The Lion's Den

Julia Williams describes her experience facing the bullies running the Society of Authors

Julia Williams has worked in publishing since 1988. She is currently a freelance editor and has had ten novels published.

I am not by nature a protestor, or a marcher. I am by and large a wishy-washy liberal sit on the fence kind of girl, more likely to sit and listen to multiple viewpoints than come down firmly on one side. However, when I see unfairness and injustice, I also find it difficult to stand by and say nothing.

Sadly, in the last few years I have seen multiple examples of authors being treated unfairly in my own industry of publishing, in some instances losing their livelihoods, work, and reputations as a result of being targeted (usually online, and shamefully, sometimes by other authors), because of views that are considered by some to be unpalatable. In such a climate, one would imagine that our biggest union, The Society of Authors would make a stand, and support such authors. Unfortunately, the opposite appears to be true.

As a result of this, I decided to join the Society of Authors this year, with the aim of effecting change from within. I had intended to stand for the Committee: with a career spanning over thirty years on both sides of the publishing fence (I am both a writer and an editor), I felt and feel I have a lot to offer. As it turned out I was too late joining this year to be able to stand, so along with a number of other writers, we decided instead that we needed to raise awareness of how terrified many authors are to put their heads above the parapet.

Many of us have been concerned for some time about the direction the Society of Authors has taken under the current Chair. As mentioned above there have been several instances of authors being cancelled/losing work/leaving the industry because of their known views on gender, for example. For some of them simply retweeting their support for JK Rowling was enough to cause pile-ons. I could give their names but personally I think they've all suffered enough. For me, the turning point was in the summer of 2020, when two friends fell foul of this and suffered as a consequence. It was during covid, and I was still working in publishing for a major publishing company. My husband (a dentist) was unable to work full time, so suddenly I had become the major breadwinner and couldn't afford to lose my job. I cannot tell you how crippling the fear I felt about speaking my mind, either in an office setting, or publicly, was. I had seen what had happened to others, I couldn’t afford to have it happen to me. I didn’t have the courage at the time to speak under my own name, so like many others, I set up an anonymous twitter account and blog in order to be able to speak my mind. The very fact that I and others have to remain anonymous for fear of losing our jobs, sickens me to the craw. Publishing as an industry is failing us all, by not standing up for everyone. And our union is a major part of that.

Since then, my husband has retired, and I have gone freelance. Which has liberated me from the fears I had two years, ago, and emboldened me to speak under my own voice. But I am very conscious that many people do not have that luxury. And I speak as much for them as I do for myself. I could walk away from my industry if I had too (indeed, two years ago, it was a decision I nearly made), but I don’t actually want to. Something has gone very badly wrong in the last five years, and I want to be part of putting it right.

During the summer of 2022, the Chair of the Society of Authors posted her now infamous twitter poll, which caused a number of us to feel that she wasn't showing due impartiality in her position as chair. Hence the open letter that we released at the time  

An Open Letter to the Society of Authors re Joanne Harris

As a result of that letter, we received hundreds of responses from people within and outside of the publishing industry, who all felt the Chair hadn't behaved appropriately and were concerned about free speech. We brought some of those responses together in this substack:

A Silent Majority Speaks

The number of people who felt the need to be anonymous shows what a wretched state the industry is in. 

As a result of the responses we received from this letter, we therefore decided to put forward two motions at the AGM.

Our first motion was on free speech. We all know people who have been cancelled/received opprobrium for saying things that are deemed unpalatable. This is absolutely not about one particular issue. Many writers these days find themselves second guessing their writing, as what is deemed acceptable/unacceptable these days can frequently lead people into hot water. There is an (in my view totally unacceptable) tendency among some authors to pile on people they disagree with and demand that their publishers sack them. No one in publishing nor indeed in the Society of Authors seems to be able to prevent this from happening or indeed question why this has become commonplace. We all think it is something the Society should condemn. It is no wonder that so many people are running scared. Everyone knows what has happened to JK Rowling (which is terrible in itself), but the stories no one hears are of the writers who don't earn big bucks, and who can't afford to speak up. We brought this motion for them.

Our second motion concerned the fitness of the Chair to remain in position. It was inevitably framed as a personal attack. It wasn't. The Chair makes her views on certain issues clear as is her right. However, she never recuses herself from the position of Chair when she does so, thereby giving the impression that her views are in accord with the Society's. It also leaves those of us who disagree with her having no confidence that she will take our part should we need help, especially as at times she seems to mock cancel culture. It does not help that she also regularly blocks people who she disagrees with – I was blocked for over two years, despite never having interacted with her. How am I supposed to trust she has my best interests at heart?

As soon as the motions were put up on the website, we were subject to numerous defamatory tweets claiming we were bigots, racists, transphobes etc, despite not mentioning any of these issues in either our motions or speeches. The Chair regularly retweeted these comments, which were usually accompanied by a tweet from the Society of Authors urging people to vote at the AGM. It is impossible not to see the bias here.

So that is the background to why we took the actions we did. We knew the AGM was going to be a tough call, and we knew that there was going to be a lot of hostility towards us. However, we were really not prepared for quite how tough it was going to be.

I would rather not have been speaking on the motion to remove the Chair, but I chose to do so because I don’t know her. As mentioned above, this wasn’t a personal issue, but about the way she conducts herself online. However, it is not pleasant to stand in a meeting and ask that the chair resign, even knowing it was the right thing to do. I am sure it was also very difficult for her, and I gained no pleasure from any upset it may have caused her.

We had initially asked for the Freedom of Speech motion to come first, but it was put second. We requested for the order to be reversed before the meeting, only to be told it was at the discretion of the chair on the night.  The chair did decide to reverse the motions, but two minutes before Amanda Craig was due to speak on freedom of speech, her internet went down. I asked to swap back while Amanda's issues were sorted out and was told it wasn't possible. I have since been told that someone suggested that the vote went ahead without the speech (I missed that as I was frantically trying to get hold of it). I was allowed to speak in Amanda's place but had to download her speech on my phone and give it off the cuff. All the while I was delivering it, I could see people smirking/shaking their heads onscreen from the corner of my eye, which was both distracting and intimidatory. After I had delivered it, the CEO of the Society gave a response, which I mostly don't remember, but I do remember her saying later in a non-scripted comment later that freedom of speech wasn't a main part of what the Society do, and people should look elsewhere if that is what they want. I find this frankly astonishing. Was this the attitude the Society took in the 50s when they robustly stood up against Mcarthyism? I would have thought standing up for free speech was a major part of what our society should be doing.  

After the CEO’s speech, the chair took questions. Only one came from someone supporting us. I had to listen to a tirade of opinion about how bigoted/transphobic/racist we all were. It was clear that no one who spoken had come to it with either an open mind and or listened to the speech. Despite the Chair having opened the AGM reminding attendees of the Society’s anti-bullying policy and asking attendees to be respectful to one another, there was no effort to prevent this intimidating and hostile behaviour towards us. From my position as speaker on the motions, it was a terrifying and lonely place to be.

I then gave my second speech, citing concrete examples of where we felt that the Chair has failed to demonstrate her impartiality/failed to stand up for all authors not just the ones she agrees with. We had requested a second speaker, Michelle Styles, who was going to speak on some of the governance issues that we have uncovered as a result of doing all of this. This was up to the discretion of the chair, but by then the meeting was running very late. For reasons unclear to me, he didn’t go to Michelle first, allowing other speakers to say their piece, before allowing her one minute to speak instead of the three minutes expected. Again, the other speakers denounced us as bigots etc. The Chair then claimed everything I said was untrue (it's not), and that the motion had been brought for personal reasons (it hadn't).

We lost both motions (as we expected to), but we felt we had shone a light on the problems within the Society. Problems which we were all keen to put right. Several of the members involved have since resigned. I have decided to stay, because I genuinely want to see change and try to have constructive dialogue with the Committee to ensure that they represent all authors so that we can move forward from a position in which people are too afraid to speak their minds for fear of the consequences. 

The resignation of Tim Tate from the Management Committee the following day proves that the issues of poor governance besetting the Society are of real concern.

I have never experienced anything like it in my career. It was thoroughly bruising, and we all felt shocked by the ferocity of the attacks against us. Even weeks later, it makes me feel quite sick. The days leading up to and after the meeting were very stressful, and it has caused me and many others deep distress. We are by and large a bunch of left- leaning/liberal minded folk, who have no issue against any one group. To be tarred as fascists, white supremacists, transphobes and hateful bigots is both hurtful and untrue. I sincerely hope those treating us like this, take a long hard look at themselves, and try to understand how it feels from our perspective. Most of them are authors. They should know a thing or two about empathy.

Lest you think this is a small tedious dispute among a bunch of petty  authors, I would urge that you listen both to this blistering speech that the fabulous Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave at this year’s Reith Lecture, and the recent interview Hadley Freeman gave on Women’s Hour. The effect of self-censorship on society is incredibly dangerous, and one we should all be resisting.