iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

They also force translators to sign away their copyright, which I would argue is even worse than not getting a cover credit.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

For years I’ve had actual nightmares about Europa acquiring a book I want to translate, and they just keep providing new nightmare fuel.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Today I found out that my shitty little marketplace HMO that is almost impossible to use is going to cost like $700 a month next year. So in honor of international Translation Day, I hope the editor who once acted like $0.16/word was going to ruin them enjoys their full salaried benefits and PTO!

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I lament the demise of translation twitter at least weekly in various group chats

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I was sitting by a creek last month when a dinosaur-size heron swooped down and landed right in front of me, and I gave such a loud and high-pitched gasp, it immediately took off downstream. Always so magical.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Publishers, if you're going to willingly include (basic) things like free contributor copies and regular royalty statements in your contracts, don't act like you're doing me some giant favor by sending them. I would be so embarrassed.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

I'm flying into Lexington on Thursday for a family reunion and my only plans are 1) stop at every farm stand and roadside produce truck I see 2) eat as many tomato sandwiches, pole beans, peaches, cucumber salad and corn on the cob as possible 3) locate a six-pack of pawpaw Ale-8.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Wondering if or when we’ll ever have a conversation about US publishers using Spanish-speaking audiobook narrators to read translations from Brazil, because it’s starting to get out of hand.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

I am not an “old soul”, I just hung out with my Appalachian grandma a lot.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Three guesses as to who I’m translating today.

Website screenshot from page describing Animal Carcass Shredder machinery

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

I grew up in rural KY in the eighties, the same place where my dad grew up in the fifties, and my grandpa grew up in the twenties, where most people own guns for hunting and there is a school riflery club and NO ONE was ever allowed to bring a gun to school. This is an insane thing for him to say.

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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

When I see people online, even in jest, suggest that people living in Republican-controlled states should be abandoned because of their politicians, I feel a deep heartache. New York CREATED Donald Trump and none of y’all are ever talk about it the way you disparage Alabama or Mississippi.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Translators: where could I submit an almost 8,000 word story by a prize-winning author? Lots of journals seem to emphasize a 4-5k word limit.

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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Jeremy Tiang really hits the nail on the head here (as would be expected). Translation is caught between two forms of capitalist exploitation: using a per-word freelance structure to provide a bare minimum fee, and playing on its artistic nature to compel free ancillary labor alongside

Tiang: As Maureen alluded to, when we sign a contract, we get paid for our translations. But, in fact, we’re also doing a lot of other labor that is expected but not compensated. This can start way before the contract is signed. Many of us are pitching books to publishers, and to do that, we have to be reading wisely. We have to be making contact with authors and publishers to make sure that the rights are available. We have to do sample translations and synopses, for free, and we have to email them to publishers that we have taken care to build relationships with. All of this is unpaid until a publisher accepts the book, at which point you are negotiating for money after having done a lot of labor. And then there is, as Adam has pointed out, a power differential where the only power the translator has is to say, “This is what I would like.”

Beyond that, all you can do is accept what you’re offered or walk away. In one sense, you’re being paid for the labor of your translation. But in another sense, you’re an all-around concierge who, in my case because many of my authors do not speak English, is expected to translate emails between the author and the publisher, to act as a kind of go-between: an agent, a rights agent, and a publicist all in one. We do what has to be done in order to get the translation to market, and often we are the only person in the equation with access to both languages and both cultures and both literary scenes, so we’re the only person who can do this work. But it’s not in our contracts, and we’re not getting paid for it. But it’s what has to happen to keep everything running.

Tiang: Honestly, any kind of disruptive solution would be great. I am someone who makes the majority of my income from literary translation, even though my language isn’t particularly in demand. I do this by pitching a lot, generating a lot of my own work, never taking a day off, not sleeping. And that’s not really sustainable. The question for someone like me, who is relatively established and working constantly translating three to four books a year, is: Should I not be making a living? The fact that I am not suggests a problem with sustainability in the industry. It can’t just be people with outside sources of income. But I will say that this conversation has been hugely generative, and I’m going to suggest we start a group chat and continue it.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

I want “AI” to know no peace

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Since I'm seeing a lot of talk about covers and what's on them: I love a good cover (maybe more than most!) But from my own experience, and the lived experience of many translators I know, wildly unethical practices can lurk behind a pretty cover, too. Good on the grid ≠ good labor practices

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

I get that it's become a kind of shorthand for respect, but just because a publisher puts a translator's name on the *front cover* (Fitzcarraldo does name translators on the back cover) doesn't mean they pay well/on time/negotiate in good faith/are honest/act like professionals (the list goes on).

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Naming the translator is admirable, but worth remembering that it can also be used to hide myriad sins behind the scenes.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

After you establish that niche, please write that Lexington narcotic farm novel.

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American Literary Translators Association @littranslate.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

New & emerging BIPOC lit translators! Apply for the Building Our Future 2-Day Virtual Workshop, meant to empower lit translators of color as they begin navigating the field. Led by poupeh missaghi & Sawad Hussain, w/ a business talk by Anni Liu. Free to participate! Apply by Monday:

literarytranslators.org

ALTA

A L T A

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

It’s hot out and I would rather be by some body of water sipping this new pawpaw Ale-8 with @wrongsreversed.bsky.social

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So Mayer @suchmayer.northsky.social · 07/07/2025

Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!

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Lauren Groff @legroff.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Every time someone writes a smug poorly-argued AI article like this, they’re simply demonstrating how swiftly AI has already transformed said writer’s critical thinking into a rotten log on the forest floor, studded with grubs and slime mold, gently disintegrating into humus even as we watch.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

When we negotiate fair terms for ourselves, we negotiate fair terms for all translators. Be wary of work-for-hire, and of working with editors/authors/agents who don't believe translators are part of a book's success.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Today's "we're all in this together" lesson: while negotiating a translation contract this morning, I was told they couldn't offer a royalty clause because the last time this author was translated, TEN years ago, the previous translator had only agreed to a a flat fee.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Get Edgar Wilson and Bronco Gil on the case.

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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

While researching my novel 1983, which is based on the Nottinghamshire mining village where I grew up, I had a weird memory of a man who used to take his cow for a walk around the village, like it was a dog. "Have I made that up?" I wondered. So I checked my mum and dad's old photos. I hadn't.

An old man walking his cow through the Nottinghamshire countryside on rope during the early 1980s.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Also, editors: if we ever talked about Nihonjin, that was probably long enough ago that you’re now at a new job, so I’m happy to start fresh 🫠

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Made it home from LBF with a few new additions. Nobody does cover design like Brazil, and nobody appreciates craft and attention to detail (matching bookmarks! embossed logo!) like the amazing Fósforo. Sample or pitch or some combination thereof available for all three.

Front cover of Ojichan by Oscar Nakasato

Front cover of new edition of Nihonjin by Oscar Nakasato

Front cover of Três camadas de noite by Vanessa Barbara

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

You clearly don’t know anything about North Carolina.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Spending the week at Looren, where I’m surprisingly getting a lot done on my translation in spite of these distracting views

View from my desk at Looren Translation House

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Rob Myatt 🍉 @robtranslates.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Give me ONE reason for us to use AI (in any industry) that doesn't ultimately come down to 'because it saves rich people and big corporations' money...literally just ONE and I'll listen...if it's about improving OUR productivity then it should be OUR choice AND should come at no cost to us

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Translated into English for the first time?! I had no idea!

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Jaime Woo @thejaimewoo.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Reading the interviews of Gabriel García Márquez and this passage stands out to me, from the 1970s but relevant in this time, that in this era the fight must be for collective happiness, which as he astutely describes, is the only kind of just happiness

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ: I don't know who the hell it is that's ended up convincing us—the people who want to start a revolution-to accept the idea that revolution is apocalyp-tic, catastrophic, and bloody. We need to grasp once and for all that it's counterrevolution that's apocalyptic and catastrophic and bloody. You already know the figures: more than thirty thousand dead, thousands im-prisoned, thousands tortured by the leaders of the Chilean military coup.
My idea of revolution is of the search for individual happiness through collective happiness, which is the only just form of happiness.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

A journalist at Rolling Stone wrote an article about the violence at that very same base a few years ago: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult... He wrote another article about the rampant child sex abuse on base, but apparently couldn't get it published because it was "too dark"

rollingstone.com

The Fort Bragg Murders

At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 — several of them were homicides. Families want answers. The Army isn’t giving any.

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Zoë Perry @zoeperry.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Maybe my husband will find a way to order the two years of royalty statements a publisher is mysteriously unable to send me 😉

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Cait_onthe_luce @caitluce.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

🎉Many congratulations to Cercador '23 winner Of Cattle and Men! High five to the judges for all their hard work! 🐄🐖

Of Cattle and Men on the counter of Island Books

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Spencer Ruchti @spencerruchti.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

Announcing the winner of the 2023 Cercador Prize: @zoeperry.bsky.social’s translation of Ana Paula Maia's OF CATTLE AND MEN. The Cercador committee says OF CATTLE AND MEN "lays bare the brutal labor of the slaughterhouse trade," hailing the novel as a "new breed of western."

A Publishers Weekly news item that reads: The winner of the inaugural Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation is translator Zoë Perry for her translation, from the Portuguese, of Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia (Charco). The book is Afro-Brazilian author Maia’s second book translated into English. Her first, Saga of Brutes, was translated by Alexandra Joy Forman and published in 2016 by Dalkey Archive Press. The prize was launched this July by Spencer Ruchti, the author events manager at Third Place Books in Seattle, and Justin Walls, the coeditor of translation-focused pick-of-the-month series Du Mois Monthly. Its winners are selected by a committee of independent booksellers from across the country. It is the only award of its kind.”

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Gary Lovely @colonellovely.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

So happy to announce the finalists of the Cercador Prize, the first literary prize for works in translation chosen solely by booksellers. Congratulations to all the finalists. Long live the Cercador!

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