Borucki felt compelled to set up Row House after leaving her previous publisher in October 2020 where she was an author and mentor for other Black and Brown writers but became frustrated by what she saw as a lack of true commitment by the company to make real change.
"Inequality is rampant through publishing at every stage. The pay is so extraordinarily unequal and thehashtag really showed us the inequality that exists, where a Black writer with even a big following might be getting three, five, ten times less than a white author that isn't equal at all in terms of audience," she says.
In June 2020, the social media campaign #PublishingPaidMe went viral. Black and white writers took to Twitter to share information about their book advances. While it exposed a huge pay disparity in advances between Black and non-Black writers, Borucki believes that publishers need to go much further to tackle systemic inequality by taking action to implement fair, equitable, and transparent business practices in publishing.
"We're looking at systems in every single aspect of the business. Our funding partners seed at the table is a completely Black and Brown founded and funded organization. It's all from our community and people that are showing up to be part of a change in the system. I'm looking at publishing that hasn't changed in a hundred years, but it's inspiring people to take action wherever they are," she says.