One day, writer Natasha Tynes is going to mind her own business and quit while she’s ahead.
Until then, I guess she’s going to continue to be dragged by her edges, even by the book publisher that promptly cut ties with her following her racist targeting of a Black metro employee who was eating her breakfast on the train.
Tynes recently filed a lawsuit against Rare Bird Books for canceling her book deal, accusing the publishing house of defamation, breach of contract and “extreme emotional distress.” She is seeking a whopping $13 million for her inability to mind her own damn business.
Well, Rare Birds is not here for Tynes or her lawsuit, and oh so carefully gathered her in the way only a writing-based agency could.
“The complaint filed against Rare Bird by Natasha Tynes is baseless for a host of reasons, chief among them: Rare Bird has never had any agreement of any kind with Ms. Tynes, nor has anyone from Rare Bird ever had any contact with her whatsoever, and Rare Bird’s statement about Ms. Tynes’ conduct was not defamatory,” the company wrote in a statement that it released on its Twitter.
Rare Bird then scoffed at the amount Tynes was seeking in her lawsuit, essentially calling her book garbage, noting that the book had less than 50 copies set for pre-order, with only a few hundred scheduled to be printed.
To finish its TKO on Tynes, Rare Bird linked to a Publishers Weekly review which started out “Tynes’s limp debut begins on Apr. 1, 2001, the 25th birthday of Siwar Sihaila, a Jordan-born writing student at the University of Maryland.”
They called her debut “limp,” and we are inconsolable.
The finishing move was in the last paragraph.
“It is ironic that, having taken advantage of her First Amendment rights with an ill-advised tweet, Ms. Tynes now seeks to stifle and punish use of those very same rights of a respected book publisher who legitimately expressed its opinions of her conduct, rather than take responsibility for her own actions,” the statement read. “Ms. Tynes would have been better served to have simply let this episode disappear into the annals of history. Rare Bird will, of course, expend all of the resources necessary to defeat this meritless litigation.”
In short, try minding your business for once Natasha, and let this thing die already before you continue to embarrass yourself.
It’s above Rare Bird now.