Labor Day starts a new season for most people. This is true in publishing, too. Fall releases of new books ramp up until the holiday season. Acquisition editors begin in earnest this time of year to put together their next catalog and plan for the one after that. Writers like to turn over a new leaf and recommit to their writing goals for the long winter ahead. In year three of this new era brought on by a global pandemic, publishing continues to change rapidly. The anti-trust hearings regarding the acquisition and merger of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House wrapped up final arguments, but the Department of Justice investigations opened up the industry for closer scrutiny. And it ain’t pretty. The case largely focused on agented authors who commanded advances over $250,000 and the question of whether fewer publishers bidding on intellectual properties diminished the size of advances. While most authors do not command such advances, the diminishing number of publishers creates a market situation in which there are so few buyers as to be a monopsony. A monopoly is when there is only a single supplier, but a monopsony is when there is only one buyer. If there are only a handful of buyers of book manuscripts, that is not a good thing for authors. The argument that new publishers are entering the marketplace didn’t hold much water with the judge in this case. The Penguin Random House attorneys argued Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau started a…

How far should a daughter go to fix a fraught relationship with her mother? Rica Ramos-Keenum examines this question in her forthcoming memoir, Nobody’s Daughter: A Memoir of Healing the Mother Wound, which releases from She Writes Press on May 9. In her early forties and about to remarry, Rica Ramos realizes that starting over could mean leaving her mother behind. She longs to heal the relationship, but her mother still refuses to acknowledge the sexual abuse Rica suffered at the hands of her stepfather, or her own culpability throughout the years. With old traumas resurfacing and a new life unfolding before her, Rica grasps the power of unspoken grief—and the potential to suffer or heal. Will she and her mother ever cross the chasm between them, or are some secrets meant to stay buried? As Rica navigates her options, she faces two ultimate choices: submit to a culture that shames daughters for not honoring their mothers, or muster the courage to go her own way. Offering a bold and lucid look at mother-daughter relationships, Nobody’s Daughter underscores every woman’s right to truth and validation. In addition to Nobody’s Daughter, Rica Ramos-Keenum is the author of Petals of Rain: A Mother’s Memoir. She’s also contributed to several anthologies, including “Art in The Time of Unbearable Crisis” and “Forgiveness is the Hardest Thing.” She’s a former journalist and current mother of two adult sons and one 60 lb. rescue dog that thinks she’s a lapdog. Rica enjoys connecting with readers and…

Taking a girl’s voice is the same as taking her power. Petals of Rain: A Mother’s Memoir by Rica Keenum is a memoir about love and loss, secrets and lies. When a young girl from a broken family meets a charming man, she attempts to build a new life. But after a whirlwind marriage and the birth of two sons, their love story rips apart at the seams. Exploring the impact of parents’ sins on the lives of children and the fates we endure for the chance to be loved, the story follows a mother navigating motherhood and womanhood – an abuse survivor emerging and learning to speak, to scream, to sing to her own wounded heart and to finally understand what it takes to be whole after breaking to pieces. Weaving the present and past together, Rica Keenum reveals her truth in hauntingly evocative scenes. Rica Keenum’s journey toward publication began in June of 2018 when Jill Swenson provided an assessment of the first draft of her memoir, and starting in September of 2018, coached her through the revision process. Rica completed a variety of meta-writing exercises, including character sketches, timelines, and the emotional weighting of scenes over the course of one year to strengthen the narrative arc and provide a satisfying story for readers. Because memoir is a fiercely competitive market in the top commercial publishing houses, Rica Keenum decided to shop around for an indie publisher. She received three offers and chose to work with Book Reality, which…