Literary world riven by conflict as trade union is accused of inappropriately taking sides in culture war
. It had contained descriptions of some of the children in Clanchy’s classes that were later considered stereotypical or derogatory. Its tone was also described as condescending.for any offence caused and amended her work. She has since talked of a period of mental ill health caused by the impact of the incident.
“Writers have always been vile to each other, but they used to be vile in dark corners. Now it appears everywhere,” said Clanchy this weekend. “I don’t believe the Society of Authors has followed its own guidelines recently. It is time for an independent review. It has to stop behaving like a gentleman’s club from the 1920s and start having proper, transparent complaints procedures.
Clanchy also claims that, although she was not a member of the society, Harris contacted her directly, urging her to apologise for her memoir. The poet added that both she and Pullman regret his initial reference to the kind of censorship inflicted by the Taliban, in a tweet that ultimately led to his resignation in March.
Despite a call for unity from the Society of Authors this weekend, the battle over its leadership style looks likely to rage on. Last week, Harris was caught up in controversy when she appeared, in remarks she subsequently rewrote, to parody online comments made by Rowling in support of freedom of speech andOn Friday, the SoA attempted to turn the page by avowing its commitment to free speech.
But two rival letters have been circulating among members of the society since Harris’s Twitter post about literary death threats. An initial open letter, hosted on writer Julie Bindel’s Substack page, called on Harris to resign because the society had “failed to come to the defence” of threatened authors such as Gillian Philip, Rachel Rooney, Onjali Rauf, Bindel and Clanchy.
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