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 UniversityPublishing 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 UniversityPublishing 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