{"id":631,"date":"2016-01-14T23:13:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T23:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=631"},"modified":"2016-01-14T23:13:44","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T23:13:44","slug":"much-respect-and-many-thanks-to-philip-pullman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=631","title":{"rendered":"Much respect and many thanks to Philip Pullman."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Because of the Oxford Literary Festival&#39;s attitude to paying speakers (they don&#39;t) I can&#39;t remain as a Patron any longer. I&#39;ve resigned.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PhilipPullman\/status\/687407749966217218\">January 13, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I have to say that Mr. Pullman&#8217;s stance touches on something close to the hearts of indie authors such as myself. There is a kind of stigma attributed to all authors who are not rich, best-selling celebrities. It is almost as if people believe it takes an author only as long to write a book as it takes the reader to finish a book. Admittedly, this notion may be foggy at best, but I have to admit that I have, from time to time, felt a pang of hurt when asked for free copies of my work. I have felt shame in this hurt &#8212; for after all isn&#8217;t it nice that the book requester might actually experience my words? My world? And I truly am thankful for the interest. But then I think (and we all know what sort of bad things happen when we think) what else might have been done with the time I&#8217;ve spent writing novels? Imagine if I spent that time knitting a quilt the size of New York City, and someone asked for it folded up nicely for free (Okay, maybe not that big &#8212; but you get the point). <\/p>\n<p>The same goes for many artists and authors who show up to talk at events such as the Oxford Literary Festival Mr. Pullman withdrew himself from. If you are a small venue and can&#8217;t pay, then that&#8217;s Okay. If you are a reader who can&#8217;t afford buying books then by all means enjoy our giveaways. But to have an institution such as Oxford slight up-and-coming authors tells us something. It tells us that society doesn&#8217;t want to support new thinkers, and to me that is as scary as any dystopia. So thank you, Mr. Pullman for making this statement.   <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/societyofauthors.org\/soa-news\/philip-pullman-resigns-patron-oxford-literary-festival-over-refusal-pay-authors\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because of the Oxford Literary Festival&#39;s attitude to paying speakers (they don&#39;t) I can&#39;t remain as a Patron any longer. I&#39;ve resigned. &mdash; Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) January 13, 2016 I have to say that Mr. Pullman&#8217;s stance touches on something close to the hearts of &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6aT9B-ab","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1017,"url":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=1017","url_meta":{"origin":631,"position":0},"title":"5 Questions with Fantasy Reader and Hobbyist Writer  John Blenkinsop","date":"July 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I think the real fun thing about this interview is that John writes for children he knows in the same way that Tolkien did. Stories written for specific children tend to resonate with others, and the same can be said about the Worlds of\u00a0Yifan books. Prince Yifan and Princess Yifan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Author Interviews&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":888,"url":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=888","url_meta":{"origin":631,"position":1},"title":"5 Questions with Christian Fantasy Author Hope Ann","date":"June 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"What follows is the first of many author interviews I'll be posting throughout the summer. Hope Ann is a Christian Fantasy author and contributing member of Fantasy Writers and Readers Facebook Group. What are the challenges of being a devoutly Christian author? Quite frankly, the challenges of being a Christian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Author Interviews&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1272,"url":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=1272","url_meta":{"origin":631,"position":2},"title":"Five Questions with Author Timothy Dempsey","date":"January 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Author Tim Dempsey is our first guest of the new year! Tim is a young up 'n comer who recently released his first novel, Urban Monarchs, on Amazon. Of all the authors lined up, I felt it fitting to start off our series of interviews with someone whose focus is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Author Interviews&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":719,"url":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=719","url_meta":{"origin":631,"position":3},"title":"Enjoying a better book diet.","date":"February 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I fear a world where everyone reads the same stuff. A new year just turned and with it came troves of book lists telling us all about the most best and\/or most popular reads of 2015. Gaggles of readers are now catching up with what the previous year's \"books that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1318,"url":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=1318","url_meta":{"origin":631,"position":4},"title":"Five Question Interview with Sci Fi Author Robert Krone","date":"February 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Krone is very much a blue collar writer. He is one of us (or the best of us) -- a man who has sold fish, collected bounties, saved lives, and fought fires. He loves the outdoors and photography, and has maintained a deeper love for science fiction for much of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Author Interviews&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willbly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/13.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":473,"url":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/?p=473","url_meta":{"origin":631,"position":5},"title":"Make a difference - #Review what you #read.","date":"September 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi all, There are many authors out there like myself who have forgone the traditional publishing route in favor of independently distributing our work. I made the decision to publish independently because smaller presses couldn't do much for me that I couldn't do myself. Instead of waiting years to catch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":633,"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willbly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}