12 December 2012
Posted in Video Games

Andy Walsh's speech at the Performers' Alliance Parliamentary lobby

Yesterday the WGGB, as part of the Performers’ Alliance Parliamentary Group (including Equity and the Musicians’ Union) lobbied Westminster. Issues ranged from arts cuts to not only low pay, but no pay, for writers, actors and musicians.

The lobby was well attended by members of both Houses, including Culture Minister Ed Vaizey and Shadow Culture Secretary, Dan Jarvis. All listened to what we had to say and the Guild, as ever, will continue the conversation.

Andrew Walsh, our Treasurer, spoke eloquently on behalf of the WGGB. Here’s his speech.

Good afternoon, my Lords, Ladies and gentlemen, and it is quite nice to be able to use that greeting in a place where it’s actually applicable. Coming from the games industry I have to say that the Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen here today aren’t as well armoured, or armed and, despite what the tabloids say, as disreputably behaved as the ones I normally spend my days with.

So, a games writer? A bit of an odd choice to send to stand before you today? Games to some people are this strange peripheral thing, a novel industry. To some writers we are still something set on the side, the junior medium. Even though we’ve been around for 40 years. There are those in the games industry who don’t understand the role of writing in games, despite the fact there are games out there with two million or more words in them. And yet. . .and yet. . .

The latest Call Of Duty, the first game to earn more than $1 billion, and it’s only been out a couple of weeks so it will earn more. This game has chosen to put the story, the writing, at the heart of its latest advertising campaign. And why? Because they understand that writing helps to build a brand; it sells.

04 December 2012
Posted in Books and Poetry

Elsbeth Lindner introduces bookoxygen.com

I’m not a writer.

I know this because, even though I’ve published a novel, I’ve learned that writers are only happy when they are writing. And I’m happier reading.

How do I know this about writers? Because I’ve spent my professional life, some four decades now, working alongside them. I’ve edited, published, interviewed and, I hope, assisted writers while working for publishers, literary magazines and now my website bookoxygen.com which, as it says on the masthead, is a ‘breathing space for books and writers.’

I like writers. Not only do they use language with invention and delicacy, but they think for a living. Writers are often prescient, which comes, I assume, from thinking just that little bit harder about what’s going on and where it’s leading than the rest of us do.

Perhaps it was a spark of rubbed-off authorial foresight that inspired me to launch bookoxygen, although in truth I think the notion came from having written book reviews for some years and noticing (especially in the USA, where I lived for a while, but here in the UK too) that with newspapers under increasing financial pressure, space for culture generally and book reviews specifically was shrinking.