Statements

The Authors Guild Condemns Censoring, Threatening, or Blacklisting Authors

Free Speech

June 24, 2024

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The Authors Guild condemns censoring, threatening, or blacklisting authors. We are aware of recent incidents in which presses have refused to publish articles and speaking engagements have been canceled based on the writer’s religious or national identity or their views relating to Israel or Palestine, as well as attempts to “blacklist” authors. We abhor antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discrimination intended to chill writers’ freedom of expression.      

We remind all publishers, agents, readers, literary organizations, and writing communities that this type of censorship cannot ever be justified and that we cannot allow the current climate of fear and intolerance to be used to bully or silence writers. It is by writing and publishing, not by censorship, that we can best shine a light on injustice. Free expression is the soil from which democracy sprouts and thrives.

The Authors Guild takes strategic legal actions when authors are censored based on their views, religious or national affiliation, race, gender, or sexual identity, and we step in to provide legal assistance to members when their rights are being violated or ignored.  Our legal actions serve to protect all authors regardless of changes in the political or social climate over time.  The Guild encourages members and other authors who are experiencing censorship to reach out to us for support and to keep us abreast of what you are experiencing so that we may take action (staff@authorsguild.org).