Advocacy at the Writers Guild of Alberta

Is the rise of self-publishing good for writers?

julie sedivy — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:51:58 +0000

Here at the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, we constantly wrestle with the issue of self-publishing. Some of our members believe we should be strong advocates of self-publishing as the new revolution that will save writers, while some others see it as a scourge on writing and literary culture that we should oppose at all costs. The range of opinions among our membership probably runs the full gamut in between. I think it’s healthy to get a diverse discussion going about the pros and cons of self-publishing.

The following is a guest post by Lee Kvern on the subject:

Up until now I haven’t had a real view on self-publishing. I have always understood the need for people who are writing to be connected with people who are reading. What writer doesn’t require an audience? But in light of the huge market push (along with huge cost to produce a self-published print book), I now have an opinion. (E-books might be another story, certainly more viable in the cost versus what-you-get comparison.)

In my humble opinion, the self-publishing industry feels predatory, yet another way to suck money out of the already behind-the-eight-ball writer who must work one, two jobs in order to pursue (at best) this expensive hobby of writing. I’m against anything that markets to writers as opposed to for writers. I realize how enormously difficult it is to get a publisher, but for me, I would far rather take that 3-5 thousand dollars (for a print book) and go to a writer’s retreat, enjoy the fine company of writers, hone my craft, have readers that can offer me feedback that will help me grow as a writer.

I’ve seen far too many friends sucked in by the promise of self-publishing marketing schemes that leave them with boxes full of books in their basements that they can’t move or get reviewed, or submit to awards where your book might at least have a chance at being read. I’ve seen friends disappointed and bruised and disillusioned by the self-publishing industry. I’m not saying that publishers don’t have their own brand of disappointments (royalty cheques for one, and the sheer amount of time and money needed to get your book out there) but the difference being that between you and the publisher, you just might get a reader or two outside the neighbourhood.

Ok, that’s my rant for today, and I may live to eat my own boots/shoes on this whole self-publishing thing, if it’s truly changing the writing industry the way people think it will. More, I’m saying enjoy the process, embrace the supports in place for writers (Go to the Banff Centre or any other wonderful retreat!!) that serve to encourage, enhance, hone your skills and put you in the fine company of other writers. You can’t ever go wrong with that. And besides, who doesn’t want a basement full of writers (as opposed to books that you give away for Christmas – by the way, please put me on your list.) I promise you will be farther ahead and happier in the company of birds of the same feathers at writer’s retreats than handing over your hard-won money to the self-pub marketeers.

Lee Kvern is the 2012-2013 W.i.R. for the Canadian Authors Association (Central Alberta). You can find her on Twitter as @LeeKvern and on the web at: www.leekvern.com

Updated responses about arts policy from Calgary MLA candidates

julie sedivy — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:30:53 +0000

ArtsVote Calgary has updated responses from a considerable number of political candidates on arts policy, and the particular needs of their constituents when it comes to the arts. Find out what your local candidates have to say (click here). So far, responses have come in from:

7 Alberta Party candidates

5 Evergreen Party candidates

13 Liberal Party candidates

10 PC Party candidates

2 Wildrose Party candidates

You can also find responses from Senate candidates here.

Arts forum in Edmonton this evening

julie sedivy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:22:59 +0000

This from the Professional Arts Coalition of Edmonton:

Have a heart-to-heart chat with Alberta election candidates about their parties’ visions for arts, culture and heritage in our province.

PACE is organizing an Arts Forum for this Friday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Jefferson Room at the Prince of Wales Armouries, 10440 – 108 Avenue.

Bring your arts, culture and heritage questions with notebooks and pencils to the Prince of Wales Armouries this Friday. Tell all your professional artist and arts supporters friends to come, too. Let’s impress upon all these candidates how important arts, culture and heritage is to all Albertans.

Party representatives confirmed so far:

Alberta Liberals – Laurie Blakeman
Alberta NDP – Nadine Bailey
Alberta Party – John Hudson
PC Alberta – Heather Klimchuk (current Minister of Culture and Community Services)
Wildrose Party – TBA

For more information, check out the PACE website.

Who has a vision for the arts in Alberta?

julie sedivy — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:39:35 +0000

PACE (the Professional Arts Coalition of Edmonton) and ArtsVote are active arts advocacy groups in Edmonton and Calgary respectively.

Recently, ArtsVote collected responses from the various provincial party representatives, querying them about their vision for the arts in Alberta. They asked the following questions:

What is your arts platform?
What do you believe is the province’s role in fostering the arts?
What do you believe is the role of the arts in education?
What plans do you have to provide provincial funding and/or encourage private funding for the arts?
Any other comments?

You can find the reposes here.

PACE is also conducting a survey, and has sent party representatives the following:

We would also appreciate it if you would review the following material and respond to the two questions below by Friday, April 13.

91% of Albertans feel art activities are important in contributing to the overall quality of life in their community. Source: Annual Survey of Albertans, Resinnova Research & Consulting Inc. 2010
Albertans receive a 12:1 return on every dollar spent on the arts. Source: Summary of the Economic Impact of the Arts in Alberta, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, 2005.
88% of Albertans feel it is important that the Government of Alberta continues to fund and support the arts. Source: Culture and Community Services Annual Survey of Albertans on Culture, Leger Marketing, 2011
All three levels of government receive tax revenue through the arts sector. A total of 67.9 million in taxes is collected (in Alberta) through taxation systems each year. Source Culture and Community Spirit Department Fact and Figures 2010

Please give us your position on the following:

1. Do you support a restoration of the 2010 16 per cent cut to the AFA?

2. If elected to serve the people of Alberta in the next Legislature, will you work towards immediately increasing lottery money investment to arts, culture and heritage by 25%?

Stay tuned for results of this survey—we’ll link to them as soon as PACE has them up on the website.

ArtsVote All-Candidates’ Forum in Calgary

julie sedivy — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:27:22 +0000

For those of you who couldn’t be there at the ArtsVote forum in Calgary two weeks ago, it’s well worth having a look at the video from this event.

There were some interesting policy proposals that were put forth, and it was also interesting to see which policies or specific commitments candidates chose to be silent on.

The event was well-attended, and there was a strong media presence. A brief report can be found here, but of course it’s much more informative to watch the entire event.

A few things struck me about the conversation that day:

Almost all of the candidates asserted that the provincial government should play a strong role in supporting the arts. But there was very little in the way of specific statements or commitments about funding levels for the arts, other than a promise from the NDP to raise the funding levels for the Alberta Foundation of the Arts, and a pledge from the Alberta Party to increase arts funding by 20%, and to make 3-year commitments to arts organizations to provide some stability in their planning and operations.

[Update: more specific platform statements about funding can be found here.]

The host of the event, Russ Bowers, pointed out that the average salary of Canadian artists is about $24 000 a year, even though artists are often among the most highly-educated citizens. Several candidates picked up on this theme, and pointed out that artists would benefit from general policies that make life easier for those who fall at the lower end of the income spectrum. For example, David Swann of the Liberal Party argued that Alberta’s flat income tax penalizes artists, and that adequate funding for the arts would be difficult to come by until a more progressive tax structure is implemented. William Hamilton of the Evergreen Party argued that we need to implement income averaging for artists in order to reflect the fact that their income is typically very uneven from year to year.

The issue of an arms-length relationship of the arts from the government came up a couple of times in the conversation. Mike Blanchard of the Wildrose Party suggested that one way to accomplish this was to encourage partnerships between arts groups and corporate sponsors, and proposed that his party would implement more generous tax incentives to sponsors of the arts.

Hopefully, this will be just the beginning of the conversation. I was heartened that this forum took place so early in the election campaign. If you have any reactions to what you heard at this forum, we’d be glad to hear it, and gladder still if you took these up with your local candidates.

Alberta writer Myrna Kostash’s take on voting for cultural policy – join in the discussion

janice williamson — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:50:59 +0000

ARTISTS IN ALBERTA: WHO SHOULD YOU VOTE FOR? by Myrna Kostash

reposted from: http://changealberta.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/artists-in-alberta-who-should-you-vote-for-by-myrna-kostash/
[Posted on March 29, 2012 by ChangeAlberta]

If you’re an artist in Alberta (read, self-employed with no taxable income), who should you vote for? For a lot of us that would be a no-brainer, in the sense that we just go on voting for whoever we supported the last time, no questions asked, or don’t bother voting at all: “I mean,” we say, “what’s the point?”

But in this coming election, there are actually a number of parties in play who weren’t there the last time we went to the polls. Are any of them worth your artist’s vote? Or the vote of any citizen who believes that artistic production contributes to a community’s sense of well-being?

Forget about Alison Redford’s Tories and the Wildrose: hobbled by an ideological commitment to no new taxes – that heinous scheme to snatch wealth out of the cold, dead hands of their benefactors – and barring a sudden gush of new wealth pried out of the hands of men and women at the slot machines, there will be no new money for the arts in Alberta. Given the foregone revenue of some $55 billion lost to “overly generous royalty cuts” in the oil and gas sector (quoting a Parkland Institute Report), the government can only deepen its addiction to those slots.

The Dippers, though, “get it”: they understand the symbiosis of “arts and culture” and “quality of life,” and the importance of funding the one so that the other may also thrive. They’ve noticed that the main organ for funding artists and arts organizations – the Alberta Foundation for the Arts – has never entrusted decision-making to an arm’s-length agency but kept it exclusively with a Board of patronage appointments. And that the ministry that oversees arts and culture policy carries a double-barreled label that includes “community spirit” in its mandate. This is a common dodge of governments everywhere (even during sainted NDP regimes in Saskatchewan), to hitch to the arts miscellaneous other “soft” responsibilities, from sports to provincial parks to human rights commissions, as though only lumped together are they worth a seat at the cabinet table.

So an NDP government would create a separate Ministry of Arts and Culture, introduce $30 million in new funding (from increased royalty revenues?), allocate 1% of all large capital projects for the commission of public art, and increase or reintroduce a fine arts curriculum into elementary schools. All good ideas. You could safely vote for a Dipper.

The Liberals devote pages to describing their commitment to arts and culture policies and initiatives (I detect the creative hand of Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman here) and it’s all exciting. “Great art,” they announce, “brings joy, hard questions, understanding and new challenges,” and call for an “Alberta Renaissance.” Re-naissance means re-birth, nicely giving the nod to the generations of preceding creative geniuses in our midst who have helped shape the contours of our self-image as Albertans even while starving in garrets from Medicine Hat to Grande Prairie. Liberals would legislate Status of the Artist provisions for collective bargaining rights for arts professionals, create an Alberta Film and Television tax credit, establish an Alberta Publishers’ Fund, and would “immediately double the budget” of the AFA “and triple funding within three years.” And I particularly like their proposal to set up a $500 million endowment fund for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, “parallel to existing endowment funds for medicine, engineering and the sciences.” (In the current intellectual environment, which treats the arts and humanities with contempt, this is refreshing thinking.) However, it is not clear where a Liberal government would look for funds to fuel all this. We can always dream along with them.

The Evergreens seem not to have any arts policy whatever; and the Alberta Party buries their boiler plate policy – “the Alberta Party will work to increase the role of the arts in the economic and social fabric of rural communities” – within their “priority #3, rural communities.” Urban centres, I guess, can take care of themselves.

But here’s the thing: in what I read from these parties, I did not read a single reference to the radical restructuring of our arts “industries,” mainly a result of the new technologies applied to the production and distribution of artistic work. Already we experience the shift from books in bookstores to books from on-line retailers, from gallery exhibits to digital and collaborative visual artworks, from cinema screenings to downloads from the internet, heck, even from traditional film shoots to cellphone movies, and from publishing houses to interactive on-line self-publishing sites. Nary a word about the new copyright legislation that is a direct threat to “creators’” income in favour of “users’” rights. Nor a word of protest against this new cultural ecology that requires artists to be self-promoting hucksters and clowns in a discount marketplace, their own agents and producers and editors, and trying to make a living in a society whose citizens now feel entitled to free stuff anywhere, any time and anyhow.

I don’t expect individual candidates for political office to have global solutions. But perhaps a “package” of left-of-Tory candidates could come up with original ideas for at least the current decade, brain-storming with artists (something we will never get with right wing parties). Check them out at ChangeAlberta.ca.

Myrna Kostash is a fulltime writer based in Edmonton, author of award-winning Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium. Her website is:www.myrnakostash.com

NOTE: after Myrna Kostash posted this, the Alberta Party posted their cultural policy here:

http://www.albertaparty.ca/creative_industries

Any additions to this discussion, please send in the comments…

Time to talk about the arts: upcoming ArtsVote Calgary election forum

julie sedivy — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:42:52 +0000

ArtsVote Calgary is teaming up with the Calgary Public Library to host a discussion forum between provincial candidates and Calgary’s arts community. Now is an excellent time to talk about how we’d like to work with our government to enhance the arts and culture in this province.

The vent takes place THIS FRIDAY, March 30, at noon, at the central branch of the Calgary Public Library (616 Macleod Tr SE).

It’s going to be a full deck, with representatives from each of the parties. Here’s the full list:

CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS:

Alberta Party – Kevin Woron
EverGreen Party – William Hamilton
Liberal Party – David Swann
New Democratic Party – Marc Power
Progressive Conservative Party – Sandra Jansen
Social Credit Party – Len Skowronski
Wildrose Alliance Party – Mike Blanchard

The event will be hosted by Russell Bowers, host of CBC’s Daybreak Alberta. Russell did a terrific job of hosting the recent Calgary Poet Laureate showcase, and will no doubt lead a fair and spirited discussion. Speaking of Poet Laureates, newly-minted Calgary Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor will perform, setting the mood for the event.

I’ll be in attendance, and will post a summary of the event afterwards. I really encourage as many of you as possible to come out, and help to make sure that arts and culture policy is on the political agenda.

Here’s the link to the event not the ArtsVote website:

http://artsvotecalgary.ca/artsvote-provincial-election-forum

Election season again: Making the arts a part of conversation

julie sedivy — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:29:15 +0000

Well, it’s official. We go back to the polls on April 23rd to vote for our new provincial government. With the PCs facing some nontrivial opposition for the first time in a while, Albertans can expect political candidates to be paying more attention than usual to the mood of voters. And for many Albertans, it’s also an opportunity to spend a bit more time than usual becoming educated about political issues, and carefully evaluating the ideas that prospective leaders will advance in the next few weeks.

For many of us, finding ways to bolster the health of the arts eco-system in Alberta is an important part of the political conversation. If you feel this way, there are a couple of organizations in Alberta that exist for the purpose of advocating for the arts and for making it easier for arts-friendly citizens to connect.

In Edmonton, you can connect with PACE (Professional Arts Coalition of Edmonton). Calgary has its own advocacy group called ArtsVote Calgary, an organization that was quite active in the last municipal election. Both PACE and ArtsVote have in the past held town halls and gathered responses from political candidates with a special emphasis on policies pertaining to the arts and culture—in fact, ArtsVote has already begun to gather and make public candidates’ responses to arts-related policy questions. There are plenty of opportunities to become active in both groups as the provincial election heats up.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the websites of these organizations, and will pass on regular updates. If you become aware of any arts-relevant political events, discussions or articles that you think readers of this blog would be interested in, please pass them on, and I’ll do my best to disseminate the information (you can email me at jusedivy@gmail.com).

I’d also appreciate hearing about any other arts advocacy groups that might exist in regions other than Edmonton or Calgary.

Stay tuned…

Please take 5 minutes to send your MP a note about copyright concerns

julie sedivy — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:42:54 +0000

We’ve been following the progress of the new copyright bill, Bill C-11. One of the biggest issues to affect writers is the extension of the definition of “Fair Dealing”. Since the bill is now before a Parliamentary Committee, this is the last chance we have to voice any reservations we might have about the bill. The Writers’ Union of Canada has put together the following call to action, and if you share this concern about the bill, now is the time to do something about it. Here’s the message from TWUC to the WGA, along with a template for a letter you can use or adapt if you want:

Dear Colleagues:

The Writers’ Union of Canada is today distributing this email to all of our members, asking them to write TODAY to their MP, with a cc to MPs attached to the copyright file, to express writers’ concerns about Bill C-11. Timing is of the essence. The Bill is now before a Parliamentary Committee and decisions will be made in the next few days and weeks. We are asking members to write immediately in the hopes of generating a good volume of emails this week (rather than a trickle). YOU CAN HELP. Please feel free to adapt the cover instructions and the template email below to express your organization’s views and send this to your members as soon as you can. Volume is very important – the more people they hear from the more influence we will collectively have. I hope you will join us in this effort.

Warm regards,

Kelly Duffin, Executive Director

Please take 5 minutes to personalize the template email below and send it to your MP (you can find their email address by cutting and pasting this URL into your web searcher: http://parl.gc.ca/Default.aspx?Language=E then entering your postal code in the box in the middle of the screen, under the “House of Commons” section).

Some of you may have done this last fall but, especially if you did not receive a reply and given the short time left for amendments to be made to this Bill, please do write again.

Please also copy your email to the responsible Ministers (the Minister of Industry, Christian Paradis, and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, James Moore) and the C-11 Committee members and Clerk of the Committee, at email addresses provided below:

Christian.paradis@parl.gc.ca

James.moore@parl.gc.ca

moore.j@parl.gc.ca

Glenn.thibeault@parl.gc.ca

Charlie.angus@parl.gc.ca

Scott.armstrong@parl.gc.ca

Tyrone.Benskin@parl.gc.ca

Peter.braid@parl.gc.ca

Paul.calandra@parl.gc.ca

Andrew.Cash@parl.gc.ca

Dean.delmastro@parl.gc.ca

Mike.lake@parl.gc.ca

Phil.mccoleman@parl.gc.ca

Rob.moore@parl.gc.ca

Pierre.Nantel@parl.gc.ca

Geoff.regan@parl.gc.ca

cc11@parl.gc.ca

Template email:

Subject Line: Bill C-11

Dear [Insert MP’s name]:

I am an author living in your riding.

My livelihood depends on the Copyright Act. As with other legislation related to intellectual property, the Copyright Actenables creators, working as entrepreneurs, to manage their work and earn an income. It also gives publishers (many of them small and medium-sized enterprises) confidence to invest in Canadian content.   At this time of economic uncertainty, and as we all make the transition to digital business models, the Copyright Act is more important than ever to Canada’s book industry.

I support modernizing the Copyright Act, but Bill C-11, an Act to Amend the Copyright Act, proposes to cut back on rights that are the underpinning of writers’ survival. There are more than 30 new exceptions affecting rightsholders.  Many of these new exceptions take away or reduce the ability I currently have to control my work and to be compensated for it.

Among the most troubling of these exceptions is the extension of “fair dealing” (which is uncompensated use) to “education.” If much more of the work of creators can be used for free in educational settings, the educational market is at risk of being legislated away. For Canadian writers and publishers this will be devastating. At a time when the Government has declared the goal of having more Canadian history taught in our classrooms, it is surely counterproductive to harm the market for the creators and publishers of that history.

I am not asking for anything new or anything more than I have now. I am asking that you support amendments to Bill C-11 so that it will not severely curtail my longstanding property rights and so that I can continue to make my cultural and economic contributions.

In consideration of my deep concern, I would request a response from you to the following questions:

§         Have you calculated the negative impact on Canadian writing, the publishing business, and the access of Canadians to Canadian content that would result from Bill C-11 as currently written?

§         If there is no intention to harm the market for our work, will you support the addition of clauses that make harm to the market the primary consideration in determining whether a use will be deemed “fair dealing”?

I look forward to your reply and hope for your support of writers’ ability to continue to contribute to Canadian culture and to the Canadian economy.

Respectfully,

[Insert your name]

Canadians are not free to read about important scientific findings

julie sedivy — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 04:23:57 +0000

Today is the beginning of Freedom to Read Week, “an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

To many Canadians, censorship and the suppression of ideas is something that mostly happens in other countries. But recently, scientists, journalists, and science writers in Canada have been sounding the alarm over systematic policies by the Canadian federal government to restrict the communication of scientific findings and thinking to the general public.

To draw attention to the crisis, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently held a panel discussion called Unmuzzling Government Scientists: How to Re-Open the Discourse at its annual meeting in Vancouver on February 17. (Despite its name, the AAAS is an international organization dedicated to advancing science around the world.)

The entire panel discussion can be viewed here, and it is chilling. In the video, scientists and journalists discuss how governments have succumbed to pressure from corporate interests to suppress the dissemination of scientific results. Margaret Munro, a journalist with Postmedia News, relates how journalists and science writers used to have an open relationship with scientists working for Canadian federal agencies. This changed very quickly after November 2007, when Environment Canada put in place a set of policies to ensure that “just as we have one department, one website, we should have one department, one voice.” It was clear that this voice should be dictated from the top. Scientists working for Environment Canada are now disallowed from participating in any interviews that have not been cleared by media relations staff. The great majority of requests for interviews by journalists are not granted—instead, journalists get an email containing a pre-approved response or statement. When interviews are granted, a media officer must be present, and the interview is recorded, hardly a situation that encourages scientists to speak freely. Since Environment Canada has adopted these policies, there has been an 80% decline in the amount of media coverage of issues relating to global warming. And a number of federal agencies since then have adopted similar policies regarding the communications that their scientists are permitted to have with the outside world.

Another member of the panel, Francesca Grifo, spoke on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists in the United States. She talked about how Bush-era policies led to similar muzzling of scientists in the U.S., even resulting in abuses where the scientific reports of government scientists were re-written without the scientists’ approval to reflect a position favoured by the government—including reports that directly impacted public health, such as testing children’s products for lead content. With systematic documentation and organized political pressure, the situation in the United States has begun to change. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. counterpart to Environment Canada, now has in place specific policies that allow scientists to hold interviews without prior approval, and to express their own opinions and interpretations unhindered by the agency.

The Canadian policies are a blight on intellectual freedom, and seriously undermine the rights and abilities of the public to make informed choices, whether about their governance, or even their own health. In 2011, the Canadian Science Writers’ Association published an open letter to the government to draw attention to the issue; this letter went unheeded. On February 16, the CSWA sent another letter to the Prime Minister’s Office. You can read the letter here.

The WGA will be drafting a letter as well, calling for a change in the policies that stifle the communication of scientific ideas to the public. We encourage you to also take an individual stand and send your own letter in support of your freedom to read about important scientific discoveries that affect all Canadians.