A New Climate of Fear?

"It has all the hallmarks of suppression of speech: incitement of fear, intimidation of well-meaning folks, mob rule." So said Bill Ayers in response to the cancellation of a scheduled talk he was to give to high school students, whose parents would have been required to sign permission slips for them to attend, in Naperville, Ill. 

Ayers, author of Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist, is Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His relationship with Barack Obama became a source of controversy during the Presidential campaign in what Ayers described as a “dishonest narrative.” 

An event at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, scheduled for April 8 and tied to his new book from Third World Press, Race Course, was also cancelled. The bookshop cited security concerns. Similarly, an event at Brandeis University has been postponed due to the cost of security.

And a Boston College engagement at which Ayers was to speak about education reform was first cancelled by the college, then moved off campus, and briefly reworked into an event by satellite before that, too, was blocked by the BC officials. A local radio personality incited the protests that prompted the College to cancel the event. The student group that had invited Ayers to campus instead sponsored a discussion of freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus which drew 300 students, staff and faculty members. 

This is not the first time venues hosting speaking engagements featuring Ayers have come under fire. Officials at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln cancelled a lecture last fall, citing safety concerns. Countless events, however, have gone on in spite of attempts to suppress Ayers' speech. In October of 2001, when the late A. David Schwartz of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops stood firm in the face of calls and letters urging him to cancel an event tied to the original release of Fugitive Days, he offered this eloquent defense to his critics: 

"I myself grew up in Wisconsin during the McCarthy era and witnessed firsthand the attack on civil liberties and civic life that crippled America at that time. My father was accused of running a Communist bookshop by many people just because he thought it important to stock and promote books which were unpopular in the political climate of the time. I also was engaged in the movement against the Vietnam War and had some opportunities to view the Weathermen in action. I decided that I was politically and intellectually opposed to their positions on most matters.

Now to the specific issue of whether or not Bill Ayers should be allowed to be one of the 26 authors who will visit our shops in October. It seems to me this is what America is about: listening to many freely expressed viewpoints so we can decide for ourselves the truth. America's brilliance and enormous distinction from other democracies is that it truly believes in the democratic process. Letting Bill Ayers speak is a part of that process. I hope customers who disagree with Bill Ayers and his views will attend this book reading so you can question him about this ideas. That's another part of the process."

(Incidentally and on a sad note, Schwartz Bookshops very recently closed its doors for good after 82 years. Two of the chain's four locations will reopen soon under new names, and we wish the new owners all the best.)

Helene Atwan, director of Beacon Press, offers these thoughts on the cancellations:

"Like most of our colleagues in the publishing and media communities, we deplore a climate in which schools, universities and bookstores are made fearful of having any author--or indeed any one--speak in their venues.  As the management of Anderson's Bookshop put it:

'Bookstores play an integral part in the process by which ideas are disseminated and debated. Debate is essential in our society, and we take seriously our responsibility to promote ideas, including those that we personally do not endorse or condone. This week freedom of speech was threatened.'

For all of us involved in the work of publishing ideas, the suppression of speech is a blow to democracy. It impoverishes us all to live in a climate where ideas are suppressed rather than discussed and debated, where anger overtakes discourse.  We remain hopeful that the fear-mongering that led to these cancellations can be staunched by the many individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the free speech rights so integral to our national health."

Books Still Burn Here

Today's post, by Christopher M. Finan, honors Banned Books Week. Finan is president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. He is the author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America, which recently received the American Library Association's Eli Oboler Award for the best book on intellectual freedom in 2006 and 2007.

Some people will yawn at hearing that Saturday was the beginning of the 27th Annual Banned Books Week.

The story is the same every year, isn't it? Hundreds of titles are challenged in schools and libraries around the country. In 2007, the number was 420. This is fewer than the year before, but the number has fluctuated widely since the launch of Banned Books Week in 1982. The average is around 500.

Even the book at the top of the hit list is the same as last year–And Tango Makes Three, a childrens book that has been condemned as "pro-homosexual" and "anti-family" because it tells the story of two male penguins caring for an egg.

But this apparent sameness masks what is really going on. Behind the numbers are a lot of angry people–censors demanding the removal of books that offend them; teachers and librarians upset at finding themselves accused of trying to hurt kids, and the kids themselves caught in the crossfire.

Book banning is an old story, but it is new and often intensely painful for the people who experience it for the first time.

From the Director: Remembering Robert Giroux

Helene Atwan began her career in publishing at Random House in 1976; she worked at A.A.Knopf, Viking Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Simon and Schuster, before being named director of Beacon Press in 1995. She served for eight years on the board of PEN-New England and is the Administrator of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

I'm proud to note that Beacon Broadside is celebrating its first birthday this week—what a milestone. All our metrics are strong—measures I didn't even know existed a year ago but which I now follow avidly. Thanks to a dedicated and very talented blog editor, Jessie Bennett, and especially to a tremendously creative and generous list of house authors and friends, we have a very deep archive of posts on almost any subject of interest to Americans who are drawing breath in the 21st century. This fall also happens to mark my 32nd year in book publishing, and my 13th as director of Beacon. I think I value the blog so much because it is so radically different from anything I could imagine back when I was banging out letters to authors on a Selectric, with white-out smudges betraying my all-too-frequent typos.

When I first started in publishing, dinosaurs roamed the industry. Actually, they were giants. Among them, in my second job, was Alfred A. Knopf, who greeted one of my banal pleasantries about the weather one fine morning by styling it "a stinker," but who was otherwise quite civil, especially to his heir apparent, Bob Gottlieb, a giant-in-training. Random House already owned Knopf, and was owned itself at the time by RCA, but RH was still very much run by "gentleman publishers" with Bob Bernstein at the helm. I also had the opportunity to work at The Viking Press when Tom Guinzburg was still president. As good as they were, all were warm up acts for the men I was about to encounter when I went to work at Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1983.

Pat Strachan, currently of Little, Brown, and one of Bob Giroux's most illustrious mentees, Bob, and Helene Atwan, 2004

A great deal has been written about Roger Straus by some very fine writers. He was far more outrageous and colorful than they let on. (His wonderful wife, Dorothea Straus, has never received the press she deserves, and her death last month passed without enough comment. No one who knew them will ever forget them.) But of all the giant figures in the industry, the most impressive to me was Bob Giroux, whose death this month leaves a gaping hole in the industry. His obituaries (in the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and elsewhere) deserve to be studied, but they don't tell the whole story. I don't think I know anyone who worked with Mr. Giroux who didn't love him as much as they admired him. In addition to his considerable achievements as an editor, he was also a great mentor, an avid amateur Shakespeare scholar, and wonderful company. In my first weeks at Farrar, Straus and Giroux (and once I knew him I would never again abbreviate the firm's name by omitting his!), he invited me to lunch at his beloved Player's Club, where he took obvious relish in showing me around. The Booth room—the assassin's brother, of course—preserved lovingly, was a point of particular pride and pleasure. He enjoyed ordering our lunch—invariably awful in those days, watery soups and limp vegetables; pale, beaten down slabs of meat swimming in gray gravy—which he cheerfully consumed. He had a way of laughing—and he laughed a lot in good company—which made his distinguished face suddenly round and positively babyish. He took delight in things, and loved springing a surprise. One afternoon, he came striding down the hall out of his small, darkish office at the extreme end of the back hall to announce that he'd just received a new ms. from Walker Percy so we'd better add it to the next list. The catalogue, if memory serves, had to be called back from the printer. He loved good collections of letters—Flannery O'Connor's were often to him—and biographies. I hope to high heaven that someone will collect his letters and write a very long, detailed and juicy biography of Bob. Until then, we are very lucky to have the books he brought into the world, so many of them classics already, and for those lucky enough to have shared an overcooked meal or two with him, our fond memories.

Media and Links

Faith in Public Life are hosting the Compassion Forum this Sunday, April 13th. The discussion of "wide-ranging and probing discussions of policies related to pressing moral issues that are bridging ideological divides now more than ever, including poverty, global AIDS, climate change and human rights," as well as the crisis in Darfur, will include Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (but not John McCain, who declined his invitation). The event will air on CNN at 8pm. Among the members of Faith in Public Life who will be asking questions at the event is Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith and director of the Interfaith Youth Core.

Of interest on other blogs:

Nancy Polikoff explains that the tax advantages of marriage aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, has been documenting the green overhaul of their store on their blog.

Patricia E. Bauer posts a memorial to Melissa Riggio, the daughter of Barnes & Nobel CEO Steve Riggio. who died of leukemia recently at the age of 20. "Ms. Riggio, who had Down syndrome, was the inspiration for Barnes & Noble’s creation of a special section of books about children with special needs."

Wendy Kaminer on the lawsuit pending in Indiana that requires bookstores that sell "sexuality explicit material" to register with the state.

Harlyn Aizley agonizes over what to do with her poem-a-day emails.

Dictionary-phile Ammon Shea on how dictionaries ruined his Scrabble game.

Storytelling in Many Media

by Allison Trzop

Boston recently hosted an assembly of smart and passionate people focused hard on the buzzword "change." The event wasn’t a political rally, but the 2008 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism, themed "Storytelling in Many Voices, Many Media." The three-day conference ably met one of the goals of new Director Constance Hale: “Showcasing journalists who are creating exciting work in digital forms while at the same time celebrating those whose work reflects the intelligence, integrity, depth, and creativity that have long been the hallmarks of the best of traditional media.”

From the Pulitzer-Prize winning veterans to J-school students, there was an undercurrent of job anxiety, peppered with optimism, at the conference. Speakers and attendees together tackled tough issues including declining print subscriptions, rapidly evolving technology, and what exactly today’s consumers of news want. There were few definitive answers to that question, but some exquisitely well-informed guesses. Senior Producer at nytimes.com Derrick Henry helpfully pointed to the concise and prescient report, "Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look at News on the Internet" (pdf). Henry spoke on a panel alongside Russell Contreras, multimedia reporter for the Boston Globe, who also hosts the Globe podcast on minority issues called "Across the Divide." Both Henry and Contreras are doing amazing audiovisual work online and, most importantly, training others--which is crucial to satisfying twenty-first century news' consumers. It seems today that slideshows and sound are important tools in storytelling that are only starting to be used to full advantage.

I was struck by how often I saw the ID "multimedia journalist"--Jane Ellen Stevens was one prominent example--and how many of the speakers’ bios began with a website, like Jessie Scanlon, senior writer for BusinessWeek.com. I think it’s a powerful sign when the nation's top journalists say that they regard their stories placement on the home page as the equivalent to front page, above the fold. And I was excited by the wide range of online work I saw, impressive and varied content beyond the static page--including James Pindell's politicker.com; Josh Benton’s blog; and Brian Storm's multimedia production studio.

Like everyone in book publishing, I think often about the future of the written word, and the viability of our current forms of print. As a book editor, I go to conferences like the Nieman to look for potential projects, and I find journalists--who are working with shorter and shorter word counts as print editions are trimmed--invariably attracted by the length and depth that a book can offer. I'm most encouraged by the journalists who are adapting to new technology with integrity, but who also overwhelmingly continue to find value in what is still one of the fullest and most satisfying forms of storytelling--the printed book.

For more about the conference, check out Charles Donelan’s write-up over at the Santa Barbara Independent.

Allison Trzop is an assistant editor at Beacon Press.

A Winter Institute: The Transformation of Independent Bookselling

Tom Hallock, Beacon's Associate Publisher, spent last weekend in the company of 500 booksellers at the American Booksellers Associations' third Annual Winter Institute in Louisville, Kentucky.

by Tom Hallock

Independent booksellers, like independent retailers in other industries, have long been under siege by big box and online retailers. In searching for ways to survive, they've found solutions that place them in the vanguard of Americans who are reclaiming their downtown areas, restoring the environment and creating community.

Amidst the workshops on inventory management, loss control, hand selling, and a hilarious one on consumer behavior led by Len Vlahos, were others on green retailing and presentations linking buy local campaigns to national movements on sustainability and climate change. Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (Holtzbrinck), spoke about "the special role bookstores and booksellers have to play, as they provide the place "where the community can think about itself". Gary Hirshberg, President and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion), grew his business from a "7 cow start up" to a $300 million dollar a year company by incorporating environmentalism principals and practices. He found it both increased customer loyalty and reduced costs. He encouraged booksellers to think not only about how they lit and heated their stores, but also to examine the supply chain. He mentioned that UPS had saved ten million dollars a year by re-routing their trucks to minimize energy-consuming left turns. He left me thinking about not only our manufacturing practices, but also issues like returns. The ABA has embraced these messages, not only in programming, but by providing conference materials that were so green as to be almost edible. They've also developed a great list of books on community and sustainability [pdf].

Booksellers have taken the lead in developing independent business associations in their communities, educating their customers about the economic and environmental benefits of shopping locally. ABA COO Oren Teicher, a leading advocate of this approach, spoke about a study of 2007 holiday sales which showed that stores in areas that had independent business alliances averaged sales increases of 2.1%, whereas those in areas that lacked them had declines of .3%. In a business famous for its 2% profit margins, the difference is significant. Booksellers such as Steve Bercu, owner of BookPeople in Austin Texas; Betsy Burton, owner of The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City (and author of The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller); Carla Jimenez, co-owner of Inkwood Books in Tampa FL; and Clark Kepler, president of Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, shared their knowledge about creating these alliances. Beacon author Stacy Mitchell (Big Box Swindle) joined McKibben and Michael Shuman (The Small-Mart Revolution, Berrett-Koehler) in a wide ranging conversation about the transformative power of local economies, a talk that brought us all to our feet and which ABA hopes to broadcast on Book TV.

Banned Books Week begins tomorrow

Banned Books Week officially begins tomorrow, and Beacon Broadside has already begun our tribute to free speech with Chris Finan's discussion of censorship in America, Helene Atwan's interview with the oft-banned Lois Lowry, and a little nudge in the direction of something we're quite proud of around these parts: a fantastic page devoted to the publication of the Pentagon Papers over at our sister site. The page features a compelling panel discussion from last year's UU General Assembly, and Allison Trzop's Beacon Press and the Pentagon Papers, a master's thesis that's more gripping than that mass-market thriller you've been carrying in your bag.

Banned Books Week has us thinking about censorship and free speech, but the recent controversy over book banning in prisons also got us fired up (along with Chris W. over at Philocrites). Fortunately, the public outcry over this egregious violation of the First Amendment made the government back off for now. It just goes to show that in order to protect speech, you've got to speak up! Of course, there's still more to come on this story, so we'll keep an eye on any future developments.

We have more exciting things on deck for next week, including continued Banned Books Week coverage from Rick Ayers, co-author of Great Books for High School Kids, plus thoughts from Rabbi Arthur Waskow in advance of the Interfaith Fast on October 8. Be sure to add us to your RSS reader, or sign up to receive Beacon Broadside by email.

Blogging Good Independent Bookstores

Independent bookstores have something special to offer readers, particularly in this age of information overload, and many of us have a favorite neighborhood store where we like to relax and browse. Over at Maud Newton Joel Turnipseed has a great piece on Micawber's Books in St. Paul. It's a celebration of what sets this small, exceptional bookstore apart.   John Freeman at Critical Mass talks about how a good bookstore can get even a cynical reviewer crushed under a mountain of free galleys to plunk down a few dollars for a good read. And Books & Books in Miami is getting ready to celebrate twenty-five years—mazel tov!

How about you? Do you have a favorite neighborhood bookstore you'd like to plug? Use the comments and sound off!