At the end of June two news items crossed my path within a few days on Twitter. The first was a post from London in Great Britain by the prominent author Douglas Murray.
In his post, he reacted to government-funded camping in which an art gallery had put up instalments with posters saying “Hey straight white men. Pass the power!”
Murray’s cool-headed comment: “Perfectly normal instruction spotted in Southwark London. Anybody else spots a backlash coming…?”
A few days later, I was made aware of a post from Joyce Carol Oates, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Princeton, New Jersey.
Oates revealed that many editors in the big publishing houses would not even read manuscripts from young white male writers:
“(a friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good; they are just not interested. This is heartbreaking for writers who may, in fact, be brilliant, & critical of their own “privilege.”)”
It looks like Oates struck a nerve, and just after a few days, the tweet has over 5 000 Retweets and 12 0000 Likes.
After a quick discussion at our publishing house, we decided that in light of this recent news, we wanted to make the following statement:
Hey, straight white men – We will read your manuscript!
We don’t care about the colour of your skin, if you are a man or a woman, as long as your text is a good match with Legatum Publishing’s stated ideal; to produce books and related materials with wholesome content for students, parents and children.
Legatum Publishing aims to publish books and other works that will encourage Europeans, and people of European ancestry, to discover more about the unique character of their heritage and history. This can come as fiction, literary works, short stories or non-fiction. We will consider your text based on its merits. We ask that you use this form when you send us your manuscript.