An Open Letter to My Fellow Book Creators

Inside me there are two wolves: the one that understands that the best activism happens behind closed doors and that everyone does what they can and that not everyone can be asked to do the same things, and that we need to trust others to fight for what we do not know how to fight for, and to respect that people are afraid right now. 

And the one that is fucking sick of watching people wring their hands and not do shit. And RIP to that first wolf, because the second has torn out its jugular.

We live under authoritarianism now. 

That’s the fact. People are being disappeared off the streets and sent to detention centers and mega prisons in El Salvador without due process. Our media has surrendered the fight for fear of litigation or for fear of appearing “unbalanced.” Our institutions are crumbling under the pressure. Our leaders are too entrenched in the dark money politics that allowed this situation to arise in the first place in order to enact any meaningful change that could push back with as much violence as we are being pushed with, not to mention the genocide they were at best complicit in and at worst actively fueling. 

We are adrift. We are trying. We are not trying hard enough. 

I am specifically thinking of the book people in this moment. The authors and illustrators and creators and publishers and publishing professionals. We are in the business of making art. We cannot peacefully exist without protections of free speech. We say we are in this line of work because we love it, because we believe in it, because we know that art is essential. But the time has come for us to protect it. And where are we? 

This is not to yell at the people I know are already deeply entrenched in fights, from WAWOG to AABB, to litigation to community organizing. There are heroes out there. A handful who are fighting, and fighting with our whole chests to protect some corner of the world, be it Palestine or the library. But by and large, the majority of us are silent. Complicit. Cowardly. Small. 

People with overwhelming commercial success that could be leveraged in powerful ways right now, to mobilize large swaths of America that the rest of us cannot reach. People high up in publishing who are still under the impression that following the letter of the law, even as new wildly unconstitutional and frankly unjust executive orders rain down upon us, will keep their businesses and employees safe. New hires that are too afraid to call out the inanity of what they’re seeing. Editors who say they stand with their authors, but are silent as we are attacked, silenced, and intimidated. Authors who write about bravery, but don’t demonstrate any themselves. 

I am weary of you. And I am unable to muster the energy and generosity and kindness that will be required to call you in. All I have left is the furnace of my fury, and I’d say I’m sorry but that’d be a lie. I’m not sorry anymore. I have exhausted my good will making excuses for those around me. I am no longer interested in the theater of propriety when Rümeysa Öztürk—an aspiring children’s book author, one of us— is being denied her asthma medication in detention after being snatched off the streets for co-writing an OpEd in a school newspaper. I cannot find a fuck to give about politesse while Elon Musk plunders our government. I do not have due patience while due process is denied. There’s no more patience. Patience is a privilege we enjoyed, too long and too well. And now we’re here.

Either you find your friends and your allies and you link arms with them around some little corner of this country that you love: the library, or public health, or your trans friends, or your immigrant friends, or public lands, or the fucking planet— take your pick EVERYTHING is under attack right now— and you fucking protect it. You do this nonviolently NOW, because we may not have that privilege in the future, either.

You don’t have to invent the wheel. Join groups that exist. Follow their lead. Respect that other activists are working just as hard as you are, and don’t waste your time critiquing how they fight their fight, but steal their practices when you see them. You don’t need to like what they’re doing but you do need to stay out of their way. Accept that you are likely not a leader in this moment; that you are not Katniss Everdeen. Remember that in order for her to do what she did, countless nameless thankless people had to make decisions up and down the chain of power that required risk. No one will thank you for what you do. Maybe no one will ever know about it. You will get no prize. You will have to take risks anyway.

But remember: you are an artist. So you should already be practiced at taking risks.

We have peddled stories of bravery and risk and sacrifice and courage in relative safety now for decades. The time has come for us to enact those same principles in our lives. I cannot hold your hand through this, but I can promise to link my arm through yours and stand beside you. But only if you’re willing to stand.

Now is the time. Pick your fight.