Abstract
This chapter draws on postcolonial theory to take an intersectional approach to discussing recurring modes of discrimination and privilege within the literary industries. It then goes on to highlight some of the ways in which digital communication and online communities present opportunities for countering structural inequalities, in terms of promoting the work of underrepresented writers. Saha and van Lente suggest that “‘diversity’, when it is understood as giving special affordances to writers of colour, is seen as potentially undermining publishing’s meritocratic foundations” (Saha and van Lente, Rethinking ‘Diversity’ in Publishing. Project Report, p. 19, 2020). Many publishers’ implicit rejection of diversity is therefore based on an old-fashioned belief that “if it’s good we will publish it” (Saha and van Lente, Rethinking ‘Diversity’ in Publishing. Project Report, p. 19, 2020).
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Notes
- 1.
Zoë King was assistant publisher for The Tilt, which was published by The Literary Platform. The Tilt “calls for a shift in the industry story” and showcases the “change that each contributor wants to see enacted in publishing and the literary industries” (King 2021).
- 2.
Saha and van Lente explain in their report that: “The idea of the core reader as a white, middle-class older woman (sardonically referred to as ‘Susan’ by several of our respondents) remains dominant” (Saha and van Lente 2020, 14).
- 3.
The term BAME is problematic because, “like ‘black’ and ‘coloured’ before it, [it]was doomed to fail because it’s impossible to distill centuries of history and culture into a handy acronym.” (Mistlin 2021)
- 4.
“Western language and thought are constructed as a system of differences organized…as binary oppositions—white/black, good/bad, normal/deviant, etc.—with the primary term being privileged and designated as the defining terms or the norm of cultural meaning” (McLaren 1994, 55).
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Kiernan, A. (2021). Diversity, Representation and Innovation in Online Literary Promotion. In: Writing Cultures and Literary Media. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75081-7_4
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