>From Tracy:

To go over some earlier points:

I still believe it's no one else's business (unless you are
the person contracting him to read) what Andrew Motion asks
as a fee. To build on that & go on to insult him personally
(tho' I know whoever it was later said they meant the
"professorial greed" as a generalised comment) seems to me
outrageous. It reminds me of village-well gossip. But yours
was only a side reference not directly related to this, Karlien.

I've spent a great deal of my time (in my original country)
organising readings and many other "literary activities",
one long-term reading series in particular which had no
funding to begin with but the four of us who started it took
as a principle that the writers would be paid (and eventually
this helped us get funding). This meant initially the four
committee members putting in from their own funds. The reading
series is still going and getting funding, as far as I know.
(We also made a principle that there was an on-site creche,
which made a big difference to the number of women who could
attend.) The audience reached over 100 at one stage--tho' this
may have been because the invited reader was Gig Ryan rather
than because of our "principles"!! The series has run with
continual funding since late 1994. Now, if I'd had no other
means of income at that time, maybe I would have hoped to be
paid for this organising work; but I chose to do it as a spare-
time activity.

I suppose the degree to which one ignores or heeds the "reality
principle" depends upon one's other means. Most of the writers
I know where I come from have these two options (a) work at
another job [if in fact they can get one] which sustains financially 
but prevents writing (b) work at various writing-related tasks which 
pay sporadically but enable a writing routine. If you add to that 
second choice a family, etc, I just don't see how anyone can question 
what a writer tries to make from whatever s/he can. Academic/teaching
work may also enable a writing routine, if it's not overloaded
with admin duties etc, but not everybody has that option.

Tracy.



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%