Everybody's talking about Mira Jacob's BuzzFeed story "I Gave A Speech About Race To The Publishing Industry And No One Heard Me," and for good reason: it's a substantial look at one of the publishing industry's biggest problems. Jacob was invited to be the keynote speaker at a Publisher's Weekly gathering:

My last year has been intense. My book The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing came out, I spent a few months touring internationally, and from a distance, it looked like one big party. Up close, it looked a bit different. This was something I really wanted to get into, as sometimes when we talk about the sad statistics facing writers of color in publishing, they become just that: statistics. I wanted to back that up by talking about what it actually looks like.

The speech did not go well; the sound system rolled over and died, so Jacob had to stand on a chair and shout her speech. Most people in the room — especially most white people in the room — didn't hear her. And this was a room that really needed to hear what Jacob had to say. If you haven't already, you must read this piece.