The trade magazine Publishers Weekly posted an article about Ms. Duncan’s self-cancellation on its website, but alas we couldn’t read it. PW had named the person whose critical queries led Ms. Duncan to deep-six her own novel, and this person—a person of color and the author of young-adult fiction—was criticized on Twitter.

Evidently being criticized, in the world of literary wokeness, is the same as being canceled, so PW felt obliged to kill the article. “We regret the damage the publication of this story has caused this individual,” PW proclaimed, “as well as any other instances of violence enacted upon Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.”

Author cancels her own book, trade mag reports self-cancellation, trade mag cancels article about self-cancellation because article subjected source to cancellation. It’s all very confusing, but we’re starting to understand what “cancel culture” really is: an inability to say or do anything without immediately unsaying or undoing it.