Guardian article about Kate Clanchy "The book that tore publishing apart: ‘Harm has been done, and now everyone’s afraid’"

[miri1985]

www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/18/the-book-that-tore-publishing-apart-harm-has-been-done-and-now-everyones-afraid

Interesting article but Sarah Ditum said it on twitter better than I could "I think it's a major flaw that this article broadly assumes good faith on the part of cancel-culture agitators. A lot of them are perfectly self-interested and borderline sociopathic" twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1538144622643494912?cxt=HHwWgIC-3dCYy9gqAAAA

You think she's broken the law or at least caused terrible harm, and you want her to be punished. It's not actually about censorship or freedom of speech or even about writing and publishing for you. It's literally that you want her cancelled. Or am I wrong?

You're 100% wrong and you need to stop making up lies about me.

The bullying and abuse is honestly getting very scary now.

Oh god I forgot about the goodreads stalker. Wow to that.

Jemima, since you’re clearly upset I won’t reply anymore. That’s not a fair price for a MN debate! Have a good evening.

@stuntbubbles Goodreads is terrifying tbh. No one should engage with it. Normalise deleting Goodreads!

I do think KC acted like a twit, just to clarify my position on this whole thing. Of course she should absolutely never have attacked a reviewer. I don't think it merited wholesale cancellation and ongoing smearing of her, but realise I do have bias. I also don't think the other people who were involved got into it from 'pure' motives as such (given how social media dust ups normally work!), but I'm not saying I'd want them cancelled either. Generally just not very pro cancelling for anyone.

You really need to stop with the hyperbole.

Go and have a nice cup of herbal tea or something.

Woah, seriously? I'm not bullying you or making up lies about you, not at all. I'm asking you to clarify your position, based on the words you have said. You have told me my characterisation of your position is wrong, and I accept that - I don't understand what your position is, that's all. I'm definitely not bullying you and you certainly have no reason to be afraid of me.

@JemimaPuddlegoose Absolutely no one bullied or abused you on this thread. I suggest you step away if it's upsetting you.

Yeah, same. Hope you feel better.

@Innocenta I feel the same. I don't think authors should even read their reviews, let alone engage with reviewers, and definitely not challenge bad reviews! What a mess.

A woman lost a contract because she was caught telling lies and being abusive, and because her own poor behaviour not only brought her company into disrepute, but shone a light on her own racism, ableism, sexualisation of children, and lack of duty of care.

She isn't a victim of cancel culture, just someone facing consequences of her own actions (plus learning that Twitter mobs are not controllable, and if you try to weaponise Twitter outrage, it might blow back in your face).

I believe Jemima is specifically citing KC’s behaviour around her book

Yes, exactly. If anyone is genuinely struggling to understand: I was speaking only of her behaviour that was in direct relation to her book (namely tweeting lies about the book's content). Nowhere have I suggested that her behaviour outside of the book is relevant.

I actually personally don't think there's anything wrong with boycotting artists whose behaviour outside of their work you find abhorrent, but that's not relevant here, since KC hasn't done anything not directly related to the book.

You'll find barely a single admired author in the canon who is innocent of them all.
Well I think it's dangerous to conflate non-fiction with fiction. The only reason this is a scandal is because it's a non-fiction book about actual real children who KC had a duty of care towards.

Anyway since a few people have asked: I have never met Kate Clanchy and had never heard of her before the scandal.

I take major issue with racism and with the sexualisation of children due to personal experience. These are things I post about frequently. I dislike powerful people like Kate using their online platform to punch down and try to censor ordinary people. I think the way she treated someone just for stating an opinion is indefensible. If you'd rather believe that I'm just lying and make up some theory about some personal beef knock yourself out.

KC is not a powerful person.

Hmm, in terms of social media power and publishing power, 37k Twitter followers, the Orwell prize and Philip Pullman coming to your defence is powerful. I think when you have those kinds of numbers on your Twitter, singling out reviewers and quote-tweeting is punching down. Sure, it’s not a celebrity following in the millions, but in publishing it’s pretty hefty.

But she certainly was in relation to the ordinary member of the public whose opinion KC decided to oppress.

Ordinary members of the public and even most other writers don't get asked to write op-eds in major newspapers, have their voice and opinions plastered all over the press, or have famous people like Philip Pullman defend them.

The fact that at first pretty much everyone automatically believed her over the other woman, and blindly defended her without even bothering to fact check, shows not only that she had relative power but that she was confident her lies would be believed over an ordinary person.

The fact she was able to threaten the woman's job, incite a social media pile-on, and weaponise her Twitter following and connections within the literature world - which directly caused a huge hate campaign against both ordinary women and less well-known writers, shows that she did have relative power.

Even now, she's had far more of a voice than the less well-known writers of colour who were racially abused because of all this.

Try googling Kate Clanchy and any of the following - The Times, The Spectator or Spiked.

Clanchy has had supportive articles from the likes of Lionel Shriver, Melanie Phillips, Toby Young and Joanna Williamson. The Times has also published recent opinion pieces from her on education.

I don't have a subscription to The Financial Times or The Telegraph but I assume they will be the same. And that's aside from this Guardian article and the recent Observer article.

Clanchy has had a lot of support because freedom of expression is important. I agree that her response to the Goodreads person was very odd.

Yet her name will always be associated with this. She’s made some big mistakes but she’s paid a big price.

Even now, she's had far more of a voice than the less well-known writers of colour who were racially abused because of all this.

I think their profiles have also been raised because of this. I don’t think she can be responsible for the (reprehensible) abuse they’ve received. It seems as though she’s now supposed to stay quiet forever incase any raising of her head above the parapet results in other people’s (reprehensible) behaviour.

Yes, it’s not reasonable for people to say that whenever she speaks about her experiences she is ‘placing people in danger’.

Well she’s been publicly referred to by one of her detractors as KKKlanchy in the last few days, so neither ‘side’ is looking great to be honest.

Who said that?

Monisha Rajesh, on Twitter.

A response that came just shortly after she'd lost both parents to covid, I believe?

If that was the reason and Clanchy now regrets her behaviour, I don't think it's too late for her to say so and make a public apology to the person concerned.

I think she has apologised more than once.

''I apologise many, many times over. I am sorry,' she told The Times.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10456017/Kate-Clanchy-accused-racism-Orwell-prize-winning-book-contemplated-suicide.html

(so many articles on the subject I couldn't find the original Times article, apologies)

That's an apology for what she wrote in the the book isn't it? I'm talking about apologising specifically to the person she attacked on Goodreads and on Twitter for writing an unfavourable review. Has she done that? Because all I've seen is a concession that she 'overreacted'. It was not just an overreaction, not just weird or OTT, it was outrageous bullying behaviour. If it was an outburst fuelled by grief then ok, I get that, but she still needs to say so before I can take anything else she says seriously.

As far as I know she was apologising for the whole thing. Still not acceptable to call her “KKKlanchy”. Some people have really shown what they’re about here.