
Podcaster and author Jennifer Baker discusses her YA novel Forgive Me Not, how she created its alternate juvenile justice system and what she wanted to teach young people about incarceration and grief. Plus, we hear about how Jennifer and her editor worked together to edit the book, the many ways in which publishing has changed and stayed the same, and who decides who the villain is.
The Stacks Book Club selection for August is You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. We will discuss the book on August 30th with Sam Sanders.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

- Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker
- Minorities in Publishing
- Forgive or Forget (Syndication)
- Mother Love
- Oz (HBO)
- Brennan Center for Justice
- If They Come in The Morning edited by Angela Davis
- Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis
- Angela Davis by Angela Davis
- Haymarket Books
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
- The New Press
- We Do This ’til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
- No More Police by Mariame Kaba
- Let This Radicalize You by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Rikers Island
- Beyond Scared Straight (A&E)
- Lovecraft Country (HBO)
- Michael K. Williams
- Black Market with Michael K. Williams (Vice)
- Stacey Barney
- Kacen Callender
- Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
- Jason Reynolds
- “Ep. 243 Prison by Any Other Name by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law — The Stacks Book Club (Mariame Kaba)” (The Stacks)
- Prison by Any Other Name by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
- “Anti-hero” (Taylor Swift, 2022)
- Forgive me Not by Samantha Tonge
- Michael Mwangi
- Friends (NBC)
- The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
- The Real Housewives (Bravo)
- Sea Salt BOOMCHICKAPOP
- Narrative Initiative
- “Black Women Are Being Erased in Book Publishing” (Jennifer Baker, Electric Lit)
- “Ep. 270 My Whole Self Is Here with Hannah Oliver Depp” (The Stacks)
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Running by Natalia Sylvester
- The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Renee Watson and Nikkolas Smith
- Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
- Brooklyn Book Festival
- Derecka Purnell
- Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker (audiobook)
- Tyla Collier
- Ryan Alexander Holmes
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