ABOUT: All are invited to attend a PEN America town hall meeting to be held at Penguin Random House headquarters, 1745 Broadway in NYC, "that will probe how entrenched habits and beliefs can be challenged to transform the publishing industry to achieve greater representation and success by diverse authors to meet the growing diversity of readers in the United States."

 

PEN America’s landmark October 2022 report, Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity, and Book Publishing, detailed a Gordian knot of preconceptions, business practices, and perceptions that have conspired to keep book publishing overwhelmingly white both in terms of staff and leadership as well as books published. Decades of efforts including hiring pushes, new imprints and hefty investments have seemed to come and go, with limited lasting progress to show. This conversation will probe a level deeper, asking how some of the most entrenched commercial, cultural and organizational habits and beliefs can be challenged and transformed to bring about a publishing industry and literary canon that better reflects American society in all of its complexity.