The author of a debut novel about diversity in the workplace on how black people act around white people, embracing her hair, and what’s changed a year after George Floyd’s murderZakiya Dalila Harris was born and raised in Connecticut and is currently based in Brooklyn. Now a full-time writer, she previously worked in book publishing, an experience she draws on in her highly anticipated debut novel, The Other Black Girl, which combines thriller with social satire to tell the story of Nella, the only black employee at a fictional publishing house, until Hazel joins the company. The book charts how the two become frenemies, explores the challenges of surviving in a systemically racist workplace, and was the subject of a 15-way auction prior to publication in the US.What were your own experiences in publishing and how have they played into the book?I worked in publishing for two and a half years. I was an editorial assistant then promoted to assistant editor. I felt fortunate, as a part of me enjoyed editing and I felt I was good at it, but it’s also an exhausting job for an entry-level person in terms of the pay. I was also one of the very few black people in the company – it wasn’t as bad as Nella in the book, but I was the only black woman in editorial in a full-time position for a while. I thought: why does it feel like we’re living in 1955 still, in terms of what we value? Publishing is such a rich, easily spoofable world.Code-switching is the act of switching up how... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-06-05 17:00:15 UTC ]
Jennifer Hofmann’s debut novel follows a Stasi agent trying to make sense of his past. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-04 12:00:00 UTC ]
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For 18 seasons, he served as creative director and producer of the global phenomenon ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ But his debut novel isn’t the juicy tell-all you might’ve expected. Makeup artist and stylist Jay Manuel has spent more than 20 years in the fashion industry, most famously serving as... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2020-08-03 12:15:52 UTC ]
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Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Abir Mukherjee, Courttia Newland, Guy Gunaratne, Paul Mendez and Okechukwu Nzelu on why British writers of colour are left out of the conversationAfter this week’s Booker prize longlist was announced, the Times asked “Where are the new male hotshot novelists?” I was... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-31 14:10:18 UTC ]
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Renard Press has made its first acquisition, landing Iain Hood's debut novel This Good Book. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-28 22:40:39 UTC ]
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Mieko Kawakami, whose poignant and pointed debut novel Breasts and Eggs is this season’s LARB’s Book Club selection, joins Medaya Ocher and Boris Dralyuk to discuss her career as a musician, poet, blogger, and author, the challenges facing women around the world, the state of Japanese... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-07-24 17:23:00 UTC ]
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Emma Gannon is releasing a four-part series of podcasts to mark the publication of her debut novel Olive (HarperCollins). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-23 16:12:33 UTC ]
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Today, Simon and Schuster announced that their imprint Scribner will be publishing the debut novel for adults from #1 New York Times bestselling children’s book author Jason Reynolds, whose books include Look Both Ways and Ghost, both finalists for the National Book Award for Young People’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-22 16:30:17 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has scooped an “exceptional” debut novel from journalist and former Waterstones bookseller Jo Hamya. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-21 17:27:41 UTC ]
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Rachel Neely, commissioning editor at Trapeze, has made her first acquisition for the company with debut novel Wet Paint by Chloë Ashby. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-21 15:42:11 UTC ]
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The editor-in-chief of Lifehacker and a union representing staffers at the site each blasted parent company G/O Media on Friday over the abrupt firing of the site's travel writer—the latest in a long string of public disputes between management and staff at the one-year-old digital media... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2020-07-20 16:06:59 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton has pre-empted a debut novel from Gleam Titles agent Abigail Bergstrom, an upmarket commercial fiction book she originally submitted under a pseudonym. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-14 21:54:03 UTC ]
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And Other Stories is set to publish the debut novel of British poet and former human rights lawyer Mona Arshi. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-13 11:07:20 UTC ]
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Set in Atlantic City in the 1930s, Rachel Beanland’s debut novel wades through heartbreak. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-07-07 09:00:11 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury editor-in-chief Paul Baggaley has acquired an "extraordinarily prescient" debut novel by Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-06 10:17:28 UTC ]
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The author’s debut novel presciently captures the girlboss era right as it seems to be coming to an end. Whether you loved them or hated them, few entrepreneurs generated more buzz in the 2010s than so-called “girlbosses”—young, mostly white, female founders who disrupted industries including... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2020-06-30 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Candice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo take book of the year and author of the year categories, as publishers face criticism for treatment of black authorsCandice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo have become the first black authors to win the top prizes at the British Book awards,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-29 17:45:42 UTC ]
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“Fleabag” star Sian Clifford is narrating the audiobook of Olive, the debut novel by author and broadcaster Emma Gannon. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-29 08:42:04 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has triumphed in a heated six-publisher auction for the debut novel by Nita Prose, the pen name for vice president and editorial director at Simon & Schuster in Canada, Nita Pronovost. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-25 11:27:10 UTC ]
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In the wake of nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice, marketers and agencies that work with Vice Media have added terms like "Black Lives Matter," "protest," "Minneapolis" and even "Black people" to blocklists. As a result, the publisher's news coverage related to... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2020-06-24 17:00:52 UTC ]
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Emily Temple's "The Lightness," about a seeker who loses more than she finds, is a beguiling novel after Donna Tartt's heart, if not her plotting. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-06-24 13:45:57 UTC ]
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