#AmWriting Sticking it to the Book Banners: A Glorious Tale of Victory
Greetings writers! Sarina here.
Earlier in May I was surfing social media, as one does, when I came across a story about children’s author Erica Perl and an ill-fated school visit. Her scheduled visit to a school was abruptly canceled. After asking a few questions, it was determined that a single parent had objected to…
Well, it’s hard to say. We’ll let Erica tell her story. But you should know that Ms. Perl’s twenty years of book publishing have included such salacious titles as When Cookie Met Carrot and A Whale of a Tea Party. (🔥!)
When Erica’s visit was canceled, at first she had a lot of conflicting emotions. We’ll dig in to the vulnerability hangover that comes with writing as a career. But then she pulled herself together and fought back.
In the fight, she had a few advantages on her side: 1. She is a lawyer, which didn’t hurt. 2. She had a contract! That’s the most important takeaway here, and 3. She had some help from writers organizations.
It’s a great listen. 🎧
Links from today’s episode:
School Library Journal article about Erica’s experience
The American Library Association
Where to find Erica:
Have Erica come to your school! Everything you need to know HERE.
Erica’s latest: Whale and the Birthday Rocks
Erica Perl on Threads
This has been Episode 449 of the #AmWriting podcast
NEW! Transcript below!
KJ Dell'Antonia
Hey writers, KJ here. We just recorded the latest booklabs first pages episode and it is packed. We read the first page as in 350 words of a listener's work in progress and then ask that one all important question. Would we turn the page? But of course we do more than that. That would take about two minutes. We're trying to help both the writer and all you listeners out there figure out what's working and what isn't, and what might be the best way to bring a reader into the book's world. So here's the catch, and it's a small one. Booklab episodes and the ability to submit a first page are only available to paid supporters of #AmWriting. So come on over to AmWritingpodcast.com and sign yourself up and you'll get not just the monthly book labs, but also episodes of the Writing the Books series in which Jenny and I help each other through our latest drafts, access to monthly AMAs, and come summer, we shall blueprint once again. So come on in. The price tag's kinda ridiculously low and the water's fine.
All Speaking
The recording now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one two.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is #AMWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, everything. This is a podcast about getting your work done and Sarina is going to introduce herself now.
Sarina Bowen
I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of many books of fiction. My latest one is called Dying to Meet You, and I can confirm that it is in a bookstore near you because I probably even visited that bookstore within the last seven days. It's been a little crazy around here in a good way, but in the midst of all the crazy, I was on threads, as one does, when one should actually be writing, and I saw an interesting story which led to us having a guest today that I am super excited about. The story I saw was an author who wrote books for children and writes books for children who had planned a school visit and then suddenly because of some real stupidity that I will let her explain to you, her school visit was canceled. They decided they no longer wanted to hear from this particular person. And that is a thing that I have been hearing more of lately. That's why I'm involved with The Authors Guild and Authors Against Book Bans. And she fought back in the most lovely way. So please welcome author Erica Perl to tell us what happened and what she has learned from it. Welcome Erica!
KJ Dell'Antonia
And I'm gonna give Erica a quick shout out introduction because Erica and I have known each other as she has just pointed out for approximately seven billion years. Since there were dinosaurs roaming the earth and Erica roaming the New York state courts and me as well roaming the New York state courts. Me and the guys of a prosecutor, Erica and the guys of a criminal defense attorney, and we did things together, crazy, as that sounds, because although that sounds like an antagonistic relationship and sometimes is, it also really cannot be. And then she introduced me to people at Slate, and then she wrote a bunch of children's books, and then I wrote about those children's books in various ways, and all kinds of things have happened. And yeah, here we are. - Okay.
Erica Perl
It's true. It's true, it's all true. What can I tell you all? I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I love them... I love… I'm a fan of the show. So it's really exciting to be here in the first place.
Sarina Bowen
Okay, so first let's have you set the scene. I'm looking at the titles in your extensive list of fantastic kids books. And I would say they look right off the cuff. Super controversial to me.
Erica Perl
Yeah.
Sarina Bowen
Like, The Three Little Guinea Pigs.
Erica Perl
Sarina Bowen
A picture book. Yeah.
Erica Perl
A classic fairy tale. A retelling of The Three Little Pigs. Yes. With guinea pigs.
Sarina Bowen
Okay. Well, The Three Little Guinea Pigs, right off the bat seems like, you know, a headline news kind of problem here. And also, When Carrot Met Cookie.
Erica Perl
Yes. Yes. talking, talking food. Scary!
Sarina Bowen
Right. So help us set the scene. How did you become persona non grata for, for books like this?
Erica Perl
Yeah. So the story is this, as, as KJ mentioned, a lifetime ago, I was an attorney. I was a criminal defense attorney in New York, which is how KJ and I met. And, but I dreamed of writing children's books. And I actually, at that time, started taking classes at night because it was the secret passion of mine. And many, many years later, I started "Zen in the Mood." I started getting published. And I've now had books published over the course of the last 20 years. My first book came out in 2005. And I've published about 40 -something going on 50 books, all with traditional mainstream presses. And as you mentioned, it's not that I'm trying to avoid controversy, but most of the stuff I write about I write for kids from very little kids up to teens and most of the stuff I write about is about you know, kind of childhood centric experiences making friends and feeling different and searching for connections.
KJ Dell'Antonia
And um and going to bed and getting up and yes you know, my children's particular favorite of yours, which you want signed for them was Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early.
Erica Perl
Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early
KJ Dell'Antonia
We say that in our house constantly. Chicken Bedtime is Early.
Erica Perl
That makes me happy. I've always, in our house, we have the classic lines from books we read when my kids were little and I always aspire to that, just having, you know, kind of being in someone's childhood rotation. So anyway, in addition to writing books, I also teach writing and a variety of capacities. And I also do author visits. Many children's book authors do this. And it's sort of a nice way to, in addition to the, you know, what we make writing books on our advances and if we're lucky our royalties, we also get paid to go to schools and spend the day doing presentations about being an author, about the creative process, about where do you get your ideas. And the whole purpose of doing author visits isn't to sell books, it's really to kind of get kids excited about writing their own, telling their own stories and about reading. And so I routinely do those, you know, many times during the year. And I have an agent who specifically handles my bookings, as many authors do, because if there was a time when I did that myself, and it's just like way too many emails. And so It's nice to have someone who handles all the logistics so that when you go out to wherever you go. Everything's all set for you. Okay, so I had a school visit on my calendar coming up and I wasn't giving it much thought because as I said my my booking agent who's name is Sarah DeVore , and she's of How Now Booking, and she's great, she took care of all the details. I wasn't worried about it or thinking about it and then out of the blue I heard that it was canceled. I think Sarah actually forwarded an email she had received. And I thought it was really strange because sometimes things have to get rescheduled, like there's school testing or there's something going on. But I've never had a visit canceled. And there was no explanation for it being canceled. And Sarah and I kind of got our Spidey senses up because we didn't know what was going on, but it didn't feel right. And she did some research on her end, and we discovered that a single, individual parent had seen a social media video that I made about a year earlier for Pride Month. Because in addition to all the other books that I have, I have an early reader series called Whale, Quail, Snail. And Whale, Quail, Snail is a, like I said, it's early readers. So it's for like really little kids. It's really very low reading level for kids who are just starting, kids are just starting to, you can read it aloud, but you can also, if you're starting to learn how to read, it's a great book to kind of learn on.
Sarina Bowen
Sure.
Erica Perl
And it's about three characters, three friends, a whale, a quail, and a snail. And this book was selected by a group called Pride and Less Prejudice, which is a group, a nonprofit organization that provides collections, curated collections of books that have positive LGBTQ+ representation in them. And they picked this book because “Snail” uses they /them pronouns. And they thought it was a really nice representation, kind of like a casual non -binary representation. And the book's not about Snail being non -binary. The reason I made that choice as an author is that snails actually are intersex. They are not boys or girls. And when I discovered that, I thought I should probably represent that in this book.
Sarina Bowen
Okay. So biology.
Erica Perl
Biology, yeah. But that is literally the only way in which it comes up in the book. And I was actually surprised that they picked my book because some of the other books that they pick are really wonderful books that are actually about how important it is to welcome all different kinds of families and just all you know kind of more thematically about that. This is not about that. That's my point. Anyway, so I made this video. I mentioned that they had chosen the book. I explained why and I said, you know, happy pride. And forgot about it, and then apparently some parent at this school saw the video and went to the principal. I presumed Freaked out about this video. I don't know if this parent ever saw my book or read my book. I just know that the video spurred the conversation with the principal and the principal canceled the Visit. At which point, I tried to facilitate a conversation in which I said, "What can we do? How can we fix this?" Particularly because they were giving me this sort of pretext reason. They said, "Oh, the librarian shouldn't have signed the contract. We have a prop policy and we don't deal with it this way." And I knew that was inaccurate because I knew that the librarian had actually brought in authors in previous years. And I also knew that if that was the case, you could fix it. You could have someone else sign the contract. And so I said, can we change the date? Do you need more time? And they immediately sent the case to the district attorney, the county attorney for this county. This took place in Virginia. And so all of a sudden I'm getting emails from this lawyer who's saying, like, don't talk to anyone at the school, this is a legal matter, like we're done with you and PS, we're not paying you. Which is something that--
Sarina Bowen
Oh my goodness.
Erica Perl
Which is something that the principal actually said also, but the attorney doubled down on it and was just like, so sorry, go away. - Wow. - And yeah. And I had also learned that the principal had told the librarian that if the school was forced to pay me for this visit, the librarian would have to pay out of her own pocket, which I was not going to let happen. So, yeah. So, and the other thing that I should mention is I have a contract, as I said, I have a booking agent, and she had set up a contract, which the librarian had signed on behalf of the school, which she's authorized to do. And in my contract, it said you need all sorts of things, including you need to give 30 days notice if you want to cancel a visit. I took out my calendar and this was 28 days and so I just said you know in the most basic of terms you didn't give me notice and you have to pay for this. There's a cancellation fee specified in my, in my contract and the amount is my day's rate. Anyway, so they, you know, told me to go away and I looked again at my contract and realized that not only was I entitled to be paid for the visit, but the contract specified that the law that governs this particular contract is not the law of the part of Virginia at all. It's the law of where I live. So it dawned on me that I could just go down to my local small claims court and fill out paperwork, which is something, I mean, I mean, I am an attorney, but you don't need to be an attorney, you don't need to have any legal knowledge. The whole point of small claims court is that anyone can come in and file a case against anyone else who owes the money or who has broken a contract, which is what happened.
Sarina Bowen
Right. And I think we lose sight of that sometimes because it does just sound daunting to file a claim.
Erica Perl
Oh yeah!
Sarina Bowen
If you're not an attorney, so thank you for saying that.
Erica Perl
Oh, absolutely. And honestly, I actually asked a couple of other attorney friends of mine, just because I was like, Am I missing something here, it seems to me, I haven't practiced law in quite a while, so maybe it's changed. But I think anybody can do this. And then when I went to small claims court, I physically went in person, and everybody there was so helpful, and they gave me the papers, and they showed me how to fill it out. And it wasn't that hard. It didn't cost much. It cost it, you know, a couple, like, I want to say, like, $20 to for filing fees, which included them serving the people I was, I was filing the claim against, which was the school board and in the county, and so the school board in the school system, I think I sued. So, so I just, you know, I paid the small amount of fees and I filed the papers, and the next thing I knew, I got noticed through the mail that they had been served, which means that, like the the court took care of filing legal papers and showing up in this county in Virginia, and saying, Here you go. You got served. And the thing that happened after that is I got an email saying we're not admitting that we’d done anything wrong here. We're sending, we're going to send you a check and we're going to settle this. So yeah, so I, I feel like I skipped a step, which is how hard this was. Because honestly, the filing part was easy, but getting the strength to do it was the hard part, because when it happened, I really felt like I just wanted to go away. I just wanted to, you know, to use a snail analogy, hide in my shell. I just wanted to like I felt awful and I felt bad, even though I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, because they were treating me like I had done something wrong and like I was a danger to kids.
Sarina Bowen
And why do we do that? Why? Do we do that to ourselves? Like, is that like a special writer thing or, or what?
Erica Perl
I mean... I think, yeah, I think there is this part of us that feels and it's funny, because you guys have talked about this on the show before that we feel lucky to even have the chance to do so many things that we do, even though we've worked really hard to get where we are, you know? And so I feel like it's this imposter syndrome thing where they say you're not really, you know, giving anything of value to our kids. You're just here to harm them. And you think they're saying it'll both be true, even though you know it's not true.
Sarina Bowen
Plus, also the energy it takes to take your creative work and put it out there in the world and ask the world to love it, you know, or to even just spend some of their precious day on it. And that takes, like, the first, like, a big tier of strength, and then if somebody comes back and slaps you for it, like, you know, that is gonna create a snail shell moment for even the bravest writer, I think.
Erica Perl
Yeah! Absolutely. And it, and it, and it happens to a lot of us. And I feel like I have a lot of friends who are really strong and courageous because they, you know, they write work that is, that is more kind of, you know, that they know will may draw attention because it deals with sexuality, or it deals with race, or it deals with things that are really hard for some people to deal with, and they walk out there every day with their armor on, and I have so much love and respect for them. And I feel like I have spent my whole career kind of like, you know, walking around not having to worry about that stuff, because everything I write is kind of safe, you know? Not everything, maybe, but most of what I write, um, is kind of in this terrain of like, you know, I do write things for older kids, but even the stuff I write for older kids. I'm really, really, like, not known for being one of those, like, edgy writers. I'm known for being somebody who's really kind of in a zone that is palatable to most people. I guess I should say, I mean, it's like…
Sarina Bowen
Yeah, I aspire to be edgy, but nobody has ever called me edgy. So... Right, right. Maybe someday...
Erica Perl
Yeah, so I, you know, I have lots of friends who are and I admire them, as I said, because they know that, that they may draw this kind of attention, and they're ready for the fight. And I think I was blindsided a little bit by this and scared, because I just felt like me?! I, you know, can we just talk about this? That's not who I am, but the truth of that is, right now, we are all vulnerable to this kind of attack. And so that's for me. All of a sudden I felt like, Okay, wait a second. Like, I've been walking around feeling like, oh, the edgy people can handle this fight. And then I thought, wait a second, this is not just the fight for the edgy people or for the people who are, you know, prepared for it. This is a fight we all have to be involved in. So I think that was part of why I poked my head out of my shell. Because I just felt like, if I walk away from this, like it's, it's, it's not okay. It's not okay to let other people fight this fight, and to just say, Oh, I'm good. I'll just, you know, I'll just take the hit. Other schools will book me, and they do, um, but it just felt like I'm not walking away from this fight. It's too important.
Sarina Bowen
Right? Do you think so? It reminds me of something weird that happened to me a couple years ago where I got actual like, people telling me to off myself on my social media, posts like for a thing that I actually didn't do. Yeah, it was because a big piracy site got shut down, and I had once given a quote about this thing, and then the internet decided that I had, single handedly, it was so dumb, but that because it was so very dumb, and I still, I went through that same thing that you described, where you just want to curl up in a ball, and why, Oh, my God. Like the things people are saying to me, they're so terrible. Like, how did I get here? But, but after, you know, I don't know, 12 hours of pain, I it actually made me, like, stronger afterwards, because it was this realization that, um, I thought if I ever was canceled, it would be for something I actually did, or some, some objectionable thing I actually said, like, some mistake that I that made, and I've been such a striver my whole life not to ever offend anyone. And so it was clarifying, like, oh, wait a second, you know, the internet might yell at me for no reason at all. So maybe I should stop tiptoeing around on eggshells and worrying that, like a meteor is about to hit my house, because, you know, it might, but I just don't have to worry so much about it anymore. Like, do you think you'll be able to come to a place where that might actually help you, like not worry about it anymore?
Erica Perl
Yeah, absolutely. I think you're 100% right about that. They, you know, we, I do. I can't speak for other people, but I do walk around trying to make sure everybody is happy. And you get to a point where somebody is unhappy despite your best efforts, and you have to. Just be like, okay, they're going to be that way, and they're going to be unhappy, but I gotta do what's right for me and what's right. And you do gain power. You do gain power from doing that. You gain, I mean, and it was funny, because, so, you know, when I wrote about this, and the other thing that I was really concerned about is I didn't want the librarian to get hurt as a result of any Yes, so I had to be really careful. Because I, you know, I was really fired up at a certain point about, you know, I waited until I got actually paid, like, till the check arrived and the check cleared to actually put anything out there, because I was still scared that they would change their mind and it would, you know, all go away. But when I decided I wanted to say something about it, I really wanted to be careful, because I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. But I also felt like I wanted to say what had happened to me, because it, you know, it did happen, and because it did make me feel better to say, like, we can do this, to say to people like you can you, I did this, you can do this, and to warn other authors about protecting themselves from this kind of attack. So, yeah, so I do. I do think that, like, if you walk around trying to make sure that you don't, you know, that nobody is offended, that nobody is hurt, that nobody you know you may end up hurting yourself in the process, right? You gotta, kind of like, you know, there comes a point.
Sarina Bowen
Yeah, I'm sure I felt so much more anxiety through the last whatever decade of trying to be somebody the internet doesn't hate, then I really needed to feel.
Erica Perl
So true. We put that on ourselves, and I don't really know why, but we need to stop. I agree. Yeah, yeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
If everyone likes everything you're doing, you're not, probably not doing anything.
Erica Perl
Well. And the other funny thing to you know, to Sarina’s point about things that you don't like. I read. So I wrote this, I wrote this piece, and it was published in the School Library Journal, and it got a lot of additional it just got shared a lot more than I had anticipated. So all of a sudden, people who I didn't think, I assumed it would be seen by librarians and by authors, and that was, you know what I hoped, because those were the audiences I was trying to speak to about what had happened. But it ended up getting through social media and beyond, getting shared and reposted by so many people, which was wonderful. And also, I did get to see a whole bunch of, you know, critical comments as well. And the funniest thing to me was that so many of the people who had something to say about it. Clearly hadn't read the piece. And that really, that really struck me, because, like, what you said, the internet does not care what actually happened. The Internet does not care what you actually did. People were so willing to chime in and say what the you know, lots of people said nice things, but there were people out there who just wanted to say why I was, you know, should, should, you know why I just was completely in the wrong, without having engaged in the piece at all, like the basic information was not in there.
Sarina Bowen
Right. So in, in other words, if the internet doesn't care enough to read what the story is before they comment, then you author Erica Perl, do not have to care what the internet thinks, essentially, which is not the same as not caring what anybody thinks and not wanting to be a good person and never do harm like that. It's the separation of that, that was the hard lesson, right? You know, yeah, because you care so much about writing quality things that are suitable for children, and...
Erica Perl
Oh, I agonize over every word, and then you, yeah, you put something out, and people are just like, let me tell you something. And they're like, Wow, and you didn't even read it. And of course, I don't engage. Just to be clear, I very much do not engage. Did not answer any of those comments, but just watching it go by, it definitely is a lesson. And you know what? There are going to be people who have things to say, and they may not be very well informed, and you just gotta stick to what you're doing, because they you know, the internet, as you say, the internet does not care. But if you get… if you let them suck you down, you really let them take away your power and your happiness.
Sarina Bowen
Right? Well, I'm glad you didn't let them do that, and they certainly didn't take away your power, and I'm really impressed by how you handled it, and what a lesson it can become for other people who might hear this. So that thing about how the governing law of your contract was your own state is pretty powerful. I signed a lot of contracts, and that that's never true of any contract I sign a lot of publishing contracts have New York State listed because, I was told by, actually, by The Authors Guild, and they know these things that New York State is has a lot of judges that understand copyright law really well, like IP law is litigated. You. Frequently in New York, and kind of, that's why, that's why that's done, but also that's where my publishing houses are. So that's an interesting thing to think about in terms of speaking contracts, though.
Erica Perl
Yeah, I mean, so I have a literary agent who handles all my publishing contracts and I feel it like this. This has been an eye opener for me, just in terms of reading contracts. You would think that, since I went to law school, I would, you know, go over my contracts with a fine tooth comb. I don't know about you. KJ, I've become way too lackadaisical about it, and just been like, looks good to me. When do I get paid? And that's not the way we should do things. In a perfect world, we should read our contracts carefully and understand what we're signing both in terms of... and I trust the people who represent me, so I think that's part of it. Like they're very good at their jobs, and I know they've thought about things that I may not have even thought about. I mean, sometimes there are these funny contracts. I don't know if you guys have these, but in the children's book world, there are always these really funny clauses in our contracts about, like, the potential that your book will become an amusement park ride or something like that. You're like, yeah, okay, good one. I look forward to the day that I ride on the three little guinea pigs. But you know…
KJ Dell'Antonia
Well, you say that, and then maybe you become the person. I mean, my first book did actually go all the way to becoming a TV show, and I signed that contract with the people who were optioning it. I mean, I skimmed it, yeah, and I have learned since that, yeah, I would have done, I would have, I would have done that differently, and that is a totally different, it's a different podcast. But the important thing is that if you get a contract, do read it, and if there are things that make you go, huh? People will sometimes cross those out. I mean, some places are just like, Nope, this is what this is going to be, but you probably have more. I think we all feel like we have no negotiating room, because please take my thing, please pay me to option, please publish my thing. I you know, I'm a supplicant, just begging you. And if they want the thing, then you should ask for what you want, and if you don't get it, that's fine. But then you also know the parameters of what you do have. And I will add that at some point, I went back and read that contract and was like, You know what? They didn't give me this thing they said they would give and they had to go back and fix a bunch of stuff. So, you know, nobody cares more than you. You gotta read it.
Erica Perl
No, totally, totally, totally true.
Sarina Bowen
I hope that somebody listening to this is like negotiating her very first school visit contract, and is like googling "school visit contract sample", and comes up with this.
Erica Perl
Totally true. I mean, interestingly, I so I actually, when I was, you know, when I was trying to figure out what to do about this situation, I knew that this school had had author visits in the past, and so I did a little bit of digging, and I found an author that I, you know, we're not close friends, but it was someone that I could reach out to and connect with who had visited the school, you know, a year or two before. And I reached out to this person and said, Can I, you know, can you show me your contract? You know, what did, mostly because I wanted to verify that the librarian had signed contracts before. And this person, who is a well published, award winning, awesome author, said to me, oh, you know, I don't really use a contract. I just send an invoice after I do a school visit, I guess maybe I should. And I thought, yeah, you should, because if, if I had done that, I would not be getting anything. I would be… I would not have been able to fight this. I mean, okay, maybe I could have fought this successfully over a lot of time and a lot of energy, but I would not have been able to walk in and be like, hello, here's a document... I win!, and the only reason I could do that is because I had a contract. If you don't have a contract, you're just you're really at a disadvantage. And I really it's very lucky that that person didn't have this experience, that they went to the school, did a presentation, got paid, you know, set an invoice, got paid in the end. But for many authors that you know you're putting yourself in a position that you don't have to be by going in without a contract.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Yeah I was just gonna make that point. We, I mean, we are collegial, friendly people, and we don't like to have necessarily, to say, well, yes, but I need a contract in place. And I actually have once been given a contract for a podcast appearance so to be fair, we don't do that, but we need, you need contracts in place for a lot of reasons. And you can write something really simple and short and have it work out and be, you know, and be just fine and be better than nothing. You also sometimes need a contract, because sometimes it's not the person you're dealing with. It ends up being the problem. You know, if something goes wrong, it's possible that their insurance company is going to be your problem, or their partner or their, you know, next to Kin, I don't know.
Erica Perl
No absolutely,
KJ Dell'Antonia
Just better to have.
Erica Perl
And, I mean, this is something, you know, I. It's funny, because I'm not, I'm not really a very adversarial person, despite the fact that, like, I went to law school and was a courtroom lawyer for several years. I, like, you know, I don't want to have a fight with people. I want to work things out. But you have a contract for when you can't work things out, you have it for, like, the worst case scenario. I mean, I've been, as I said, I've been a published author for 20 years. I've done a gazillion school visits. I love doing school visits. I, you know, I seek out these opportunities. And they, you know, by and large, are amazing. Like, for me, for the kids, for the educators. Like, I always leave there feeling just so happy with how it went, and I get wonderful notes about them, and so, like, it's like a really important and satisfying part of my work life. I've never had anything like this happen before. It just, it just doesn't. It's just a routine thing. I set up a contract. The contract gets shoved to the side. I go to the school, I present my work. I signed books. I meet kids. It's a fabulous, fun day. I go home. A check arrives in the mail, or they give it to me when I'm there, like, the end, it's it. The contract is never even something. It's not a thing. And that's what's nice, is that it's just, it's like, it's a safety net. But sometimes you need a safety net. If you're on the high wire and you fall you're pretty psyched, but that safety net is there.
KJ Dell'Antonia
So do we think the librarian is, like, not, hopefully, gonna suffer any... well, I mean, she's the librarian for a county that's gonna do this, so she's probably got her own problems.
Erica Perl
Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of sympathy for this librarian, because, you know, having an unsupportive principle is, you know, nobody wants to have a boss that doesn't back them up. That doesn't say, you know, I mean, because this librarian had gone to a lot of trouble and put together a whole lot of programming around the visit. Because, like, the best school visits are the ones where you have a really engaged librarian who does things like, sets up a Battle of the Books, and, like, you know, gets the kids to, like, make decorations for the school, and like, does all this fun stuff to get the kids really, you know, animated and energized about the visit that really, that kind of librarian you're lucky to have. And this principal clearly didn't value this librarian, and that's a really lousy position for this librarian to be in. I have connected with this librarian since I received my check, just to check and make sure everything is fine. My understanding is that she read my piece. She felt good about it. She was grateful that I didn't name her or the school in anything that I wrote about it, because I wanted to protect her from any sort of backlash. So I think she's, I think she feels as good as she could about it, but she still has to work in a place where this goes on. And I mean, the other thing I should say, without saying too much about this place, is it's not, it wasn't an isolated incident there, within this county and within a lot of counties right now, there were other things that involved book banning or, you know, content being censored or withdrawn or challenged in ways that that are one person's action that impacts an entire community.
Sarina Bowen
Yeah, so this one mom, whoever the heck she was...
Erica Perl
We don't know that it's a mom. I'm just gonna say we had a parent. We don't know.
Sarina Bowen
You're right. Some parent is doing that thing that you know, Authors Against Book Bans are putting all their energy toward stopping, which is this one person, whoever they were, prevented an entire school from meeting you, and cost her school or his school the whole fee and the trouble of involving their lead counsel. So I suppose we can hope that just maybe the school learned something from this experience. But, you know, I don't know how much hope I have about that.
Erica Perl
Yeah, the sad thing is that I think probably the lesson that this principal in particular learned is... don't have any more author visits, is, don't put, you know, don't, don't go down this road. So not only did this visit not happen, and that, the other thing about when you did what you just, just described is accurate. These kids didn't get to meet the author. These, you know, none, and it happens in secret. The other thing that's really kind of galling about this is that it's, you know, probably the families did not, you know, there wasn't this happened, as I said, 28 days before my visit, probably just sort of quietly got taken off the school calendar. And the kids, you know, sort of maybe a kid said whatever happened with that other visit. But there was not any sort of, like, to my knowledge, public conversation that happened at the school. It was just sort of like this one parent complained, and then the principal dealt with it, and then it just went away.
Sarina Bowen
Wow. And that lack of public discourse is just so chilling.
Erica Perl
Yeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
The 30 families who would have really, you know, probably more, who really would have wanted you, and who would have been outraged that this happened, didn't get a chance to say...
Erica Perl
No ,absolutely not. They didn't even know. And they probably don't know the school had 400 kids, so a lot of families.
KJ Dell'Antonia
What I have learned recently, you know, I met some people that moved into our community, and they were talking about our schools, and I was in a conversation where I sort of did not know what I had gotten myself into, and I very quickly realized they're spoiling for this. These people, they are sincerely they're sending their children to school with their antenna out, hoping that somebody is going to do something offensive so that they can, they as in the same way that maybe we would really like the opportunity to stand up for what we believe in, they're looking for the chance to do these things. And it was surprising and strange to be in that conversation, but, you know, as a firsthand...oh, okay....here we are…
Erica Perl
Yeah. I get that people on both sides of this issue all come from the same place. They love their kids, they want to protect their kids. We all love our kids and want to protect our kids, but the way in which this is being represented, and the decisions that are being made based on those laudable objectives are hurting other people and are oftentimes, as I said, so far away from the actual information. I mean, in this case, I mean, I should also add like, I don't even like, the only way in which kids even encounter the book in question in my presentations is it's an image on a slide. And I say, these are some of the books I write. I don't routinely read it out loud, and even when I do... as I said, it's got three instances of the word they or them, representing, you know, like snail hid in their shell, that kind of thing. I've never had a kid raise a hand and say, why is snail using they/them pronouns? Like it's just not a thing. It's a complete non issue. So I'm not saying that, you know that we shouldn't have books that talk about gender for little kids. I think that's it's… I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I feel like these families that were so scared of the impact that my work would have on their kids really spent no time actually thinking about, like, what were they afraid of? What was, you know, what did they think would happen? And, you know, yeah, so, as I said, I think they come, they may come at it for a good reason. They want to protect their kids, but protect them from what exactly, and how does this? How does this help?
Sarina Bowen
Yeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Yeah. I'm not even convinced of the...
Erica Perl
Of the good intentions? Yeah, well, maybe I'm, maybe I'm being too generous.
KJ Dell'Antonia
I mean, you know, there's an intention there, but I think it sometimes can be to be noisy and to put your foot down and to make the point that you don't know who you're dealing with here.
Erica Perl
Yeah, I'm sure that's true, too. I like to believe. I like to see the good in people. I had a hard time believing this was actually gonna go away, because I thought we could work it out. Obviously, we couldn't. So, yeah, I'm not...
KJ Dell'Antonia
Yeah, you could have taken that slide out. I mean, I'm fine. I'll leave this book out, whatever.
Erica Perl
It's funny. I have had instances where people have, you know, had wanted to talk to me about, like, my actual content. Like, I have a book called Chicken Butt. I have had schools that are concerned about that word, and so, you know, I've talked to them about it, but I won't take it out. Chicken Butt is in all my presentations, for a reason, because I really do I emphasize with kids that, no matter, you know, when you have ideas, you should write them down, even if they're the kind of throwaway ideas that don't think like they're going to go anywhere this could become a book, and you just never know. So for me, it's a really important point to make and Chicken Butt it's just the vehicle through which I make it and but when I have that conversation with a thoughtful human with a principal who actually has an open mind, the answer routinely has been, Oh, I get that. Okay, yes. Like, maybe we'll have to listen to kids saying Chicken Butt on the playground for a week. But it's worth it, because I see why you're doing that. There's actual intentionality So, and I also have had...
KJ Dell'Antonia
I'm just picturing the process over snail, quail, yeah, no, I whale too. You're like, Okay, I need rhyming animals.
Erica Perl
Yeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
I got the...
Erica PerlYeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Ok cool, right, right, right, right. Snail's name is snail whales, nail, and then, oh, I need Wait. Is snail a boy or a girl?
Erica Perl
That's exactly... my initial draft... they were all...
KJ Dell'Antonia
I can't, because it's a character.
Erica Perl
This is, yeah, no, this is the thing about...
KJ Dell'Antonia
Do I put a pink bow on the shell? I mean, it's just Yeah, and you didn't even pick snail like, I wish to make a point, about...
Erica Perl
No, not at all. My initial draft.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Snail rhymes.
Erica Perl
Right, absolutely. And they're so they're, I mean, Sam Ailey did the art. They are so dang cute. So, yeah, I'm very happy with them. And...
KJ Dell'Antonia
I mean, nobody is picking like, nobody intentionally going, I'm gonna go for cute animals, people will love, is gonna go for a quail.
Erica Perl
Yeah.
KJ Dell'AntoniaNot that quails aren't great, but it's just not like, you know, there aren't many stuffies.
Erica Perl
It's true.
KJ Dell'Antonia
There should be more, my little quails.
Erica Perl
There should be more quail stuffies in my world.
KJ Dell'Antonia
We need more quail.
Sarina Bowen
I have to say...Now I kind of want the book where I am told why snail is a they, because biology is the most fascinating thing. And you know, so much of the gender discourse in this country is flattened into, you know, so...
KJ Dell'Antonia
When a snail grows up and wants to make more snails.
Erica Perl
It gets very complicated very fast. I will tell you.
KJ Dell'Antonia
It really happens in a totally different way.
Erica Perl
Well, it's funny, because in the book, the actual, the first, this is a series, so there are actually three books out and one coming. But in the book, when they first meet snail, they mistake snail for a rock. So snail is, you know, they have confusion about snail, because snail, as you can see, I know this is a podcast, but for those who are listening, snail appears on a surfboard, because, of course, and they assume that snail is a rock. And so snail actually has to clarify who they are in that moment, like, I'm not a rock, I am a snail. And that is really, you know, I think some might see that as sort of me echoing the other issue. But it doesn't. It's just basically snail gets mistaken for a rock and has to establish that they are, in fact, a snail. But snail will be the first to tell you that their pronouns are not the most interesting thing about them. They ride a surfboard, folks.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Yeah, it's a surfing snail, not just that's not a regular snail. It's a cool snail.
Sarina Bowen
I like snails so much already, and I really like how well you tell the story, and how you waited until it really had reached its point of, you know, satisfaction to tell it, and you pick such a great venue, the School Library Journal, to make your statement and and because you did that with such care, so many people are going to receive this lesson. And it's just fantastic. I'm just so glad you could join us today. What is your newest book?
Erica Perl
Oh, that's such a good question, because I'm often working on many books at once. So there is another Whale, Quail, Snail book, which is called Whale and the Birthday Rocks, and that is coming out soon. I wish I could tell you when, but I often forget this stuff. So Whale and the Birthday Rocks is coming out soon. I think that might be my next book. I feel like it's coming out before the year is out, but I'm not. Don't quote me on that, because I often have multiple books happening at the same time. Can I say one other thing that I forgot to say and probably should have said earlier, please do, which is just that I had some I had wonderful guidance along the way, as I was struggling over this, from individual friends who were wonderful, and from just people who do this work all the time and know what they're doing, like you've mentioned, a couple of them, The Authors Guild authors, Authors Against Book Bans and Pen America. And ultimately, I ended up donating the fee that I got to Authors Guild and Pen America, no sorry, to Pen America and the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom. Those were the two organizations that I chose to donate my fee to because those, those four groups that I just named, and probably others that I'm not remembering at this moment, all have actual human beings who were wonderful and talked to me and offered me support and explained to me what other people were going through, and contextualized this in the bigger kind of world that we're living in. And so that was really, really helpful at a point where I was feeling super alone in this. So I just, I wanted to say that, both to say that I didn't do this by myself, and also that if anyone else is going through this, there are people out there who can be really helpful. And that's where I would point you.
Sarina Bowen
That is a super point. In fact, The Authors Guild members have a portal that they could go through with a problem like this. And the reason that portal is there is because when you log in as a member and go through that Legal Help Portal, you are authorizing the Author's Guild to be of legal assistance to you. It's, yeah, it's not because they just want to put up an internet wall between the human and the author or so anyway, anybody who walks through that portal, those things, whatever you put there, whatever trouble you're having, will be seen by a real human being, and you will get a response,
KJ Dell'Antonia
Yeah. And it will be privileged, I mean, that's important. Why? They, once you walk through that portal, they know you've asked for their presentation, and your conversations become confidential, which is cool.
Erica Perl
Wait, sorry, Two more shout outs that I didn't need to have. One is my publisher, Simon and Schuster, who also was really great, and was there and communicated with The Authors Guild while I was going through this, which is really nice. Like they looped my editor, people looped the legal people in, and they talked to The Authors Guild, so that was all super helpful. And the independent bookseller that would have supported the school visit, because oftentimes schools work with independent booksellers, so I also connected with them, and they knew a lot about the ground situation in their community, and that was incredible. I mean, they were supportive and wonderful, but they also told me things about what was going on that opened my eyes to the fact that this was not an isolated situation.
Sarina Bowen
Fascinating.
Erica Perl
Yeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
All right. Well, this was fantastic. Thank you so so much we love...
Erica Perl
Thank you for having me.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Sharing this. It's, you know, it's the good news, right?
Erica Perl
I mean, it is. It felt good to have a little bit, a little win, you know, a win for the little guy, the little snail, um, to share with people at a time where we're feeling, I'm often day to day feeling very, you know, frustrated about everything that's going on out there. So if I can help people fight their own fights, I want to do that and thank and thank you for all that you do through this podcast, and in many ways to do that that's super helpful. I appreciate it.
Sarina Bowen
We try.
Erica Perl
Yeah.
Sarina Bowen
We try. In between, hanging on trying to get some words on the page, which feels really hard this year.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Oh, my God, it does.
Erica Perl
Yeah, yeah.
KJ Dell'Antonia
So, all right, should we shut this one down?
Sarina Bowen
We should, because we have those words to get to.
KJ Dell'Antonia
Until next week everybody keep your butt in the chair, even if it's a chicken butt, keep your chicken butt in the chair and your chicken head in the game.
Sarina Bowen
The hashtag AmWriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled “Unemployed Monday,” was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work.
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