A magazine for teen girls mistakenly confused two Black young adult authors in a tweet that took six hours to come down.
Middle grade author Karen Strong chronicled the Twitter debacle on Sunday after noticing Girls’ Life Magazine had tweeted about a giveaway of the YA best-seller A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow. Except the social media team behind the magazine’s account tagged the author as Dhonielle Clayton, also a well-known YA author.
Dhonielle tweeted that she didn’t write the fantasy YA novel. Bethany quote-tweeted the tweet.
The magazine deleted the original tweet and soon put out a statement on the mishap.
Soon after the apology, the magazine posted a tweet similar to the original one with correcting the author’s name.
The mistake still resonated on book Twitter, especially among Black women writers, who said it’s another example of legitimate media outlets not tagging the correct Black person, in this case the author as Bethany C. Morrow whose name is on the cover.
