Roxane Gay-led initiative should serve as a model for industry
Grove Atlantic has announced that Roxane Gay — author of the essay collection “Bad Feminist,” the memoir “Hunger” and the novel “Untamed State” — will lead a publishing imprint, one she will oversee creatively and editorially that will be focused on underrepresented voices. As I’ve written here before — just last week, in fact — publishing needs to make structural changes to help promote the work of brilliant, non-white writers. This is a heartening step in that direction.
Grove Atlantic will publish three titles a year under the Roxane Gay Books banner, a number allowing for both editorial and marketing focus. This is not a vanity project of a publisher trying to capitalize on a name author by firing out titles like souvenirs from T-shirt cannon at a ballgame. Working with Amy Hundley, her editor at Grove Atlantic, Gay will be hands-on and invested. As an author, she has experienced firsthand what it is to publish without being given the support and resources necessary, and can be an internal guide and advocate for these new authors.
Even better, the initiative is coupled with a paid one-year fellowship for someone who wants to learn publishing, but who typically would not be able to access the profession via standard channels.
This is an excellent idea for a number of reasons. Gay has a long past as an editor and publisher in independent circles, having co-founded the literary journal Pank, and as the head of micro-publisher, Tiny Hardcore Press. She knows how to find and nurture talent already.
What excites me about this initiative is how much attention is being paid to addressing structural issues with substantive acts. This is not press release diversity, but a well-considered step toward creating something sustainable. The limited number of titles per year to start means each book will receive its time in the publicity and marketing sun. The sufficient advances that Gay is insisting on will allow the writers to focus on making the books successful, rather than being torn between promotion and making a living doing all the things that writers do to try to make a living.
So this news is great, no doubt. And now, we have to demand: “More, please.” While Gay checks all the boxes a publisher could hope for in terms of her editorial eye and expertise mixed with a public voice who can draw attention, she and Grove Atlantic have now provided a model which seems highly replicable.
Many writers have backgrounds as teachers and editors who have been tasked with identifying and nurturing these new voices from wherever they may come from. They know what talent looks like from its earliest glimmers, and then how to help develop that talent. Having experienced the barriers that publishing throws up for underrepresented writers, they can head off problems before they appear.
My guess is that whatever publishers must invest to get a Roxane Gay into their process will come back manyfold. For sure, it is a publicity boost, but it also injects freshness into the culture that will inevitably ripple through the whole organization.
It’s time to make this a trend.