At the New York Times, Elizabeth A. Harris and Concepción de León speak with food writers and chefs Toni Tipton-Martin, Nicole Taylor, and Kristina Gill about their experiences in book publishing. While there is increased demand for cookbooks by Black chefs, authors continue to face steep challenges before and after such book deals: “At every step, the teams involved tend to be overwhelmingly white. Some Black writers say this can put them in a position of having to explain the basics of the food they’re writing about.”
Jamel Brinkley, Ottessa Moshfegh, and more authors with work in the Paris Review’s summer issue each select a single sentence “that marked the moment they first knew what story they were writing.”
The African American Intellectual History Society is now accepting nominations for the 2021 Pauli Murray Book Prize, which recognizes the best book of Black intellectual history. This year’s winner was Keeanga-Yamahtta Tayor, author of Race for Profit.
At Columbia Journalism Review, Jon Allsop writes that the “poisoning of Alexei Navalny is a press freedom story.” Navalny is a Russian politician and activist who has spoken out against Putin. Allsop argues that while Navalny may not be a journalist, the attempt to silence him still counts as an assault on the freedom of the press.
On Friday, 92Y will host Jon Meachem talking about His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, Meachem’s new book about the civil-rights pioneer.