LOTF 75: A New Era of Horror with Joe Monti, Editorial Director at Saga Press
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A Note on the Term “BIPOC”
In this episode, Joe uses the term “BIPOC” and at the top of the show, I read a quote from Rachel Ricketts’ powerful book Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy, in which she beautifully clarifies the term, why it’s used, and the nuance of experience it contains (in her book, Rachel modifies the term to BI&PoC, to help us remember what the phrase is intended to represent: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.) I hope this clarification supports our listeners who maybe weren’t previously aware, and I highly recommend Rachel Ricketts’ book (and her work!) to anyone interested in dismantling the internalized, harmful system of white supremacy from within themselves first.
Show Notes
Well, this episode was a TREAT to record, and Joe Monti is a delight to talk to. He is the award-nominated editorial director of Saga Press, working with bestselling and esteemed authors Charlaine Harris, Stephen Graham Jones, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Ken Liu, to name a few. He fell in love with the literature of fantasy and science fiction at an early age and never let go.
This is the first time we’ve ever had a book (novel) editor on the show, and not only was it awesome to hear about Joe’s journey to Saga, it was also really cool to hear how he approached editing one of the horror world most beloved horror books of 2020: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. Joe also talks about what he looks for when selecting books for his list—aka how he just KNOWS when a book is for him. Joe also declares he has a knack for predicting book trends, so it was really fun to hear his predictions for the future of horror! We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.