 Hi everyone, thanks for turning out. I'm Laura Miller and I am the books and culture columnist for slate.com. This is another and this is another social distancing social from future tense in partnership with a partnership of slate, New America Foundation and Arizona State University. Today we're talking about the future of books. And I'm joined by Priscilla paint and who is vice president and executive editor of Simon and Chuster, and Brandon Tensley who is the national political writer for CNN politics. Hi Priscilla and Brandon. I can't hear you, you have to unmute. Hey, nice to be here. Thanks for having us. And when I was asked to sort of moderate this, one of the things that it brought up brought to mind or brought up in my memory was how in the early 2000s it seemed like everywhere. You went there was like a panel discussion of the future of books and people making a lot of predictions about the future of books and how things had to change and which way they needed to go. And that was all tied to the emergence of ebooks and ebook technology. And most of what people said at that time did not turn out to be true. Books did not take over from print books. And, and in particular, younger readers, more than any other demographic group preferred print books. So the idea that book publishing needed to change with this technology will maybe it did in some ways, but, but not maybe in some ways that people thought and I'm wondering first Priscilla. I don't know if you remember that time or the kind of craziness that that went along with it. But do you feel that I don't know how much credit you gave to that idea at the time. Or, or, but what do you think about it now do you think any of those predictions are likely to pan out. And how has that changed your own personal feelings about predicting the future of books because for me I just like not only terrified to make any predictions. I'm still terrified of making predictions. I was then and I am now before in becoming a book publisher I was a political reporter so I learned humility you early but what I would say is that yes you're absolutely right I remember the charts you would see the ebooks sort of, you know, go straight up, and, and think that's the end of the bookstore. What happened is that about five or six years ago that trend stalled. And, as you say, you know physical books continue to to to thrive. The biggest development though is that not only do millennials like physical books they love audio books. And that has taken off as a genre and that is also very good for publishing, because what it means is that you can take a book with you as you vacuum your living room you could take a book with you. Everywhere and that is also frankly at a time when we needed a very reliable source of income, it has turned out to be to be exactly that so the good news for me I mean to me the big headline is so simple which is people will read are reading more than ever they're just doing it across a whole different set of platforms but the this this and I call it the Harry Potter phenomenon which is you know everybody thought you know we were we were no longer making generations of readers well you know a whole series of books of that popularity came along and and and what we have is generation after generation of readers who just change maybe change the way they consume what they have consumed a page but they don't change their desire to see something on a page. One of the one of the changes that feels the most urgent right now has been about diversifying the industry and we've just recently seen the day of solidarity where 1100 publishing industry workers you know took a day to to do whatever they felt was necessary to support people of color who are writers or who worked in the industry and and have exacted some promises although it's always clear what exactly those promises will pan out to be from management about about making making the industry more representative it's it's very white I think it's anywhere from I have some figures right here depending on which survey you look at it's anywhere from 76% to 84% white where where the general population is 60% white and Hispanics and blacks in particular are underrepresented and and I'm curious you Brandon I you're a young writer of color and I don't doubt that you have ideas for books are you probably working on one how is the publishing industry look to you from your perspective. Yeah it's it's it's interesting for me because I on the one hand I see that there are certain more diverse voices that are being represented that are out there. And those are, I think these are voices that a lot of people love and they really elevate and they celebrate, but then when you kind of take a step back you realize that everybody's talking about the same few people. So it seems like you know maybe like a few people get in and you know we have the ton of course he coats books, which are invaluable and you know people are revisiting them right. But then you also think about all the people who have not been that successful have not been able to actually break through and when you think about it you know it's, I think it's. I don't want to say necessarily disheartening as if like the industry hasn't been changing, but you see how much it still needs to change to find writers who not only want to write these stories but are empowered to actually write the stories I think. One thing that I've noticed, you know, recently, especially on Twitter and if you probably noticed the different campaigns or people are trying to talk about what they were paid for their books and things like that. And it's pretty galling to see, you know, somebody like Roxanne Gay got paid like 70,000 or something for a bad feminist. And so it's like she was already pretty well known at by that point and you know it was really some respected as a writer. And so you see stuff like that you also see people or at least I've seen people talk about. They'll they'll have an idea for a book project. And maybe they'll approach an editor and the editor might say like this sounds really good. You know, the stuff like this is a story that needs to be told, but I don't know if I'm the person to work on that story, which is, you know, it's sort of a double edged sword because I think on the one hand, you know it shows a degree of self awareness that is important. You know, you don't want to necessarily mess up somebody's work. If it's not something that you feel comfortable working with. But on the other hand, you still need those editors. You still need people who are comfortable working with these diverse stories and this source of stories that you know, maybe it makes people uncomfortable to edit a book about race and racism but at the same time like that just shows like okay we need to make people get to a point where they feel comfortable. And they, you know, have the resources to be able to actually do this work because it you know it does impact a lot of the stories that are told. And people's willingness to tell those stories that they think like oh well somebody seems to like this book but are this book idea but they seem skittish about sort of taking it on themselves. So those are just my sort of general observations, especially over the past two to three weeks with the protests. Well, do you feel like they're skittish because they're basically white editors and they don't feel like they understand the issue and the organic way that an editor of color would. I do. Um, you know, and I think it's a matter, it seems like on the one hand it seems like it's a matter of sort of respect like I don't necessarily want to botch somebody's, you know very intricate nuanced story about race. On the other hand, I think that can also be sort of a crutch so that people don't have to do the work required to actually rigorously think about these issues that clearly there's an appetite for people to consume and to read about. And so I do think it's a matter of that disconnect between sort of lived experience and the sort of intellectual experience that you're that you're supposed to be able to work with. And it's a question of how do you bridge that divide how do you get people how do you get white publicist or white editors to feel comfortable really throwing their weight behind these sorts of stories. Yeah, well, I mean one of the things that everybody's talking about this week is the fact that the paperback bestseller list on Amazon is almost entirely books about anti racism which is exciting but then you realize most of the people who need buying those books are probably white. I don't think black people necessarily need to read about how to be anti racist. So, so in a weird way. Most of those books are written by people of color but they're they're presumably written for still like so much publishing for majority white audience even though, you know, there are lots of readers of color who are interested in reading about their own, you know fiction about their own experiences, other kinds of stories about their own experiences. And Priscilla, what do you think are some of the most promising or even effective I mean the industry is not budged that far on this but like have you seen strategies or policies that seem particularly helpful or promising to you in this to get more editors. Yeah, oh you mean strike well I was going to say to take up or Brandon was I think this the solution to skittishness is, is, is to have a diverse, you know, imprint. And you're absolutely right that publishing remains one of the most starkly white businesses around and it's, you know, I guess that it's, it's, it has the capacity to be dangerous because presumably books have something to contribute to the culture so that by definition is not a healthy situation I mean you're right that the good news is that I just was reading the New York Times bestseller list the top 10 entries print and ebook nonfiction are about race. I mean that's never has not happened in our lifetimes ever. It starts with white fragility. Number one that number two so you want to talk about race number three how to be an anti racist and it goes all the way down to our favorite just mercy. And, and of course number 11 is Michelle. I think I mean, I mean, based on what I've seen I don't, the strategy is, is, is that the people who have the right nerve endings for these stories should be all of us. I think, I mean it's, we, there shouldn't be a skittishness about it, but more importantly, we just, we just need to change how we hire. It's really basic. You know, there's a, there's, I mean, I don't want to get into detail but there's still a sort of, you know, a kind of, it's on the side to kind of attitude as opposed to its integral to our list. It's not this thing we do over here, you know, and that that that's a big attitude that needs to change. You can correct me if I'm, if I'm, if I get any of this wrong Priscilla because I haven't actually technically worked in book publishing. But my understanding is that for like, decades. The economy of book publishing ran on the cheap labor of sort of junior staff who all came from like a same set of East Coast schools who were mostly women who maybe at a certain point I mean many of them were not even necessarily on a real career project that was this was just their little hobby job because their parents were rich that they were doing until they married a stockbroker or whatever, and that that was like the economic model of publishing that you're, that you're junior staff were people who did not need to be paid a living wage, or to really have a, you know, that you didn't need to offer them like the possibility of forgetting one. And it seems like it's only gotten worse, because the industry is in New York, and, and it's more and more difficult to, for anyone on, you know, even a middle class income to live there let alone what editorial assistants are paid. And yet, everyone always says publishing is a low margin industry. So I think, you know, one of the issues is, is partly that there's a certain class of people who can afford to work for publishing who can, you know, work their way up in publishing. You, you, I'm assuming that you came in at a higher level from journalism, which definitely happens. But for people who want to start out kind of in the trenches and work their way up they have to be able to live in New York on a pitons for several years, at least, and then there aren't that many there's not that much. You know, there's no guarantee there's not that much space to move up in. So, um, so that limits the candidate pool a lot it limits people by race but it also limits them by, you know, last class. And I'm wondering, what are some of the measures that can be taken to deal with that because I feel like that's just like a wall that you hit at a certain point. Well, um, you're, you're, you're right that 70s 50 or 70 years ago, there was a culture of where we're publishing was, was, you know, that your entry job was for, you know, people who could afford to not make a lot of money. Um, I would say the salaries of entering people are still low and are still difficult to live on in New York City, if there's one, if there's, if one of the things that comes out of the pandemic is that we're suddenly able to sort of expand the universe of where people can live and edit. That would be a very good thing. I spoke to a brilliant editor today who was let go of his job by another publisher because he wanted to relocate to Providence. And I said, you know what, you're going to get hired because no one cares anymore where you edit your books. So that's that's the good thing. Um, I think the biggest remedy is, is to change the, the, the, the, the, the range between the higher salaries and the lowers, you don't make a lot of money even at my level in publishing, meaning at Vice President level, it's not like working on Wall Street, or at a high level, at a corporation, at a big, you know, IBM type place. But there's still, I think, quite a gap between what entry level editors get paid. And part of, I think the philosophy behind that is you actually get trained right out of school, you get trained on the job, you know, so what that, the good news is that what I have seen in recent years is a lot of hiring of non-white, very ambitious for books type people who just have to be near a book every day of their life. And they're, you know, they, there is more, there's the pool is getting larger, and we are getting better at finding those people and hiring them. Well, one promising concept has come out of the, the organization we need diverse books, which started as the, in children's book publishing, which is to sort of help fund internships for people of color. And I would hope, you know, other lower level jobs so that people can, can actually afford to get started in the business if they don't come from money. But, but Brandon, I want to ask you what you think, you know, what you feel is missing, you know, you're a younger reader, you're a reader of color. What do you see book publishing industry not providing to readers like you? One thing, and this is such a, such a tricky topic, so I'm being very careful about how I talk about it. But, you know, one thing I think about is a need to sort of expand the universe of what kinds of stories people want from writers of color. I think there's often a sort of assumption and it's not totally inaccurate that, you know, the only topics that writers of color are able to talk about or experts on are their own lived experiences. And so I feel like beyond sort of the genre of, you know, a memoir or, you know, a collection of like first person essays or something like that. I don't see as much, at least I haven't seen as many sort of books that allow that range of creativity, that range of exploration, that range of interrogation. And again, you know, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like it becomes a bad thing when that's the only thing that's really available. And I guess that's the only way to break into the industry is like, okay, I guess I have to, you know, dissect some part of my life for, you know, make my make a part of my life legible for white readers white audiences. And I guess that's the thing that sells so I'll do it. So I think being able to understand that there are many, many, many things that writers of color that readers of color interested in besides purely learning about sort of their own experiences. Again, not saying it's not important but you know it's expanding that conversation expanding that representation. I mean, what I've also heard some writers say is just the focus only on the traumatic experiences, as opposed to like, it's a whole range of, you know, it's human lives that they have everything in them. Are you working on a book yourself. I am trying. I guess it's not related to, I'm not guilty of what I just said. The idea that I'm interested in is sort of Whitney Houston as this cultural figure, somebody who hasn't gotten the sort of more cultural criticism treatment. I'm interested in sort of looking at how she is somebody who in a lot of ways was sort of her, her life in her career where microcosm of the expectations that we have that mainstream society has of black artists, somebody who came in, you know, very pop heavy who is, you know, obviously sort of, you know, didn't want her to seem too black and how that sort of changed the trajectory of her career later on, especially, you know, there was the infamous moment where she was booed at the Soul Train Awards in 1989. She changed the sound of her music after that. So I am really interested in sort of this, this broader sort of legacy of the, the effects of mainstreaming on in particular black artists. I'm guilty a little bit of what I just said. I do that can expand at least to like music. Well, it sounds fascinating and maybe there's somebody who's listening and who's publishing who will find that intriguing and serious. Sounds great. Let's talk a little bit more about technology because future tense is a lot about technology. What you said Priscilla about audio books really struck a nerve with me because I've been writing about them for a while I got into them, maybe about 10 years ago and they're just a complete addiction for me. I don't actually I can completely control the number of physical books I acquire the audience like I'll just anytime one's on sale I'll probably want to listen to that someday. So now I'm like, we love you. But it does seem like there's a lot of competition from podcasts and there's actually a great app called autumn that now has top level audio book readers reading long form journalism which was just like a dream come true for me. First of all Brandon, are you an audio person at all or are you just an eyeball reader. Well, more of an eyeball reader but it was interesting at the top of the conversation when you mentioned people. You know millennials. Be a representative for millennials for a second millennials. You know they like both or at least they're they see the benefits of both it's funny I'm in two book clubs. That I joined sort of joined slash started once the pandemic started and so one is a gay book club and we're reading and this I'm reading a hard copy of politics the form of a mortal girl by Andrea Lawler. I want to thank him out a couple years ago and then the other one is the chiffon trenches by Andre tally. And that one's for me that's a that's an audio book. So that's one that I listened to you know when I'm like cooking dinner or cleaning up the house or something so I feel I when you said that you know people are doing both. I'm literally doing both of those right now so yeah yeah I have definitely seen from some of the younger readers that I've met this love of the print book as like an escape from screens, you know which is, which is, which was not what was anticipated this is, you know, like you can see their tip top videos of just people opening books and pages in this way a strange way that I just feels kind of alien to me you know it's almost like a fetishizing of the fact that it's on paper. But it clearly is is is presented as this relaxing escape. And, and yet, well I don't know print sales really did did really get a boost during the pandemic so maybe that kind of fits with all that but then audio books are the are kind of the book that you read, so that you can really. And, and I mean I think it's great but on the other hand I know there are a lot of people who feel like it's not really reading because you're not giving in your full attention. It'll be interesting to see where that goes but the but the more popular audio books become the more significant the performance becomes because it's not just like a simple translation from the page to the microphone, there's another artist involved, and that can make a huge huge difference and as you were saying Brandon. He reads his own book Tali. Yeah, so that's got to be fantastic. Okay, I think we're at the kind of at the point where we can take some questions is that. I don't know. I can't tell. I thought we were at that point but I'm not getting any. Any signals from power space so while we're waiting to figure out if people have questions Priscilla. You mentioned audio books but what else do you see on horizon in the book business. Well, today, we acquired a book that's going to come out in four different formats. Immediately one is the first is as an audio book because it's by a famous artist. Then it then then the physical book is going to show up and then at some point it's going to become both a CD and a vinyl. And it's it's a book of poetry. And I'm only mentioning that because we never would have sort of five years ago there would have been first the hardcover, then the paperback and then and then the ebook comes out. Now there's a lot of experimentation going on with what does this book need to get its biggest audience what is its audience want specifically. You know, 10 years ago. People discovered graphic books and it was a way for instance of telling the story of the Iranian Revolution who knew that you could tell that story in a in a Persepolis and in a graphic novel or in a graphic nonfiction book. So that I think that that has made a big difference there are a lot of experiments that haven't worked at one point when I first joined the business which is God knows 12 years ago. And I thought, we'll have books, we'll have ebooks and then in the ebooks you'll be able to press a button, and, you know, either make a comment, or, or get, get an audio video that will accompany your ebook. Yeah, readers just said, No, I just want a book. Just give me a book. Let me read the story, you know. So we've the point is that we have experimented we continue to experiment. The first thing that we tried that did work was, Oh, let's do an event will happen in the world. And let's, let's, let's get David McCullough to write the historic version of the story and we'll put it out an ebook in five, five, in five, two weeks. You know, people didn't, you couldn't find those books people weren't interested. That didn't work either. So the good news is we keep experimenting and, and, and, you know, and that's good and we should continue to do that as we did today when acquiring this book. We do have a thank you Priscilla and we do have a question now from anonymous attendee. Thank you very much. This person asks, as a writer of color, are, are there any good resources for those of us who are interested in one day writing a book but are finding the barrier of entry into this space, a little intimidating. I think that it really kind of depends on where you are, doesn't it, because if you're taking classes or you belong to a writers group, I mean, I think that writing in itself is isolating and then if you feel like maybe there's not that many people like you in this world that you're trying to break into that makes it even worse. And so I think that kind of the first step is to build a community when you meet other writers, you maybe take some classes, you maybe join a writing group, you start to share information and network. Maybe you need a writer who is published and they recommend you to their editor. Those are the, the, I mean, I had to say this, but that's kind of the way that it, it works, partly because there are just so many manuscripts floating around at there of such, you know, as a general rule not great quality that everybody needs somebody to help them find the good ones. And it's usually somebody that they know. So the thing I would say to do is even though writing is such a solitary activity and you may feel like it's just this alone thing you do and you don't want there to be other steps in the way that building a community with other writers is kind of your first step towards entering into the community of, of published writers and people who work in the book business, but I maybe Priscilla, you might have something else. I would like to add to that I think that's really well put but the other way to do it is go look at your bookshelf or go to a bookstore and go to the acknowledgments and see who the agent was on your on your book on the book. And if you, if it's a book that you love you and the, and the, and the book will have an agent, a literary agent and that agent is going to be predisposed to really wanting to hear your voice, because you, you've loved a book that he or she has represented and I think that person can really hear you. And there are agents who have a great track record with the books that I mentioned earlier, that are now dominating the best seller list, and you can find them if you just go there and they will. They, they, they, I think they're, they will listen. It's another, here's another question, it used to be said from Andres Martinez. It used to be said that big best sellers would subsidize a lot of worthy books, or that's, I think. I think it may just gam titles that are worthy but you don't necessarily know they're going to be successful I think that's what Andres means that might not sell too many copies. And is this, so is this a roughly accurate description of the business model or has that changed basically are there sort of the big best sellers that are more or less guaranteed that sort of give a publishing company the money to try other things maybe books that necessarily earn out their advance or maybe sell a million copies that they want to publish just because they believe the book should be out there or or book or books by authors who maybe are not quite there yet but who they think might get there someday. And I guess Priscilla that's one for you really. Right. Um, it, it's, it's, it's true but it's a little less true than it was a few years ago because we did benefit from what is known as the long tail meaning the idea that you could. The internet brought about a sort of flattening effect which meant that more things that are smaller could last longer. But I would say that frankly if if you gave your choice between an instant best seller that stayed on the New York Times best seller list for two weeks, or a book that the back lists and that's that that your grandchildren are going to pull out of the library. That's, that's really the model that we all aspire to, and it's hard and that's the hardest thing we do is figure out. Is this book going to have endurance. Is it going to have value. Are we going to look at it and years from now and say, Oh, that was the best biography I ever read and pull it out again and recommend it to other next generations that's where that's where I think you really make money. Another anonymous attendee asks, Can you speak to publishing houses choosing or not choosing to publish members of the Trump administration or other controversial figures like we'll be Alan and Priscilla you're the editor of John Bolton's book. So maybe you can speak to that. So he was already a house author. He had published a book years ago called. My brain is gone, but it was it was a modest selling book but it was. And so we have what is called the option on his next book. So when he approached us. You know, we have the, you know, we were inclined to publish them because we had had a relationship with him. I think the book was called surrender is not an option. That's what it was called. Anyway, you know, I don't know that I'm typical of the publishing industry. I mean, I come from journalism, you know, and when I was there. You know, we put, you know, Michael Moore on the cover one week and Ann Coulter on the cover the next week and the idea was to sort of try to get across the range of voices out there and the kind of different important cultural and political influences that we're shaping our politics. And so I'm, you know, I'm, you know, I've also published Hillary Clinton's memoir what happened. Because I, you know, but I also published Carl Rhodes memoir about his time in the White House. So I just feel like as first drafts of history, if they are books of quality. And I believe those books were then, you know, they are important contributions to what we're what we need to know about how our country is either moving forward or not. And so I, I tend to think there shouldn't be a sort of, we only publish. Yeah, on the other hand, you know, if a book is going to say things that are irresponsible and if it's not going to be, you know, a quality book then then you wouldn't publish it. What do you what do you think Brandon. Yeah, I like the way that Priscilla just framed it in terms of, you know, publishing the first drafts of history, like that sounds like a fair and rigorous way to sort of, I don't know, like at least give the opportunity to have these kinds of conversations and especially like how Priscilla how you phrase it in terms of, you want to understand the influence the forces that are influenced in our cultural and political conversations. So, yeah, and like, you know, you, you have a brain. So like if something is, is something as bad as something is inaccurate as something is, you know, just wrong or inflammatory then, you know, you wouldn't publish it but otherwise yet sounds like, especially in this moment it seems like a good place to find yourself in. Just personally, it's not my choice to publish things or not but I'm been working on a piece that involves reading a lot of books by former members of the Trump administration, and you know, most of them are not people that I admire respect but nevertheless, I'm getting a lot out of those books. I mean I'm reading them, you know, clearly with, you know, a lot of skepticism but I am also, I do feel like I'm gaining valuable knowledge from them. I think when you talk about someone like Milo, who's the last name I can ever pronounce who's basically just a sort of chief, who, you know, 80% of the things that he says aren't even true. So I think you get into it like that's just trash and you don't necessarily want to publish trash but I don't think that just because I disagree with someone politically if they've had some kind of important role or they've seen things or even if their version of history. I can see something, some kind of truth through it, even if I don't credit it, I, I still like to have that out there. Here's a question for Jennifer Howard. Hi Jennifer. Someone I've never met but who I used to work with back in the day. A bit. She says hi everybody thanks for doing this. Any thoughts on what's currently happening with the book distribution chain, Amazon and Ingram and how that's affecting publishers and booksellers and I don't know if Jennifer means with the pandemic or just sort of before that. I'm not sure but that is something I am completely incapable of commenting on. How about you? Priscilla. Well, if it's about the pandemic, I mean, you know, the bookstore is shut down. Barnes and Noble shut down. So a lot of the consuming of books happened online but even at the beginning Amazon made medicine and food a priority for shipping so books fell down the priority list. And so it was difficult even to get books one of the good things that happened is the publishing industry got together and started started something called bookshop.org, which I know you know very well. Both of you which allows you to basically get a book from your local bookstore even though the bookstore is closed and make sure that they get the money for it. Not Amazon. And also that it goes to supporting the people in the industry who get these books out. But I'm not going to, you know, there was certainly disruption in our warehouses and there continues to be and you know, it's a heartbreak. But I think for authors I think mostly because you know, there's nothing like working on a book let's say for five years as Laura says all by yourself your spouse is tired of hearing you talk about it. Finally, finally, you get it out there. And, you know, there are no bookstores that, you know, to showcase them but more importantly the story on television or on the radio is is is makes it impossible for your book to get any oxygen now very inventively. I think all the publishing houses found ways to put their authors out there through virtual events and get their voices heard and there've been some some wonderful opportunities we had to learn every week what was working and what wasn't. But, you know, I have a book. I'm very excited about coming out in July, which does touch on race because it's the story of a friendship between. I mean, now to so in and freedmen the plot the rich co hosts of call your girlfriend. And it's really a story about big friendship, and they have found their audience already we know it's there the independent booksellers are ordering the book and they're getting their message out in an unconventional way but but they are getting it out. Yeah, I mean, I think this crisis is just a reminder like it impact different titles differently for an established author who has a new book out a Stephen King, whoever. It's kind of in a weird way the pandemic is kind of great because people had this idea that they would just be home all the time reading I don't know if people why people with kids would think that they would have that much reading time but you know book sales were up for the first few weeks of the quarantine. I think because people had that in mind, but one of the main ways that that people find out about new authors debut authors, authors who are outside of their comfort zone is through a bookstore, maybe if they are lucky enough to have a bookseller who really knows them and their tastes, and he says, Oh, Brandon I have just the book for you come over here let me show you. That's, you know, that's what the local indie bookstore should be doing and is doing in a lot of communities and with that gone it's much harder for a new author to be launched. I have a great question from Kevin Sack, which I think I'm going to toss to Brandon because it has to do with writing nonfiction. Given the controversy over American dirt and the general sensitivities of the time can you discuss whether there were new challenges for or burdens on white nonfiction authors writing about race related topics that's something that we talked about from the other side the editor is like, you know, not a person of color and they're editing but what what about how this is white fiction authors and I think the thing about American dirt is that it was fiction and, and, and it shows to tell from the perspective of a person of color, even though the author is white and many people felt that there were many writers of color who could also tell that story. So why was this white author getting all of the oxygen as as Priscilla would put it but what about writing nonfiction history biography. What do you think authors of those kinds of works need to be thinking about perhaps more than they have in the past. Yeah, it's it's I think that's such a good question because, you know, I think that sort of facile way that think of it is you know like oh like white people can't write about, you know, write a review about a movie that deals with the race or, you know, deep dive into a book that looks at, you know, I just read a book a couple months ago by Jerry Mitchell that looked at sort of unsolved civil rights. Yes, and I thought it was fantastic. Before you know like a O Scott I so remember he his review of Moonlight a few years ago and how beautiful that that review was. You know my is a movie that is not about a O Scott's like own lived experiences it's about you know black awareness. And so I think what sets the sorts of writers apart is that it's the work of just understanding the different issues and the experiences. It's not something that it's not like they just sort of hop into a stereotype and write in that way but it's about talking to people it's not listening to people it's about doing the reading. I still think about this. This is a quote from a quote from an event last year or maybe the year before where she said, you know, you wouldn't be a scientist. You wouldn't be a scientist without studying science. And yet we have people writing about race in this country who don't know a thing about race in this country. And so it's that sort of being rigorous about what you're writing about and doing the actual research and the homework and the reading. It's like sort of gave you the ability to write about these things. Write about experiences that are not your own, even in my own writing you know I write about, you know, I write about gender a lot and specifically from the perspective of you know political candidates and how misogyny and sexism factor into these into their their platforms and their And I feel comfortable doing that only because, especially when I'm writing doing those sorts of stories I spend a lot of time reading and listening to what people have already said and making sure that I'm not, you know, say describing something in a way that sort of taps into whatever sort of subconscious biases I have. But I think it's just a, it's a muscle you have to work. You know, I think people often think, because I am a human in the world, I therefore am able to write about any sort of experience, which is just not true. In a, you know, in a way that people like. And so, you know, I just think it's about putting a lot of effort in the work to be sensible and thoughtful and rigorous with how you approach these issues, especially if they're not things that you have to think about in your in your day to day. And just not assume that your own experiences is universal, you know that that you, I mean, it's really incredible the number of people who think that because they haven't experienced something themselves it just doesn't happen. I think we are getting close to our wrap up time so I'm going to thank everyone for coming and invite everybody who I don't know you didn't phone in but who signed in and and and joined us to attend more social distancing special social distancing socials on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the future.