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

I don’t think it’s for you, or me, or anyone to decide what the real substance of the thread should be. It’s not an essay set by a teacher, it’s people talking and it goes wherever it goes.

But wherever it goes, it always seems to hit the same brick wall. I think that's what Mangy is describing.

The tactic of trying to stop posters discussing important issues by opting for personal attacks instead and throwing around accusations has always been the tactic of trolls and gfs. Plus they rehash old arguments. Changing the victim is classic DARVO technique. I've been here too long to engage with it. They're free to ignore MN guidelines. I'm free to ignore them. It's similar to how it should be with books.

I'm interested in how publishing addresses the social media mob issues and how we as readers, writers and consumers (who are responsible for the majority of book sales) can make our views heard. Maybe we need some kind of readers' union 🙂

I really don't want publishing and editorial decisions made by whoever can be the loudest on social media. I don't want freedom of speech diluted by whoever can mobilise the most bullies. Time after time those voices have been proven to be wrong on their understanding of the issues and their approach has closed down avenues for diversity.

Some publishers have robust policies but not all. Plus the attacks are nearly always about closing down women - I can't quite believe I didn't notice it before. I was thinking of all the occasions across all genres - memoir; crime; literature; poetry; science; YA - where a social media mob has mobilised to attack a book/author.

The tactics have been applied to woc; white women; young women; older women; working class women; middle class women; women writing on VAWG; women writing about refugees; women writing about their indigenous experience, etc. That's why the issue is important and that's why certain groups want to get caught up in detail instead. If you're looking closely at one page - you can't see the pattern of what's happening here.

Maybe it's time to support the plethora of small publishers. I just bought some books from Eye Books. Eye Books Independent Publisher

And it's always good to look for books from other countries and in other formats too.

I think it will start to change when publishers realise that their readers are generally not the ones kicking up a fuss on social media and trying to cancel authors. I buy five or ten books a week - I'm pretty sure that readers like me are more important to publishers than twitter SJWs who won't even read a full article past the headline. So that's one thing we have on our side.

The problem with that, of course, is that we can only buy the books that they're publishing. And they think they know better than us what we should be reading!

I agree with buying from indies and small publishers where I can. I love Salt books, Seren can be pretty good too, Black Shuck for literary horror... there are lots more.

Sadly I’m at the point where I won’t buy any of the so-called ‘inclusive’ books for my kids because I can’t be sure the publisher hasn’t mistaken ‘inclusive’ for ‘inappropriate for kids’.

The fact that people don't like what an author said is just really not the point. There are all kinds of authors people don't like J.K. Rowling, Nabokov, Rushdi, and many others. What happens when publishing begins setting these kinds of lines for what count as "harms"? Or when other authors see this kind of reaction? What about these sensitivity readers, what do they do to publishing?

Irrelevant and false comparison. They all largely write fiction. One expects fiction to contain unpleasant and unlikeable characters. Such characters have no bearing whatsoever on the character of the author; nor , in most circumstances, is the personal character of the author relevant as to whether or not they are good writers.

Here the entire premise of the book is a faux modest portrait of the author and how much she learned from her pupils. She doesn't appear to have learned very much.

Luath Press are good too.

I sometimes buy poetry from Speculative Books and Red Squirrel Press

I was going to recommend Mother's Milk books - but sadly looks like they're defunct.

Fox and Windmill are the first indie publisher for British South Asian authors and it was established by women. It's only a few years old.

Why don't you start a thread about book suggestions instead of derailing this one?

It’s “minority groups” your words - or rather individuals of colour - writers, academics and journalists - who lead the criticisms of this book not white middle class. “Minority” voices were initially shut down, in some cases aggressively attacked including racial abuse. They found themselves invisible in the face of the white writers who endorsed the book.

The “huge damage for the publishing industry” is in fact that writers and readers of colour have lost trust in it as a result. Chimene Suleyman commented “bridges have been broken in the publishing world”. They will take some time to rebuild.

Picador has now admitted its response was too slow and condemned the online bullying of those who spoke out. It also apologised “profoundly for the hurt it had caused”.

So does “loudest on social media” include the people of colour (academics and writers) who criticised this book while the white establishment was endorsing it? Who were then bullied and racially abused over the issue. Where’s their freedom of speech?

Personally I prefer publishing decisions not to be made by editors who can’t identify racism when it stares them in the face. Who don’t notice dehumanising stereotyped language about poc that touches on eugenics and phrenology. That is just incompetence - indicative not only the lack of diversity within publishing but a basic lack of awareness.

Picador, The Orwell Prize committee in general and that year's judges in particular have a lot to answer for:

Didn't they notice the problematic passages?

Even if they didn't notice them or did but didn't care- why the thundering silence?

Did it not occur to them that they owed some responsibility to Clanchy?

Did the 4 judges not think they had a responsibility to Clanchy, and indeed the memory of the man the prize is named after, to speak up to justify their decision?

KC says there’s a case pending. I think she is suing. Question is, who and what for? Picador for infringing on her contract, or people who have allegedly defamed her? Will be interesting either way.

From today's Guardian.
www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/24/cancelling-kate-clanchy-has-blocked-publication-of-our-kids-poems

That's so sad. Self-appointed do-gooders ruining things for kids out of their arrogant - and wholly mistaken - belief in their own moral superiority. Horrible.

Absolutely it’s very odd. I just don’t understand how anyone (indeed multiple people) could fail to grasp the implications.

I don’t know if the radio silence it was arrogance or rabbit-in-headlights panic.

Do gooders or an incompetent publishing company who, having failed to give their author sound guidance, compounded the issue by first ignoring it, then by making a knee-jerk decision to distance themselves from the problem had created?

Unless Picador own the copyright on the poems and are refusing to give it up presumably Clanchy's new publisher can publish them.

Much as I like to blame Tory MPs for everything - this is the fall out of incompetent management by Picador and to be fair KC’s own choices.

An agent quoted in the OP’s article put it:

“It was a group fail,” I think the publisher failed in their duty of care to the writer. I think the author failed in her duty of care to her pupils, and in saying that she didn’t write what she did. Nobody emerges from that story well.”

It should be balanced by acknowlegement of all the poc who were triggered by the book - reviving memories of casual racism from teachers at school. One example is Monisha Rajesh:

“I had teachers like her”… “I had teachers who did absolutely put me to one side as being the small child with the furry eyebrows or the ’tache and they made you feel like outsiders – without necessarily meaning to do it, but they did. And it didn’t matter how well meaning they were, it did make you feel small and it troubled you later in life.”

Of Clancy she said: “You’re not being cancelled, you’re being challenged. You’re not used to being challenged, and, now you are, you don’t know what to do about it. And it’s only going to happen more now that marginalised readers and editors feel more empowered. All it boils down to is: please stop writing about us like this.”

There really aren't any good excuses for such disgusting behaviour.

That’s rather inarticulate - what excuses? Which bit of ‘disgusting behaviour’?

’I had teachers who did absolutely put me to one side as being the small child with the furry eyebrows or the ’tache and they made you feel like outsiders – without necessarily meaning to do it, but they did. And it didn’t matter how well meaning they were, it did make you feel small and it troubled you later in life.”’

I have to say, I don’t understand what Monisha Rajesh means here. If they were well-meaning then they didn’t (surely) say anything about her eyebrows or ‘tache? Obviously she’s not here to answer but I wonder exactly what teachers did to make her feel this way.

I assume Monisha Rajesh was picking up on the particularly crass comment in Clanchy's book referring to a young girl's moustache.

And in Monisha's case being treated differently from the other girls.

‘And in Monisha's case being treated differently from the other girls.’

But as she doesn’t say how she was treated ‘differently’ by well-meaning teachers ‘because of her ‘tache’, I can’t comment on how reasonable the ‘triggering’ is.

People can feel self-conscious about something and believe it’s something people notice, but it doesn’t automatically mean those people are racist, casually or otherwise.