The Langam Charitable Trust has issued a statement deploring Random House's cancellation of Sherry Jones's novel. They feel so strongly about it, they have decided that "until The Jewel of Medina is actually published, [we] will not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates."
So bang go the prospects of Random House authors for the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Historical Fiction and the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Legal History or Biography.
It seems more than a little unfair that innocent authors should be penalized for what was basically a tactical decision, rather than outright censorship. As Stanley Fish observed in The New York Times, Jones is free to have the book published elsewhere. Considering the amount of free publicity Medina has received, that seems an absolute certainty.
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