Yet another woman - a writer - sacked after TRA campaign.

[WildishBambino]

Having seen Hachette and the Blair Partnership stand up for JKR, I had some hope for the publishing industry.

There's a series of children's books called The Warrior Cats. Proper children's books, aimed at the 8-12 age range, and not part of YA fiction. Published by Harper Collins, but put together by Working Partners.

The books are written by 'Erin Hunter' which is collective pseudonym for a bunch of female writers. One of which was a Scottish writer Gillian Philip.

When JKR was attacked, Philip changed her twitter handle to include a message of support. This attracted the ire of the TRAs and also it appears the Furries (because of the anthropomorphic cats I assume). She received a huge amount of sexualised abuse via Twitter, which she just retweeted and said 'Bring it on homophobes and lesbian-haters'.

Her twitter feed is now gone, but you can view a cache <a class="break-all" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Qisq_6YhRvwJ:twitter.com/Gillian_Philip+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b-d" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here

As she wouldn't recant, the TRAs facilitated a mass spamming of complaints to her employer Working Partners.

Within 24 hours James Noble is the managing editor at Working Partners personally emailed complainants to say she was sacked.

This really doesn't seem to have been picked up by the media, presumably because it involves a children's author far less well-known than JKR. But it shows what happens to women who step out of line when they aren't too big to cancel.

Just bought Bad Faith. I imagine she will be pleased to gain new readers as well as the few pence it puts in her pocket. And it seems like it could be a very appropriate book for the times!

Well, Bad Faith is sold out, so I bought it on back order. Managed to get a copy of the first of her fantasy series of novels, though - sounds right up my eldest's street, and it was listed for various prizes, too.

Thanks, @TobyYoung.

I can't believe we suddenly live in a world where women pointing out we're stakeholders in our legal definition, and Equality Act rights, is deemed hate speech. Just surreal.

I went for the kindle option- Bad Faith sounds very much my kind of thing. I wasn't sure which of the others were solely hers.

That is appalling.

Instead of buying a book my kids are too old to read, is there an organisation out there saying what JK is saying?

Bad Faith is an excellent read, one I go back to every so often. Quite fitting as well! The Firebrand books are solely hers too.

Heartened to see Gillian standing with JKR as I enjoyed her books but my god! The treatment of her is awful

Yes, good choice of Bad Faith - thank you!

"Life's easy for Cassandra. The privileged daughter of a cleric, she's been protected from the extremist gangs who enfore the One Church's will".

It's out of stock in paperback, but available as Kindle.

I was lucky, I think I maybe got one of the last ones in stock then. It was certainly available an hour or so ago. Hope her sales go through the roof.

Bought on Kindle. I will leave a review.

@Abhannmor

Wtf. I can't understand them caving in to this spam campaign. Lets face it trans community don't read a lot of children's fiction?

I think they read loads! Preferably wearing drag, in a library and surrounded by toddlers.

@TobyYoung, are you the real Toby Young?

@krustykittens - do you have a link or anything to what happened with HC? I am not sure I really understand this whole story. Not sure how HC can "fire" an author - have they promised never to take another of her books? have they terminated a contract?

Who mentioned blackface? - David Walliams makes HC a fortune. Why is he still apparently acceptable?

Gillian Philip is a brilliant writer and good for her for speaking as she sees it. That's a writer's job. If we really want to show support for a writer we should buy her books frankly. Not the Erin Hunter ones, because they belong to Working Partners but her own novels are fab. Bad faith is very good and I LOVE the Rebel Angels/Firebrand series. All books will could be read by secondary school age up to adult. So that's one way to show support. Also Bravelands is hers but I haven't read that - yet. Be a kick in the teeth for her publishers if her book sales surge.

Instead of buying a book my kids are too old to read, is there an organisation out there saying what JK is saying?

Woman's Place UK womansplaceuk.org
Fair Play for Women fairplayforwomen.com
Transgender Trend transgender-trend.com
LGB Alliance lgballiance.org.uk

A few years ago, I was making up stories for DD and got it into my head I might like to get them published. I joined one of the biggest writing forums online, mainly lurking and learning. Overall it was an interesting experience, although my publishing ambitions are currently on hold until I have more time.

But I did notice that TWAW was an article of faith, if anyone who even suggested otherwise, even accidentally, it was like they touched the middle rail. For example, one guy got banned for saying "biological males" in relation to sports.

It cropped up in the weirdest of contexts. One man asked a question about writing female characters, and within a few posts he was urged to "remember that some women have penises". Someone else wanted insight into infertility, and another poster claimed to be "a woman born without a womb" (yes I know there are some actual women born without wombs because of congenital conditions, but that was not the case here). Someone quoted an article by Jesse Singal (who previously wrote a very balanced article about trans teenagers in The Atlantic), the article itself had nothing to do with transgenderism but his opinion was dismissed anyway as he was "a notorious racist and transphobe".

I'm glad my writing is just a hobby. If I had serious ambitions of being published, I'd be terrified.

SenselessUbiquity She has had her contract cancelled.

[quote SenselessUbiquity]@TobyYoung, are you the real Toby Young?

@krustykittens - do you have a link or anything to what happened with HC? I am not sure I really understand this whole story. Not sure how HC can "fire" an author - have they promised never to take another of her books? have they terminated a contract?

Who mentioned blackface? - David Walliams makes HC a fortune. Why is he still apparently acceptable?[/quote]
Senseless Ubiquity Working Partners is a book packager. It creates ideas and storylines and then recruits writers to write the actual novel under a given pen name. Often there will be several writers working on series like this - BeastQuest is one of their best known series. Gillian was one of several writers who produced novels under the Erin Hunter name for Working Partners. Working Partners then sells the books to Harper Collins. Harper Collins is therefore WP's customer -they reacted to public pressure and WP sacked Gillian. Typically she would have been contracted for one or more books and the contracts vary. Sometimes you get an advance plus royalty or sometimes just a flat fee. I think she gets royalties on Bravelands.

So she wasn't sacked in the sense of an employment contract but they have terminated her publishing contract with them.

Many writers contracts these days have these wide and loose misdemeanour clauses which basically say you can't do anything to bring them into disrepute. So it becomes very easy for them to say: X said something unpopular and therefore it could have damaged our brand. Hard to argue against legally but it rather gives the power to the mob.

Who is HC Krusty? I’m confused. Warriors is produced by Working Partners Ltd. Gillian’s contract will be with Working Partners Ltd and it’s one of their editors who sent the e-mail to say she wouldn’t be working on Warriors any more.

Apologies, cross post, HC Harper Collins.

I've just checked out her twitter timeline. The people that did this are kids - kids with like 13 twitter followers each. How did they have such power?

Reminds me of the Red Guards in the cultural revolution - denouncing their own parents for being "counter-revolutionaries" for the slightest indiscretion.

@TobyYoung

Are the people you help ok about being named on here?

(I watched your 10 minute video on FSU website btw. Food for thought.)

I've ordered a copy of Bad Faith to support Gillian and made a donation to The Free Speech Union.

Thanks for the heads up, Toby.

What a time to be writing for teenagers. It’s like running a tea shop for the Red Guards. If you do anything they don’t like they will denounce you.

@PhasedOut, that makes much more sense to me - that this author was legt go by Working Partners rather than HC - but that goes against someone else saying very authoritatively that it was HC. Perhaps HC brought pressure to bear on Working Partners?

Sorry this may seem like very tedious technical points, but I am really curious to know who did the throwing-under-the-buss and what sort of form it took, as I am sort-of-familiar with all of these organisations and I would really like a sense of which organisation is doing what, and what the various cultures are like.

So a kind of freezing out, non renewal of a contract is different from
a termination of a contract
is different from a sacking

and it kind of makes a difference whether the people she is directly contracted with just decided to do it, or whether HC intervenes too.

HC are part of News Corp. To what extent does the wider organisation set the HC culture?

@DreadPirateLuna

A few years ago, I was making up stories for DD and got it into my head I might like to get them published. I joined one of the biggest writing forums online, mainly lurking and learning. Overall it was an interesting experience, although my publishing ambitions are currently on hold until I have more time.

But I did notice that TWAW was an article of faith, if anyone who even suggested otherwise, even accidentally, it was like they touched the middle rail. For example, one guy got banned for saying "biological males" in relation to sports.

It cropped up in the weirdest of contexts. One man asked a question about writing female characters, and within a few posts he was urged to "remember that some women have penises". Someone else wanted insight into infertility, and another poster claimed to be "a woman born without a womb" (yes I know there are some actual women born without wombs because of congenital conditions, but that was not the case here). Someone quoted an article by Jesse Singal (who previously wrote a very balanced article about trans teenagers in The Atlantic), the article itself had nothing to do with transgenderism but his opinion was dismissed anyway as he was "a notorious racist and transphobe".

I'm glad my writing is just a hobby. If I had serious ambitions of being published, I'd be terrified.

Writers can't win these days. Not only was it always a punishing career full of rejection and shit money but now we are also responsible for 'having a platform' and publicity. People don't just want to read the books, they want to 'know' the writers, which then means they want to approve of the writers. Most writers are intrinsically introverted which is why we enjoy spending our days locked in a room with a dog and a keyboard. But now you have to be public and that means you will also take flack for any view our hair trigger society disapproves of.

HC is WP's biggest client and HC told WP it wanted Gillian gone. Her contract was terminated as it was felt that her replies to some of the vile insults hurled her way on twitter were not befitting a children's author and broke the behaviour clause of her contract, hence Gillian seeking legal advice going forward. Anyone on here wants to be a children's author? NEVER reply to anything in public, bad reviews, twitter threads, NOWT!