Chile Street May 2025
A newsletter by R.M. Lowery
Welcome to Chile Street for May 2025. Here’s a look at a few literary and library news items from the past few weeks.
Trump fires Librarian of Congress
President Donald Trump on May 8 fired longtime Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. The notice came in a two-sentence email.
Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the country’s oldest federal cultural institution and largest library in the world. The library adds about 10,000 items to its collection each week.
“There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on May 9.
However, the Library of Congress is a research library, not a lending library, and its collections are only open to those 16 or older.
Trump on May 12 appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress. Blanche represented Trump in his 2024 hush money criminal trial and has no academic, library, or literary experience.
The Authors Guild, of which I am a member, has decried Hayden’s abrupt dismissal.
“Firing a Librarian before her Congressionally legislated term expires for serving the Library’s mission to preserve and make accessible all American literature is a shocking abuse of power,” the Authors Guild said in a statement. “It represents a profound misunderstanding of the role of Congress’ library and is an affront to intellectual freedom, democratic values, and the integrity of our national institutions.”
Read more from the Authors Guild here: https://authorsguild.org/news/ag-decries-firing-of-librarian-of-congress-dr-carla-hayden/
Tribal communities may lose local libraries
New Mexico’s Santa Clara Pueblo Community Library was recently featured in an NBC News story as one of a hundred or more libraries on tribal lands that received notification by the Institute of Museum and Library Services that congressionally appropriated grants had been terminated.
The letter came after President Trump on March 14 issued an executive order that effectively eliminated the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a major source of funding for rural libraries.
The Santa Clara Pueblo received $10,000 in federal funding last year, NBC reported. In the absence of the grant funding, tribal leaders across the country say they may have to make cuts in services to keep local libraries and museums afloat.
Read the NBC story here (no paywall): https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tribal-communities-risk-losing-local-libraries-history-hold-doge-cuts-rcna203508
Books on the Backroads
A 2023 documentary titled Library Stories: Books on the Backroads focuses on libraries in the rural New Mexico communities of Abiquiu, Datil, Dixon, El Rito, Glenwood, Jemez Pueblo, and Magdalena. It can be viewed on the PBS website here: https://www.pbs.org/show/library-stories-books-on-the-backroads/
Update: Institute of Museum and Library Services Cuts
As a proud member of Authors Against Book Bans, I — along with more than 400 other authors, librarians, booksellers, agents, and publishing professionals — have signed an open letter to HarperCollins urging them to reject the Trump administration's March 14 executive order calling for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
On April 3, a group of publishers including four of the “Big Five” publishers — Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, and Simon & Schuster — wrote a letter to Congress urging it to reject the Trump administration’s executive order that eliminated the IMLS. HarperCollins was the only major publisher to not sign the letter to Congress.
The open letter to HarperCollins called on the publisher to speak up on behalf of IMLS and all libraries nationwide. The letter demands to know why HarperCollins didn’t sign the April 3 letter and asks what the publisher intends to do “to defend IMLS and all libraries moving forward.”
Read the letter here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1gpfgDpS5OJOkrNt8u4Az7OgwuyD-HDB84w33j3HLalE/viewform?ts=67f93c89&edit_requested=true
‘A screaming red alarm’
Two book banning bills are gaining traction in Texas, legislation that Texas Freedom to Read Project co-founder Frank Strong called “a screaming red alarm for people who care about books.”
Senate Bill 2101, and its companion bill House Bill 3225, are close to being voted into law. Both bills contain essentially the same wording and would require Texas public libraries to ensure that no one under the age of 18 can access books or materials deemed “sexually explicit,” a term broadly defined by the bills.
A similar law that passed in Idaho has forced some public libraries there to ban unaccompanied minors from accessing the library altogether.
More information on the Texas bills, and some ways to help fight them, can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQZaGFoGF-sg16MbSqtB6zeUkhMXnjAG-9_jrPq3dmfHgmEBA4r8MVjS1pGJwZ0pz-kkMpgUv9YoBcP/pub
Victory in Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on May 1 signed a bill into law that aims to safeguard public school libraries from bans and challenges to books that are often about diverse topics or written by diverse authors.
The new law requires all Colorado school districts and charter schools to create policies about the acquisition, retention, and display of library books and other materials by September. The policy will also need to govern book challenges and consider the process for removing any books for circulation. The review policy itself is left up to each school district and charter school, but those schools must follow Colorado’s existing anti-discrimination laws.
Read more on the new law from Colorado Newsline (no paywall): https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/colorado-limit-school-library-book-bans/
Two new R.M. Lowery books coming soon
Lastly, some bragging/promotion: I’ve got two new books on the way!
Tough Messes: Eleven Stories of Crime and Desperation brings together eleven short stories featuring a range of characters from varied backgrounds. From a group of mob soldiers trying to mitigate blowback from decades-old deeds in “Moving Day,” to a low-level arms dealer trying to stay alive after present-day blowback in “Leaky Pipe,” to a man making his bones for a modern crime family in “Quality Time.”
Tough Messes will be available late next month. Learn more here: https://rmlowery.com/toughmesses/
Coming later this month (or perhaps early next month): The second book in the Jakob Larsen Mysteries, We Kill Our Own.
In this follow-up to The Gentle Slope, someone is killing drug dealers and many in the Midwest town of Stonebridge speculate that a vigilante is behind the violence. Others believe it’s merely fallout from ongoing gang wars. Reporter Jakob Larsen isn’t content with either opinion. When he starts digging for answers, he discovers massive corruption within the police department and a link to a powerful cartel, information that places him and those closest to him in grave danger.
Learn more here: https://rmlowery.com/wekillourown/
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading!
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R.M. Lowery is the award-winning author of the Jakob Larsen Mysteries: “The Gentle Slope,” “We Kill Our Own,” and “Time Fades Away.” His stories have appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Workers Write, The First Line, and others. Rooted in Illinois and raised in Colorado, Lowery splits his time between Colorado and New Mexico with his beautiful wife and their clowder (of cats). Learn more at rmlowery.com.
