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Thu Jun 19 2025

Clare Mulroy | Books Reporter

Happy Thursday, book lovers!

In April, we covered Ali Hazelwood's decision to cancel her U.K. book tour because of border concerns with leaving and reentering the U.S., where she lives. Then, I heard from an author and USA TODAY reader who had the opposite problem: Curtis Chin had to move his tour outside the country after a wave of anti-DEI actions and grant cuts. AAPI Month in May is typically busy for Chin (who is Asian), but he watched his scheduled events at universities and organizations get canceled.

He lost income by moving his tour abroad, but feels more supported as an LGBTQ+ author of color: "Maybe in America we're not ready to talk about these things," Chin told me.

Detroit-based author Curtis Chin took his book tour abroad after funding cuts caused universities and organizations to cancel his stops.

Curtis Chin

While many are eager to keep politics out of book communities , the Trump administration's actions will impact readers. Trump's executive order to terminate dozens of federal grants held by libraries may have been blocked by a federal judge, but many have already been forced to abandon programs. This was the case for the Great Michigan Read, which would've sent Chin on a 15-city tour and donated around 6,000 copies of his book "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant."

Those cuts also threaten access to libraries and book bans threaten access to literature. And Trump's efforts to purge DEI practices in the U.S. have led many companies to scrap initiatives or go quiet. If publishers follow suit, we may not see the full effect until years down the line – books can sometimes take as long as three years to publish.

Check out our full analysis of the ways Trump's policies could impact reading here.

Have you noticed other ways politics have trickled into your reading? Let me know at cmulroy@usatoday.com. Thanks for keeping up with USA TODAY Books this week!