Saturday 13 December 2008

WRITING NEWS

The Yeovil literary prize, now in its fifth year, is offering £3000 in prizes for short stories,novels and poems - check out www.yeovilprize.com for details

Bauer Publishing have fallen foul of the NUJ over their new contract for writers which means that writers are signing all copyright of their material to the publishing house. The NUJ have slammed the contracts and are planning to challenge them in court.

Censorship rears its ugly head - Poet Patrick Jones was due to do a reading at Waterstones, Cardiff however when his poetry was called blasphemous by Christain Voice (the group that made such a fuss about Jerry Springer the musical) the store cancelled the event.

Tesco's, the supermarket giant, have for the first time seen their non food sales trump food sales. Their heavily discounted book section is doing particularly well and a spokesman said, "We intend to extend our book selection even further in the new year."

3 comments:

Unknown said...

An ugly head indeed, Gary. Why, why, I always ask.

Why must these people impose their will on the rest of society? Wouldn't it be much easier for them not to attend the event . . . watch the movie . . . go to the show . . . read the book?

The second more frightening "why" is why must the person(s) with the power to do the censoring (whatever circumstance put them in the position) find it necessary to appease these minorities and extremists, often after only the flimsiest lobbying, or even no more than a possibility of it?

Freedom of expression is being eroded in every quarter, it would seem.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Chaps - it's out of hand. Years ago the British government stood by Salman Rushdi over his book but now they seem seem to bow down to any pressure.

Charles Gramlich said...

Glad to hear anytime books are selling. That cancellation of the poetry reading is troubling, though.

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