Uncategorized

Latinx activist from #DignidadLiteraria and Presente.org met with Macmillan leadership on Monday afternoon to discuss the controversy about representation in publishing sparked by Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt. A panel of authors including David Bowles, Myriam Gurba, and Roberto Lovato spoke with Flatiron Books president Bob Miller, Macmillan president Don Weisberg, as well as representatives from other Macmillan imprints. Two representatives for Oprah and O Magazine listened remotely. In a press conference afterward in Zuccotti Park, Matt Nelson, executive director of Presente.org said they got “substantial commitments across the company for them to do better.” Gurba said, “Our goal here is […]

On January 23, three days before the NYT reported on stories said to appear in John Bolton’s book manuscript (and three days before Simon & Schuster’s metadata describing the book, showing the jacket and offering it for pre-order started appearing online), the National Security Council wrote to Bolton’s attorney that they had problems with the manuscript. Senior director for records, access and information security management Ellen Knight wrote to attorney Charles Cooper, as reported by Insider, “The manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information. It also appears that some of this classified information is at the TOP SECRET […]

In the latest development in the ongoing RWA controversy, Harlequin, Avon, Entangled, Berkley, Kensington, and Sourcebooks have pulled out of RWA’s 2020 national conference, scheduled to be held in San Francisco in late July. Harlequin wrote in a letter to the RWA board of directors on Wednesday, “As a leading global publisher of romance fiction that is committed to diversity and inclusion, we at Harlequin believe it is important that all authors feel included, respected and heard. Recently reported actions by RWA leadership have therefore led us to decide not to sponsor or attend the RWA2020 national conference. We will […]

A controversy involving the Romance Writers of America’s code of ethics played out online following an ethics ruling by the organization about romance author Courtney Milan. On December 23, Milan was suspended from RWA for one year and banned from holding positions in the organization in the future. (She has served on the RWA board.) The ruling was based on a series of August Twitter posts by Milan criticizing other RWA writers. But then the next day, RWA rescinded the ruling “pending a legal opinion.” The AP reports that 28 “organization leaders in various regional positions” called for the resignation […]

SVP and publisher of Hachette Nashville Rolf Zettersten has decided to retire this fall and will depart after successor is “named shortly.” He joined HBG in 2000 to start a Christian publishing program, launching what became FaithWords. CEO Michael Pietsch writes, “I want to thank Rolf for leading the Nashville division to reach remarkable heights with their publishing programs – selling more than 100 million copies since the division’s inception.” Zettersten notes, “It’s been a remarkable career and I am cheering for the continued growth and development of this program which means so much to me.” Separately, former deputy publisher at […]