I think anyone who's writing a memoir should be very concerned, because what they said in the end was that they're responsible for offence on the internet. My book's absolutely fine with all those things. It's nobody's recognize themselves. Nobody has am complained. No one's in it. But pigador's doing som completely new. Pan mac millon was doing something completely new when they said we are responsible for associations that people bring for this book. We are responsible for people having arguments on the internet late at night in association with this book. And i think that's an infinite area of events. If that's seriously where publishing is going to go, then it's going to make
Freddie Sayers meets Kate Clanchy.
Kate Clanchy is a writer, teacher, and editor. She has been a qualified and practicing teacher since she was 22. Her writing includes three prize-winning collections of poetry, the Costa First Novel Prize-shortlisted Meeting the English, and the Orwell Prize-winning memoir Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me.
Last summer her work came under sustained criticism for its purportedly insensitive depictions of her students. Picador, her publisher until last week, did not come to her defence. Instead her students, who feature in her memoir, and in collections of their wiring like England Poem from A School, that Clanchy edited, supported her alone.
Last September, at least 20 of them wrote an open letter to The Bookseller defending her. They said their personal experiences of Clanchy were of “unequivocal care and support for us… as poets and as people”. They said they wanted to push back against suggestions that they “may be victims in some capacity.” They said Clanchy’s support gave them confidence as poets.
The furore around Clanchy made headlines across the UK last summer. She came to the UnHerd studio to discuss her experiences — of teaching, writing, and cancel culture — for the first time with Freddie Sayers.
For more read The Post from UnHerd.
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