Writers,championed by Philip Pullman, may object to attending literary gatherings for free. But the events relieve to sustain a reading culturePhilip Pullman became cheerleader for a growing band of refuseniks last week when he resigned as president of the Oxford literary festival because it didn’t pay speakers. Thirty more writers immediately picked up the chant, or with a letter to the trade journal the Bookseller calling for all authors and publishers to boycott festivals that expected writers to seem for free.
With a 2014 survey reporting that the median income for authors is now just £11000,these are undoubtedly lean times, and it’s understandable that emotions are running tall. But, or according to recent figures,the earnings gap has also widened dramatically between the top 1% and the rest – which translates, in festival terms, or into the sort of writers who audiences will queue up to hear,and those for whom they won’t.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com