By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson Editor-in-Chief Lee and Low is a children’s book publisher that specializes in cultural diversity. And in its survey of diversity issues in U.S. publishing, the company has handed us a much-needed chance to discuss something healthily difficult: the issue of gender in the publishing workforce. Lee and Low created and executed a large… Read More
Are you 'noticing' publishing's gender bias?
Calling the question Conference organisers, prize judges, pretty much anyone who has a role in deciding who gets to be heard: don’t they notice the roll call of mainly white men? My colleague at The Bookseller Cathy Rentzenbrink is not only our acting books editor but also is project director for Quick Reads and a… Read More
Why Are Boys Not Reading More?
‘We Are Not Creating Male Readers’ I would suggest to you that we have shared responsibility here — teachers, parents, authors, and publishers. Literacy is the kingpin skill of school success. Unless we get all kids reading, they’re not going to be successful. That’s Peg Tyre, author of The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons,… Read More
Women in publishing — achievements and challenges
Here is an important and sensitive subject, one that can become emotionalised — for perfectly understandable reasons. As is made clear in The Bookseller’s 13th February edition, the UK publishing industry can be proud of a distinction many other businesses can’t claim: its women are in the forefront. In their lead story, Felicity Wood (pictured right) and Sarah… Read More
What Are We Rewarding In Children’s Literature? (#GuysDoRead)
Are Children’s Books ‘A Women’s Profession’? The announcement today of the shortlist for the annual Waterstones Children’s Book Prize brought an early response: While the award’s shortlists started out as reasonably gender-balanced, they have tended to favor female authors and illustrators in recent years. The 2014 shortlist caught my eye last year as there were only three… Read More
Boys And Their Books: Simon Scarrow's Cato & Macro
‘It’s a way of getting them into reading, hopefully.’ And you thought it would be tough when Cato and Macro took on “the tribes of Britannia.” That’s what’s going on in Brothers in Blood, the 13th in the Eagle Series of historical and military fiction, just out last month from Headline. In it, the Roman prefect… Read More