Wednesday, November 09, 2011

The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Gasp. I apologise for being so scarce here. Mad, mad busy with a teetering pile of edits and running a 6 week self-edit online course with Emma Darwin.

Just popping in to alert people to something else that's been taking up a lot of my time recently.  I'm going to have to highlight this via links I'm afraid; partly because of time constraints and partly because ... well, check the links and you'll see why I need to be very careful what I say here.  There are links to further info within the posts.

Start here with this discussion on Claire King's blog.
Then go here to a further discussion on Jane Smith's blog, How Publishing Really Works.
And then here, to Harry Bingham's news that there's more to come.

If you comment here, please be careful not to say anything that may be deemed to be defamatory or libellous.

UPDATE: NEW DEVELOPMENTS ARE COMING IN DAILY. SEE HERE FOR THE LATEST FROM HARRY BINGHAM. 

UPDATE DATED 15TH NOV - SEE MORE DISCUSSIONS HERE ON ABSOLUTE WRITE ... AND HERE ON SALLY QUILFORD'S BLOG ... AND THIS FROM MAX DUNBAR ... AND THIS AT WRITER BEWARE FOR YET MORE ANALYSIS.

7 comments:

Sue Guiney said...

Fascinating. I just read all the posts and blogs. I am actually in the habit of steering clear of all such controversies -- I think I'm suspicious by nature and would have trouble separating the wheat from the chaff. I also try to avoid things about publishing that I know will upset me, to be honest. But I'm grateful for your précis on it all and look forward to the outcome. Thanks.

Debi said...

That's usually my instinct too, Sue, but I felt a sense of responsibility due to the part I'd played in publicising They Who Shall Not Be Named as one of their judges in 2010.

Unknown said...

I've been reading Claire's posts and somewhere in the back of my mind I seemed to remember a past post of yours. This business is all a bit dodgy dodge dodge. BTW my word verification is UNCLE! Hmmmm.

Debi said...

Michele - my past posts about them on this blog have all been glowing. I've never shared my concerns here, though, as time has gone on, I've had to move from giving them the benefit of the doubt to being very anxious and reticent about being associated with them.

The recent developments made me feel I had to come off the fence and say, very clearly, that I find their recourse to legal scare tactics in an attempt to stifle legitimate debate extremely worrying.

I really hope they will respond to the questions that have been raised. Meanwhile, it seems that new revelations are coming in each time I check the posts.

Rachael Dunlop said...

I've posted a link to this page on all the writing forums I belong to - some of which are international. The more eyes that fall on this the better. The Truth is Out There.

What impresses me most is that the comments on all those threads are so measured and reasonable. No one (or barely anyone) has accused anyone of anything, just asked questions. Which makes the legal action taken even more laughable.

Debi said...

More at the Writer Beware blog. http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/11/brit-writers-awards-questions-and.html

Thing is, you should never tell writers not to write. Never a good move.

Debi said...

If you've come directly to this post please see my latest post where I take splinters out of my bum and provide links to all the other discussions.

http://debialper.blogspot.com/2011/11/brit-writers-awards-unfolding-story.html