I called J.D. Vance a cheap punk, Mike DeWine a spineless jellyfish. Festival got punished.

Lancaster native Brian Alexander is an award-winning journalist and author. He is working on a new book, “Purgatory of Profit,” to be published by St. Martin’s Press.

Right now, the people who run the Ohioana Library are prepping for the annual Ohioana Book Festival, to be held April 20 at the main branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.

Last October, I received an email from Ohioana’s director.

“We just did the 2023 awards last month at the Ohio Statehouse,” he wrote. “[It] was another great success. Alas, we did not get back the $6,000 we received last year from the sponsors of your award.”

Why did the sponsors pull out? “One of them said your remarks about the Governor and the GOP (at the 2022 ceremony) so incensed them they’d never support us again.”

Brian Alexander comments at the 2022 Ohioana Book Awards start at 25:25

Why did sponsors punish Ohioana Book Festival?

The Ohioana Book Festival is a signature Ohioana event, but the library also presents the Ohioana Book Awards to recognize works by Buckeyes — or those, like me, who grew up in the state — and books that feature Ohio or Ohioans.

I’ve been honored to receive two of these awards, the first in 2018 for my book “Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town,” and the second in 2022 for “The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town.”

These activities are in fulfillment of the mission set out for Ohioana in 1929 when Ohio First Lady Martha Kinney Cooper started it.

Ohioana Book Awards: Lancaster native Brian Alexander wins Ohioana Award for ‘The Hospital’

And that mission was part of Ohio’s larger ambition to demonstrate to the rest of the country that Ohio was a progressive, modern, innovative state with excellent colleges and universities, artists and writers, hospitals and industries.

Today, though, libraries in Ohio, and the state’s colleges and universities, are under attack.

The sponsors decided to punish the library because of remarks I made, remarks over which Ohioana had no control or influence.

What did I say to so incense them? I told the truth.

A cheap punk and spineless jellyfish

The Hospital was, broadly, a book about health.

I pointed out that libraries were being attacked by those who would censor books they don’t like. In some places, librarians were being threatened with jail. Public health officials in Ohio were, quite literally, victimized, including by gunshots.

These affronts were the real-life manifestations of the fevered mind of Donald Trump, a lying sociopath; fostered by a state legislature that, I pointed out, was “rotten with corruption,” reenforced by J.D. Vance, who, I said, was a “cheap punk,” and enabled by Gov. Mike DeWine, who, I claimed, was a “spineless jellyfish” who didn’t have the backbone to stand up to this.

Book review: ‘The Hospital’ explores the state of rural health care

Every one of these statements was true.

Trump has been proven to be a massive fraudster and sexual assaulter whose biggest lie, among thousands of others, was an attempted coup.

That’s sociopathic.

Former Speaker of the House Larry Householder’s mug shot was proof enough of the legislature’s corruption. Amy Acton’s forced resignation – among other incidents, including his endorsements of Trump and Vance – proved DeWine’s spinelessness.

As for Vance, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (“Really? You sell yourself so cheap?”) and former Republican Tom Nichols backed me up.

Telling the truth offended and “incensed” the sponsors so much that, said the director, “the doctor who presented the plaque to you told one of our board members he didn’t even want to go up and was forced to do so by someone else at the table.”

Brian Alexander is an award-winning journalist and author who was born and raised in Lancaster, Ohio. He is working on a new book, Purgatory of Profit, to be published by St. Martin’s Press.

Reaction at Ohioana Book Awards was stark contrast

I heard something different from the attendees who approached me.

Most of them thanked me.

One leaned over the table where I sat. “I’m so glad you said that,” she said, sotto voce. “I could never say anything like that out loud around here.”

Another, the mother of a famous writer, sent an email to me.

“I wanted a chance to say how brave I thought you were to speak so personally and empathetically about what is going on in our political system today and how threatened we all are,” she wrote, “but especially here in Ohio and in the building where we were all meeting to honor writers and librarians and reading. A building ‘[rotten] with corruption,’ as you said.”

Now, though, she was worried about my safety: “It would be good, I think, to get out of town.”

The job, and duty, of a writer, especially a journalist, is to tell the truth, not to “present both sides,” but to present the truth as best as we can discover the truth. If the truth offends, so be it.

Sponsors of events are, of course, free to continue to provide the cash or to stop providing it. But it’s probably a bad idea to sponsor any event celebrating the work of writers and expect to avoid some truth telling. And when we’ve arrived at a point at which people are afraid to tell the truth, that’s when it becomes even more imperative to shout it out.

I’ll keep doing it, and I know many others will, too. Some of them will pay far more dearly for that shouting than tut-tutting from a sponsor.

“The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town” was written by Ohio native Brian R. Alexander.

This is why I hope the festival will see a big turnout — it’s fun! — and attendees will buy lots of books, and, in so doing, discover a few nuggets of truth, the truth nuggets about human life behind good fiction, the ones undergirding good reporting.

Be warned, though, some of those nuggets might offend you.

Lancaster native Brian Alexander is an award-winning journalist and author. He is working on a new book, “Purgatory of Profit,” to be published by St. Martin’s Press.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: I called J.D. Vance a cheap punk, Mike DeWine a spineless jellyfish. Festival got punished.