News & Notes – 2/01/2025

February 1, 2025 Lark_Bookwyrm News & Notes 0

News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff.

NOTE on paywalls: Publisher’s Weekly and The Guardian may require you to sign up for a free account in order to read their content.

Bookish News

Under the New Administration, DOE Says There Are No Book Bans In Schools (Publishers Lunch). Apropos of this, I highly recommend reading How To Critically Read a Press Release From The Federal Government: Book Censorship News, January 31, 2025 (Book Riot), which walks you through how to critically read government press releases under the current administration, using the DOE press release as an example. The Book Riot article also contains lots of links to recent news about censorship and book bans (which are, in fact, happening at a much higher rate than even 5 years ago.)
Berkley Publishing joins several other publishers, over 50 authors…and more than 15 romance bookstores to amplify a Valentine’s campaign to raise awareness and funds for VOW for Girls, a nonprofit organization working to end child marriage. This report comes from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, based on a press release sent to them directly. I have not been able to locate the original press release. The news comes about halfway down the linked article. You can find out more about the romance fiction campaign for Vow for Girls here.
Why Simon & Schuster’s Flagship Imprint Won’t Require Blurbs Anymore (Simon & Schuster publisher Sean Manning, in Publishers Weekly) TL:DR: It doesn’t mean they won’t use blurbs anymore if they are offered, just that S&S won’t be pressuring its authors to get other authors to blurb their work.
WH Smith sale could turn high street into ‘book desert’, authors say. The British retailer is in negotiations to sell its 500+ “high street” (main street) stores to “[focus] on its 1,300 branches at airports, hospitals and train stations.” (The Guardian)

Neil Gaiman scandal deepens

(CW/TW for SA and abuse) If you haven’t been following this story, it first broke last summer, when several women accused the popular fantasy author of sexual assault. Those allegations, made public in a Tortoise podcast called “Master” and in a Rolling Stone article, were not picked up by the mainstream press at the time. Nor did Gaiman address them publicly at that point; instead, he dropped out of sight.

A few weeks ago, Vulture published an article which made it clear the story is much worse than the initial allegations. The investigation behind this report seems solid, which is probably one reason it took so long for them to publish it. Vulture’s reporter got a majority of the eight women she interviewed to go on the record, and several have gone to the police at some point. (NOTE: The Vulture article is behind a paywall, and is deeply disturbing; CW/TW for SA, BDSM, manipulation and abuse. I have not read the full article due to the paywall, but have read several articles and lengthy posts about it.)

Several TV shows based on Gaiman’s work were paused last summer; now it appears publishers are growing uncomfortable with the allegations as well. (The Guardian)

Gaiman denies the allegations and claims the relationships were consensual (The Guardian), but what he does admit to (in a statement on his website) makes it clear that he does not view as “nonconsensual” the act of pressuring vulnerable young women into acts they would not and did not willingly choose to participate in. Even Gaiman’s denials make for very uneasy reading, especially coming from a man who has positioned himself as a feminist ally.

Worth Reading/Viewing

Diversity Syndrome: On Publishing’s Relentless Pigeonholing of Black Writers: Naomi Day Examines What It’s Like to Be a Black Writer of Speculative Fiction (Literary Hub
The Forgers Hall of Fame: A Brief History of Literary Fakes and Frauds (Bradford Morrow, Literary Hub)

Free Fiction Online

“Spinning Shadows” by Margaret Ronald (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) I really enjoyed this tale of a spinster (in both meanings of the term) and the Shadow Undying whose essence is trapped within her spindle whorl.

For Writers & Bloggers

Speculative fiction clichés and stereotypes (Sarah I. Jackson) What they are and why and how to be careful in your use of them (with lots of links to useful posts and articles.)