I was called aggressive for criticising passages in Kate Clanchy’s memoir. But the real problem lies deep in the overwhelmingly white world of publishingIt started with a tweet. Kate Clanchy, author of Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me posted on her Twitter account that a reviewer on Goodreads had “made up a racist quote and said it was in my book”. She urged her almost 40,000 followers to flag the review that claimed she had bigoted views on race, class and body image, and had used terms such as “chocolate-coloured skin” and “Jewish noses”. Prominent authors and columnists swooped in to offer support, decrying how Clanchy could possibly be subjected to such inhumane treatment – including the current president of the Society of Authors, Philip Pullman, who declared: “But of all the people and of all the books to have had this happen … It’s hard to stay optimistic about the human race sometimes.”However, it soon emerged that those terms were, in fact, in the book. Incredulous that antisemitic and anti-Black tropes could have made it into a book published as recently as 2019, I downloaded and read it. I recoiled as a Somali boy is described as having a “narrow skull”, while one Muslim girl is “very butch-looking … with a distinct moustache”, and another “looked brilliant because she has such a strong skull shape”, which sounds more like something a eugenicist might observe than a trusted teacher. There is a troubling exchange where Clanchy is baffled by a boy who,... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-13 13:51:20 UTC ]
Good news for fans of layered, literary, female-led dramedies: SMILF creator Frankie Shaw is set to direct a feature film adaptation of T Kira Madden’s acclaimed 2019 memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. “T Kira’s story is a lesson in radical self-acceptance, an open-hearted love... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-23 14:43:01 UTC ]
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For all those Concerned Citizens who have been up at night worrying about The Censorship of Woody Allen—yes folks, they’re out there, I get emails—take heart: Allen’s memoir, dropped earlier this month by Grand Central after employees walked out en masse in protest because of the credible sexual... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-23 14:22:36 UTC ]
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The director and accused child sexual abuser's memoir had been dropped by its previous publisher after widespread backlash. Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2020-03-23 14:17:52 UTC ]
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Woody Allen's memoir has been released by US indie Skyhorse Publishing after the title was dropped by Hachette Book Group. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-23 13:49:11 UTC ]
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The value of “writing a life” that Wallis Wilde-Menozzi undertook a quarter century ago is now the model to express our times. Continue reading at The Paris Review
[ The Paris Review | 2020-03-20 16:10:53 UTC ]
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The eight shortlists for the British Book Awards have been revealed with heavyweights Margaret Atwood, Bernardine Evaristo, Philip Pullman and David Walliams all in the running for the Book of the Year accolades. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-20 00:59:33 UTC ]
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A MAJOR FEATURE of the African-American writer James McBride’s books — beginning with the memoir The Color of Water (1995), a tribute to his white mother — is the large dose of humor injected into subjects that are, on the face of things, deadly serious if not sacred. Here in The Color of Water... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-03-18 19:00:39 UTC ]
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Hodder has acquired a celebrity memoir, Eat, Gay, Love, by the YouTube star and radio presenter Calum McSwiggan. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-17 11:41:15 UTC ]
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“Nobody Will Tell You This but Me,” a memoir by Bess Kalb, traces her family history from the Russian pogroms to the American dream. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-17 09:00:08 UTC ]
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“Our House Is on Fire” shares a very personal story of the suffering that preceded Thunberg’s activism on climate change. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-03-16 16:00:00 UTC ]
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Little, Brown has acquired a new memoir by award-winning actor Rupert Everett, Tainted Glory, to be published on 8th October. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-15 15:05:18 UTC ]
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Paul Lisicky, author of “Later: My Life at the Edge of the World,” talks about Provincetown, the challenges of memoir and learning not to suppress anger. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-15 09:00:05 UTC ]
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Leslie Gray Streeter's memoir about grief is funny, sad and real. When a critic said it wasn’t “top shelf,” she said, "I was like, 'I’m the mid-price vodka of memoirs.'" Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2020-03-14 10:00:03 UTC ]
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Among the big books that sold this week are the three new titles My Lovely Wife author Samantha Downing will pen for seven figures; Alexandra Andrews’s hotly contested debut, Who Is Maud Dixon?; and a new memoir from Michael J. Fox. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In this episode, writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit reflects on her new memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence. Solnit talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the deep impact of gendered violence on daily life and what it means to... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-12 08:49:53 UTC ]
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Headline is publishing the first memoir by ex-Liverpool and England player Jamie Redknapp. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-11 22:25:10 UTC ]
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“Young Heroes of the Soviet Union,” by Alex Halberstadt, is a moving and often funny memoir about the author’s family and their history. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-11 16:29:22 UTC ]
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Katy Waldman reviews the writer Rebecca Solnit’s new book, “Recollections of My Nonexistence,” which is Solnit’s first to be billed as a memoir. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-03-11 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Sphere has done a string of "major" international rights deals for a memoir by human rights lawer Benjamin Ferencz, Parting Words, including a pre-empt in Germany. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-10 23:17:05 UTC ]
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HarperNonFiction has bought a “unique and poignant” memoir by Holocaust survivor Thomas Geve, told through the drawings of concentration camps he did as a boy. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-10 19:10:45 UTC ]
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