I respect the author's opinion. And I respectfully DISAGREE with her.

I guess this means the cover will not be changed, since the author supports the cover...

I kind of feel that this is a post about her, not the cover. No one as far as I've seen has accused her of not using her voice to express love and tons of people have struggled with the fact that they want to buy this book because the author has been so positive and written a brown skinned character, but don't know how to do so without endorsing what the company has done. The discussion is not about whether her story does all the wonderful things she set out to do, it’s about the cover which is negating at least one of those wonderful things she set out to do (and I agree with your earlier comments that it’s kind of dull, so it’s also obscuring the other good things in her book). So while I think it’s understandable for her to want to assert her complete non-involvement in the cover, that the cover is not the story, she’s not really addressing the fact that her story now comes coupled with this cover which people have been thinking is offensive because of the way they think she wrote her character. I get that she says she doesn’t want to tell people how to feel, but I’d like to know how she saw her character when she wrote her, because after these comments it kind of feels like we are now all speculating about what she meant by what she wrote.

Dolamore is in an incredibly difficult place right now and I feel very sorry for her. All her "wow, my first book, isn't that awesome" is gone.

Should people act (and write) about Bloomsbury? About the cover? Yes, yes, yes.

But I don't want a pile up on the author, no matter how easy that would be because of what she says or didn't say.

The issue is race; the issue is how books are marketed and promoted; the issue is how an institution (a publishing house) deals with that. The issue is how we as bloggers address race, in what we buy, read, promote.

It's not about the author.

I second what Liz said -- I do feel very sorry for the author.

That said, I don't think that post even remotely addressed the issue. Which is, really, fine. It's up to her whether she'd like to actually express her opinion or not. (Assuming that she feels strongly one way or the other -- she may not.)

But while I'm sure that "readers are interpreting her look in different ways", that doesn't really take into account that Nimira's description in the book really doesn't match what we see on the cover. I mean, even accounting for different interpretations.

Liz, I couldn't agree more.

And, really, again, focusing on the author and what she says or doesn't say only distracts from the issue we all care about. The focus should be on the publisher(s), as they are the ones responsible and the only ones who can fix it going forward. I think sometimes it is easy to forget that writing is both a vocation and a job, and most of us are somewhat constrained about what we can say about our *jobs* and keep them.

I agree - this poor woman. A person self-described as "timid to express her soul" has merely side-stepped a thorny question, which, as Leila points out, is very much her right. I feel her pain. ALL I ever wanted to be was a writer, and I thought that meant I wouldn't have to talk to anyone, and certainly not talk to anyone about anything but my characters. And now she's being dragged into the spotlight and freezing up - pinned between the loud opinions of the blogosphere, and the people she has to face in the editorial office. Yikes.

I am a bit sad that this all just seems to feel like hassle to some of her fans; they're missing the point that the people burning down Bloomsbury's house are her fans, too. Or, potential fans, at best, and not people who are sitting around hating because they can.

Oh, what a mess.

Remembering what it's like to be a first time author, you feel new and raw, and you feel you're in the hands of the publisher whom you want to trust and don't want to rile - plus you still feel GRATEFUL to be published at all. I would guess if she had a few more books under her belt, she would be more outspoken. But the publishers have the experience to do better.

The cover is going to be changed:

http://www.bloomsburykids.com/books/catalog/magic_under_glass_hc_306