Would greatly appreciate that. Okay thank you all, thank you alsouch. Hope you will stay in touch with each other. Okay byebye. And we wrap up our coverage of the recent brooklyn book festival and author discussion on multiethnic representation and publishing. Hi, i am suzanne im the ceo of penn america delighted to welcome you beyond prepositional politics and publishing. Assist in moderating this important discussion. We believe that the historic exclusion of certain people invoices from publishing is very much a Free Expression issue. Something that we can and must tackle as an organization with a mission to defend free speech. We work to up lift lesser heard voices those of the incarcerated, incarcerated, unseen in our program and we also bring together wide ring of stakeholders authors, publishers, editors need executives to discuss boundaries and how to break them down. So we have long been engaged in the debate concerning diversity and equity and publishing. And now, as the United States is in a moment of reckoning over the legacy of racism so too does the Publishing Industry. We know Baseline Survey that 76 of publishing staff with literary agents are white. This is with random House Speaker the nations largest trade book publisher released a report on workforce demographics showing 78 non work workplace only 4 is blackford Asian Americans makeup 8 of non warehouse staff and latinos 7 . Members of other major publishers are similar. When it comes to books there are no overall market statistics collected i what proportion are authors of color, less lets characters or stories. The cooperative book center does collect that data. Their study showed recent years some progress for the number of books published by black authors in 2019 had doubled over that in 2016 after a long period of stagnation. The watershed now underway over systemic racism has coincided the series of high series apartments the accomplish black leaders to post art lisa from our National Book foundation whos going to be in a senior role, dana kennedy at Simon Schuster and the latest wilson joining us training random House Speaker. Books about race in a dominating bestseller lists. This all comes amid a real debate about cultural appropriation, sourcing who has the right to survey which narrative. The server that came to a head earlier this year end the controversy over american. These stories are of interest to me personally and i have the my book free speech for all arcing that we can and must level the Playing Field for expression while at the same time robustly protecting freedom of speech. I cannot be more delighted to introduce our panel, Reagan Arthur the author editorinchief of catapult magazine, mcdonagh executive editor papillion and luis alberto, novelist poet, the fold bauserman clicked into the chat and interest of moving forward the conversation. Im delighted to welcome them. With her audience will move to audience questions. Probably about midway through this 45 minute session. You can have your questions in the q a column in the cloud cast platform pretty cost to put them in the chats. We have somebody who is monitoring and will convey them to us. I will get to them just as quickly as i can. So to begin, want to ask the panel whether you think we have arrived now is some sort of new breakthrough moment on issues of equity and inclusion in publishing. Are we just going to continue to grind it out in the years to come with small intra mental growth in terms of diversity, we going to look back at this moment as an Inflection Point, why or why not . What sorts of decisions and actions in the coming months and years to decide if this moment is decisive or not. The reagan maybell turn to you first. Yeah, i hope it is Inflection Point, it feels like one. Its kind of hard to know when youre in the moment. But this has been a year, i think you said reckoning. He think thats what it feels like to me. Its amazing to think American Dirt was the same calendar year so much as happened since. But that was a discussion that happened in many different contexts, and many offices and homes. I was on the tennis court a couple weeks ago in my suburban town. Its fascinating to me the impacts of that publication has on our business. On the company that published it. And on the way we think about the ways we publish certain books. I feel like that was the main issue of that particular book. We can talk about that or not. And then moving on to whats happened with black lives matte matter, with publishing, online, companies, readers and books and writers feels very meaningful and it feels. I think were looking at ways that we acquire, publish in new ways. And i dont certainly personally in the company i work for has to be a moment of permanent change. Thats how i am viewing at a think thats how my colleagues viewed at the moment. Its overdue. And important. And it has to be lasting. You have been at this along time. Im curious what you think. Do you think materially different as a footnote . Or is it a peace in terms of what you have seen for many years . People more people of color have been appointed to senior positions in publishing in the last year than have been appointed in decades. So yes. I think we are at an Inflection Point. But only at the beginning of that. Because right now the emphasis is on diversity and inclusion. It is a gatekeeping function. Until we see this kind of diversity and inclusion and all aspects of the publishing chain, sales and marketing, even a bookselling. I think we have a long way to go. Luis . Yes i agree. I do think its a moment of great change. You know i think youre seeing a lot of latin x writers evolve, giving opportunities. They have unbelievable talents out there. So that my career in the bottom of the 90s. I will say coming up from the south west and facing new york was shocking to me. What i heard from the mated one apa rabble browser. Think its partly the issue of geography, not just culture. I think you are seeing, from my experience anyway the great model lists of publishing have turned their eyes westward. Can you elaborate a little bit about what it was you heard back then that shocked you . Here comes the revolution. No. Yeah, my first book took ten years to get anybody to accept. Ten years of rejection. Which made me kind of pushy at the end of the tenures. I was totally to first things i was told was from an editor, not of this wonderful Publishing Company, i dont think i talk to you guys. But i was told it was a Nonfiction Book about the Mexican Court ordered the editor told me nobody cares about starving mexicans i said yes thats why im writing this boo book. I dont think people hear those things now. Not people i know. And you know, i have good relationships with lots of people in publishing. I see really a lot of pain i think over inequities and inequalities. And a desire to open opportunity pathways to opportunity. And responsible interaction with those authors. And people have asked me for help. Ive been trying to help as best i can. I try not to grab glory or credit for it. Just steering people to people. Thats part of it. I think part of the issue is also going in representation. I think agents are also transforming at this moment. You know its not just latinos. But of course that is my contingency. Host nicole your thoughts . Im a fairly recent debut author. As an Asian American writer i do think my race inexperience was certainly relevant in every step of publication. I want to say kind of a dream publication experience. I was with indy press as a catapult and have the support a lot of writers just dream about of the gate. Not at my publisher but elsewhere, particularly weird trend to sell it. Ive been told and have plenty of other writers of colors are still told the books you really want to write are often books that and being very successful were more accessible to people are excited people that show your back ground. If not how marketable are they . I do think you cared a lot less. I think a writers identity, how they were reviews values because of that its relevant in every stage. And i guess i would just, so import across the board with editorial in sales and marketin marketing, and copyediting even, some interesting questions can come up under been checked against a style guide. And i just think the more presentation of these companies have in terms of the workforce the publishing workforce. That can only help authors of color. The part i find most encouraging right now is that theyre starting to be more of a focus on not just numbers. Like who is at the table part other that is very important and always will be. I think were starting to talk more about the difference between numbers and equity. How equity really isnt about about equal outcomes for like black writers, brown writers and other writers of color. The been supportive throughout their careers, equal to white writers at the really big question. Thats the question i think it will be hard to have an answer for, a definitive answer until we can kind of look back at this moment for maybe three, five, ten years on. I do think a lot of the competitions being had written our great and encouraging. Let me hone in on the issue that many of you have raised about who is making the decisions . Not just editorial but as you say are all kind of down the line in sales and marketing, lisa call agents. Doesnt seemed like theres been a leg in this industry. Im not sure of the statistics bears this out. Fallen behind whats happened either in very other controversial whites like jaw hurt drove law or journalism, they all lag behind population as a whole. It striking in publishing particular because its a liberal industry, where i think people overwhelmingly would support supported the goals of diversity and inclusion. Its also striking that these employments commonly say number of them to be of people not exactly the ranks of big publishing. Its like a slightly adjacent phase. Who been pulled into top roles. That makes me wonder, where was the pipeline internally. And if it wasnt there why not . Im curious with reagan and what was that like what it views what if you seen, what is holding us back here . I think publishers still adhere, more or less,. [inaudible] there is such thing as mainstream culture. If we know anything about markets nowadays it is that industries acknowledge the fragmentation of markets. Were not so much at an Inflection Point but it inception points where publishers are beginning to understand that diversity and inclusion is good for capitalis capitalist. And the more markets they can serve effectively, the better it is for the bottom line. They are many other areas of consumer marketing where they little head . Or do you think not . When i started out in publishing, is interested by this category. The general reader. Ive no idea who the general reader was. Certainly wasnt me. My tastes are peculiar. So i never understood who this general reader was. I think to a certain degree, publishers have been traditionally guided by that notion of the general reader. And the general reader tends to be essentially aye middle to upper class reader. Lady my mom. [laughter] nowadays we are imagining the multiplicity of readers. All kinds of readers. An understanding that is what we are in the business to do. Not only culturally but economically. That sensibility of the commonality of the generalization, it came to me when i did flat copy and i realized i was guilty of using this phrase it someone else was using was even got to sign off your copy in some rousing way. This novel is a testament to the way it is now. And i just thought. [laughter] whose week . I dont know i just realized, i know ive written that softcopy myself. But what we is, my grammars all over the map here. You understand what im saying. If so many assumptions in our business its true who are readers who are publishing towards and to answer your question who we are in the companies that are making these decisions. It has been institutionally weighted geographically you have to live in new york pretty much. Maybe boston. You have to have a personal income to support you know starting salary was and he had to have a second job. You had to know people. The economics of his starting salary in publishing in 1989 or writedown 2020, we have to look outside the business. So few people could afford to live here and raise up in a way i was lucky enough to do. The deck was stacked, set a phrase . That is a phrase. I am curious reagan, you mentioned sort of American Dirt and how transformative you think that moment has been. I am curious, if you could unpack that. What you think have been the lessons of American Dirt . And what do you think is being done differently in the wake of that . Well, i just want to put that out there. I thought it was terrific i thought it was a thriller. I remember saying to amy, who was a friend i said i said this is the best story and you can handle that for your sales handle. And i think when i saw things happening around it, im friends with the publisher why look back and see the things, the way it was written about the fact check and it didnt. Assumptions that were made, i can see, i probably couldve made the same mistake. I didnt see it as a literary novel i saw as a commercial thriller. And i think perhaps that was a difference that set it on the path towards the problems it encountered. Does that answer your question. [laughter] im curious about what you think, how you think publishers or other players in that value chain would do things differently in the wake of American Dirt. A writer who is not definitively latino even i think Ginny Cummins does consider herself latina based on her puerto rican grandmother, with that but get bought . Would that be rejected how did but it unfold now . Its a question we had at the time. In my company. It did not prevent us from bidding on it. But it was a question we raised. I am interested to hear louise, maybes biting his tongue behind his hand. [laughter] i dont know. Reagan, reagan. I was so lucky to come little brown is been really great to me. I think a book like that, i will be diplomatic about it. You know is a Cartoon Version of what those funky Little Brown People do. People who dont know better, swallow the cartoon. Including the readership. That booked a lot of its veracity to a lot of other writers. That hangs listed from them and thats as far as i will go. I can name your exact page numbers from some of my books that are in that book. So you know the issue happened when people who knew better stepped up and said hey wait a minute, who is responsible for this . Why . Some of the Critical Response was fascinating. I never took it as a thriller, as a literary book i took it as a thriller. However if you were to write a thriller about purple americans and ufos flying around fighting gangs of poodles at disneyland its aye whats wrong . The details were complete scrambled and screwed. As because i think the people manning the gates had no idea what reality is. I think a lot of the angered response was, how eager people are too sort of swallow the pill of the worst of us. And things that did not make any sense. Details that were wrong. All kinds of stuff. I have a question. What would have been a corrective in the Publishing Company . What should the publisher have done . I dont know. Im glad i was not involved in that. I dont know, i am a thriller fiend. I love them, think they are great. I just dont know. When a lot of things blew up, there were, as you know very famous latin x writers who blurb did. I suspect without having read about one of them told me i was just trying to be helpful. And isabella and i talked about because she was curious about the uproar. Her point was i dont believe in censorship of any form. Which i thought was interesting. I dont either i dont believe in censorship of any form. I think when this firestorm began it just kept going, and going, and going. And circumstances outside of everyones control. The year of the plague kicking in, kind of stopped a lot of that. But i think the painful surgery around that, the kind of appendectomy that happened for everybody, was really useful. I think it makes people rethink things. I would say that doing things like the place settings made of border walls with barbed wire was a super while stupid mood. The upper flaunting of barbed wire fence fingernails was a really stupid move. Weather was racist or not i do not know. I just think it was silly. It was a thing that mistakes people make. And for example i want to sing the praise of my publisher, little brown. But i came into little brown because i think my editor, Jeff Chandler at that time was from the southwest. Hes not latino in any way. He came to me because he had a book he wanted done. the people see and learn and come through to another kind of breakthrough of vision, and i think, like i said at the beginning, a lot of us have availed ourselves we are helping editors and so forth who are looking for texts, and thats a good thing. I think thats a very good thing. I want to push the any of you can respond i think youre right, this table setting and the fingernails, you could say that was embarrassing and [loss of audio] more fundamental question. Something that comes up a lot that shouldnt be fixed boundaries in terms of who can tell which story and we struggle with hey to respond to this how to respond to this because we have a deepment to amplifying lesser heard voices and cognizant of the exclusion and limitations and so im curious, do you have thoughts on how this type of question some be approached differently and appropriately going forward, where there is a story that has someone has told from a battleground not their own that maybe has been researched and vetted somewhat, but had it never been fully, and how that should be thought about and approached, it should be approached . Or should he we be calling a moratorium for now on that . Im generally wary of blanket policies of any kind. I will say its a conversation not about americans specifically but in my day job im an editor of a Literary Agency and i ha