"What's interesting about this unneeded controversy is that I haven't so far seen anybody ... who thinks (bowdlerizing the books) is a good idea. Loudmouths on the right think it's 'woke cancel culture' nonsense, and loudmouths on the left think it smacks of literary censorship. So why has this happened?" - Slate
"The Classic Collection will 'sit alongside the newly released Puffin Roald Dahl books for young readers', the publisher said," referring to the controversial new editions, vetted by sensitivity readers, which remove such potentially offensive epithets as "fat" and "ugly." - The Guardian
Dahl’s antisemitism was widely reported around the time of his death. His editors had entered discussions regarding the misogyny and racism in some of his other books. In some cases he listened and in others, he didn’t. Eventually, his US publishers had enough of his truculent behaviour. - The Conversation
“Poetry cannot save us, and yet the poets could do a great deal to redirect our minds and senses back to the proper object of their love…eyes schooled by the poets, as they look out on the ravaged landscape of our world.” - Hedgehog Review
"We invest every year in thousands of ideas and dreams, and only a few make it to the top. So I call it the Silicon Valley of media. We are angel investors of our authors and their dreams, their stories. That’s how I call my editors and publishers: angels.” - Harper's
"Survey data showed that a bulk of (the site's) readers were in the 18-to-35 age bracket. ... To experiment with a new approach, The Conversation launched the Quarter Life series in March 2022, commissioning stories for people in their 20s and 30s." - Journalism.co.uk
Emily Dickinson thought that words start a new, discrete cycle of life the moment they are uttered. While American English can be perceived as a threat to the survival of other cultures around the world, in our country it is a force that helps to bind us together. - The New York Times
ChatGPT, the popular bot released to the public by OpenAI late last year, is obsessed with clichés and uses them all the time. Perhaps it is no coincidence that use of the chatbot has already become common in areas of life where people write formulaically and blandly. - The Atlantic
We dug into several proposed methods and tools for recognising AI-generated text. None of them are foolproof, all of them are vulnerable to workarounds, and it’s unlikely they will ever be as reliable as we’d like. - The Conversation
"Gallimard, ... the French publishers of Roald Dahl, have ruled out any changes to the late British author's translated books after it emerged that ... the UK publisher Puffin hired sensitivity readers to remove language deemed inappropriate." - The Guardian
"For many of the more than 250 unionized employees, the agreement ratified on Feb. 16 between their union, Local 2110 of the U.A.W., and the publisher was a victory: It included a raise and some guaranteed overtime for the employees at the lower end of the wage scale." - The New York Times
In “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” for instance, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer “small men” but rather “small people,” according to The Telegraph, while the word “fat” has also been removed from every book. - Toronto Star
I’ve known writers who used to submit, literally, the manuscript of a work. It might loiter for six months in some publisher’s office before being returned. Under the conditions of print, a dozen failures a year were difficult to accumulate. Today, if you work at it, you can fail a dozen times before lunch. - The Atlantic
Salman Rushdie spoke out, as did PEN America: "If we start down the path of trying to correct for perceived slights instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society." - CNN
Although the Barnes & Noble event caters to fans of romance and fantasy, BookTok is vast and multifarious. The community is a constellation of fandoms. - Lithub
