Kate Zernike

#PublishingPaidMe just showed up in my feed & I believe it's important for many reasons. So, I'm in: White straight cis female nonfiction, author of Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. What #publishingpaidme is complicated in my case; full answer & context in thread below (1/n)https://twitter.com/BCMorrow/status/1269378812908900353 …

Henrietta was a black woman whose cells, codenamed HeLa, were taken by white researchers w/out her consent. Her cells are still alive; she died in '51. HeLa launched a medical revolution & multi-billion$ industry. Her children were also used in research w/o consent (& more) (2/n)

So, when #publishingpaidme I was a white writer trying to publish a book about a Black woman/family who'd been used in $research by white people without benefit, only harm. I was also writing about the history of the v earned mistrust between Black people & science (3/n)

I started working on TILOHL in '99 as a grad student & sold a 75 page book proposal in '01 to W.H. Freeman/Henry Holt. I was an MFA student with just a few clips from alumni magazines. I don't have my original contract here (will update w/it) but I think my advance was $15k (4/n)