Enough's enough – authors can't work for free | Philip Pullman

The novelist and children’s writer explains why he resigned as a patron from the Oxford literary festival

I resigned as patron of the Oxford literary festival because I couldn’t reconcile it with being president of the Society of Authors, which is campaigning strongly for speakers at literary festivals to be properly paid (to be paid at all, actually).

The OLF has never paid me for any of the events I’ve done during the 20 years of its existence. In the early days, when it was a smaller-scale affair run on a shoestring, local patriotism inclined me to speak for no payment, but later it became much grander, with a large array of corporate sponsors. It gave itself an air of being exclusive and prestigious, with black tie dinners and receptions involving minor members of the royal family. None of that has anything to do with literature, in my view, but everyone to their own taste: it just isn’t mine.

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