“With an Instagram bio that reads “undocumented socialite,” the Los Angeles-based poet and writer is fiercely upending the trauma-forward narratives that often essentialize undocumented people. Reyes’ work, while sobering, is humorous, joyful and rebellious — a stark contrast from the way these stories are often told by reporters and authors who write from an outsider’s perspective. (Recall the controversy surrounding ‘American Dirt’ that had the endorsement of Oprah’s Book Club). Reyes’s commitment to amplifying undocumented authors and contemporary Latinx writers who are pushing the boundaries of style and language make the Yosi Book Club’s reading list one not to miss.” Bibliophiles here’s your next bookstagram follow and book club. “Meanwhile, as publishing staffers asked the industry to reform from within, authors were already using social media to demand reform from without. On June 6, the YA author L.L. McKinney, who is black, started the hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, calling for authors to transparently share the advances they received for their books. And the numbers immediately began to clarify things. ‘We expected there to be disparities,’ McKinney said over the phone to Vox. ‘We did not expect them to be as wide as they were.’ What the #PublishingPaidMe campaign showed is that publishing’s systemic biases spread all the way down to the numbers. These biases affect which books publishers choose to invest in, and that, in turn, affects which books end up succeeding. And while black authors have always known the biases were there, #PublishingPaidMe showed just how dramatic their effects could be.” Publishing needs to follow their social media activism posts with action, starting with closing the gap between Black authors and white authors pay. “San Francisco artist Alexis Arnold has created a fascinating project in which she crystallizes books of all types and sizes so that they appear to be solidifying and rearranging atoms much like a geologic structure. The shape of the book remains, but the text and illustrations bleed together with the grains revealing the ghost of what they once were.” This artist crystallizes books and the result is hauntingly beautiful.
