A Chill in Publishingland
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/27/opinion/publishing-literary-antisemitism.html
As Published in the NewYork Times, May 27, 2024
A Chill Has Fallen Over Jews in Publishing
James Kirchick is right. Publishing finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Publishing books hasn’t been a place led by the same old, same old, fat white men for a long time. The most powerful people in publishing are editorial assistants. They decide which books they want to work with. They do the heavy lifting. You will never hear their names. Nuance is not what they do. They are horrified. By everything. At one point recently, they made a collective statement that they would no longer publish Jewish writers.
They would not champion those books. Oh, really.
This was seen as a power grab by publishing insiders who were imagining a misalignment they did not create. Or did they. These will be the new editors. They will be publishing books just like the old editors. Publishing is not a landscape of either change or hope. Publishing is the elite terrain of power. The editorial assistants of today, will do what they are told to do. It’s not a time or a place where any one group can say: We are not going to publish you because you are on the blacklist. The blacklist is still there, and unknowingly, this group has just built another gatekeeping brick wall that is, quite frankly, more trouble that any of it is worth.
Publishing is about who you know. It has always been about who you know. None of that will change. Publishing has never been about what you write. It’s about alliances. Even the New York Times has a blacklist. I’m on it. The challenge is to rid ourselves of the blacklist. It cannot be done. Publishing is just another failed institution. What is amazing is to see the new group of potential editors embrace censorship and blacklists. The new publishing is the old publishing. One major publisher I just talked to informs me that back in the day, publishing was managed by gentlemen.
And I am Marie of Romania.
Tim Barrus
Blue Ridge Mountains