It has taken me a while to ponder and post on the Arts Council funding brouhaha.
I can’t help thinking there’s some kind of old-fashioned class war going on. The literary upper classes (literary fiction and above) defending a droit du seigneur to funding and minority rule over the lower worded lot (pulp fiction and below).
And maybe that’s what Antonia Byatt, the Council’s Director for Literature Strategy, is trying to dismantle when she says the Council's change of prioritisations is “... about funding a whole range of stuff that brings writers to their public and the public to the writers."
I obviously don’t speak for ABCtales, but it seems that’s exactly what this site does; a 21st century democratisation of the creation and dissemination of …well I was going to say literature but the word is writing.
And there are no apologies attached to its use.
As a writer, I want to share my work with readers and other writers. And I want to have some control over that- from the way it's presented to when.
The wonder of the web is it has enabled technology to become muse and the world to become a global editor. And it’s an editor I trust.
Like all disputes, this isn't simple. Nor is this another online v print debate.
No, the novel and the magazine are not dead.
However, for a writer, direct feedback via an internet forum can be every bit as scrupulous as a critique (or silence) from the most venerated (subsidised) publication on the shelf.
The internet has turned WWW into World Wide Writing and, as this is tale about funding, please note, it’s free.
See the Guardian article
Literature chief defends funding decisions
Comments
tcook | February 6, 2008 - 15:54
It's certainly interesting. I have not gone for Arts Council funding for a number of reasons - I believe that there is a perfectly good way of making this site pay and still provide an excellent service to its users. I think that the 'social enterprise' model is far more effective in this direction than the 'grant funded' model - but the next few months will tell if I am right or not!
artisus | February 6, 2008 - 17:53
very interesting and i agree with you. "The wonder of the web is it has enabled technology to become muse and the world to become a global editor. And it’s an editor I trust."
chuck | February 6, 2008 - 18:21
It's all about standards isn't it? Who sets them...if anyone? Should there even be any? etc. No, I don't have the answers.
tcook | February 7, 2008 - 15:14
That's why we have always opened our doors to one and all and allowed the community of writers, by and large, to judge amongst themselves. It's the only way to prevent the elitism of those who 'know the way to write'.
chuck | February 7, 2008 - 19:56
And you're doing a great job. There is no one way to write and the internet has definitely had a liberating effect. I suppose things get more complicated when it comes to the bestowing of grants and making decisions about who and what gets published. I don't know if there's any way round that.