Times Interview with Kate Clanchy - shared article in post

[NorthSouthEast]

This is a sobering, thoughtful, harrowing, blood-boiling read. What Kate Clanchy went through 😡. I’ve put this in FWR as it’s yet another story of a woman being cancelled on the basis of rumour, supposition and hearsay with self-righteous people scrambling to jump on the “be kind” wagon as it rolls another human being and their career into the mud.

Kate Clanchy: I was cancelled. It made me contemplate suicide

www.thetimes.com/article/7681d5ec-3773-4b36-ab95-e4ab409d7899?shareToken=e76def471fd13ded750d7295fd554675

Authors should accept that some people won't like their books.

Publishers should accept that not everything they write will be popular with everyone.

Members of the reading public should not be attacked for expressing their opinions.

So you're making serious allegations that you can offer no evidence for, that conveniently support your personal opinions?

The publisher should absolutely support their author, as they chose to acquire, publish and profit from their work.

The SoA shouldn’t say they won’t get involved but then get involved on social media. They should also make the point to their authors that they don’t go around bullying other authors. (They should also boot out all the book bloggers they allowed in and have some standards of entry.)

The author should leave the situation to their publisher and agent to address. Of course, if they fail to do so that’s a different matter.

Do you find the poetry written by Afghan girls that she shares on X also fatally contaminated, or do you think you might be able to cope with reading something shared by her?

Isn't part of the problem here a kind of dualistic thinking that requires people to be totally good/saints or condemns them as totally bad/sinners? As far as I recall, Clanchy admitted at the time that she was defensive and behaved badly; she looked again at her book and rewrote bits of it. As readers we are free to adore her work, think her work is vile, be somewhere in the middle, or be indifferent.

What we shouldn't do, on the basis of our opinions, even if they are shared by lots of people who agree with us, is insist that the book is withdrawn, the publisher cancel her contract, issue apologies for having published it, and join nasty social media posting about it. That seems to me an absolutely clear point, and I can't see that any other sensible view is possible.

But what I find really bizarre is the way that her publishers went from “this is writing we deem worthy of publication, which we will promote and benefit from”, to “this is exploitative, racist writing and its author should be ostracised‘.

Yes that’s bizarre.
Why are they now suddenly apologising?

@EsselteFilingBox upthread at 13.22 says it's all still there on Goodreads, so you can check it out.

No, anything shared by her is something I will steer clear of. It's like choosing not to walk in dog crap. I don't find her brand of authoritarian prejudice easy to laugh off.

I find your attitude completely incomprehensible. You will ignore the voices of little Afghan girls because they come via someone you dislike. I can't think of anything Kate Clanchy has written that is quite as despicable as that.

> The publisher should absolutely support their author, as they chose to acquire, publish and profit from their work.

Agreed. And if publisher has doubts, publisher should (a) read the work in question; (b) speak to author and agent, in person, in order to agree on the course of action.

> The SoA shouldn’t say they won’t get involved but then get involved on social media.

Personally I'd like the SoA to offer a safe space for face-to-face discussions / listening. If the SoA are not able to do that, then I think the publisher should find a way to do it, via some third-party, non-judgemental, neutral space, even just with the very basic goal of getting the humans involved into a room together .

> The author should leave the situation to their publisher and agent to address.

I agree that this should be the first step in the protocol.

> Of course, if they fail to do so that’s a different matter.

Yes, and the problems arise where there is disagreement. So the next level of question is what each party should do in the case of disagreement; also, what each party should do when one of the above (author/publisher/agent/SoA etc) goes rogue and does something that they shouldn't (e.g. retaliating online). The priority should be to de-escalate and take the conversation offline, but there needs to be a safe space and protocol to enable that to happen. In my opinion.

From what the article says, the external PR company used by Pan Mac didn’t redact their emails required by the SAR (unlike Pan Mac) and the truth of the publisher’s actions is now there for all to see.

Brilliant slap down of one of the bullies by Janice Turner:

The strangest form of Instagram post is the “public cry”, wherein a person films themselves explaining, through a veil of tears, some terrible thing that has just happened, almost always an online pile-on. Such confected sobs are designed to rally sympathy and make their beastly adversary lay off.

The cancellation of the author Kate Clanchy was among the most vicious, egregious and all-consuming of the Great Purge (2018-2024). But the cultural wind changed and there’s no longer social clout in wantonly destroying a reputation. Even the BBC realises this, having commissioned a six-part Radio 4 podcast, Anatomy of a Cancellation.

But Clanchy’s persecutors are aghast at being asked to explain themselves now. The writer Monisha Rajesh, who said Clanchy’s gentle book was “rooted in eugenics and phrenology”, set up her phone camera and took out her onion. What awful tragedy befell her? A BBC researcher had rung her up: “I told them it was violent behaviour to dredge up an issue from four years ago.” Violent? A podcast? This hyperbolic nonsense doesn’t wash any more. It just makes us laugh.

If the BBC fancies a second series, it could feature the 2020 cancellation of Baroness Nicholson, then 80, from the Booker Prize Foundation created by her late husband after an online witch-hunt. Her public shaming was signed off by the foundation’s chairman, Mark Damazer, ex-controller of Radio 4.

www.thetimes.com/article/bbbd2362-106d-4c43-bc2f-a646ca60b0aa?shareToken=4d2f7934adf7eb257cb3fc3bf7f3ea8c

Suppose it wasn't Kate Clanchy, suppose it was a resurrected Jimmy Savile? Would not doing anything to endorse that person's contact with children be despicable? It would not be a criticism of the children, but of the bad adult.

Obviously she isn't a sex abuser, but she an exploiter, using hand picked children for personal gain. I feel sorry for the children and hope they survive the experience, but I'm not going to support her.

What a despicable post. No wonder you side with the foul bullies.

back atcha

From what the article says, the external PR company used by Pan Mac didn’t redact their emails required by the SAR (unlike Pan Mac) and the truth of the publisher’s actions is now there for all to see.

thank you @Ddakji
So l suppose Pan Mac wouldn’t have apologised had this not come to light.

Ok that seals it for me. You're not posting in good faith and you are sabotaging the whole anti racist movement along with it.Perhaps you're just lightheaded from the thin air around the moral high ground you're trying to claim.

That weeping video is extraordinary.

There's nothing on Goodreads to show Clanchy hounding people or trying to get anyone sacked. There are reviews that make claims that this happened, but not any direct evidence.

That weeping video is extraordinary.

Yes - her lack of self-awareness is truly extraordinary. However now she’s been on the receiving end maybe in future she will be more circumspect about attacking others.
I wonder if ‘Brenda’ will be outed.

I imagine the claims are spurious in an attempt to avoid any criticism of Kate Clanchy's cancellation. Typical DARVO of the online witch hunters .

I find it mind boggling that someone would refuse to read poems by suffering Afghan girls because they have some kind of personal beef with the person sharing them. And then trying to justify their prejudice by making a disgusting suggestion that to do so would be akin to reading something shared by Jimmy Saville. Truly beneath contempt.

Oh, I haven’t seen the video, her insta is private!

@Ddakji I presumed Arabella was referring to Monisha Rajesh?
The video is on her Instagram or X

Her insta is private and I don’t think she’s on X?

She's presumably made it private in the past couple of hours.