Rare Bird Books

Rare Bird Books is an American publishing house. It was founded by Tyson Cornell, the former director of publicity and marketing at Book Soup.^[1][2][3] Rare Bird has five imprints: California Coldblood, which is focused on sci-fi and similar genres; A Barnacle Book, which produces crime fiction, memoirs, and Hollywood literature; A Vireo Book; Archer; and Rare Bird Books itself.^[1]

Cornell, who published Bonnie Weinstein's 2014 book, To the Far Right Christian Hater ... You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, But You Can't Be Both: Official Hate Mail, Threats, and Criticism From the Archives of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told an interviewer in that he is "disgusted" by hate mail.^[4]

In 2019, Rare Bird became the subject of national attention when it cancelled a book by first time novelist Natasha Tynes. Tynes, a writer in Washington, D.C., had tweeted out an image of a uniformed black female Washington Metro employee eating on the train.^[5] Social media users criticized Tynes, accusing her of racism, linking the episode to other famous cases of black people reported to the police for everyday actions.^[5] Rare Books called Tynes' actions "truly horrible" and cancelled distribution of her novel, telling the author that "did something truly horrible today in tweeting a picture of a metro worker eating her breakfast on the train this morning and drawing attention to her employer. Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies... We think this is unacceptable and have no desire to be involved with anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to jeopardize a person’s safety and employment in this way.”^[6][7] Amidst the controversy, Texas multimedia company Cinestate acquired the book to be the first title launched under their new Rebeller literary imprint, part of a larger lifestyle brand that also encompassed an action movie label and website. The book was released in April 2020, two months before Cinestate shut down amidst a sexual abuse scandal.^[8][9]