Daniel Handler 'Lemony Snicket' Apologizes for Racist Joke at National Book Awards

Children's author Daniel Handler apologized for a joke he made while hosting the National Book Awards. He joked about black American writer Jacqueline Woodson being allergic to watermelon.

Check out the clip below from C-Span:

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4515665/handlers-watermelon-joke

Handler said on his Twitter account:

"My job at last night's National Book Awards #NBAwards was to shine a light on tremendous writers, including Jacqueline Woodson and not to overshadow their achievements with my own ill-conceived attempts at humor. I clearly failed, and I'm sorry."

Four of Daniel Handler's major works have been published under his name. His first, The Basic Eight, was rejected by many publishers for its subject matter and tone (a dark view of a teenage girl's life). Handler claims that the novel was rejected 37 times before finally being published.

Watch Your Mouth, his second novel, was completed before The Basic Eight was published. It follows a more operatic theme, complete with stage directions and various acts. Described by HarperCollins, the book's reprint publisher, as an "incest opera", it mixed Jewish mythology with modern sexuality. Watch Your Mouth's second half replaces the opera troupe with the form of a 12-step recovery, linguistically undergone by the protagonist.

In April 2006, Handler published Adverbs, a short story collection that he says are "about love."

His most recent novel under his own name is titled Why We Broke Up, published in January 2011. Why We Broke Up received a 2012 Michael L. Printz honor award.

He served as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2012.

Handler has stated that his next adult novel is about pirates - or, more specifically, a modern-age pirate who "wants to be an old-fashioned kind of pirate." The book is titled We Are Piratess and will come out in 2015.

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