I think that what you have done here by recording your experience, and how you worked your way through it, is very important. Other people who have been on the end of these public mobbings and emerged defiant are often pushed into a corner and become hyper combative and contrarian. Others disappear. Others kill themselves. I do not think I have read anybody write about this from the inside so thoroughly, with such sensitivity, and such a sense of what is at stake morally. Thank you.
It’s been tremendously cathartic and inspiring to read you stand up for yourself so eloquently over the last few months and successfully and repeatedly overcome the normal stress responses of fear, flight, fawn and freeze. I hope your essays will be turned into a book as I think they will form an incredibly valuable testimony.
It’s extraordinarily how the social progressives at Picador were so blind to their own misogyny, castigating you for your mental state, volatility and manipulativeness. These couldn’t really be more gendered criticisms unless they’d started commenting on your ‘time of the month’. Moral idiots sounds about right, if decidedly on the polite side.
The misogyny is an essential point. I’m trying to write about that too. The story is nearly finished, then I wil lhave some space to contemplate the more general points.
That's a very divisive comment. I don't see this as a male/female battle, some of the worst people against Kate were women and most people in publishing are female.
Men have mental health too (as demonstrated by higher suicide rates).
Yes most of my persecutors were women and the people Juliet are talking about in particular were women. Women and men can be misogynistic. I think internalized misogyny was a huge factor in what happened to me.
Both men and women are guilty of misogyny, no question. And anyone can suffer from mental health issues, but it is often women whose (often fabricated) mental health issues are weaponised against them in order to discredit them and undermine faith in their accounts of what has happened eg in rape trials where the witness has to be reliable. You can tell because the references to the supposed mental health issues will be patronising and snide, or dripping with faux-concern, but never genuinely sympathetic.
True, and there are many sad examples of men targeted too, but “white women's tears” have been made into a salacious meme by the frenzied mob of the moment, and it's important to call out that naked misogyny specifically. If the truth is divisive so be it.
I know. It really has taken 5 years to understand it. Only 4 weeks ago I was thinking ‘awful and manipulative’ oh dear maybe I was.. then I thought’ Hang on..’
Off topic, but after the BBC's tin-eared report on girls in Afghanistan being sold by their fathers I came across an Aljazeera article from August 2022 on the same subject, but with a greater focus on the feelings of the mothers and girls involved. It included this sentence, which stood out to me in light of your ordeal: "Ten-year-old Raihana Mirzai stares timidly from behind her mother Shaima, her wide almond-shaped eyes glistening in the sunlight pouring into their small, dusty home outside Herat".
It's a distressing read, but the whole article is here just in case you're interested: https://archive.ph/vGC30
I read it already. Almond is an important descriptor for Afghans because it is used to summarize the differences of the Hazara people. That’s the job it does on my book.
Can’t stand these Stasis. I went to the Picador website & ended up on a Pan MacMillan DEI page 🙄 These people are so horribly unimaginative and conformist, no wonder all the creative industries are in trouble. I only buy old titles, second hand, pre Great Awokening. The worst thing is these toadying Red Guards terrorise out of their own terror. Never ever give power to someone who’ll lead from fear.
Disgusting, inhumane behaviour from so many of the Salem sisterhood (and a few unpleasant men too.) I’d like to know who Brenda is, as she deserves her time in the sun.
Thanks Kate. I’ve been reading a little bit about Welsh bardic poetry from the 6th c on and there is a sense that people knew not to offend poets or bards because they had the potential to see them very accurately and describe what they see such as to damage their reputation for all time. What an important and difficult thing a reputation is.
I suppose in some cases wordsmiths distort the truth into a character assassination but the most damaging ways poets have to wield this kind of power is to simply hold up a mirror
Don’t mess with a bard.
Unbelievable that a book of warm hearted anecdotes about teaching migrant children and learning from them could induce such murderousness, backstabbing and callousness that you would need to reach so deep inside your resources self and the bardic tradition to hold up such a mirror to protect yourself and redeem your soul
It’s fascinating that you describe your suicidality as a kind of psychic entity
That figures actually.
It reminds me of a Chinese fairy tale i read in the jungian psychologist Marie Von Franz, in which a spirit preys on an unsuspecting person
I think it is a bit like that on a low level but you were in a very strange situation of being engulfed in a sudden prolonged psychic attack enflamed by modern communication technology that it sounds like it felt very alien. Sounds like the reflection that it was not you really helped save your life
Good lord - how unpleasant these publishing people are. As for Brenda, words fail me. The whole protracted episode was clearly so horrific for you Kate, but hopefully your Substack writings go some way to alleviating the trauma. Clearly your readers, me included, are 100% behind you and wish you all the love in the world. Keep going, you know you are right and they are wrong.
When I Googled “Appel du vid” Google first told me it’s “Appel du vide” (typo alert) and then Google asked if I was okay, and gave a link to suicide prevention. Apparently “vide” means void, and “vid” is just the abbreviation for video, as it is in English—and possibly Nadsat.
When I read about your case a while ago I was appalled -- -- and saddened. I first came across your poetry with Slattern, a while ago, and enjoyed it very much .. and will now read some more.
But your discussion above reminds me about your father, whom I knew a bit. His work had a big influence on me. I met him when we were both at Glasgow University in the early 1980s; I was a very young and very insecure and frankly rather lonely academic, in a different (and in those days rather 'difficult') department, and Michael was super-kind and supportive and sociable -- and intellectually hugely stimulating -- at a time when kindness and support and society meant a great deal. I still recommend Memory to Written Record as a crucial point of reference — indeed, I did so to a graduate student I was examining only the other day — and I also recall his fantastic lecturing technique. The hilarious public presentation on the burning of the tally-sticks, including 'actions' showing the 'party visiting from the country' shifting from foot to foot on the hot floor as Parliament burst into flames beneath their feet, is still seared on my psyche; but what was so clever was how Michael aligned this anecdote with a really interesting wider discussion of how the episode (and associated developments) marked a distinct change in literacy practices. I was so very sorry to hear of his — and your mother's -- passing, as well as his difficulties.
Blimey. We are all indebted to you for surviving this and telling the tale so clearly. Well done.
Thanks a lot, old battle comrade. I may yet do the Poetry War of 2009
I think that what you have done here by recording your experience, and how you worked your way through it, is very important. Other people who have been on the end of these public mobbings and emerged defiant are often pushed into a corner and become hyper combative and contrarian. Others disappear. Others kill themselves. I do not think I have read anybody write about this from the inside so thoroughly, with such sensitivity, and such a sense of what is at stake morally. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I’ll really treasure that comment.
I did know your story but not in great detail. I’ve just read your Prospect piece & am even more appalled.
Ah, thank you so much. Yes it’s truly dreadful. Good to get the details out though, because similar things happen all over the place.
It’s been tremendously cathartic and inspiring to read you stand up for yourself so eloquently over the last few months and successfully and repeatedly overcome the normal stress responses of fear, flight, fawn and freeze. I hope your essays will be turned into a book as I think they will form an incredibly valuable testimony.
It’s extraordinarily how the social progressives at Picador were so blind to their own misogyny, castigating you for your mental state, volatility and manipulativeness. These couldn’t really be more gendered criticisms unless they’d started commenting on your ‘time of the month’. Moral idiots sounds about right, if decidedly on the polite side.
The misogyny is an essential point. I’m trying to write about that too. The story is nearly finished, then I wil lhave some space to contemplate the more general points.
Yes!! A witch hunt by any other name still reeks of misogyny.
That's a very divisive comment. I don't see this as a male/female battle, some of the worst people against Kate were women and most people in publishing are female.
Men have mental health too (as demonstrated by higher suicide rates).
Yes most of my persecutors were women and the people Juliet are talking about in particular were women. Women and men can be misogynistic. I think internalized misogyny was a huge factor in what happened to me.
And yes most publishers are women. I’m writing about exactly that right now.
Both men and women are guilty of misogyny, no question. And anyone can suffer from mental health issues, but it is often women whose (often fabricated) mental health issues are weaponised against them in order to discredit them and undermine faith in their accounts of what has happened eg in rape trials where the witness has to be reliable. You can tell because the references to the supposed mental health issues will be patronising and snide, or dripping with faux-concern, but never genuinely sympathetic.
True, and there are many sad examples of men targeted too, but “white women's tears” have been made into a salacious meme by the frenzied mob of the moment, and it's important to call out that naked misogyny specifically. If the truth is divisive so be it.
So shocking that you were treated so appallingly and that those concerned had no regard for their duty of care towards you.
I know. It really has taken 5 years to understand it. Only 4 weeks ago I was thinking ‘awful and manipulative’ oh dear maybe I was.. then I thought’ Hang on..’
Off topic, but after the BBC's tin-eared report on girls in Afghanistan being sold by their fathers I came across an Aljazeera article from August 2022 on the same subject, but with a greater focus on the feelings of the mothers and girls involved. It included this sentence, which stood out to me in light of your ordeal: "Ten-year-old Raihana Mirzai stares timidly from behind her mother Shaima, her wide almond-shaped eyes glistening in the sunlight pouring into their small, dusty home outside Herat".
It's a distressing read, but the whole article is here just in case you're interested: https://archive.ph/vGC30
I read it already. Almond is an important descriptor for Afghans because it is used to summarize the differences of the Hazara people. That’s the job it does on my book.
Can’t stand these Stasis. I went to the Picador website & ended up on a Pan MacMillan DEI page 🙄 These people are so horribly unimaginative and conformist, no wonder all the creative industries are in trouble. I only buy old titles, second hand, pre Great Awokening. The worst thing is these toadying Red Guards terrorise out of their own terror. Never ever give power to someone who’ll lead from fear.
Disgusting, inhumane behaviour from so many of the Salem sisterhood (and a few unpleasant men too.) I’d like to know who Brenda is, as she deserves her time in the sun.
Very important not to stoop. The men were few but in charge.
Brilliant. What rotten COWARDS!
Absolutely
Thanks Kate. I’ve been reading a little bit about Welsh bardic poetry from the 6th c on and there is a sense that people knew not to offend poets or bards because they had the potential to see them very accurately and describe what they see such as to damage their reputation for all time. What an important and difficult thing a reputation is.
I suppose in some cases wordsmiths distort the truth into a character assassination but the most damaging ways poets have to wield this kind of power is to simply hold up a mirror
Don’t mess with a bard.
Unbelievable that a book of warm hearted anecdotes about teaching migrant children and learning from them could induce such murderousness, backstabbing and callousness that you would need to reach so deep inside your resources self and the bardic tradition to hold up such a mirror to protect yourself and redeem your soul
It’s fascinating that you describe your suicidality as a kind of psychic entity
That figures actually.
It reminds me of a Chinese fairy tale i read in the jungian psychologist Marie Von Franz, in which a spirit preys on an unsuspecting person
I think it is a bit like that on a low level but you were in a very strange situation of being engulfed in a sudden prolonged psychic attack enflamed by modern communication technology that it sounds like it felt very alien. Sounds like the reflection that it was not you really helped save your life
Yes I think it did .
Good lord - how unpleasant these publishing people are. As for Brenda, words fail me. The whole protracted episode was clearly so horrific for you Kate, but hopefully your Substack writings go some way to alleviating the trauma. Clearly your readers, me included, are 100% behind you and wish you all the love in the world. Keep going, you know you are right and they are wrong.
Thank you! Substack has been very sustaining!
When I Googled “Appel du vid” Google first told me it’s “Appel du vide” (typo alert) and then Google asked if I was okay, and gave a link to suicide prevention. Apparently “vide” means void, and “vid” is just the abbreviation for video, as it is in English—and possibly Nadsat.
When I read about your case a while ago I was appalled -- -- and saddened. I first came across your poetry with Slattern, a while ago, and enjoyed it very much .. and will now read some more.
But your discussion above reminds me about your father, whom I knew a bit. His work had a big influence on me. I met him when we were both at Glasgow University in the early 1980s; I was a very young and very insecure and frankly rather lonely academic, in a different (and in those days rather 'difficult') department, and Michael was super-kind and supportive and sociable -- and intellectually hugely stimulating -- at a time when kindness and support and society meant a great deal. I still recommend Memory to Written Record as a crucial point of reference — indeed, I did so to a graduate student I was examining only the other day — and I also recall his fantastic lecturing technique. The hilarious public presentation on the burning of the tally-sticks, including 'actions' showing the 'party visiting from the country' shifting from foot to foot on the hot floor as Parliament burst into flames beneath their feet, is still seared on my psyche; but what was so clever was how Michael aligned this anecdote with a really interesting wider discussion of how the episode (and associated developments) marked a distinct change in literacy practices. I was so very sorry to hear of his — and your mother's -- passing, as well as his difficulties.
Yes my lovely dad was all those things. I’m so glad you remember him.