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Editing Authors Amid Banned Books

SHE LIT: Editing Authors Amid Banned Books 📖

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#currentlyreading Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell

Why authors of color tend to lean into indie publishers to get their work distributed


Maggie Tokuda-Hall went viral this week for claiming she declined a book deal with Scholastic over an edit to remove any references to the word “racism” in her children’s book. Her actions show the reason why many authors of color prefer to have their books published through indie publishers and self-publishing companies: To be able to tell the stories they envisioned with their authentic lived experiences.


The author from Oakland, California, wrote Love in the Library, a children’s book centered on a love story set in a World War II incarceration camp for Japanese Americans. The story is inspired by her grandparents who fell in love at one of these camps. She writes about the inspiration in an author’s note. But Scholastic allegedly wanted to tweak the contents of that note to make the book more consumable for classrooms, as many are dealing with banned books.


In the author’s note, Maggie writes her grandparents’ “improbable joy does not excuse virulent racism, nor does it minimize the pain, the trauma, and the deaths that resulted from it. But it is to situate it into the deeply American tradition of racism.”


Scholastic wanted to remove the word “racism” and the words around it, according to the author and the letter she posted on her website discussing that edit.


“I wrote this author’s note for a lot of reasons,” she wrote in a letter to Scholastic. “Philosophically, because I genuinely believe children deserve the truth, and the truth includes racism. Ethically, because I believe talking about my grandparents in isolation would be misleading, dishonest and wrong — when we do not call what happened to them racism, when we do not connect them to others experiencing racism, we only allow it to happen again.”


In her blog post, Maggie expresses gratitude to the original publisher, Candlewick Press, and her publicist and editor there. What Maggie shared seems to be common for authors of color who may feel like they have to strip down their work for a chance to be published because they mention racial elements in their storylines, or in this case before the storyline starts.


After Maggie went public with her story, Scholastic said it had apologized to her for its editing approach.


“This approach was wrong and not in keeping with Scholastic’s values,” the company’s CEO Peter Warwick wrote in a statement. “We don’t want to diminish or in any way minimize the racism that tragically persists against Asian-Americans.”


Scholastic said it wants to rekindle the conversation about including Love in the Library in its Rising Voices collection featuring works by authors and educators from Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.


This case is a bit different because the main edits seemed to be in an author’s note, rather than the story. It was the author’s choice to fight for her note to describe her reasoning for bringing the story into fruition. Some may argue the edits were minor, or the note was not needed. It all comes down to an author’s decision on whether they sign with a publisher to ensure the book they truly want on bookshelves.

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What we’re highlighting


Libraries make memes over losing blue checks on Twitter

The D.C. Public Library and Los Angeles Public Library are a few of the libraries that had fun with making memes Thursday letting the public know they are still verified spaces even without their Twitter blue checks. Twitter began removing legacy blue checks for individuals and entities that had the famous checks to verify to the public they were real.


Actress refuses to sign book as TV adaptation rumors swirl

Jessica Chastain was shown in a video saying no to a fan who wanted her signature in a copy of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Fans have casted Jessica in the role of Celia St. James, a starlet close to the titular character Evelyn Hugo. So far, no official casting news has been announced. Read the book review here.


Netflix drops details on ‘Perfect Find’ book-to-TV film

The streaming giant shared photos this week revealing stars Gabrielle Union and Keith Powers playing the unlikely couple featured in the romantic comedy film based on Tia Williams’ 2016 novel The Perfect Find. The film will start streaming on June 23 and also stars Gina Torres.


Also what’s lit…

Candice Carty-Williams posted an image of the scripts from her new series based on her best-selling debut Queenie. Read the book review here.


Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai’s next memoir will focus on her coming-of-age journey in the public spotlight and have a young reader’s adaptation.


Maaza Mengiste’s forthcoming novel A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths, which focuses on a Black German woman trying to survive Hitler’s reign, has been bought at auction by HarperCollins’ UK imprint 4th Estate Books with Doubleday Publishing already securing North American rights for a 2025 release.

What we’re reviewing

‘Shakti Girls’ Author Shetal Shah Uses Poetry to Tell the Stories of Indian Innovators


A former teacher who taught at all-girls schools, Shetal Shah said she noticed how girls’ self-esteems soared when they were learning about women of various diverse backgrounds. This has led to Shakti Girls, her debut children’s picture book featuring poetic biographies about trailblazing women across the Indian diaspora.


“Shakti” refers to an individual’s divine power and energy in traditional Hinduism. This energy is considered female because mothers have the power to birth new life, according to the first page of the book. Throughout the book, the poems highlight the accomplishments of newsmakers such as Vice President Kamala Harris to actress-producer Mindy Kaling, but we also learn about former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj, and astronaut Kalpana Chawla.


Empowering Hindi words and motivating messages are woven into the verses to affirm each young reader’s identity and self-esteem. A short glossary of English and Hindi words is provided on each page to enhance the experience, as well as activities to empower one’s inner shakti.


The inspiration to tell these stories are not only from Shetal’s education background, but it also pairs with her upbringing in New York City as a second-generation Indian American. She talks to she lit about telling these women’s stories in rhythm and seeing her children’s reactions to the finished product.

Check out the conversation here

What we’re watching

Saint X on Hulu premiers on April 26 bringing Alexis Schaitkin’s critically acclaimed novel to life about a young woman still coming to terms with her sister’s mysterious death years earlier on a family island vacation. Read the book review here.

What the plans are


The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the nation’s largest literary event, will have over 500 authors, poets, artists, celebrities, and musicians make an appearance on April 22-23 in-person on the campus of the University of Southern California.


The Newburyport Literary Festival will be held April 28-30 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and feature authors like Rebecca Makkai, Kamila Shamsie, and Allegra Goodman.


The Ohioana Library Association’s annual Ohioana Book Festival will take place on April 22, at Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Main Library in Columbus, Ohio.

Where the opportunities are


The Prince George’s County Memorial Library System in Maryland is accepting applications until May 7 for its free Social Justice Camp, a weeklong day camp teaching rising high schoolers how to engage their activism.


Scholastic Kids Press are accepting Kid Reporter applications until June 1 for the 2023–2024 program for students between the ages of 10–14 who will have to write a news story, two story ideas, and a personal essay.

“They want to sell our suffering, smoothed down and made palatable to the white readers they prioritize. To assuage white guilt with stories that promise to make them better people, while never threatening them, not even with discomfort. They have no investment in our voices. Always, our voices are the first sacrifice at the altar of marketability.” – Maggie Tokuda-Hall on responding to Scholastic’s edits to her author’s note

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‘Carrie Soto Is Back’ and the Problem of White Authors Creating Main Characters of Color

Coming off the heels of the historic US Open where we saw tennis legend Serena Williams bid goodbye to the sport, Penguin Random House and its Ballantine Books imprint was in the throes of promoting Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new novel, Carrie Soto Is Back. The publisher even had a pop-up at Wimbledon over the summer.

The novel focuses on a retired tennis champion who sees her record about to be broken by a younger player, so she feels she must come back to defend her record. Book influencers expressed concern about these characters being women of color trying to defeat each other. Many of these influencers say it’s problematic that a White author pit a Latina title character against an Asian character.

“Carrie Soto Is Back is a story of a Latina tennis player written by a White woman, which we’ve been here before many times,” Tomes and Textiles book influencer Carmen Alvarez said in a reel published on Instagram and TikTok to her combined nearly 60,000 followers. “You’d be surprised to find out that Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Carrie Soto Is Back has more untranslated Spanish than any book I ever read, even by Latinx authors.”

White authors who center stories around Hispanic and Latine characters tend to get higher paychecks and more marketing dollars compared to Hispanic and Latine authors who write authentic stories about their communities and cultures, she adds. She likens the tennis novel to the American Dirt controversy in 2020 where Jeanine Cummins, who later identified as White Latina, wrote a immigration novel that performed well in sales despite the lack of immigration stories by Hispanic and Latine authors getting the same publishing attention.

Book influencers brought up the issue of Taylor giving voice to another Latina main character in her popular 2017 novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This half-historical fiction novel follows a Latina actress, who passes as White by dying her hair blonde, as she becomes a Hollywood legend. At the end of her life, she plucks a biracial journalist, who is half-Black and half-White, to write her tell-all. It turns out Evelyn and her husband each carried their own queer love affairs in an agreement to not reveal their sexual orientation.

Though the well-paced book gained prominence and favorable reviews, the criticism started to surface since the author, who is White, created a secretly queer Latina main character, a biracial character, and other characters who are queer and non-White. Those allegations are resurfacing with the recent release of Carrie Soto Is Back, featuring another Latina main character.

BookTuber Jesse Morales-Small is the voice behind Bowties and Books and identifies as an “Afro-Chicano book nerd.” They created a video about not being excited about this book despite the major marketing push and voiced concerns about the racial dynamics in the novel.

“You came out of retirement because an Asian woman broke your record. You’re like, ‘I must come out and uproot my life.’ Bitch, just sit down and relax,” they said in a video from March.

“I’m worried about how the story might go,” they continue. “This narrative of this White woman coming out of retirement, so that she can reassert her record over an Asian woman, I don’t know…It’s just with the story being written by a White woman, it makes me feel weird.”

This is before readers realized Carolina “Carrie” Soto is Argentinian American and the opponent threatening her record is Nicki Chan, who is British Chinese. Carrie’s manager during the comeback is Gwen Davis, a Los Angeles-bred Black woman.

Another problem associated with mentioning women of color is White female authors tend to emphasize these characters’ beauty, which they do not do with their White female characters. Because White women are considered the standard gold of beauty and attraction, it becomes a problem when the author brings up the issue when describing a character of color.

Here’s an example of when we’re introduced to Gwen, again a Black woman who is living in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots/Uprising and currently dealing with the racially tense O.J. Simpson murder trial as the city is reeling from the January 1994 Northridge earthquake. These impactful events are not referenced except a small O.J. trial mention in a fake media report, which is a huge oversight in relation to the characters with LA roots. Carrie’s comeback and perception of women are all that matters:

“I turn toward Gwen as she sits down on the sofa next to me. She’s in her late fifties, dressed in a red pantsuit and mules. Sometimes I wonder if she’s in the wrong field; she’s too striking, too glamorous to be the one behind the scenes… Something about that Gwen doesn’t care what her assistant wears in the office while she, herself, looks like a runway model makes me like them both even more.”

So, Gwen is a Naomi Campbell-type because any other Black woman wouldn’t fit the narrative of a tough manager. At this racially turbulent time in Los Angeles, a native-born Black woman would have been impacted by these events to some degree, as well as a Latina like Carrie. They wouldn’t be so worried about their looks unless those looks were under a criminal attack.

Nicki, Carrie’s sworn enemy, is also said to be beautiful on more than one occasion. Here’s a scenario where Carrie meets Nicki’s eyes as they sit in the audience of a match before they spar in the French Open. All Carrie can think about is how Nicki looks:

“Her long, broad body is unmistakable. Her strong, muscular arms. Her wide shoulders. Her long black hair. Nobody ever talks about it much—which is telling—but Nicki Chan is gorgeous. Showstoppingly gorgeous. A round face with high cheekbones, full lips.

“Other women in tennis—blond women with big boobs and long legs—often get modeling contracts at age seventeen. They show up on the cover of men’s magazines within a year or so of hitting the court for the first time.

“But not thicker women, like me. Or dark-skinned women like Carla Perez or Suze Carter. Not women who are British Chinese, like Nicki, or downright scary in their intensity like her either. Not the women who aren’t skinny and white and smiling.”

When characters of color are central to a book, some type of struggle tied to racial and cultural identity has to come up because for people of color that’s everyday real life. So, not receiving an adequate background on Carrie Soto only that her father came from Argentina for tennis opportunities and her mother died young shows the lack of deeper understanding of representing an Argentinian American woman who becomes one of the top athletes in the world in the 1980s.

To Tomes and Textiles’ Carmen’s point, there is a lot of untranslated Spanish interweaved with English. This is to make sure the reader gets what’s going on without translating the Spanish. If you’re around enough nonnative English speakers like myself, they usually do not weave English with their native language so often, especially when talking to a family member, because that’s not natural. English will come up for words that are only in English, such as a brand name like Kleenex or Starbucks. So, the use of Spanish looks gimmicky.

Overall, the book is unfortunately a snooze. Authors put themselves in their characters’ shoes by doing extensive research, but in this case Carrie’s story is not entertaining enough. It takes place on another timeline, but tennis stars Gabriela Sabatini, who is Argentinian, and Mary Joe Fernández, who is Dominican, would be able to tell us eye-opening stories about competing in professional tennis as Hispanic and Latine women in the 1980s and 1990s.

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Authors Argue B&N’s Stocking Policy Hurts Sales

SHE LIT: Authors Argue B&N’s Stocking Policy Hurts Sales 💸

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Bulk of middle grade, YA fiction must prove profitability for placement at bookstores

Authors are fighting back against a Barnes & Noble stocking policy that they say hurts the sales of debut novels by people of color.

Middle grade author Kelly Yang shared a viral video of her daughter in a Barnes & Noble bookstore reacting to how her new novel Key Player in her Front Desk series was not going to be stocked at stores with other books in the same genre.

The rest of the video shows Kelly tearfully explaining that Barnes & Noble plans to stock only the top two books per publisher per season. She said her publisher told her that Barnes & Noble had decided to not stock the fourth book in her series, and many others in the middle grade and young adult genres, until the first editions sell successfully elsewhere.

Other authors and supporters replied to Kelly’s video to share their concern over the stocking policy they perceive as discriminatory.

The middle grade and YA genres are getting flooded with books by marginalized authors representing groups that have been grossly underrepresented in the literary industry.

In many cases, these authors, like Kelly Yang, have a large social media following that includes other similarly situated authors. So word spreads. If readers are not able to access these authors’ books from a highly visible chain bookstore, then that can spell trouble for overall sales.

Barnes & Noble boasts itself as the No. 1 book retailer in the U.S. and as the “internet’s largest bookstore” on its website.

CEO James Daunt views Barnes & Noble’s three-year-old stocking policy in a different light. “By allowing proper bookselling to take place at the store level, good books will have more space and better presentation, as well as genuine support from the booksellers of each store,” Daunt told NBC News.

“When we just took what was imposed by publishers, approximately 80% of the books were ultimately returned unsold. In effect, the bookstores were filled with books customers had no interest in reading. Now we sell most of what we buy,” he added.

In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Daunt said, “What we are doing—with middle grade and adult, fiction, and nonfiction, alike—is to exercise taste and judgment. This is to buy less but, if it is done with skill, it is to sell more.”

Authors took issue with the CEO’s words with phrases such as “good books will have more space and better presentation,” “books customers had no interest in reading,” and “to exercise taste and judgment” when referencing the wide variety of kids’ books.

Those already operating on smaller marketing budgets will have to prove their books are saleable in order to attain the coveted spot on a Barnes & Noble bookshelf. As for those unsaleable books, I wrote a blog post recently about how these books circulate to dollar stores and contribute to literacy access for consumers who cannot afford new books from Barnes & Noble.

Access is key here. Many consumers don’t think twice about buying a book from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com because these marketplaces are in their neighborhoods or online. Mindful book buyers have to go out of their way to seek books from an indie bookstore, so if these titles by authors of color solely depend on the indie bookstore market, then their sales are sure to plummet, unfortunately.

Even getting on best-sellers lists is at risk, but more importantly, potential readers—we’re talking kids here—don’t have their eyes on these books. That could be the greatest travesty of all for these authors who feel the Barnes & Noble stocking policy punches them in the gut. It’s not all about the money for these authors while Barnes & Noble, one of the only bookstore chains left, is about the money.

she lit editor + chief content creator

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What we’re highlighting

Penguin Random House trial comes to a questioning end

Oral arguments ended this week in the antitrust trial of the moment between the Department of Justice and Penguin Random House in its bid to buy rival Simon & Schuster.

The federal government wants to prevent the potential Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster behemoth from dominating the book industry and putting authors at financial risk. The two publishers and Simon & Schuster’s parent company ViacomCBS, which put the Big Five publisher up for sale in 2020, vowed they would put authors first, but when it comes to book sales, that all depends on consumers (and bookstores).

The trial seemed to focus on authors who made six-figure advances and higher, according to media reports, such as Stephen King. As we wait for the verdict this fall, whatever the outcome, it will shake the industry to its core.

If Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster are allowed to go ahead with their merger, the Big Five of the top five publishers, which also include Macmillan, Hachette, and HarperCollins, may go down to the Big Four. The impact on employees, authors, and literary agents will remain to be seen if the merger goes through.

Taylor Jenkins Reid accused of racial insensitivity with new book

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo novelist Taylor Jenkins Reid is getting criticism for being a White author and featuring yet another Latina main character in her new novel. In Carrie Soto Is Back, the title character is Latina and looking for a comeback in professional tennis, which means competing against an Asian player who is experiencing racism.

Fellow book blogs like Bowties and Books and Tomes & Textiles, which are headed by bloggers who identify as Latine, say this is the second indiscretion from the author. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo also had its title character identify as Latina, though she was passing for White and straight for Hollywood success.

As we enter US Open season with all eyes on Serena Williams, Carrie Soto Is Back has conveniently received marketing dollars with pop-ups that started at Wimbledon in July. The bloggers argue this is an example of letting a White author tell stories about characters of color without investing in authors of color at the same level.

Brit Bennett manifests American Girl book deal

The best-selling author of The Vanishing Half shared a tweet from 2016 saying she wished she could strike a deal with American Girl. That dream now came true as Brit Bennett’s book Meet Claudie: An American Girl is a reality via an audiobook out this week.

A new American Girl character, Claudie is a Black girl living among creatives in 1920s Harlem. When her family gets an eviction notice for their boardinghouse, Claudie hatches a plan to save the day that incorporates her own creativity.

Robinne Lee’s ‘Idea of You’ book-to-film casts leading role

Anne Hathaway will star in the Amazon Prime Video film adaptation of actress Robinne Lee’s romance novel The Idea of You. Centered on a 40-something French American divorcée who falls in love with her daughter’s favorite boy bander, the 2017 novel will also be produced by Robinne, Anne, and Gabrielle Union, known for her book-to-screen works as well as her best-selling essay collections.

What we’re reviewing

"I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy

Book Review: Acne by Laura Chinn

What we’re reading

💞August is National Romance Awareness Month. Here’s some novels to curl up with💞

What we’re watching

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Will Great Reflection Usher More People Into The Book Industry?

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June is Pride Month! Join the #shelitbookclub this Sunday at 11 a.m. as we discuss the recently banned young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. More info on joining the conversation can be found here 🏳️‍

Set to a recycled hypnotic beat, Beyoncé’s new single ignites dream job conversation

In a week where rapper Drake dropped a whole album, pop queen Beyoncé made a splash Monday with a single from her upcoming album that is allegedly having people quit their jobs. But “Break My Soul” is emphasizing the path to self-expression, which speaks volumes in a creative field like book publishing.

Only 7% of Americans surveyed were working their dream jobs, according to a report from MoneyPenny that came out last August. The survey also emphasized how that also meant a whopping 93% of employees were not working in their dream jobs.

Last year’s Great Resignation, also being dubbed the Great Reflection, inspired 47 million people to quit their jobs as the demand for better treatment in the workplace became a rallying cry during the Covid-19 pandemic. One in five of those people who resigned say they regretted it, according to a Harris Poll survey for USA Today.

But those unhappy with the transition may have moved too fast, said LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher on CBS Mornings in April.

Beyoncé’s newest single, which looks like it will be the sixth track on the Renaissance album out in July, uses voice samples from Big Freedia’s “Explode” and beats from Robin S.’s 1993 hit “Show Me Love.” In “Explode” and in the background of “Break My Soul,” Big Freedia sings, “Release your anger, release your mind / Release your job, release the time / Release your trade, release the stress / Release the love, forget the rest.”

Release your job? Release your trade? Release your stress? Social media lit up with the interpretations that Beyoncé was telling people to quit their jobs. And BuzzFeed News reports that in fact some people went ahead and quit their jobs in part to Beyoncé’s song but mostly due to their longing to release the job, the trade, and the stress.

The average business in the book publishing industry employs more workers than it did five years ago, according to the IBISWorld, though employment growth in the industry is expected to be 0.1% this year.

Employment of writers and authors is projected to grow 9% between 2020 and 2030, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found. There are usually over 15,000 job openings each year, mostly due to people leaving the workforce by choice or by retirement.

With all this data, it may be safe to say we’ll see more book lovers working in publishing houses, literary agencies, and bookstores while many could be rethinking their author and book influencer dreams.

she lit editor + chief content creator

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What we’re highlighting

ACLU files motion to dismiss obscenity claims against books

The American Civil Liberties Union says it filed motions seeking to dismiss obscenity proceedings in Virginia this week against two books on the behalf of local bookstores.

A state law, which the ACLU says hasn’t been used “in decades,” was used by a Virginia resident to claim Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas are obscene and shouldn’t be made available to young readers through Virginia Beach public schools and Barnes & Noble bookstores.

In May, the Virginia Beach Circuit Court ordered the books’ authors and publishers to show cause why their books should not be considered obscene.

OverDrive to aid libraries in providing ‘access for all’

Digital library catalog app OverDrive announced it will unveil tools at the American Library Association Annual Conference & Exhibition to bring instant access to curated collections of e-books, audiobooks, and magazines to readers who are unable to install the app.

The main tool, Public Access Connect, will reach readers at their locations by using open Wi-Fi and QR codes. These efforts aim to especially help readers in areas with low internet access, seniors, children, and incarcerated individuals.

What we’re reviewing

Still looking for books by LGBTQIA+ authors and/or featuring LGBTQIA+ characters? Here are some reviews of books you may have missed.

What we’re reading

What we’re watching

What’s lit around the web

Inside the Push to Diversify the Book Business

Publishers Discriminate Against Women and Black Authors—But Readers Don’t

If They Want to Be Published, Literary Writers Can’t Be Honest About Money

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