Publishers to Jewish authors: "Your identities won’t sell"

In a move the editor certainly knew would be unpopular among the organization's core audience, PEN America, earlier this month, published an article about the isolation and exclusion of Jewish and Israeli writers. Shortly afterwards, the organization's president resigned, and PEN America issued a statement standing by the piece while reminding everyone that it has also repeatedly condemned Israel—a sequence of events that likely pleased no one. Being ostricized from the publishing world is familiar territory for Toronto writer and cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki, the founding editor of Broken Pencil, a Canadian magazine about zines. After Niedzviecki faced repeated threats of boycotts unless he condemned Israel, he shut down Broken Pencil entirely in 2024. He now joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss how the publishing industry has imposed a not-so-silent moratorium on Jewish writers, and what the possible solutions are, including kickstarting a new community-driven grant. Credits Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective