There Are No Girls on the Internet - The Goodreads Scandal That Predicted Publishing's AI Crisis

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

Publishing is having a trust crisis. With AI accusations swirling around authors like Mia Ballard, whose novel Shy Girl was dropped by her publisher despite her denying any AI use, questions about authenticity in publishing have never felt more urgent. But this kind of chaos isn't new. We saw it coming. We're revisiting one of our wildest deep dives: the Cait Corrain Goodreads scandal. Corrain had a highly anticipated debut novel, Crown of Starlight, coming out in 2024 — until she admitted to using fake Goodreads accounts to review bomb other writers' forthcoming books. Most of her targets were Black or queer authors. Corrain is white. The story has a lot of twists and turns, including a fabricated conversation with a completely made-up person that Corrain invented to take the fall. Canadian author Xiran Jay Zhao was the first to bring it to wider attention, noticing that Crown of Starlight was getting glowing reviews from the same accounts trashing other books — some of which weren't even out yet. Zhao also compiled a 31-page Google document of screenshots and receipts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1__mO1uqIqcmupBAPKwXDzlUbZIwtY6fKf0S1Y0SNz0E/edit?tab=t.0 Let us know what you think by emailing [e-mail] or leaving a comment on Spotify. Pre-order our forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com ! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Did an author use AI to write her novel? That's what the Internet says, but the actual story is a lot more complicated. Next week, I'm doing a deep dive on the story of Shy Girl, a horror novel by Mia Ballard that set the Internet on fire. Readers accused Ballard, a black woman author, of using AI to write her novel. She denies it, but her publisher dropped the book anyway. It's a story about how fragile

publishing feels right now and just how quickly a career can unravel. But AI or not, the literary world has always had its fair share of chaos. So while you wait, we're revisiting one of our wildest deep dives about how an author lost her book deal after a Goodreads review bombing scandal. There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unvolveld I'm Bridget Todd, and this is there are no girls on the internet. Okay, so Mike, I desperately need to talk about what's going on with the Goodreads review bombing story.

Honestly, this is like probably one of the more wild stories I've heard it a very long time. And if I'm saying that, somebody who covers weird wild stories on the internet, if I'm saying this, you know it's truly wild. We were going to do this in this week's news roundup, but honestly, I had so much to say about it that I decided it needed to be its own thing. That's because it really involves a lot of stuff that I spend a ton of time thinking and talking about. First of all, book communities online. I don't know how tapped in you are to like online book communities like book talk or bookstagram, but the drama is always very deep when it's, online book drama. Like, people who are

voracious readers and connect about it on the internet, their drama is very deep. I consider myself part of that community, by the way. So this is, I can say that because I'm one of them. Okay. This is good context to have you. Often tell me about very intense internet drama. And it often involves book clubs. I didn't, so I didn't realize that this was like a particularly common thing of book communities, but it makes sense. Oh, yes. So that's part of why I'm so interested in this. But there's also issues of how platforms impact marginalized people. Like a lot of issues mixed up with what it means to be a creative professional in this day and age and how the internet experience has sort of complicated that. And also, good old-fashioned jealousy, something I know quite a bit about. So there's a lot going on here. So let's get into it.

So this story really all starts with an author named Kate Corian. She's an author who had a highly anticipated book coming out called The Crown of Starlight, which was meant to be out in May of 2024. I also read that she might have had like this book deal and then like a subscription box deal from this book. And then like maybe even like a film publishing deal on the table. So Kate is a writer. who had a lot of positive things going on. Like she was really doing the damn thing, very successful.

But now, Kate's book has been shelved after she admitted using Goodreads to review bomb a bunch of forthcoming books, mostly by black, Asian, and queer authors. Kate is white. It sounds like this had been going on for kind of a while and that it was something that the writing community was aware of and knew was happening,

but was up until this point, of hoping to deal with privately? They knew that she in particular was doing it, or just that it was like a general problem in their community? Okay, so great question. I would say both. I think that writers knew that this specific writer, Kate, was doing this. And I think that writers were generally aware

that Goodreads and Goodreads bombing, like submitting tons and tons of bad reviews for a book, even if you haven't read it, is an ongoing problem in the space. So I think I would say both, if I had to say. So the first time if this came on my radar was when Canadian author, Zeran Jaze Well, first tweeted about it, and that's when it really got more wide attention online. So they first noticed that Kate's book, Crown of Starlight, was getting good reviews from the same

accounts that were also trashing other books. Some of those books were not even out yet. So Zeran tweeted, if you as a debut author are going to make a bunch of fake Goodreads accounts, one-star bombing fellow debuts that you're threatened by, can you at least not make it so obvious by uploading your own book on a bazillion different lists with those same accounts? So they then posted a 31-page Google document, which we'll link to in the show notes, of receipts, screenshots showing the Goodreads activity of a number of accounts

with usernames including names like Chantal B and O.C. Young that they suspected were actually Kate, leaving good reviews for her own book and bad reviews for other people's debut books. So the books that she left bad reviews for were mostly written by people of color, including So Let Them Burn by Camila Cole, which was meant to be released in January of next year,

and to gaze upon wicked gods by Molly X. Chang, whose book is actually being put out by the same publisher, Del Rey, as Kate's book. So this is essentially like trashing a fellow writer whose book is being published by the same company. Pretty bad. But it's also like not surprising at all, right? That like this sort of petty jealousy would be happening within a single publishing house. I bet these women know each other and have, you know, been in the same circles for a while.

Notably, the authors of these books say that in some cases, their books weren't even, available yet. They hadn't been published. And in some cases, they had not even sent out, like, advanced copies or galley. So, like, how could someone be reviewing it? If there's, like, there's no way to actually read the book. It's not out yet. They have not sent out any kind of advanced copies. How are you, how is someone leaving bad reviews already on Goodreads? Something else to note here is that these reviews are not just negative. In some cases, they're, like, downright, mean. In one review, Kate writes, I can't believe, Del Rey spent half a million dollars on this, when they could have spent half a million dollars

on anything else. Sorry, not sorry. That's not even, that's just like a mean review. You don't deserve the money that you were paid to write this book. And literally anything else would have been a better way to spend that money. That is not a criticism of the book or the text. It is like, just a mean insult. Yeah. And it just drips with that same petty jealousy. Like, They could have spent it on anything else. Like one of my books. Yes. That money should have been my money.

Hold that thought because yes, a million times yes, and that's going to come up very soon. So we also need to talk about the fact that there is a very real, like, identity aspect to this, like a very real racial aspect to this. I want to come back to that in just a moment, but some of the names that Kate chose are clearly meant to sound like they could belong to people of color. names like O.C. Young were some of the fake names that Kate used to leave mean reviews on other people's work. And then, like, using a fake name that is clearly meant to sound like it is the fake name of a person of color to trash authors of color while also praising her own work as a white woman is, like, so diabolically, like, messed up. That's just so, that's like, there's layers to how fucked up that is. So using the fake name O.C. Young, Kate left this review on her own book. I love this book so much that I regret reading it because now nothing on my to be read sounds as interesting by comparison. So like, clearly that's not just hyping up her own book. It is a way to trash other authors of color in the process. Zau, that Canadian author, who was the first person that I saw tweeting about this, really summed it up. They say, there's something.

something extra despicable about using clearly people of color names in fake accounts to upvote every negative review on people of color books. So the top ones are all one and two star. Like what in the yellow face? What's also funny about that is that if anybody has read the novel Yellowface, which is probably one of my favorite novels of this year, it's like a plot point from that novel, a white writer being kind of like pretending to be a person of color because because they are so jealous of writers of color. It's so interesting how this whole situation mirrors the plotline of a very popular novel that everybody should read.

It was the best novel I read this year. So this is already like a really awful messed up thing to have done. But when Kate was called out on it, rather than just fessing up and coming clean and being like, yep, I did this. Jealousy got the better of me. She made things so much worse by inventing. a fake friend to take the fall. So a bunch of these debut authors,

including authors whose books were targeted by Kate, were all in a Slack channel for debut writers. And of course, they were discussing what happened and starting to suspect Kate. Meredith Mooring, who it sounds like was friends with Kate, told them all like, oh, listen, Kate did not do this. She could not have done this. And Kate has proof that she didn't do this.

It was a friend of hers who did this. Meredith told the writers in this debut writer Slack Channel, hold tight. Kate will pop in to explain. And eventually, Kate does pop into this Slack Channel and explains. She writes, I did not, capital letters, review bomb anyone. I did not positively review my own book with false accounts. So basically, this is Kate's explanation. She says that somebody named Lily in the Ray Lowe,

fandom community, which is a particularly, like, dedicated online fan community that centers on the romantic relationship between two Star Wars characters, Ray and Kylo Ren. And she said that this person, Lily, she had met this person through this, like, particularly dedicated online fan base. And that in this fan base, you, you, like, would, she would pick up people like this who were just, like, very, very dedicated. And that that was the person who was behind these reviews. His person, Lily was just like, a friend of hers,

believed so much in her writing, wanted to make her writing a success, and that's why she was the one who was behind these reviews. Kate wrote in the Slack Channel, This person is someone I knew from a time in Star Wars fandom where I was a well-known fan fiction author

and a lightning rod for unhinged behavior, the type of behavior that anyone else who was well known in the fandom at the time still sees online. I have no further details. I haven't heard anything else from them. I never responded. So I got to give a, you know how we usually do like warnings and we're going to talk about

something that is like really bad on the podcast? I have to give a cringe alert for this because, oh my God, is it cringy? So the proof, in quotes, that Kate shares that she didn't do this and that Lily did is these screenshots of faked back-and-forth conversations between Kate and Lily. Mike, are you down to do a dramatic reading of these conversations with me? Yeah. Should I be Kate or should I be Lily? You be Lily.

I'll be Kate. Okay. It seems like the reviews were positive, but I didn't do anything? Question mark? Rating books high is against the rules, question mark? No. But making fake accounts to rate them high is it's artificially inflating of book's reviews. That's against the rules.

Grimmissing emoji. Oh, I didn't realize you could get in trouble. What? Please don't get mad. Um... I made a couple accounts. I think that was me. What?

Why? The other night you were worrying that your book would get overshone by bigger books at your publisher. I wanted to help. So I made a couple accounts to write your book high. I'm sorry. I really didn't think it would be a problem. What the fuck? Why?

I don't need fake reviews to help me. Jesus Christ! I'm sorry. I really didn't think it would hurt, exclamation point. I was trying to be nice. Oh my God. I don't even know what to say. I don't need you to step in and try.

try to be nice with this. Do you have any idea how patronizing that is? How humiliating spelled incorrectly? How much damage you could have done? I'm going to be sick, literally going to vomit. Please tell me that for the love of God, you weren't actually stupid enough to use the same accounts that you made to boost me

to bomb other people. Well? I didn't think anyone would notice. I'm literally going to be sick. I need to email my agent. This could literally cost me my fucking career. I don't even know what to say. This is such a violation of my trust and of our friendship.

I'm so, so sorry, Kate. I'm really sorry. I didn't think it would hurt. She just types a bunch of letters, like random letters. How could it not hurt? Who the fuck did you go after? It was just the books you said you were worried would bury yours on social media, wicked gods and fate inked and blood.

You went after people in my imprint, in my debut group? Do you have any idea how much this could have cost me? I could lose my deal. I could lose everything, all caps. If this is what Zarin was talking about, I'm going to kill you. All day, I've been sitting here worried that someone was review bombing me, only to find out that I wasn't the victim of a review bombing campaign, but instead someone I tried.

trusted and considered a friend really thought I was so insecure and helpless that I needed you to fuck step in and level the playing field? I'm so sorry. I didn't think people would think it was you. I tried to make the accounts look real. I don't even know what to say. That somehow makes it even worse. Seriously, what the fuck, dude?

I trusted you. I told you about stuff I was insecure about and you literally turned right back around and pulled this shit. You understand. we're done here, right? And scene. Oh my God. So first of all, I have to say,

it just sounds so fake. Like when you read it out loud, knowing this is a conversation between one person, like someone's faking a, like someone is playing both parts of this. It just sounds so fake. There's like a long part of just straight exposition in there. I've been sitting here worried that someone was review bombing me

only to find out that I wasn't the victim of a review bombing campaign, but instead someone I trusted and considered a friend really thought I was so insecure. Like nobody taught, nobody explains, like conveniently explains what is happening in their life in such clear and explicit terms. It's like when you watch a movie and the main character is like, oh, well, like convenient explanation of what's going on in the plot.

Yeah. Or like, right before when they've got James Bond. captured and the villain is explaining his master plan? So I cannot believe that this is what she published on the Slack channel to prove, in heavy quotes, that she was not the person behind this review bombing. And I really got to give it to the authors of color, some of whom weren't even targeted, who just like cared about this enough to stay on it, who really stayed on Kate,

even after she dropped this very compelling proof. to get to the truth. So people were asking, like, can you show us earlier conversations between you and Lily so that we can actually verify this person exists? Like, very convenient that's the only conversations that you're able to show are conversations where you're talking about this specific incident and not any other conversations. From somebody that you said that you've had an online friendship with that was so deep that it led them to do this. Pretty weird, right? Yeah, pretty weird. Pretty weak evidence.

Very weak evidence. Like, I honestly can't believe that she posted this. She's a novelist, right? Yeah. Like, she's supposed to make up stories that presumably sound plausible. Yeah, it really kind of makes you think, like, oh, maybe this is why she felt like she had to do this review bombing scheme. because she didn't think she was going to be successful on her own, maybe, if this is the caliber of writing that she puts out.

It's pretty weak writing. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

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So after she released this proof and writers were like, no, can you give us more proof? She eventually did admit the truth that there was no Lily and that she was the one who had done the review bombing. Here is her apology slash explanation that she posted. Apology maybe is too strong. You tell me you be the judge. She wrote, since June 2022, I've been fighting a losing battle against depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. The full scope of which I've hidden from everyone in my life out of shame and a misguided belief that with the right medicine,

and therapy, I could beat it. In late November, 2023, I started a new medication, and on December 2nd, 2023, I suffered a complete psychological breakdown. During this time, I created roughly six profiles on Goodreads, and along with two profiles I made during a similar but shorter breakdown in 2022, I boosted the rating of my book, bombed the ratings of several fellow W authors, and left reviews that range from kind of mean to downright abusive. Two of those authors, Molly X. Chang and Danielle Jensen are fellow Del Rey authors. Camilla Cole and Bethany Baptiste just happened to be on the wrong goodreads list at the wrong time. I felt no ill will toward any of them. It was just my fear about how my book would be received, running out of control. My memories of this

are extremely fuzzy, so it's possible there are a couple of other authors. If so, I take full ownership of what I did as well. I'm sorry than you'll ever know. There's something I can say to erase what I did to you. When I was slapped on the wrist, missed my goodreads and vague tweeted by a handful of people, I panicked that my secret was about to get out. Rather than taking responsibility for my actions, I tried to cover my tracks. Still in the middle of my breakdown, I made up the world's sloppiest chat with a non-existent friend who was supposedly to blame, sent fake apologies for the action of said friend, which only made things worse. I betrayed the confidence of my agent, my pub team, my readers, my friends. I betrayed my own

deeply held values. I dragged one of my dearest friends and fellow debut authors into the mud with me when she came to my defense. I'll leave her name out of this so as not to pull her in even deeper. However, if she wishes to come forward, I'll apologize to her publicly as well. Let me be extremely clear. While I might not have been sober or of sound mind during this time, I accept responsibility for the pain and suffering I caused, and my delay in posting this is due to the spending the last few days offline while going through withdrawal as I sobered up enough to be brutally honest with you and myself. I know some of you won't forgive me. I recognize that you're not required to. No one ever wants to be judged by their worst actions, so it's not always up to us. I'll be reaching out to everyone

directly impacted, though that may take time since I'm checking into an intensive psychiatric care and rehab facility, which means I'll be mostly off social media, as I need to give 100% to the program if I wanted to stick. All I can do going forward is try to live my life in a way that shows you that these are not empty words. Wow, what a redemption arc for her. She was struggling with addiction, a secret addiction that no one knew about. But now she's over it. So, yeah.

I mean, I will say this. I don't want to get too deep into this because, like, she may very well be suffering from genuine mental health and substance abuse issues. However, I really do take issue with how she uses her mental and substance abuse issues. as a defense. Like, it is the very first sentence of this explanation even. And I just don't know that I would agree that mental health issues or substance issues would cause you to do something that is like so clearly, racially motivated. You know, I don't, I don't think that is a defense. And I take issue with how she is framing it of like, oh, I was suffering from some kind of a mental

breakdown. I know plenty of people who suffer with addiction issues and suffer with mental health issues. And I don't know that this is something that I would say is a typical result of dealing with mental or substance abuse issues. I'll put it that way. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. Like really mean racial behavior, not a typical result of dealing with mental health issues. So after all of this, Kate's agent dropped her, her publisher dropped her. It does seem like that at first

her publisher Del Rey was like, oh, we're going to hold her book launch. We're not going to launch it until later. Like maybe we'll launch it when the heat dies down. But then they said recently that they are just going to drop her permanently. Her friend who stuck up for her in that Slack channel for debut authors, Meredith Mooring, has publicly said that she felt lied to and that she is, you know,

saying like I'm not going to talk to Kate ever again. She lied to me. I don't trust her. Honestly, here is the thing. It sounds like Kate really, truly had an amazing thing going. A well-regarded book deal, a subscription box deal, maybe movie rights, and she threw it all away because of her decision to do this. Like, this is on her.

Like she lost it because of her own choices. Yeah. And we can take her at her word that she did this out of, you know, fear of her own success, but, or, you know, lack of success, jealousy, I guess. But even if that's true and that's what motivated her, it doesn't remotely make it okay. And like you said, that, like, that fear drove. over to do this thing that threw it all away.

So I absolutely want to get into that because I do think this is a story about what happens when you don't check some of your more destructive impulses and jealousy. Like dealing with jealousy is certainly something I know a little bit about. But like, yes, I agree. So there is so much going on here. First, I think there is a really clear platform piece happening here. It is not surprising to me that this is all happening on Goodreads. Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon, does say that they have rules against review bombing.

Their rules say, artificially inflating or deflating a book's ratings or reputation violates our rules. This includes activity like creating fake accounts to manipulate book ratings, purchasing reviews, and incentivizing votes, likes, or other actions on Goodreads. They have that as their policy. However, this is far from the first time that review bombing. campaigns have happened on Goodreads. And also, this is not even the first time that they have been racially motivated. Back in the summer, the New York Times published a piece called how review bombing can tank a book before it's published. In it, they described how the same things that make good reads work and like a platform that people want to show up to talk about books, you know,

excitement and passion around books also makes it an effective tool to sabotage writers. And like most online attacks, it is more marginalized. people who bear the brunt of it. The New York Times talked to Cecilia Rattis, a black woman and a former data scientist at Google who left tech to write her debut novel called Everything's Fine, which is about a young black woman working at Goldman Sachs who falls in love with a conservative white coworker with bigoted views. Her book was the target of coordinated review bombing campaigns. Cecilia says, it may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment. People were very keen to not just attack the work, but to attack me as well.

Some of the reviews actually say, like, I didn't read this book. I've never read this book, but I feel inclined to leave this review anyway. And Cecilia says that it's not just like somebody leaving a mean review, that this can actually impact how the book is received. She says, I was concerned about the risk of contagion and that readers and reviewers would dismiss the work without really engaging it. I felt particularly vulnerable as a debut author, but also as a black woman author. So you're probably not surprised

to hear how much Amazon has taken over the book publishing space. We actually did an episode about it a while back with Jane Friedman after somebody on Amazon was selling AI dupes of her books using her name. But since Amazon has purchased Goodreads, Amazon has basically dominated the book publishing space. And Goodreads is an incredibly powerful tool. tool for authors to get their work discovered. So review bombing can actually have a meaningful impact

on writers getting their books read and it can make or break whether or not an author is able to successfully launch their work. So on Amazon, like the Amazon shopping apparatus, it actually tells you if the person who is leaving a review on Amazon has actually purchased the book or not through Amazon, and Amazon's like shopping platform does not allow anybody to leave reviews on books that are not yet out. However, that is not the case on Goodreads, which leaves it uniquely open to coordinated attacks on books that aren't even out yet. I don't mean books that aren't out yet in the like, oh, there's a specific release date further in the future sense. I mean books that aren't out yet in the like, this is still an idea in the author's head sense.

You know, like George R.R. Martin's long awaited the winds of the winter, which is the next installment in his A Song of Fire and Ice series, does not even have an official release date. Like, as far as we know, it has not been written. However, that has not stopped it from amassing more than 10,800 ratings and 500 reviews on Goodreads. As far as we know, this book is not even on paper. It is like still in George R.R.R. Martin's head. That's pretty wild. I wonder what his rating is. It's 4.40. He's got four and a half stars. I can see someone doing this because they love George R.R. Martin. And so they'd want to like give it a five to give him a boost or something. Or I could see people panning it because they really hate George R. Martin and giving him a one.

How does it get like four in change? Who's coming in here and be like, yeah, it'll probably be all right? So it's a lot of people just using this space. I'm looking at it now. They're just like using this space to be like, when is this book coming in? out. Somebody has been updating their review for years. Here's the top review. I have this plan that when this comes out in 2015, I'm going to drop my child by then age four, off at grandma and grandpa's house, get myself a hotel room and do nothing but read this for three days straight.

Then an update. Alas, as 2015 begins to fade, I have come to the realization that my plan will never come to fruition. It was a good plan. I'll miss the plan. Maybe 2016? Update of the update. 2016 is half over. At this point, I'm pretty sure when I purchase this book, it's going to be a page that says, just watch the show, followed by 600 blank pages.

New update. It's 2017. I give up. Another update. It's 2020, and I returned to this hopeful snapshot of my optimistic youth from time to time

to wonder what it must have been like to be so innocent, alas. Last update. Oh, my sweet summer child. Do you remember what it was like to have such hope? Such confidence?

2015? It was going to be, your year. But as summer of 2022 phase and leaves begin to fall, it is clear that no one will be reading this book even now, some seven years later. In 2022, what could have been? Wow, George R.R. Martin, like, ruining this guy's life, taking away his childhood. He's been leaving these reviews for years. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman,

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard,

you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Huber me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

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And I'm C.J. Toledano. our podcast point game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game.

We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nasree. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing.

That man, hell get the flying. He run up the court licking his fingers while he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcasts. Hi everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and

life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it. Yep. Yep. Exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

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Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell? hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How high can it be? Getting naked at 50 with the new guy. That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter, and dive into it, unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out.

loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of My Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. So beyond this being like a tech and platform story, I do think there is something to the fact that Kate was review bombing and targeting marginalized writers, queer authors, authors of color, and that these specific authors were the ones that she was concerned. we're going to outshine her own debut.

I do think that there's this attitude that people of color are like the golden children of publishing right now. Last year, James Patterson, who is this ridiculously successful writer, said that older white men like him basically cannot get writing jobs right now, saying, can you get a job? Yes.

Is it harder? Yes. It's even harder for older writers. You don't meet many 52-year-old white males, he insisted. Now, keep in mind, is somebody that has sold more than 450 million books during his storied 30-year career where his books have been turned into blockbuster movies. Joyce Carol Oates, who I have to say

is kind of my like forever problematic fave. Joyce Carol Oates, she's like the Azalea Banks of the book industry. Like, she, like, nine times, out of 10, she's super wrong. But when she is right, she is so right. That's how I would describe her. I cannot quit Joyce Carol Oates. She is my forever problematic babe. Well, she said the very same thing. She said, a friend who was 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're just not interested. This is

heartbreaking for writers who may, in fact, be brilliant and critical of their own privilege. So there is this attitude that the only people who find success in the book world are people who are traditionally marginalized, but it's so laughably and frustratingly untrue. And the data could not demonstrate how clearly untrue this is more clearly, that it is white people who still and always have been the majority of the book publishing space. Penguin Random House did an audit where they found that white contributors accounted for 76% of books released between 2019 and 2020. 21. 34% of those writers were male.

A 2020 analysis by New York Times surveyed more than 7,000 popular novels published by the largest publishing houses, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Doubleday, Harper Collins, and McMillan. Of the books surveyed, 95% of them were written by white people. In 2018 alone, non-Hispanic white people wrote a whopping 89% of the books sampled. So it's white people. Like, white people are the ones who are down there. dominating the industry and always have,

I do think there is this very persistent attitude that, oh, you have to be like a person of color or like somehow marginalized to get a foothold in the publishing space. But that just betrays the reality that like the people who are succeeding in the space are white people. It's just the truth. Yeah. And those stats you just read were pretty overwhelming.

in that analysis of authors, 95% of the books, what were they? It was a New York Times study, yeah. 95% were written by white people. That's like way over the proportion of the population that is white. And I also think it mirrors this conversation that's sort of bubbling up now around diversity and inclusion efforts. We'll have an episode diving into some of this next week about that.

wild situation happening at Harvard. But I do think that people will sit here with a straight face and say that they believe that black and brown folks are being handed like cushy gigs or cushy contracts in spaces that have mostly been dominated by white people when the reality is that they don't give us shit. If a black person or a brown person has wound up in a space where there are not a lot of black and brown people, best believe that is because. that person earned that shit? They don't give us anything.

People are out here thinking that like, oh, they're just handing out book deals and cushy reviews and like praise to black people. I would like some of that, please. If they're handing that out, I would love to be the first in line that gets them because that has not been my experience. And even beyond the racial dynamics at play,

I think that Kate's story really is like what you were talking about before, Mike, that it is one of what happened. happens when you are, as my father used to say, when you're so busy looking at everybody else's plate that your own food gets cold, right? Like, you are so focused on the comparison game and looking at what other people have and obsessing about it and like really internalizing what's going on with others that you can't even focus on what you have, which in Kate's situation was a lot. Kate was had a lot of success. And she ruined that because of her own

inability to stop being jealous and stop obsessing and fantasizing about what other people might get. Yeah, jealousy is so destructive. It's true. And like, this is the reason why I know this, like, I'm speaking from experience is that, I mean, like, I have definitely had to struggle to deal with jealousy. I wasn't handling it through review bombing my colleagues, thank God. but when you make something, particularly like when you're in a creative field, but I'm sure anybody who is in any kind of field can relate to this, you really have to work to learn to not let things like jealousy and comparison get to you

if you're going to make anything, right? Like especially right now this time of year where all of my very, very talented friends and colleagues are making like best of lists and getting awards and things like that, it can be hard. Like I don't want to negate the fact that Kate probably was dealing with very real feelings that are tough to grapple with. I have had to do a ton of work to keep that kind of comparison and jealousy from making me spin out or making me like second guess my own work. If you're, if this is something that sounds familiar, I will give you, I will give folks a tip. Like the way that I have learned to sort of reprogram jealousy in my own,

mind is by kind of flipping the dynamic a little bit. And so training myself to see the wins of people in my circle, the wins of people that I know as my own wins. And so like when a friend of mine gets on a best of list telling myself like, wow, how great for me that I am connected to such a dynamic network of creators that I know somebody like this. Like what a win for me. you know, this is, wow, this is somebody that maybe I can collaborate with. Like, what a great thing for me. Like, really seeing the wins of other people as wins for yourself has really helped me sort of reframe the game a little bit and, like, not be, like, salty when someone gets something

that I want. It can be helpful. So that's just a little tip for folks. But I also think it's about remembering that success is not finite. something good happening to somebody else does not mean that something is being taken away from you. It is such a white supremacist and also like patriarchal lie that there could only be one. There's only enough room for one person to be successful. Capitalism and white supremacy and all of those other forces want us to think that there is only enough room for one.

But that is a lie. There truly is enough for all. all of us. There is enough room for all of us to be at the table. There is enough room for all of us to be successful, for all of us to have what we need. You do not need the voice in your head that says that other people doing similar work are your competitors and not your collaborators. That voice is a liar. There is truly enough room for all of us. And honestly, we can all be successful. We can all win. And Kate, that's the thing is Kate really was successful, it sounds like. But she spoiled at all And you know what?

It wasn't authors of color who blocked her bag. It was her own behavior. Like, it was herself. In the end, that is the main, your main hater yourself. Yeah, boy, what an arc to the story, huh? It's true. So we'll add a link in the show notes to the different authors who were impacted. If you want to get their books, show them some love.

Yeah. A wild story at the end of the day. Remember, don't let jealousy let you spin out and block your own bag. You truly are enough. Don't leave fake reviews. Don't make up fake conversations with people who don't exist. Just do your best. That's all we can do.

Well, thanks, Bridget. I really enjoyed that. That was a wild story. I told you it was wild. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You could reach us at Hello at Tanguobo. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comments.

Comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their Between Songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was hungry. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow.

Then after that game seven, Marquis come in to you, he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ashanti Plummer from Futter Around and Find Out. This week, Aizee Fud and I sat down with Step and Curry. Step talks pressure, confidence, and what it really takes to stay great. There's different categories, I guess, so I'm like conditioning, shooting drills where you try to simulate kind of games. Look at her face. We have a love-hate relationship with those because you know you're getting something out of it.

You don't look forward to those days. Listen to Fud Around and Find out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body.

having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your 20s can be so exciting, but they can also be really overwhelming, confusing, and honestly, just kind of lonely. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the psychology of your 20s is breaking down the science behind the biggest roadblocks we face. I was six years into my career, the 80-hour weeks, and just the first one in, the last one out, and I ended up burning out. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase out of my skin and I just like really regret not living in the present more.

You don't need to have everything figured out right now. You just need to understand yourself a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.