Burn It Down

This book is urgent and necessary, and I am excited to see Mo Ryan bring it into the world. So many of the books about misconduct and abuse in the entertainment industry focus on One Important Man, and we know the problems are deeper and wider than that at every level. An examination of the systems and traditions that enable abuse and prop up abusers, helping them fail upwards and ensuring there will be a bottomless churn of vulnerable workers for them to exploit is so needed right now. Mo is the one I trust to write this important book. - Erin Keane, Editor-in-Chief of Salon and author of the forthcoming memoir Runaway Mo Ryan is a brilliant stylist and a dogged, clear-eyed reporter. She's become legendary for her miles-deep exposes of Hollywood abuse, toxicity and bullying -- journalism that has helped shake up a broken industry. But she's also an ideal guide to understanding the big picture on these issues including recent efforts to make genuine change. A crucial voice in a chaotic time. - Emily Nussbaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New Yorker and author of I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution Maureen Ryan has done much of the heavy lifting in helping to uncover not just the ugliness of the behavior of high-profile individuals, but the mundane abuses common in the broader television landscape. She's a tenacious and meticulous reporter, a sharp and passionate writer, and an advocate for a fairer and better industry. There's a reason a lot of network personnel with a lot they're trying to keep in the dark hate nothing more than to see Mo coming with a flashlight and a pen. - Linda Holmes, New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour I have been reading Mo Ryan for a long time: she is a rigorous thinker and a lovely writer and does terrific and necessary work to trace the places where entertainment and injustice intertwine with profit and abuse, and I cannot wait to read her at book length. - Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies Mo Ryan is not only a keen critic with a fair and far-reaching eye. She is also a leader in dismantling systems of oppression and abuse in Hollywood. Her reporting has single handedly brought consequences for abusers in positions of power. I am continually inspired and grateful for her work in my industry. She makes the entertainment world safer. - Felicia Day, New York Times bestselling author of You're Never Weird on the Internet and Embrace Your Weird As a journalist, Mo Ryan saw the need for #MeToo coming years before it went viral. But that means she also knows that there is much more work to do. Many more painful truths about show business. And more skeletons in closets that need to be dragged out into the light. Mo is fierce, funny, unbossed, and unafraid. - W. Kamau Bell, author of The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell and host of the Emmy Award nominated CNN docu-series United Shades of America Mo Ryan is the kind of writer you look to for truth.... She is uniquely able to see things from many different angles and perspectives and because she has made it her mission not to just simply summarize or critique, but to illuminate how media deeply affects and changes us.... Reading what she thinks of something always makes me think about it in a deeper way.... I can't wait to read this book and her observations on all that she's learned. I know I will learn a lot from it too. - Natalie Morales, actress and director of the films Plan B and Language Lessons I've honestly been reading Mo Ryan's incisive critical writing since she was at the Chicago Tribune when I was an undergrad at Loyola Chicago aspiring to write and operate within the television industry, and I've continued to search for her work ever since. Her most recent work has been challenging to the industry that I now work in, and she's a necessary agent in questioning the status quo and asking what about Hollywood power structures needs to be reckoned with and changed. - Ira Madison III, co-host of the Crooked Media podcast Keep It and author of the forthcoming essay collection Pure Innocent Fun