Why is publishing so white? North American and European publishing structures remain overwhelmingly and disproportionately white and are entirely anchored in a handful of corporate entities which get to decide whose stories proliferate in the world today. Color of Publishing is our three-part series focused on this crisis, and we have gathered perspectives from publishing professionals in the United States (Elizabeth Méndez Berry & Porsche Burke) and the United Kingdom (Margaret Busby & Ellah P. Wakatama).
In the first episode, Radical Books Collective co-founders, Bhakti Shringarpure and Suchitra Vijayan start with a debrief of the 2022 PEN America report on publishing titled “Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity and Book Publishing” which was created with the goal to expose and explore the fact that the publishing industry has “entered a moment of moral urgency about the persistent lack of racial and ethnic diversity among employees and authors.” The next two episodes dive into the heart of the problems as experts from the US and the UK engage in wide-ranging conversations about book acquisitions, editorial processes, taste and culture-making, equity, and structural racism as it impacts the publishing industry and the book market.