Progress Update, The Slave in my Mirror, 3/3/25

Dear friends, family, supporters,

I know you are all anxious to see Bryant's amazing book, and I know it has been one year since we sent an update, so I want to give you the current status and let you know what to expect. If you don't want to read the whole explanation below, the short version is that we are still slowly chipping away at the process, it is slower than we had hoped, and we are moving forward.

When Bryant wrote his memoir he was thorough in his research, sourcing historical and contextual information from books, magazines, newspapers, interviews, online sources, and he spent many hours looking over the microfiche archives in the Boston Globe offices. It was a decades long process.

Unfortunately he did not keep a complete running list of the sources, bibliography, and citations with the manuscript, and we still have to reconstruct a lot of that from short quotes and notes. When the manuscript was declared finished and ready for final editing, neither Bryant nor any of the rest of us could have predicted how incredibly complicated the process would be for getting the quotes/copyrights print-ready.

It is the combination of the sheer number of quotes (80+) and needing to follow the paper trail of pinning down each source exactly, determining what copyright permissions are needed, and then securing agreements and paying for those permissions individually.

In the last update a year ago, I had just finished the major manuscript edits and we were starting to dig into the copyright permission process. It has been more time and energy intensive than I hoped, and after realizing that it was too much for me to do on my own and with volunteer/family help, we hired an outside copyright consultant to do a thorough evaluation and help us move the process along. As of this week, they have completed the first phase of that process. It was exactly the help we needed to get unstuck, just the right boost to keep us pointing toward the finish, and we will continue to work with this capable team to complete the process.

Next steps are that I will be going through the manuscript again to clean up the quotes that we've determined to be fair use and public domain while we continue the legwork to negotiate and secure permissions for the remainder of the quotes.

Two big unknowns are how much time and how much money it will take. Some copyright holders, publishers, authors, estates are easy to track down and amicable about letting their quotes be used in this kind of book, some are a bit harder to track down, and some ask for surprisingly high fees to put tiny little quotes in a book. All of that is just a normal reality of the process. In order to be able to safely publish this book we need to make sure there are no loose ends that could result in costly disputes and legal issues down the line, so we have to be thorough ahead of time, and if we can't secure permissions we have to decide when and how to omit certain quotes.

The funds raised from your generous contributions to this kickstarter campaign are sitting in an account that we are drawing from for these kinds of expenses. The work I am doing, along with that of the rest of the family, is unpaid (one reason it takes a little extra time). We are hoping that this next phase of securing copyright permissions leaves enough of a buffer to pay for the final round of copyedits, layout, printing, and shipping costs without going into the red. If it does go over budget, we will figure it out. After being immersed in this tangle of copyright, that would be a tiny and manageable bump in the road I am not worried about.

Either way, we are on the path to completion, even if it is far slower and trickier than expected, and I am committed to getting this project done thoroughly, completely, and to a standard of quality that Bryant would be happy with.

So thank you all for your patience, and we will keep you updated when we have more news.

In Bryant's memory, much love to you all,

Abraham

So far Shirley and I are still able to update Bryant’s Substack account. If you would like to ensure you will be updated if for some reason we are unable to do so in the future, please also subscribe to my other account. https://substack.com/@abrahamschroeder In addition to getting this memoir out into the world, we also hope to have news and updates about some of Bryant’s other books and writing, and we will keep posting news as we have it to share.