After issuing a statement Wednesday about the controversy over their “Rage Baking” cookbook, authors Kathy Gunst and Katherine Alford, as well as their publicist, agreed to a phone interview with The Washington Post on Thursday to talk over some of the issues. In an essay published Friday on Medium, blogger and performance artist Tangerine Jones accused the authors of co-opting her rage baking project, which she started in 2015 as a way to cope with being a black woman in America.
The following is a transcript of our interview, edited for length and clarity.
Were you aware of Jones’s project as you were working on the book?
Gunst: Yes, I’m aware of Rage Baking. I was aware of Rage Bake. I was aware of the Feminist Baker. I was aware of many women’s voices in this field talking about rage baking. The introduction explains that this happened very organically for me, watching and listening to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and feeling my rage rise. I started baking, kind of obsessively, and started posting. And initially I was posting on Tangerine Jones’s #ragebaking. I also created #ragebakers. A lot of these other sites that I mentioned, they were all picking up on it as well, and there were conversations.
Alford: Craftivism has been on the rise for the last decade as the world gets crazier and crazier. So when we decided to do this book, it was seen as a real tool, and we wanted to reach out to a wide range of experts who were creating original content, women specifically. We have writers, musicians, producers, historians, people who have very strong, original content. That was very, very important to us.
Since you were aware of these people who were rage baking before you, why didn’t you originally give them a shout-out or ask one or a couple to contribute?
Alford: We absolutely knew this had to be a nontraditional cookbook. We really didn’t have a lot to refer to in terms of creating a book like this. I mean, obviously, with all the discussion that’s been going on, in retrospect, we understand the importance of acknowledging our fellow rage bakers in this space and in the next imprint, we are going to do that. And this is obviously very surprising and clearly not the intent. This is not the story we wanted to create in any way, shape or form. We saw this as a pro-social tool to use and leverage our skills as professionals and as women to change the conversation around rage and baking.
Jones mentions the history of African Americans using the kitchen as a safe space and as a form of resistance. Is that something that you look back on and wish you had included in the book?
Marlena Brown, publicist for Tiller Press, the publisher: In retrospect, we do see that there is a diverse range of people who operate in this space. And going forward, we are going to acknowledge the fact of that.
You’re going to acknowledge what part?
Gunst: The women in the space of rage baking and the variety of hashtags we previously mentioned.
What has been the fallout from this controversy?
Gunst: It’s been difficult, and we are really trying to stay open and listen to all the voices and elicit conversations and react appropriately. To talk about woulda, coulda, shoulda is difficult.
Brown: It’s definitely been a growing experience. We’re all doing our best to learn and to grow, and we want the community to know that we are listening.
What’s the future for the book tour and promotions?
Gunst: We are in process with all of that. We plan on speaking about the book. We are not stopping to spread the message of the book. We still believe very strongly in the book and its messages and the collection of women’s voices.
Was there a reason that you didn’t just apologize to Jones in your statement and say, ‘We’re sorry for not including you and talking more about racial justice’?
Brown: We believe fully that our joint statement from Tiller Press and Kathy and Katherine addresses those issues.
But that doesn’t really answer my question. I mean, what was there to lose to say, ‘We’re really sorry for any hurt this may have caused?’
Brown: Our position is the joint statement.
Alford: I’m very proud of the book and the women that we’ve brought together in the book to express their rage. You know, the rage that exists out there is bigger than one book. And I’ve learned a tremendous amount. Obviously, I’ve had a lot of deep reflection about this. Doing a book like this, we knew we were going to open up a lot of hard conversations, and here we are. We’re very willing to have conversations.
What has come up so far during your book tour?
Gunst: We were recently in a bookstore where clearly people have seen this on social media and had questions. We had really civil discourse. I think it was kind of enlightening. We clearly want to talk about the content of the book, but we’re not ignoring this and we’re not shutting it down.
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