Open letter by UK writers in solidarity (not with us obviously)

[CrossPurposes]

Prepare for some disappointing names.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18p-rvgNitRKYs9C2PoIBC86Fb2ZQnBd8PzEfgGfnsKo/edit?usp=drivesdk

The point is, this letter has not attracted any very well known commercial or serious authors (maybe apart from Alice Oseman in terms of bestselling status). Suggests that this is not a prevalent a view in publishing as people think. Or people are dodging this issue with a bargepole. Most book buyers are middle aged women.

I remember one of these open letters from the creative industries and Olivia Colman's name was on it. It really stood out in a sea of the usual Jameelas / Nicola Coughlan type mid-tier entertainment TRAs. I like to imagine that words were had with her agent.

Well, its well researched that intelligent people are more likely to believe unbelievable things as they use their intelligence to perform the mental gymnastics they need to believe them. Plus, in terms of their chosen career, they have a high internal motivator to persuade themselves the TRAs are right. Its a lot nicer to persuade yourself that you genuinely believe the the nonsense in that letter than it is to admit to yourself that you are just too scared to speak truth and to stand up for the people who are really being hurt by all this. They've seen what happened to their fellow writers who did this. They were destroyed.

I'm sure signatories to that letter will be a mix of true believers, those who have deliberately not looked too closely into all this, as it would have been too risky to have their convenient belief that TWAW challenged, and those who were too scared to refuse to sign when asked.

Ahhhh, feck. Didn't see this. DD loves the Erin Hunter books.

There will be some people on there with genuine belief.

Probably an equal number who have no interest or disagree but think it’s politic

And a large majorly for whom it’s simply a bandwagon thing, and a bit of politics too.

Unfortunately, I know some of these names personally. They have been very keen to spread disinformation and whip up hysteria online and two of them have been responsible for driving another writer out of the industry. They spend all their time talking about love and kindness and are the most vicious bullies in reality and not just about trans activism.I despair, I really do.

Well, I'm a writer and I have a bioessentialist view of womanhood and a binary view of sex and gender. So has JKRowling. How many more of us are there?

Given that there are between 70,000 and 80,000 writers in the UK, that they’ve got a handful to sign this letter, padded out with a bunch of people who aren’t actually writers, I’m not sure they can claim that they stand for the majority.

Any library nowadays knows how many "writers" are out there, all demanding you buy their "very important" book published by
Garden Shed Literary Company and accompanied by a couple of reviews written by their Mum and best friend.

At least one library authority out there has now banned donations altogether due to this endless flood.

Fair enough.

I liked something Stephen King* once wrote on the subject:

If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented. Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We’re not talking about good or bad here. I’m interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who’s good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check’s been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented.

*Speaking of someone who turned out to be a disappointment.

One of the signatories is Steven Poore, British Fantasy Society.

Beyond parody. I think I recognise about five names, it seems to be more of a self-publicity exercise, and showing everyone how 'kind' they are as much as anything.

God knows, because if we want to work, we know we have to keep quiet. I have a new MS sitting on my desktop and I haven't sent it off yet because I honestly don't know if I have any future as a GC writer. I have been liking lots of post that out me today.

Exactly this

Apologies as haven't read all thread but am surprised Erin Hunter is on the list. That's not even a single person and at one point included Gillian Philip who's been treated appallingly wrt her GC beliefs. And Holly Webb !!!? - hardy a Nobel prize winning writer !

I'm disappointed Fern Riddell's name is on there. Considering her book, Death in 10 Minutes, is all about suffragettes you'd think she'd have a better understanding of women's struggles. Also Keri Pritchard- McLean, a comedian who frequently mentions on her podcast how difficult it is being a female in a male dominated profession. Can she not then identify as man? Problem solved.

Oh no is JD a gender wonk? As a toddler mum this leaves me in A Hard Place!
also can I have a refund please? 💸💸💸

That Sunday Times article made grim reading.

This bit!

The judges in Wednesday’s ruling — Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lady Rose and Lady Simler, — were aged between 61 and 73, something that did not go unnoticed by Wright and her peers.

“The Supreme Court ruling just feels like a step backwards,” she said. “A win for bigotry. How is it that a group of older judges who aren’t representative of the diversity of the UK population have been allowed to speak for us?”

How is it possible to get to the age of 23 and not grasp that senior judges are going to be older people because they need a lifetime of experience in the law to move steadily up to to top of their profession? And not to understand that judges aren't doing opinion polling, they're making a decision on a point of law and setting out their reasons in great detail? If her despised parents paid for her education, they should be asking for a refund.

The thing about young people is that a) there are very few of them because of demographic patterns and also because you are older for a much longer time than you are young and b) they all become older people and they change their views.

Just as all the radical free love revolutionaries of the 60s are now property hoarding boomers, the blue-haired Gen Z will move rightward with age (in fact there are a lot more right wing under 25s attracted to Reform and church going than there were in Gen X.)

It's the mistake the progressive left keeps making. Targeting all their messaging at the young who they are confident will be left wing for life - and failing to grasp that people change with experience and knowledge.

I can't remember the phrase that Victoria Smith uses - it's something like cohort versus generational thinking.

I always think these open letters are a bit unfair in industries that are built on back-biting/back-scratching. Publishing, Arts and Academia are rife with people desperate to cancel one another because they sent on this open letter and that Bad Bad Person didn't sign it.

Any field that relies on word of mouth and personal bonds to get you that lecture, book contract, play staging, TV gig, etc, is going to also be full of people who need to swallow their true beliefs so they can continue to put food on the table. Grim, but true.

The letter itself is total nonsense, as usual; the trans community is extremely vulnerable and marginalised but also feature heavily in the Olivier Awards, the Booker Prize, and the T.S. Eliot Prize, and are explicitly supported by Equity (and others?) who have never been so out and vocal about rights for women or the disabled community. Ahhhh, that women, girls, and disabled creatives and academics could ever dream of such support...

2020 had the open letter in support of JK Rowling.

I can't recall how many original signatories there were, but it ended up as a letter with over 30k signing it.

www.ipetitions.com/petition/in-solidarity-with-jk-rowling

Griff Rhys Jones signed! Tony Robinson signed! Love em!

Yes. I imagine if another one was gathered today we'd have more.

To me it looks like a list of the usual suspects including RTD, Billy Bragg, Sara Pascoe (she's always seemed a bit thick as pig shit to me), a few surprises - James Acaster, Kelly Jones (The Stereophonics? WTF) and no, haven't got a scooby about most of the others.

How can over 1000 people supposedly read the letter and not realise that the date is wrong?

It will take some time to unravel the effects of post-Covid hysteria that led to the situation that we were in.

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees Kelly Jones has a trans child

2020 had the open letter in support of JK Rowling.

Just reading that list I see that Arthur Mathews signed in support of JK. I thought it was reported that he'd turned his back on GL, so was that a load of bollocks?