No New Books Tuesday. Gonna Talk Harassment Instead.

I hate to break the weekly posts so soon after starting them, but I feel I have to. Because some things going on in SFF this week have caused me to take a week's break in promoting authors and books.

Last month. School Library Journal published a piece called Children’s Publishing Reckons with Sexual Harassment in Its Ranks. Then, last week, author Anne Ursu published a piece in Medium called Sexual Harassment in the Children’s Book Industry, in which she reported on the results of an industry survey she started in December . Then, on Sunday, in the comments to the SLJ article, anonymous posters started accusing some prominent names in sff and YA of harassment and bad behavior of all sorts.

People named included 13 Reasons Why author Jay Asher and Maze Runner author James Dashner, as well as Carnegie Medal winner Sherman Alexie. Others have been named as well.

A wise friend of mine wrote the following elsewhere:

Regarding benefit of the doubt, though. I often say "I believe victims," but I don't actually mean "I believe victims 100% of the time and will believe anyone who speaks up regardless of circumstance." What I mean is that I will presume their honesty, because statistically speaking, we know that false accusations are extremely rare. But I'm not naive enough to believe that no one ever makes false claims--especially when they can make them anonymously.

Even if some of the accusations turn out to be untrue (in Asher's case, accusations have caused his expulsion from the Society of Children’s Book Writers last year, a fact that was only publicized following a comment on the SLJ article) history tells us that most such accusations turn out to be true. And even anonymous reporting can take an incredible amount of courage.

Some of those accused have had people jump to their defense using the "they were great to me" defense, which is a reminder that predators cultivate future defenders just as much as they do their victims.

So, today, instead of promoting new books, I'd rather promote good behavior. YA and Children's books authors have a special responsibility, in their writing and their behavior, as their fans are young and vulnerable. And we in the book community have a responsibility to protect kids, not our colleagues.

Next week, I'll go back to telling y'all about exciting new books, including any I would have posted about this week, because good authors deserve promotion and most of them aren't predators.