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What's good, y'all? So, Coach, which is going on a field trip today, but first we wanted to just

let you know that one of our guests does use some strong language when he talks about race.

And it's language that might make some folks uncomfortable. All right, cool.

Let's good y'all. You're listening to CodeSwitch and the sound of thousands of writers and editors

and other movies and shakers in the publishing industry. I'm Gene Demby here at the Association

of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Washington DC with my guest host this week.

This catch-out. Hey, Gene. Where are we, Cat? Can you just describe where we are and what we're saying?

We are in this exhibition hall, which is packed with tables of people from these independent presses,

writer programs, publishing houses. And we're here because we wanted to talk to people about the

pressures in the publishing world that are put specifically on writers and editors of color.

Right, especially right now. We actually ambush one of them.

Hey, man. Gene Demby from McIars.

Earl McDonald, he's a very big deal. Such a big deal. Yeah, he's edited James Baldwin,

Salmon Rushdie, and a few Nobel laureates like Tony Morrison to get the sense of the kind of

person we're dealing with right now. He's an executive at Penguin Random House, and because you

can't say him, I have to say he's a really dope dresser. He had a nice little pockets where

I asked him about diversity and publishing, but he was skeptical about that word itself.

...