This diary is going to address three book controversies currently going on. They are about three different issues but they all have a centralized theme. I hope my writing does them justice.
Drama 1: Romance Writers of America
For the more detailed version of this story: www.vulture.com/…
This controversy happened right around Christmas time. Courtney Milan is a popular Asian American writer on the board of RWA that regularly calls out diversity issues that often plague this genre. She had responded to a series of tweets and called out examples of cultural appropriation in a book called by “Somewhere Lies the Moon” by Kathryn Lynn Davis (white writer) written in 1999. Mrs. Davis, none too happy about being called out on Twitter, filed a complaint along with Suzan Tisdale, a publisher and lover of MAGA to the Romance Writers of America board. If you have time, I highly recommend reading the complaint. They compare Mrs. Milan to a Neo-Nazi...no I’m not kidding!
The board/secret committee/secret ethic committee (this story has more turns than an actual mystery novel) kicked Mrs. Milan off the board and banned her from ever serving again for life right before Christmas. Mrs Milan express her displeasure on Twitter and the response from the community was outrage. The board reversed their decision in the wake of the outrage. It came out that the incoming president, a scheming man named Damon Suede (I know, amazing right!!) had pretty much orchestrated the entire thing. Half the board quit, Damon Suede said he was going to hand pick the rest of the board and boohoo to anyone who didn’t like it. Mrs. Davis complained that it was unfair she was being picked on for her stereotypical descriptions of Asian women in her book because she a) spent a LOT of time research it and b) It was 1999 so she can’t be held accountable because times were different.
The members of the Romance Writers of American put together a petition to get Mr Suede to resign and wanted a full audit of what was going on. To his credit, Mr Suede held on for quite some time (probably because he has an upcoming book coming out with a publisher who doesn’t pay it’s writers) but finally resigned.
There were lots of discussions about how people should write about cultures they aren’t members of and is it appropriate to point out problematic stuff of writers in the past. For the record, I think the members of RWA really handled this issue well and came out and supported an author of color who was being targeted. Mumbles quietly: Looking at you...fantasy genre!!!
Drama 2 American Dirt
This one has gotten a bit more media coverage.
For more details see: www.npr.org/…
Jeanine Cummins wrote a fictional book about a Mexican family being forced to immigrant to the United States due to drug cartels. The book was part of bidding frenzy that got the author a 7 figure advance. Oprah made it part of her book club and it’s considered one of the most anticipated books of 2020. The author is a white woman, although she recently has shared she has a Puerto Rican grandmother. Latinx Twitter has not been pleased about this book. It did initially get praise from some prominent Latina/o authors but there has been a much bigger uproar from the rest of the community. For two samples of issues I leave you with this.
www.alisa-valdes-rodriguez.com/…
and one of the best take downs of a book I have ever read…
tropicsofmeta.com/…
The main story pushed by the media is that the Latinx community is upset because a white lady culturally appropriated a story for profit. So a larger discussion has arisen about who can write about what. I have zero issues with people writing about things they don’t know. Hell women have been reading men’s portrayal of them for years as have POC. The bigger issue is who publishers pick and promote. Many authors of color talk about the struggles they have in getting published. Very rare for an author of color to get a 7 figure advance on a book.
And although the publishing world has gotten much better about uplifting and promoting people of color, its a small percentage of writers. I bet if you aren’t a person of color, you can name a few prominent authors of color but outside of that not many. There seems to be this idea that while...we published one this year so all is good. There is the added problem of Ms. Cummins book launch party where the flower arrangements were set in barbed wire. See my diary picture.
The final issue with American Dirt is that it riddled with bad Spanish and incorrect cultural stereotypes. Sure it could be on my reading list but was this book really worth 7 figures over an author who wrote a more authentic version of this story. One of the biggest criticism is often super popular books about social justice issues are written by white people and packaged in a consumable format for other white people. I guess you could read this story and cry or you could go read a story by a Latinx writer about real Latinx people.
Drama 3 My Dark Vanessa
My Dark Vanessa is also on the 2020 most anticipated list. It was written by Kate Elizabeth Russell. Stephen King LOVED it, (I think he also loved American Dirt as well)… The book deals with the subject of a teacher taking advantage of an underage student. Ms Russell is a young white woman who is not a victim of sexual abuse. Again this doesn’t mean the topic is off limits to her. The problem is that one of the books that she references as inspiration is Wendy C. Ortiz, Excavation. Ms Oritz is a young Latina writer who wrote a memoir about her actual experience as the survivor of this type of abuse. See a running theme… Ms Oritz has written about how hard it was for her to find a publisher for her memoir as a woman of color. Although she has not directly commented on the book, she does write that her issue is this hunger for books about trauma porn written by people who have not actually experience it. In addition the publishing world always has the next young white woman that is going to be the biggest thing ever because they wrote some edgy book. My Dark Vanessa is being hailed as some ground breaking piece because it explores the “nuances” of this type of “relationship”.
I read edgy books. I like edgy books. But there is a very fine line that authors WHO DON’T have experience with the subject need to tread. And yes I have read the argument that well...no mystery/thriller books would exist if we held everyone to that standard because families of murder victims. As a survivor of childhood abuse, I can absolutely tell when an author is talking nonsense out their ass about the topic. And I would be particularly miffed if I wrote a memoir about my experiences and found it hard to be published while some pretty young white lady wrote a fictionalized version of my story, got paid shit-tons with just pure fantasy in it and was being herald as the next generation of writers.
And for the record: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is the one of best fictionalized book I have ever read that I felt truly captured the anguish of childhood sexual trauma. Its one of the only books I have read that I understood the need for trigger warnings. I do not believe Hanya Yanagihara was a victim of childhood abuse, she has said she was not...but she nailed in a way that left me crying. And she was her main character was a gay man.
Books truly are a way for us to allow our imaginations to run wild. I love reading and I don’t believe in censorship. However I do feel an obligation to make sure that I read authentic books. That I read authors that have roots in the source. That I make sure I’m allowing experts to inform my opinions on topics. Fiction or non fiction, it does us no good to read books sanitized from reality. And it is a larger conversation about who publishers give a microphone to and why.