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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Clarence Thomas and the generosity of a far-right dark-money billionaire

Clarence Thomas has set some important precedents in his career as a Supreme Court justice — for example, the elevation of the unrepentant rapist Brett Kavanaugh to the bench could never have occurred but for the trail blazed by Thomas as a sexually harassing, pubic-hair distributing creep boss:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/01/30-years-after-her-testimony-anita-hill-still-wants-something-from-joe-biden-514884

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

Today, Thomas continues to steer the court into new territory — for example, he’s interested in banning same-sex marriage again:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitutional-rights-00042256

And of course, he’s set precedent by hearing cases related to the attempted overthrow of the US government, despite the role his wife played in the affair:

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/30/1089595933/legal-ethics-experts-agree-justice-thomas-must-recuse-in-insurrection-cases

Thomas is not alone in furthering the right’s mission to destroy the morale of constitutional law scholars by systematically delegitimizing the court and showing it to be a vehicle for partisan politics and dark money policy laundering, but he is certainly at the vanguard:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/25/consequentialism/#dotards-in-robes

Today, Propublica published an expose on the vast fortune in secret gifts bestowed upon Thomas by the billionare GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who is also one the most significant funders of political campaigns that put business before Thomas and the Supreme Court:

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow

The story, reported by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski is a masterwork of shoe-leather investigative journalism, drawing on aviation records, social media posts and other “open source” intelligence to expose the illegal, off-the-books “gifts” from a billionaire to an unaccountable Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment.

Here are a two of those gifts: a private jet/superyacht jaunt around Indonesia valued at $500,000; and a $500,000 gift to Ginni Thomas’s Tea Party group (which pays Ginni Thomas $120,000/year).

On top of that are gifts that are literally priceless: decades’ worth of summer vacations at Camp Topridge, Crow’s private estate, with its waterfall, great hall, private chefs, 25 fireplaces, thee boathouses, clay tennis court, batting range, 1950s-style soda fountain and full-scale reproduction of Hagrid’s hut.

Summer retreats to Topridge allow business leaders like Leonard Leo — the Federalist Society bankroller and mastermind who set Trump up to pack the Supreme Court — to coordinate in private with Thomas:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/29/betcha-cant-eat-just-one/#pwnage

They also allow top execs from PWC, Verizon and other corporations who may have business before the court to establish a warm, collegial relationship with a judge whose decisions can make billions for their employers. In its reporting, Propublica points out that Thomas got to hang out on Crow’s superyacht with Mark Paoletta, who was then general counsel for Trump’s OMB, and who has opposed any tightening of ethics rules for Supreme Court judges: “there is nothing wrong with ethics or recusals at the Supreme Court.”

Crow and Thomas also hobnob together at Crow’s Texas ranch, and at the Bohemian Grove, the Bay Area’s ultra-luxe retreat for rich creeps. Crow bought Thomas a private superyacht cruise through New Zealand, another through the Greek islands, and a river trip around Savannah, GA. He also traveled around the country on Crow’s private jet — even a short private jet trip is valued around $70,000.

Crow also makes many donations on Thomas’s behalf, from a $105,000 donation to Yale Law School for the “Justice Thomas Portrait Fund” to paying for a 7 foot tall, 1,800 lb bronze statue of the nun who taught Thomas in the eighth grade, which now stands in a New York Catholic cemetery.

This is without precedent. No Supreme Court justice in US history received comparable gifts during their tenure on the bench. Federal judges quoted in the story call it “incomprehensible,” noting that US judges bend over backwards not to owe anyone any favors, going so far as to book restaurant reservations without using their titles.

Virginia Canter, a former US government ethics lawyer of bipartisan experience said Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations,” adding “it makes my heart sink.”

The Supreme Court’s own code of ethics prohibits justices from engaging in conduct that gives rise to the “appearance of impropriety,” but the code is “consultative,” and there are no penalties for violating it. But US judicial officers — including Thomas — are legally required to disclose things like private jet trips. Thomas did not. In general, justices must report any gift valued at more than $415, where a gift is “anything of value.” This includes instances in which a gift is given by a corporation whose owner is the true giver.

Crow is a Red Scare-haunted plutocrat who says his greatest fear is “Marxism.” He was a key donor to the anti-tax extremists at the Club For Growth, and has served on the board of the American Enterprise Institute — climate deniers who also claimed that smoking didn’t cause cancer — for 25 years.

Crow is a proud dark-money source, too, whose $10m in acknowledged donations to Republican causes and candidates are only the tip of the iceberg, next to the dark money he has provided to groups he declines to name, telling the New York Times, “I don’t disclose what I’m not required to disclose.”

Crow claims that the vast sums he’s lavished on Thomas — who, again, presides over the test cases that Crow is helping to put before him — are just “hospitality.” Crow called the private retreats with business leaders and top government officials “gatherings of friends,” and added that he was “unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas” while at his private estates or on his superyacht or private plane.

For his part, Thomas publicly maintains that he hates luxury. In a Crow-financed documentary about Thomas’s life, Thomas tells the camera, “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”

Judges often have to make determinations about conflicts of interest, and lawyers have an entire practice devoted to preventing conflicts from arising. I doubt whether Thomas himself would consent to have a dispute of his own tried in front of a judge who had received millions in gifts from his opponent.

The Supreme Court’s power comes from its legitimacy. The project of delegitimizing the court started with the right, and Democrats have been loathe to participate in any activity that would worsen the court’s reputation. As a result, the business lobby and authoritarian politicians have had free rein to turn the court into a weapon for attacking American workers, American women, and LGBTQ people.

It doesn’t have to be this way. When the Supreme Court blocked all of FDR’s New Deal policies — which were wildly popular — FDR responded by proposing age limits for Supreme Court judges. When the Supremes refused to contemplate this, FDR asked Congress for a law allowing him to appoint one new Supreme Court judge for every judge who should retire but wouldn’t.

As the vote on this bill grew nearer, the Supremes reversed themselves, voting to uphold the policies they’d struck down in their previous session. They knew that their legitimacy was all they had, and when a brave president stood up to their bullying, they caved.

https://theconversation.com/packing-the-court-amid-national-crises-lincoln-and-his-republicans-remade-the-supreme-court-to-fit-their-agenda-147139

The Supreme Court has moved America further away from the ideals of pluralistic democracy than we can even fathom, and they’re just getting started. They are taking a wrecking ball to the lives of anyone who isn’t a wealthy conservative, and they’re doing it while accepting a fortune in bribes from American oligarchs.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Mr. Kjetil Ree (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Supreme_Court.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: An altered image of Clarence Thomas, standing in gilded judicial robes on the steps of the Supreme Court. Looming over the court is a line-drawing of a business-man with a dollar-sign-emblazoned money-bag for a head.]

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muppet-facts · 2 years

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Muppet Fact #520

Herry Monster loves playing with dolls and has a collection of around eleven.

Sources:

Sesame Street. Episode 0779. December 4, 1975.

Sesame Street. Episode 1127. March 7, 1978.

Sesame Street. Episode 1137. March 21, 1978.

Sesame Street. Episode 1196. December 11, 1978.

Sesame Street. Episode 1261. March 12, 1979.

Sesame Street. Episode 1723. December 15, 1982.

Sesame Street. Episode 2492. November 22, 1988.

Sesame Street. Episode 2847. April 2, 1991.

People In Your Neighborhood View-Master reels. 1982.

Sesame Street Finding Out Encyclopedia 4: The D Book. Writers: Richard Carlisle, Margaret Crush, Molly Lodge, Lee Pressman, George Short, Jocelyn Stevenson. Illustrators: John Gossler, Mari Szmichowska, Penny Simon, Dennis Ryan, Zena Flax. Bay Books Inc. 1982.

My Doll is Lost! Dan Elliott and Joe Mathieu. Random House. 1984.

Sesame Street. Episode 2492. November 22, 1988.

Sesame Street. Episode 2847. April 2, 1991.

#jim henson #muppet facts oc #the muppets #muppets #muppet facts #fun facts #sesame street #childrens tv #herry monster

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lascitasdelashoras · 8 months

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Elliott Bay Book Company

#elliott bay #libros #librerias #afiches

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jewellboxx · 1 year

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Works Cited

Popular:

“Antique and Vintage Jewellery Boxes.” AC Silver, www.acsilver.co.uk/shop/pc/Antique-Jewellery-Boxes-c182.htm#:~:text=Jewellery%20boxes%20were%20in%20common,to%20keep%20such%20items%20safe.

“#JewelBoxDiaries - a Brief History on the Jewellery Box.” Radiant Bay, 20 May 2017, www.radiantbay.com/blogs/ornamentals/30198529-jewelboxdiaries-a-brief-history-on-the-jewellery-box.

Elliott, Amy. Intriguing Origins and History of the Jewelry Box Revealed in New Book. 16 Mar. 2020, www.jckonline.com/editorial-article/history-of-the-jewelry-box.

Scholarly:

Ben-Tor, Amnon. “A Decorated Jewellery Box From Hazor.” Tel Aviv, vol. 36, no. 1, Routledge, June 2009, pp. 5–67. https://doi.org/10.1179/204047809x439442.

“Antique Jewellery and Trinkets.” Google Books, books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SoxCAQAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=victorian+era+jewel+box&ots=qpxfYhIwjo&sig=F8EsBA2tIijBWDGT5QwDpYfUT4A#v=onepage&q=victorian%20era%20jewel%20box&f=false.

#fact check

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jedivoodoochile · 1 year

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American actress KATHARINE ROSS (born Jan 29, 1940) first came into prominence with her role in 'The Graduate,' for which she was nominated for an ‘Oscar.’

In 1969, she appeared in the Oscar-winning film 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' which again was a huge success. Her role in the horror thriller 'The Stepford Wives' also earned her critical acclaim.

Over the course of her career, she appeared in numerous TV shows, playing major as well as guest roles. Some of these shows include 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,' 'Run for Your Life,' and 'The Road West.'

In 2017, she was seen in the American drama film 'The Hero.' Directed by Brett Haley, the film is about an aging actor dealing with a terminal illness. A multi-faceted personality, she is also a successful author.

She has written several books for children, such as 'The Fuzzytail Friends' Great Egg Hunt' and 'Grover, Grover, Come on Over!'

Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. A native of Los Angeles, Ross spent most of her early life in the San Francisco Bay Area. After attending Santa Rosa Junior College for one year, Ross joined The Actors Workshop in San Francisco, and began appearing in theatrical productions.

Ross made her film debut in the Civil War-themed drama Shenandoah (1965), and had supporting parts in Mister Buddwing (1965) and The Singing Nun (1966) before being cast in Curtis Harrington's Games (1967), a thriller co-starring James Caan and Simone Signoret.

At Signoret's recommendation, Ross was cast as Elaine Robinson in Mike Nichols' comedy-drama The Graduate (1967), which saw her receive significant critical acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA nomination, and Golden Globe win for New Star of the Year.

In 1968 Ross co-starred in the John Wayne movie Hellfighters playing his daughter Tish Buckman. She garnered further acclaim for her roles in two 1969 western films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, for both of which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress.

In the 1970s, Ross had a leading role in the horror film The Stepford Wives (1975), for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress, and won her second Golden Globe Award for her performance in the drama Voyage of the Damned (1976). Other roles during this period included in disaster film The Swarm (1978), the supernatural horror film The Legacy (1978), and the science fiction film The Final Countdown (1980).

Ross spent the majority of the 1980s appearing in a number of television films, including Murder in Texas (1981) and The Shadow Riders (1982), and later starred on the network series The Colbys from 1985 to 1987.

Ross spent the majority of the 1990s in semiretirement, though she returned to film with a supporting part in Richard Kelly's cult film Donnie Darko (2001).

In 2016, she provided a voice role for the animated comedy series American Dad!, and in 2017 starred in the comedy-drama The Hero, opposite her husband, Sam Elliott.

#katharine ross

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magxit · 8 months

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Seattle ideas:

-Pike Place Market (touristy but must do)

-Japanese Gardens

-Elliott Bay Books

-take the ferry across to Bainbridge Island and back for great views.

-day trip to Mt Rainier Or Snoqualmie Falls (famous from Twin Peaks)

-Go see live music at the Crocodile

-eat some good fish and chips and/or sushi!

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micahnemerever · 1 year

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oh wow you are actually here i just wanna say i love your book so much but i barely have anyone to chat about it with!! so i have taken matters into my own hands.

i forced my 40-year-old literature teacher to read it. i will let u know how she liked it.

i also want to buy a copy for my friend in the US for the holidays, so im on the hunt for independent bookstores right now… i was wondering if you have any favorite independent bookstores out there?? 🥺

love, a tvd enthusiast (apostle?)

Thank you so much ;________; ❤️

I am a fan of both my big local indies, Third Place Books and Elliott Bay Book Company, both of whom ship nationwide!

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rasheednewsonauthor · 1 year

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I am so thrilled and grateful that Elliott Bay Book Company and The Seattle Times named “My Government Means to Kill Me” as the book to read if you are feeling rebellious!

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/tell-us-how-you-want-to-feel-and-well-tell-you-what-to-read-next/

#mygovernmentmeanstokillme #gay books #queer books #lgbtq books #booksbooksbooks #historical fiction

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spohkh · 1 year

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back home tomorrow! i went to so many bookstores on this trip: left bank books, elliott bay, twice sold tales, and 2 little bookstores inside pike place market :’)

#not pictured are a copy of my own book and a copy of my coauthors other forthcoming title #bc again: doxxing #titleless book is a combo of herman hesse’s siddhartha + the dhammapada by the buddha #beaus books #i think im gna start no time to spare on the plane!!#i got that one from Lamplight books which is inside pike place — SUCH a neat little store

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cleverwordsandotherstuffilike · 2 years

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From the time she was a teenager, Jane Lotter, a lifelong resident of Seattle, loved to write — jingles for a greeting card company; news and features for a local real estate magazine; a weekly humour column in the now defunct Jet City Maven; and, most recently, a comic novel, completed shortly before her death last month.

Those best acquainted with her describe Ms. Lotter as a woman who had great spunk, knew her mind and, even at the age of 60 and dying of cancer, was wise beyond her years. So last spring, when she told her family that she was planning to write her own obituary, they weren’t too surprised, though they’d never heard of anyone doing that.

As her daughter, Tessa, said, “Of course you are.”

The good part about writing it yourself is that you know the material best and get the final word on your life.

On the other hand, a poorly written obituary would be a disastrous legacy for a writer.

The paid obituary, which was published on July 28 in The Seattle Times, began:

“One of the few advantages of dying from Grade 3, Stage IIIC endometrial cancer, recurrent and metastasized to the liver and abdomen, is that you have time to write your own obituary. (The other advantages are no longer bothering with sunscreen and no longer worrying about your cholesterol.)”

Part of the power of the piece — and this is what had journalists around the country posting it on their Twitter feeds — is that Ms. Lotter is talking to the reader from the grave. Or, in this case, from Elliott Bay, where her ashes were scattered.

Considering the subject matter, she wrote with admirable restraint, much of it in classic obituary style. She was a University of Washington graduate; married for 29 years to Bob Marts, a sound mixer for films and television; mother of Tessa, 23, and Riley, 19; preceded in death by father Michael, mother Margaret and younger sister Julie; survived by dear sisters Barbara, Kathleen and Patricia.

And so, when she does get personal, there is added power to her words: “I met Bob Marts at the Central Tavern in Pioneer Square on November 22, 1975, which was the luckiest night of my life. We were married on April 7, 1984. Bobby M, I love you up to the sky.”

Like any writer worth her salt, she used this final opportunity to list her awards and plug her book: “First Place in the Mainstream Novel category of the 2009 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest for my comic novel, ‘The Bette Davis Club’ (available at Amazon.com).”

Even the best obituaries must leave much of a lifetime out, as Ms. Lotter herself noted: “I would demonstrate my keen sense of humor by telling a few jokes here, but the Times charges for these listings by the column inch and we must move on.”

To fill in some of the blanks, I spoke with Mr. Marts on Thursday. They met, he said, when he asked her to dance at that bar. He had long sideburns and was wearing bell bottoms; she wore granny glasses and beads.

Life was less formal then, and he never really proposed. “We were living together and needed a washing machine,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Why don’t we buy it together?’ And she said, ‘I don’t want to buy stuff together unless we get married.’ So I said, ‘O.K., let’s get married.’ ”

“Our life together has been frugal,” he said. “We never paid interest on anything, except the mortgage, bought used cars, ate well at home, went out when it was affordable.”

Ms. Lotter’s dream, Mr. Marts said, was to get a novel published, but she ran out of time and self-published it as an e-book.

In early 2010, she learned she had uterine cancer. She went through three treatments, lost her hair twice and by this past March knew she wasn’t going to make it. By then, she was the only one of the original members of her cancer support group still alive.

Over the last few months, she kept revising the obituary. She and Mr. Marts chose a picture from before they were married, taken in a photo booth at the Space Needle; for the newspaper, Mr. Marts cropped himself out.

Ms. Lotter took advantage of the state’s Death With Dignity Act. “Suicide is the opposite of how Jane saw her life,” Mr. Marts said. “She loved life. She just didn’t want to end up like a fish flopping on a dock.”

“It’s tricky,” he said. “You have to do it yourself. Some people wait too long and slip into a coma.”

On July 18, the couple and their two children gathered in the parents’ bedroom. Ms. Lotter asked to keep in her contact lenses, in case a hummingbird came to the feeder Mr. Marts had hung outside their window.

The last song she heard before pouring powdered barbiturates, provided by hospice officials, into a glass of grape juice was George Gershwin’s “Lullaby.” Then she hugged and kissed them all goodbye, swallowed the drink and, within minutes, lapsed into a coma and died.

It has been two weeks, and Mr. Marts thinks of her when he has to pay the bills. “She took care of all that,” he said. “She’d explained to me which were online, how she entered them in her ledger. She told me, but I was in denial. Now I’ll have to figure it out.”

Tessa, who works as a movie production assistant in Los Angeles, used to speak to her mother by phone daily. “She was a real source of reliable knowledge,” she said. “I’m only 23 years old and there’s a lot of things in life I have questions about.” (Riley, who is a student at the University of Washington, was working back-to-back 10-hour shifts as a bicycle delivery man for a sandwich shop that day, and didn’t have time to talk.)

“I was given the gift of life,” Ms. Lotter wrote toward the end of her obituary, “and now I have to give it back. This is hard. But I was a lucky woman, who led a lucky existence, and for this I am grateful.”

On Sunday, Aug. 4, a memorial service was held at the Great Hall at Green Lake in Seattle.

Mr. Marts handed out several hundred buttons based on the words his wife had used to sign off in her obituary: “Beautiful day, happy to have been here.”

By MICHAEL WINERIP, NY Times

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fletcher-bit-me · 1 year

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currently reading David Almond's Clay and there is no way this was his final draft, his good copy. your telling me he has awards? for writing?

now before you come at me, the plot could be fire, but its been ruined by the structure. anyone who likes reading knows that to make a good paragraph, let alone story line, you need good writing structure.

this book is full of sentences, and you may be thinking "Elliott, books are supposed to have sentences, that's what makes them books!"

yeah, but not when your taking a sentence and breaking it into three.

EXAMPLE - "There was no mystery. it turned out the kid was called Stephen Rose. He was from Whitley Bay." - David Almond, Clay, chapter two, paragraph one.

this could very easily become "There was no mystery, it turned out the kid was called Stephen Rose and he was from Whitley Bay." that is a very basic sentence, a sentence that can still be improved, but still a better one than those three that were in the actual book.

the first chapter was very fast paced, and when you introduce a villain character, even if they aren't in the scene, don't immediatly have your characters talk about wanting to commit homicide to the point of having extremely violent dreams about how they would murder the villain without giving a reason to hate the villiain character.

a better way to introduce a character that is meant to be a villian would be talking about how the main characters hate how this character treats them, or how they always get a bad feeling when around this character.

and another point - if Character A & B (main characters) are going to encounter character B - who is supposed to be the villain, give a physical description. don't just have character B - Oh no! character C is coming! hide! - then have character C walk by, no description, no "they watched as he strode past menacingly" (just an exampleofa way to describe a villain character walking past.

I have plans on becomming and english teacher in the future, and i would use this book as an example of terrible story writing for my students.

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8gnorant · 2 years

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If you are in cap hill try out Elliott bay book company, and plant shop Seattle. Also volunteer park! Hope Seattle gives you a lil kiss

i've been there twice! great place (book store). i will visit the others this week actually, thanks so much for this

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ippnoida · 3 days

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Jaipur BookMark puts spotlight on future of publishing

New technological advancements impacting publishing such as artificial intelligence (AI), podcasts, data analysis, and OTT were the focal points of discussion at the 11th edition of the Jaipur BookMark, held alongside the Jaipur Literature Festival from 1 – 5 February 2024 in Jaipur.

According to director, JBM Manisha Chaudhry, this year's Jaipur BookMark (JBM) looked at the future of the publishing industry and all important developments likely to impact publishing in the future. Sessions were also held alongside to mark the anniversaries of major publishing houses along with a Roundtable with 18 publishers from across the globe.

Chaudhry referred to a session on AI and the future of publishing that had Meru Gokhale, founder of Editrix.ai and former publisher at the Penguin Press Group; Charles Collier, a film, television and literary agent, producer, lawyer, and talent manager; and Safir Anand, intellectual property lawyer and brand strategist in conversation with Marcus du Sautoy, , Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. The session talked about the future of the publishing industry with AI entering the domains of editing, translation and audiobooks, how it will impact legal contracts in publishing, and who would be the owner of the intellectual property rights of books published with AI's help. All these concerns notwithstanding, there was some optimism about the potential of this technology.

Another session on podcasts and books included speakers Amrita Tripathi, founder-editor of The Health Collective, a resource on mental health and storytelling, Richard Osman, London-based author of The Thursday Murder Club, The Man Who Died Twice, and The Bullet That Missed; and William Dalrymple, historian, author and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival and moderated by Hemali Sodhi, founder of A Suitable Agency. The session explored the deep connections between podcasts and books, which is based on the coming together of voice and text. It explored the synergy between book podcasts and books and the publishing industry – how a high-quality podcast can connect listeners with an intimacy about the book, Chaudhry said. The session examined how publishing podcasts encourages listeners to read more books and help increase book sales.

A session on data analysis had panelists Vikrant Mathur of The Nielsen Report and Rick Simonson from Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company in conversation with Hemali Sodhi. The session delved into the significance of data in the publishing industry in India, which is needed for a developing industry. The session focused on the Nielsen Report, which provides insights into the size of the Indian publishing market, along with recent trends and factors that are set to drive book publishing market growth in the upcoming years. The panelists advocated the collection of more data across the book publishing industry in India to project better results through data analysis.

Chaudhry talked about another 'crackling' session on the symbiotic relationship between OTT and publishing. Sahira Nair, content creator for Amazon Prime; Anish Chandy, founder – Labyrinth Literary Agency; Radhika Gopal, head – writers and directors, Tulsea; and Anand Neelakantan, author of the Bahubali trilogy, Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, Valmiki's Women, Vanara, Nala Damayanti, The Tale of the Flying Mountains, The Very, Extremely, and Most Naughty Asura Tales For Kids took part. The session was moderated by Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO – HarperCollins India. The panel took an outside-in view of book publishing from the eyes of leaders in the OTT space from speakers Neelkanthan, Gopal, Chandy and Nair, who are into writing and direction, OTT rights for book adaptations and content creation for OTT, respectively. The session talked about OTT's hunger for content, the sales of rights of books and contracts for content adaptations along with the steps that publishers can take to leverage old and new content for the OTT industry, she said.

Literary milestones for book publishers

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Another publishing house to celebrate a literary milestone was Seagull Books, Chaudhry said, with the Kolkata-based publishing house completing its 40 years in 2023. Seagull Books' Naveen Kishore shared insights about the publishing house creating books across borders and boundaries in a conversation with Sanjoy Roy, managing director of Teamwork Arts.

The Jaipur BookMark 2024 celebrated 40 years of feminist publishing in India, Chaudhry said, with feminist publishers Ritu Menon and Urvashi Butalia sharing insights on how Indian feminist publishing was associated with the women's movement in the country, making it a huge hit with the target population. When Butalia and Menon initially started with Kali for Women, there was debate over who was going to read these books in a country like India, Chaudhry recounted. But gradually, women's studies emerged as a sought-after discipline in activism as well as publishing. This marked the way for the establishment of a new kind of list, including feminist accounts, women writers and experiences of women at the grassroots level, which mainstream publishing houses would not think as viable products, she said. The session was interesting for women who have just entered the publishing industry in various roles.

Translations and multilingual publishing

http://indianprinterpublisher.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Suchitra-Ramachandran-Sukrita-Paul-Kumar-Mini-Krishnan-and-Daisy-Rockwell-in-conversation-with-R-Sivapriya-300x200.jpg

Another session on translations, Indian Literature: Across Languages, Across Scripts had Suchitra Ramachandran, writer and Tamil translator; Daisy Rockwell, Booker prize-winning translator of Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand; Sukrita Paul Kumar, poet and translator; and Mini Krishnan discussed and debated on the intricacies of translation. India has numerous languages and scripts and it takes great effort to translate the literary works from Indian languages into English. The session talked about the different aspects of translation, Chaudhry said, adding that each person's experience with translations is unique and they view it from their lens.

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In another session, Parminder Singh Shonkey, from Punjabi publishing house Rethink Foundation; Gita Ramaswamy, co-founder of the Telugu publishing house Hyderabad Book Trust; Ravi DeeCee; Kannan Sundaram from Kalachuvadu Publications; Shailesh Bharatwasi from Hindi publishing house Hind Yugm Publishers; and Esha Chatterjee, CEO of Bee Books and managing director of Patra Bharti, the third-largest Bengali publishing house discussed the landscape of Indian language publishing with Mita Kapur, founder and CEO of Jaipur-based literary agency Siyahi. The Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, Tamil, Hindi and Punjabi publishers talked about the literary works that were gaining greater traction in their languages and discussed their lists, Chaudhry shared.

Educational Publishing on the path to growth

Chaudhry talked about the growth of educational publishing in India. The session on educational publishing had Atiya Zaidi, publisher at Ratna Sagar, discuss the importance of supplementary reading and the effect of the National Education Policy on academic publishing with Ananth Padmanabhan. The educational publishing sector, the session discussed, is the most profitable segment of publishing in India with a large population of school-going kids. The session talked about Collins – the educational publishing imprint of HarperCollins, and explored the common areas of interest between educational and trade publishing in India.

Another session had Neeraj Jain, managing director at Scholastic India; Nancy Silberkleit, one of the founders of Archie Comics Publications; and Prashant Pathak, director – publishing operations at Prakash Books and publisher at Wonder House Books discuss the relevance of picture books, which is one of the most important categories in Children's publishing as it is the starting point which develops an interest in books in young readers. The session was moderated by Kanishka Gupta, founder of literary agency Writer's Side. Silberkleit talked about the impact of graphic and illustrated comic books on children and how Archie Comics has created a place for itself in India over the years. Jain stressed on how picture books had been a gap area in Indian publishing and how Scholastic has helped bridge that gap, Chaudhry shared.

Another 'impactful' session Chaudhry talked about was the one between bestselling Tamil author Perumal Murugan, who has won several awards, including the JCB Prize for Literature 2023, and Swami Anandatheerthan Award, and his publisher Kannan Sundaram from Kalachuvadu Publications. The two have had a long-lasting relationship in publishing of over 20 years. The session was moderated by Kannada author Vivek Shanbhag, who brought out the little details and personal touches of this literary relationship and how it benefited both the publisher and the author, Chaudhry shared, adding Sundaram has made a mark in successfully presenting and marketing Murugan's work in the best possible manner.

In another session, Beauty and the Book, Sunandini Banerjee, senior editor and graphic designer at Seagull Books; Ahlawat Gunjan, creative head at Penguin Random House India; Philip Watson, from James & Hudson; Svein Størksen, Norwegian designer, illustrator, owner and editor of Magikon publishing; and Priya Kapoor, publisher at Roli Books talked about the allure of illustrated and design books. The session talked about how the book as an object of enduring beauty takes shape under the eye of designers and the creative process that makes the cover designs of books a sight to behold.

The Jaipur BookMark concluded with the Festival Directors' Roundtable on the last day in which lists and rights of 18 national and international publishers were discussed. “The Jaipur BookMark still focuses a lot on its core strength which is rights. This time we had a catalogue for rights, which had 50 books from 12 publishers representing five languages. Whether it was the generalist, or the specialist, JBM 2024 had something of interest for everyone,” Chaudhry concluded.

#Jaipur BookMark

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