any subscriptions or anything. Thanks for calling.â
The woman on the other end clears her throat. âOh no, honey. You misunderstand. Iâm calling about your manuscript, your novel, F: The Academy? You sent it to a friend of mine at Smith Alloy, who passed, but she sent it to me. I liked it a whole lot and would like to publish it.â
All at once Iâm trying to figure out everything sheâs telling me. The manuscript I sent out after graduating Langsdale, sent out on a whim because Professor Lind, my Shakespeare professor, told me to, the manuscript that had exactly sixty polite, two-line rejection letters to show for itself, the manuscript that I had just thrown in a drawer and accepted as every writerâs first novel that never gets publishedâuntil youâre deadâwas wanted by some publisher called Burning Spear Press. âAre you serious? This better not be somebody screwing around with me.â
âNo,â Arianna Covington says, coughing slightly, âIâm not, uh, screwing with you. Weâd very much like to publish F: The Academy. We think itâs exactly the thing for our press. Weâre a new house, but weâre big, and weâre looking to publish promising up-and-coming writers.â
And then I flip out on old Arianna. I scream. I carry on. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I barely hear what else she tells me, only that my book which, by sixty other editors has been called many things, from a boring meditation on class, to a humorless meditation on class, to a pointless meditation on class further marred by a tedious discussion about race, is something that Burning Spear Press is very happy to be publishing. Other boring stuff about contracts and moneyâsurprise, not very muchâis also mentioned. Then Arianna, in her charming accent, congratulates me once again and I canât wait to tell everybody: Bita, Doris, Earl, my family. Yet thereâs a lingering silence on the other end of the line that makes me uneasy. Damn. Thereâs a catch. Thereâs always a catch.
Arianna starts out nice and sweet. âIf you are familiar with our booksâ¦though, Iâve forgotten, youâre notâ¦â She stammers all over the place.
âYes?â Uh. Oh.
âWell, Burning Spear has a very particular demographic. Itâs a press that publishes exclusively African-American books by African-American women for African-American women.â
âUh-huh.â It was starting to sound awfully claustrophobic, but I stayed quiet so she could keep talking.
âSo, let me just be as frank as I can be, Veronica. Weâre wondering if youâd be willing to make Dottieâs character black.â
Dottie was based on Doris, but I was confused about the rest. âYou mean dark? Like a villain?â
Arianna pauses. âNo. I mean black, like African-American.â
I like old Arianna. Sheâs a crack up. âThatâs funny,â I say. âIâm going to like working with you. Youâre hilarious.â
Silence.
âYouâre joking, right?â
âNo, Veronica. We talked about the book in meetingsâwe love itâbut think it would read more smoothly, be more attractive to our readers, if Dottie was African-American.â
Hmm. Was I getting punkâd or something?
âAre you there, Veronica?â
âKind of,â I reply.
âWhat are you thinking?â Arianna asks, after a moment.
âIâm thinking itâs the craziest thing I ever heard.â
âListen,â Arianna says, in a gently urging voice. âDottie can stay the same personâmore or less. You just identify her as black and keep the book basically the same.â
âI donât know. Itâs a weird change. I mean, part of the point was that Dottieâs white.â
âImagine that sheâs exactly the same, but just a different color. Thatâs all.â
Thatâs all?