgerton.”

-Lincoln Michael’s latest “Counter Craft” essay challenges the adage “show, don’t tell.”

THE LATEST IN LIBRARIES

-This week, Claire Woodcock wrote for VICE about how the popular ebook distributor Hoopla – similar to the Libby app – has played home to a host of fringe, at times offensive, titles, including those “promoting far-right conspiracy theories, COVID disinformation, LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, and Holocaust denial.”

-On Twitter, fantasy author Mike Roberti asked how to get local libraries to start offering his book.

DEALS, DEALS, DEALS

-“Notorious troublemaker” and musician Pete Doherty will publish a memoir, titled A Likely Lad via Little, Brown this June.

-E.J. Koh, author of A Lesser Love and The Magical Language of Others, will publish her first novel, The Liberators, via Tin House next year.

-Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street sold her first book of poetry in almost three decades to Knopf.

PAGE TO SCREEN

-Alma Har’el, who directed the 2019 film “Honey Boy,” will direct an adaptation of Mockingbird, the 1980 sci-fi novel by Walter Tevis, Variety reports. The film is being produced by Searchlight Pictures.

-AGC Television acquired TV rights to Jayne Allen’s Black Girls trilogy. The first book in the series, Black Girls Must Die Exhausted, was released in 2018, while its follow-up, Black Girls Must Be Magic, came out in February 2022.

-The fourth season of “My Brilliant Friend” is likely to be released with new starring actors playing Lenù and Lila in February 2023, Bustle reports.

-ICYMI, there has been a lot of cursed energy swirling around the latest installment in the “Fantastic Beasts” film series (no pun intended). From ceaseless controversies around JK Rowling to costar Ezra Miller’s violent outbursts, Bustle broke down all the messiness for us. If you’re one of the few who still wants to see the film, Bustle also pointed out the Harry Potter easter eggs for the eagle-eyed.

HIGHLIGHTING LITERARY HISTORY

-Read Irene McKinney’s “The Only Portrait of Emily Dickinson” in honor of poetry month.

-I was very intrigued by this thread from Peyton Thomas, host of the podcast Jo’s Boys. Citing extensive archival research, Thomas argued that “lou[isa may] alcott was trans. Period.”

-At LitHub, Taylor Brown paid tribute to “the aviators who inspired William Faulkner.”

LOVE FOR LOCAL BOOKSTORES

Alsace Walentine, co-owner of Florida indie bookshop Tombolo Books, talked to the Tampa Bay Times about opening a bookstore just before the pandemic, sales strategies and trends, and her view of the store’s future.

RECOMMENDED READING

-Elated is not a strong enough word to describe how I felt when I discovered that Kathy Acker interviewed the Spice Girls in 1997.

-For The Margins, the publication of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 21 writers including Kazim Ali, Tina Chang, Jenny Xie, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil explore 随筆 | Zuihitsu, which translates as “following the brush.”

-At The New Yorker, Lauren Michele Jackson peered into the diaries of Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple. Walker’s diaries were compiled into the new Simon & Schuster book, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, 1965-2000.

-At The Baffler, Daniel Spielberger asked a question I’ve long wondered: what’s the deal with all the emails from MoveOn.org?

-Poets & Writers highlighted the “1000 Words Of Summer” creator Jami Attenberg — a much-deserved moment in the sun for the fiction writer.

 -Jennifer Wilson reviewed Elif Batuman’s Either/Or, a brand-new follow-up to The Idiot for The Atlantic.

-Melissa Chadburn and Steve Almond discussed reading each others’ early drafts, the day-to-day writing process, and an old photo of their first meeting at the Tin House residency in LitHub.

-On April 13, Jenny Offill, Sheila Heti, and Jia Tolentino discussed “How to Be an Art Monster” at Bennington. You can watch a livestream of the panel here.

-For Harper’s, Sam Lipsyte exposed “humans, robots, and the new sexual frontier.”

AND EVERYTHING ELSE

-Readers, I’m getting mixed messages about how book sales are doing. Are they “better than ever,” as this week’s Publisher’s Weekly excitedly proclaims? Or have they finally plateaued since 2020’s highs, which they told us last week? *Shakes laptop vigorously* Which is it, dammit??

-If you can’t get enough of Wordle, how about Hurdle? Nerdle? Fibble? Duotrigordle?

-Hats off to The New York Times Style Magazine for going where few are brave enough to go: who’s the person styling influencers to make them look well-read?

-Tracy Sherrod and Alex Littlefield are joining the team at Little, Brown and Company. Sherrod was previously VP and editorial director at Amistad, and will now serve as VP and executive editor. Littlefield will become the publisher’s executive editor after a stint as executive editor at Mariner.

–Publisher’s Weekly celebrates its 150th birthday.

-Actor Jamie Lee Curtis helped Jennifer Grey of “Dirty Dancing” fame design her book cover.

-We Need Diverse Books will be launching a “new initiative to assist teachers and librarians” in response to the wave of book bans sweeping the US, which will be called the Educators Making A Difference Grants.

-Hillary Clinton will be a featured speaker at the 2022 Hay festival as part of the festival’s ‘Women & Power’ series.