WOC PhD

Minor Update is in text in this color font.

This post is long as I try to document key issues and reiterate key points. Headings should help you navigate; of particular importance is the “marketing strategies” section which holds the bulk of my existing complaints and evidence from across the blogosphere.

Synopsis:

Until Seal Press makes the called for commitment to diversifying its marketing & publishing strategy, culturally competent editorial decisions and author cultivation, and diversity hiring when solvent, I cannot and do not support the purchase of their books for private or institutional use. However, I do believe Brooke’s presence on this blog, and the apology issued here, is an important first step toward getting it right.

Women’s Studies Programs/Departments that are being directly targeted by their upcoming Seal Studies series need to think long and hard about what message will be sent to students, who are clearly part of the blogging community and are therefore aware of the racial issues raised about SP and the Editorial team’s public comments/actions, when they do their book orders.

The Beginning

The Girlcott of Seal Press started because of fundamentally unequal practices with regards to the publishing of women; don’t let anyone fool you, this about women and it is about supporting their being published and actively marketed.

I asked myself a simple question: How can I continue to support a press that has said disparaging things about woc, has a consistent track record of late (see marketing strategies section & previous posts for documentation) that erases many of the existing Seal publications by woc writers and perpetuates erasures and stereotypes in the marketing of books aimed at a general audience, and looking at the online catalog alone publishes woc at a rate of 9 to 1. The answer was not, as some have implied, to go on a hunt for white feminists’ heads and bring their publishing dreams crashing down around them. Honestly, I have better things to do. Don’t you?

After elaborating on the actions of the Seal Press Editorial Team vis-à-vis women of color bloggers and authors, I outlined what I would need to see resolution and support the press again:

1. An apology that did not place “blame everywhere else from supervisors to ‘absentee’ woc writers to the blogosphere itself”
2. a public commitment to a “new diversity publishing plan”
3. an outline of the same so we could all keep track of progress or regress
4. when the press starts to regain its foothold not only will it already have this new diversity publishing plan up and running but that it will actually diversify its staff
5. I also questioned their marketing strategies as an example of the fundamental problem with how women’s books were being treated differently on the basis of identity

An Apology:

On April 21, 2008 at 4:53 pm Brooke Warner offered an apology on my blog that contained the following statements:
I do think Seal hasn’t published enough women of color. I openly admitted that we have not done a good enough job. I want to change that.

And later in the same post:

I realize that I have had blinders on, and I am really sorry about that.

These statements, coupled with her concluding commitment to do better, swayed me. They take responsibility and offer an apology. If this was all that she had said, I think she would have swayed many people and gone a serious part of the way in making amends for the comments that as she says herself cannot be taken back.

I have yet to confirm that the private apologies she spoke about were actually made. Making these apologies is another vital step in moving forward.

At the same time the insults were public and ultimately disparaged all of woc authors, so again a public apology was warranted. Many people have pointed to the apology they posted on their blog several weeks ago as a reason the girlcott was out of line. That apology contained the following statement:

I’m writing here today because I don’t want to be boycotted by people who took offense to my comments yesterday

Interestingly, many who have weighed in on the It’s a Jungle Out There controversy have been quick to point to the current Seal Press apology before critiquing them. Only a few have pointed out that the apology comes 9 months after Seal Press was first made aware of a problem with using colonial images and 1 month after the book’s release. An apology without change or substantive recognition that these actions are part of an inexcusable pattern hold little sway. (I discuss the history of book cover decisions in the marketing section of this post.)

The apology here, which was much more successful in providing “atonement,” was quickly drowned out by justifications, accusations, and more diffusion posted on another post on the blog so that readers not following the thread would only see the initial apology. Even when asked repeatedly to respect my space and the request I had made to process, Brooke continued to place her needs and her voice over mine. And as many comment makers noted privately and publicly, the exchange made them all the more committed to a girlcott. At some point in cross-cultural communication the privileged have to recognize that the conversation itself has to be equal for anything that results from it to be.

What Additional Comments Revealed

In those comments she made several points that also made me re-consider the efficacy of the apology in restoring trust:

• Seal Press is not a feminist press

These are her words taken from two subsequent comments made after I asked her to give me time to think about what she had said:

we do not define ourselves in our material or our mission as a feminist press. (Brooke Warner 04/21/08 7:43 pm)

there’s no arguing that some of our books aren’t feminist. (Brooke Warner 04/22/08 12:28 pm)

Despite these admissions, people continued to characterize the conflict as one between a feminist press (SP) and an out of line, or misguided, woman of color (me). The transgression being that I dared to question racially disparaging comments and disparate marketing strategies of a “feminist press” not that they had made disparaging comments and that nothing has been done about them. Even now people continue to argue that “real problems” are being ignored to “complain about racism” as if racism is not a real problem or that we cannot fight multiple oppressions at once. (Some of the people who were most vocal on these issues failed to mention they were published by SP; one of them intentionally linked solely to pro-Seal Press blogs that omitted much of the timeline and refused to approve comments that pointed to other parts of the story - regardless of how ambivalent their criticism).

And yet an equally vocal group has signed on to the girlcott here and elsewhere. Some are even printing up fliers for upcoming conferences because they feel so strongly about what is going on. Even those who are more cautious or ambivalent have begun to think about the complete picture and what must be different amongst all of us as feminists. Though for some this struggle has been filled with silences and mistakes, the conversation’s very existence proves we are in a process with the potential for real change together.

• When questioned about famous authors for a woc anthology she could only think of white women

I said that she needed more high-profile contributors, and she asked me, Like who? and I said, “Recognizable names.” And she asked me “who would be recognizable names to you?” and i listed women like Gloria and Katha and someone else—all white women. . . . because in that moment, in a 15-minute pitch session, that’s what came to mind. (Brooke Warner 04/21/08 7:43 pm)

The admission that women of color do not enter into the mind of one of 2 members of the Editorial team during pitch sessions gives a clear picture of the subconscious prioritization of the female authorial voice in the Editor’s mind. The comment is only made worse by the justification that follows it:

But not because women like bell hooks and Alice Walker and many many others aren’t equally or more amazing.

The women of color, and white women, I have been discussing these issues with have never asserted that woc authors are better than white ones and would not. More to the point, the justification speaks to the fact that Brooke knows her lapse is part of the problem despite claiming that it was not.

Either there is accountability for actions that diminish woc authors or there is not.

Perception of WoC’s Relationship to Publishing

Initially my concern was that Brooke’s comments implied that woc writers were few and far between and despite her best efforts she could not find any. I’ve already talked about why this diminishes the prolific and powerful voices of woc writers. In her apology Brooke claims she did not mean to erase woc; read her statements about woc writers, then read the comments of support, around the blogosphere and make up your own minds.

All though I agree with Brooke that many people involved in this discussion have less of an understanding about how publishing works, the consistent assumption that neither I nor ABW (who made a comment on the other post) understand publishing when we are both tenured faculty seems demeaning at best. Everyone knows you have to publish or perish in academe, so clearly we have published. The assumption that we are ignorant in these matters is another sign about the thinking upholding editorial decisions at Seal Press.

Many people have characterized this conflict as between white authors who work hard to become published and woc authors who want to have publishing deals handed to them. The assumption is that none of the woc have published despite the fact that many of us are in professions in which publishing is a requirement, including: writers, journalists, and professors. This information is available in the bio section of our blogs, yet again perception of the “shiftless negro” trumps the reality of the hard working poc intellectual. It also reaffirms white privilege by assuming that all of the white authors actively sought out publication deals, worked for them, and received them because of merit. All though I don’t doubt many of them did exactly that, some have said they were actively courted and some even failed to write or complete manuscripts. Thus the idea of all good and deserving white authors vs. all bad and undeserving woc authors is a false one predicated on racial thinking.

Many of us have been asked why we do not work to create publishing houses or promote woc authors placing the onus for correcting our oppression squarely on the oppressed. Again, the record shows that a majority of the people involved in this situation actively promote woc authors, along with white ones, regularly on their blogs. Worse, when it comes to the professors involved in this conversation, we not only promote them, we impact their sales, and teach their content, widening their reach exponentially. Obviously, the authors among us have been promoting their work and the work of their colleagues from an insider perspective that is often more illuminating than any other. Yet the perception remains that we do nothing but “bitch, moan, whine, and hate” if comment makers across the blogosphere are a representative sample. Some of the comments Brooke has made in the past helped support this perception though she has now apologized for them and that too is an important step.

Especially as the It’s a Jungle Out There critiques unfold the number of people vocally expressing their concern about how woc bloggers have been right about the disparity is increasing to a crescendo. The number of prominent feminist blogs weighing against the disparity is finally on the rise alongside the smaller blogs, many of whom have been supporting woc from the beginning. Time will likely be the only judge about whether feminists analyzing this controversy are able to harness the momentum of this discussion for repair and rebuild or let the opportunity slip away once again.

Seal Press Editors consistently claim the books SP published by woc as a counterpoint to their disparate publishing record. The books published are not in dispute. Brooke has admitted to not publishing woc in equal amounts. However, no one at Seal Press has addressed how their current marketing strategy erases woc from the catalog and the website.

(There is one exception to this, the Women’s Studies section of the website has the most diverse representation of their catalog of any of the pages. As a WS professor, I am glad to see that, especially in the context of not seeing it anywhere else on their site. It is unfortunate however that many of the woc texts that could have fit on these pages are still missing as are some of the multicultural anthologies these include: Colonize This! and Body Outlaws both books that are highly successful amongst readers new to feminism. Worse, while missing books offer academic and general interest content some of the books highlighted in this section of the site are strictly general audience pieces. I’m concerned that general audience texts by white authors are being advertised at a greater rate and to the academic world when multicultural textbooks by woc and white women are not.)

New Diversity Publishing Plan

I asked for a public outline of the plan and a way to publicly monitor progress. Brooke gave two responses that are critical to what the girlcott is about, ie a feminist publishing strategy that supports ALL women’s access to publishing and promotion.

Brooke makes a critical point about timeline. Many small presses commit to only publishing a set number of books per year. Brooke claims that contracts have been extended for both this and next year, tying up the resources of SP until 2010. With regards to numerical significance then, SP cannot be held responsible for failing to respond to calls for more equitable publishing numbers until then.

We can continue to criticize:

1. unequal marketing
2. offensive marketing - images, book covers, etc. (see marketing section in this post)
3. marketing strategies that lend to erasure - white women on the cover of general interest books, now women or ambiguous women on the cover of woc books, etc.
4. unequal publishing in the past
5. erasure in the online catalog
6. any practices that continue to discourage woc authors on the basis of woc “saleability” rather than content

Seal Press offered the following:

I am actively working to put out feelers and let people know that we want to diversify our program. (Brooke Warner 04/21/08 4:53pm)

This comment is simply a restatement of the initial comment on BA’s blog that “we want women of color” or on their own blog:

I’ve been going about looking for women to write books on queer feminism, women of color and feminism, feminism and religion, and on and on and on. All this for books that we think matter, but which probably won’t sell very many copies in the grand scope of things.

Thus, I find myself unclear as to how this statement translates to any additional thinking or commitment on the issue, accept that it is being offered without the “won’t sell” portion.

More helpful are the questions she poses later (in a comment made after I asked for space and once again soliciting woc to do the work for her, which the person she addresses ABW staunchly refused to do):

So the next step is what are the projects? what do the women want to write about? and do they want to write for Seal? (04/23/08 1:40pm)

These questions represent the smallest beginnings in developing a diversity publishing plan. Yet those steps are important to moving forward productively.

At the same time they still seem to position woc authors as other in the sense that our interests are some how less known or knowable to the Editors than white women. Again, this speaks to cultural competence as well as general competence since white bloggers have been recruited on the basis of their blogging and woc bloggers could be as well. With regards to project cultivation, obvious sources include:

• webpages
• youtube videos
• blogs
• the radical women of color blog ring (see the top of my side bar)
• resurrecting out of print woc - done by many feminist presses
• commissioning books for the Seal Studies series by woc academics

I agree with Brooke’s comments elsewhere in the blogosphere that recruitment is not traditionally the publisher’s job. The question is how will they change their image on the basis of previous publishing and the current conflict in order to appear attractive to woc authors. And how will they review and cultivate those authors when their submissions arrive.

A comprehensive diversity plan would talk about culturally competent:

• manuscript review
• author-publisher relationship cultivation
• marketing
• oversight strategies.

Though it is unreasonable to believe they could provide a comprehensive business plan here on my blog, they could have offered some concrete steps here followed by a more thorough plan on their website. This would not only have insured the transparency and public accountability. Many businesses do this, especially when their employees have cast the company in a negative light through their actions.

A comprehensive plan also guards against the “add women of color and stir” version of diversity which I fear is what awaits Seal Press in 2010 if they do not do their work now. Recruiting women of color for one to two years as representatives of their race or because of their race negating the idea of woc authors as thinkers and engagers on topics important to feminism, all women, or general interest readers. That negation is at the heart of the problem.

I have focused much more on gender diversity than racial diversity. (Brooke Warner 04/21/08 4:53pm)

When is gender diversity not part of racial diversity? When gender is conceived of as racially neutral, ie white. Thus when you talk about hipster sexuality, confronting sexism, queer identity, or transgender identity, travel, and/or activism, all subjects of recent books by Seal Press, and all subjects every woman experiences in one mode or another, none of the authors are women of color. This will not change if the solution is not culturally competent, publicly monitored, and enforced by accountability

Also, a quick review of Seal Press’ front page on the website shows no gender or racial diversity amongst the featured authors. Nor does a quick inventory of their recently published books show much diversity of thought or subject matter. Most of their texts remain largely about issues that are similar to the background of the two Editors begging the question as to why Seal Press or Perseus Group did not ensure more diversity on its editorial board. UPDATE: This was recently changed.  Several of the Trans texts that were published by Seal Press were not listed in their catalog until AFTER this post was read by someone at SP. The new catalog has expanded to include: Max (poc), Mattilde, Feinberg, and Boyd. No one alerted me to these changes despite repeated (silent) visits to the blog. And while I applaud the shift, I do find it suspect given the way it was done (ie without informing anyone) and in the context of being called out for claiming “gender diversity” was the focus of recent years as the excuse for not doing racially diversity when neither was initially highlighted on their site. Thinking that putting these books back in the online catalog helps their position only shows that the hierarchy of oppressions theory is entrenched at Seal Press.  They have argued elsewhere that they did not do a better job of publishing woc authors b/c they were “primarily a lesbian press” again erasing the lesbians of color and trying to pit the white queer community against the perceived woc straight one. I hope that prominent GLBTQ authors who have now been added back in consider the politics of why, or at least the perception of why, and stand with us for equity for everyone, including queers of color. Though I am glad to see that this post has gotten some of us back in the door, I will not play divide and conquer games nor do I think anyone else should support them either. Either Seal Press is committed to supporting ALL of its existing authors in print and in diversifying its upcoming publication deals or it is not.

Diversity Hiring

This portion of the apology is very important. I specifically asked that when Seal Press got back on its feet, that they hire with regards to diversity. Brooke responded by saying:

As to your note about diversifying our staff, I’m afraid that we can’t. I tried to make the point that Seal is barely hanging on . . . (04/21/08 4:53)

By erasing what I said about necessary solvency first, the comment effectively allows the Editorial team to remain racially homogeneous indefinitely. The saddest part about that is a commitment was easy to make given that there is no telling when/if billion dollar Perseus Group will provide funds for more hires or when Seal Press will make enough to do so on their own.

Marketing Strategies

Both of my original posts talked about disparate marketing strategies (and cited numbers), as of now no one has responded to these concrete concerns

marketing strategies :

1. a majority of the woc authors SP publishes were absent from both the website inventory and the search engine for their catalogue
2. cover art consistently positioned the white female figure as central and exclusive on the majority of featured texts including anthologies
3. of the handful of woc books featured on the website, only half had woc on the cover while the other half had racially ambiguous images or non-human images
4. Their main page has no books by women of color on it.
5. A quick review of their website also fails to produce any of the books by & about queer people of color that they publish.

Seal Press Editorial decisions have been at the center of multiple conflicts this past academic year, not just the current one. Thus they were behind the following cover art decisions that created controversy:

1. Full Frontal Feminism – while many people unfamiliar with the publishing industry questioned Jessica Valenti, the author, for the cover art, the truth is that it is the publisher not the author who determines the artwork. Valenti could have rejected the image and asked for a more inclusive one. Her response to criticism could have also been different. Nevertheless, the decision to place a single white female body on a book considered to be a general interest book about feminism was Seal Press’.
2. It’s a Jungle Out There – while many see the criticism surrounding this book as part of the BFP-Amanda conflict, questions about the cover art for Amanda Marcotte’s recently published book from Seal Press surfaced as early as August 2007. Marcotte, after initially using intention or irony as the excuse for the images, listened to the criticism and requested a new cover. Both covers rely on the barbarian/savage vs. civilized/Aryan dichotomy that supporters of the book are quick to notice in non-feminist texts but not in the work of mainstream feminists. (htp Hoyden About Town for original cover images). It has now been revealed that the book is illustrated throughout with similar questionable images that rely on the barbarian poc –civilized blond white people dichotomy. (see images thanks to Holly, Ico, & Wolfa) - update note: Jill has also started questioning her gaze bringing important insight to those who do not understand why “not seeing” colonial images is a function of privilege.
3. A History of US Feminism – which I have already discussed at the bottom of my original post as having a cover image of exclusively white women representing the herstory of U.S. feminism and a white reader in the corner representing the women’s studies students imagined as the readers.

Ultimately, what all three of these books have in common is the visual erasure of women of color in general audience textbooks and the support of book sales by mainstream bloggers. They also show at least a year’s worth of marketing decisions that negate the insistence on treating each incident as new and unique.

The result of these editorial decisions is the further alienation of readers of color, including those who have worked with SP in the past (see Holly’s post – and thanks Holly for letting us know about that book you helped edit for Seal which I would never have known about as it is also not in the searchable database.) as well as anti-racist feminists.

The Editors at Seal Press recently issued an apology for the images in It’s a Jungle Out There and committed to removing them. Many have pointed to this as a sign they get it. Actually removing the images is a huge cost to the publishers since they will have to reprint the entire inventory. Removing them is an important step, acknowledging the history, learning to stop the pattern, and apologizing not out of fear but recognition are others yet to be seen.

While we praise what they have done, I don’t think we can forget how long it took them and what motivated them to act. The discussion of images as offensive in Marcotte’s book has been going on since August 2007. Their recent apology for the cover controversy, delivered over the weekend, and only after both white and woc feminists started to circulate the colonial images used as illustrations inside the book, seems like the desperation of people who have gotten away with having their pants down in public far too long. They had almost a year to fix the problem: Why wait to act and apologize until now?

Irony is once again being floated by both Marcotte and Seal Press Editors for the decision. One of the articles I suggested to Brooke, and which she ignored, was Yamato “Something About the Subject Makes it Hard to Name” which clearly outlines how lacking intentionality when committing racialized acts reinforces racial disparity. I did not suggest this text for the real-irony of how it was published by an independent woc press after the anthology was rejected by mainstream and independent presses for years; perhaps you’ve heard of it: This Bridge Called My Back. But rather because I believe this is an article many white people in similar situations can learn from in order to begin the process of recognizing privilege based behavior and making a change.

Given the deflection and the time line, why are so many mainstream bloggers highlighting the apologies of the women involved and ignoring the fact that they had almost a year to fix the problem before the book launched?

In the context of three covers that promote similar racial thinking, ie

• white women alone = feminism
• white women are the readers of women’s texts (no effort was made to correct cover designs until this last instance despite repeated complaint; they picture a white woman as the reader in their first pub for the Seal Studies series)

Show a progressively more offensive strategy:

• moving from erasure on the cover to colonial images throughout
• moving from imagined subject (white woman) to imagined subject and reader (both white women)

And a consistent pattern of promoting content:

• largely or exclusively about white women’s experiences in general topic books
• largely written by white women (the website shows a pattern of 9 to 1)

How can we not question the editorial decisions of Seal Press?

Sylvia suggested a writing campaign and several feminists, woc and white women, are now organizing around the Marcotte book to send post cards to Seal Press about their marketing strategy and why they will not be buying any books with similar issues. I support the writing campaign and see it as an extension of the girlcott (since the strategy is the same: engage Seal Press about the racialized decisions, request that change happens, and refuse to shop there until it changes.) Though they have promised to fix Marcotte’s book the postcards could be mobilized for any of the other books in their inventory guilty of the same or similar things.

For me the issue was summed up best by a comment maker at Ilyka’s Off Our Pedestals by a poster named Wolfa:
But, you know, at some point, you need to decide what things you have to give up. And you always, always have to give something up. . . .

So maybe you say, yes, it’s racist, but, overall, it’s worth the racism.

Altho Wolfa is not advocating this kind of thinking, it seems to me that those who believe it is disloyal to feminism to actively question the actions of Seal Press’ Editorial Team, are invested in similar thinking. They have consistently ignored the marketing strategies I and others have documented as if they are simply a necessary evil in ensuring “women’s” books are published and “women’s” books sell.

Marketing is something that Seal Press could easily address in the coming two years they are under contract to books that Brooke’s comments lead me to believe will continue to be largely homogeneous. While they cannot change the covers of the current books, they can:

• change covers of unpublished books under contract to reflect diversity in general interest books
• show woc on all books written by woc instead of only the 50% that do now
• consider book covers that do not rely on a raced female form in general opting for neutral art
• make culturally competent decisions about cover art and internal illustrations

Other easy fixes to their website that would rectify pages with no women of color on them or the erasure of woc authors from the catalog include:

• update their searchable catalog to include ALL of their in print inventory - which benefits both woc and white authors currently missing
• adjust the front page to show case new books from POC like Hijas & queer authors so all the authors highlighted are not white (and/or straight should that also occur in the future)
• consider a featured “big sellers” or “favorites” section on the front page that highlights successful previous books designed to always include an even number of woc and white authors, queer and straight authors.

As a web designer, I know that this is not hard to do. It can be done at any time and would also turn the tide in the homogeneous image the website presents about Seal Press’ publication efforts.

If books they publish are not being marketed nor listed in their catalog then how does that support women authors who publish with them? How are we supporting women authors who publish with them when we refuse to recognize these issues?

I pointed most of these things out in my initial post and reiterated them in my follow up post. No changes have been made. Brooke did not address them in her apology here either.

In Conclusion

Though Brooke has made several key points that begin the process of fixing this situation, I believe them to be quite small in comparison to what was requested and what can be done. Under the circumstances I cannot in good faith call off the girlcott until the issues I have raised are addressed. However, I am willing to concede on the issue of diversifying their publishing record until 2010 when new contracted books roll out. And I continue to be willing to call off the girlcott when the following issues are addressed as I believe they can be:

1. The marketing strategy ceases to marginalize existing woc authors on Seal Press by erasing them from the catalog or the web pages and presenting a racially homogeneous front page
2. Marketing strategies do not continue to perpetuate the erasure of women of color through cover art
3. Marketing strategies do not continue to perpetuate racial stereotypes and discourses through some misguided belief that they can be mobilized as irony by a Press that has of yet not shown any real understanding of that term or racial stereotypes about WS and feminists through the erasure of woc and transwomen from general interest books
4. a commitment is made to diversity hiring when the company prepares to hire
5. a diversity strategy beyond general commitments to diverse is made and shared publicly

As you can see, these are the same things I asked for before and that were not addressed by Brooke’s response. She did apologize and that was a first step that makes me believe she and Seal can do the rest if they want to do so. I encourage everyone to

• continue watching the marketing and discursive strategies of Seal Press over the next two years and to hold them accountable for actions that perpetuate cultural incompetence.
• be especially vigilant in monitoring the publishing ventures of Seal Press in year 3 forward when they have committed to diversifying their catalog.
• continue dialog amongst all feminists about this situation with the goal of supporting positive transformation at Seal Press AND other press’ guilty of similar problems. - The icon I created to represent the girlcott does not name Seal Press explicitly because I believe we should girlcott all presses with similar issues and encourage you all to adopt the image on your blogs to show you are paying attention to all presses. Tho SP supporters would like to represent the girlcott as an unfair target of an independent press while other offenders go unexamined, it is not a zero sum game. In the same way that we do not question feminisms ability to attack reproductive rights, domestic and sexual violence, equal pay, etc. at the same time we should be able to conceive of a mutli-faceted response to racialized publishing practices.

For those who claim that such a decision is disloyal to feminism or to women’s access to publishing, I urge you to strongly consider your definition of women and feminism. Real women are being hurt, silenced, and not published by the current state of affairs at Seal Press. Ask yourselves how you would feel if you were part of a social movement that said “women’s issues can wait, we have to fight for X now.” And if you cannot get behind those movements than how can you say the same to woc?

My feminism is global, decolonized, and supports ALL women. This is the feminism I teach every day in my courses. It is the feminism I work from as a social activist. I believe in a feminism that will speak to ALL women’s oppression and ultimately liberate us all from the various and differing forms of gendered oppression we experience.

Thanks to those who have been or plan to spread the word about this issue. I am excited to hear from those who are making posters and fliers for upcoming conferences. I hear there is even talk of leaving some at the Seal Press table at NWSA. Please consider adding the banner image and sending the post cards. If your format doesn’t allow it, the image is too big, or you can’t figure out how, don’t worry, I’m still glad to hear from all of you showing your support for woc writers and thinkers. Writing a post - no matter how tentative or flawed you fear it will be - will also help to show that we are all engaged in this process across race and other positionality. Opening a dialog with Seal Press through the letter writing campaigns suggested or through your blogs helps ensure we work toward something better rather than destruction, as some have implied, or more of the same. The issue is not these authors (which tho related may be another important issue on its own) or the controversies that may or may not be surrounding their actions but Seal Press’ marketing.

To reiterate where this long post began: Brooke’s comments here have shown some willingness to start the positive process of change at Seal Press. I support her in that and I believe that the rest is possible. However, she did not address several of the critical issues I raised. When the marketing and hiring issues are addressed, and a more concrete diversity plan is discussed, I will call off the girlcott. The ball is now decidedly back in Seal Press’ court.