Here’s the statement from writers and supporters of literature on the case of Adam David who has been told to take down a website and PDF that critically engages with the book Fast Food Fiction Delivery, published by Anvil and edited by Noelle de Jesus and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta.
Here is the site — http://himaamsir.blogspot.com/
And the PDF — http://www.mediafire.com/…/adam_david_-_IWBTSBNQTS_-_single…
Here’s Adam’s explanation of what his project was about — “It’s a collection of 132 stories gathered from a story-generating machine I encoded called thirty minutes or less. It’s a simple randomiser that I fed story fragments to, culled from the flash fiction collection Fast Food Fiction Delivery (edited by Noelle de Jesus and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Anvil 2015).”
— http://wasaaak.blogspot.com/…/thirty-three-and-two-more-new…
Do add your name to it if you are of the same mind about this.
Woke up with these thoughts: what surprises me about the demand letter from the lawyers of de Jesus, Katigbak-Lacuesta, and Anvil Publishing is that it was sent at all, NOT as a last resort, but as the first instance of a response to Adam David’s creative critical engagement with Fast Food Fiction Delivery.
The site and PDF are both free for the public to consume and use. Adam does not earn from these projects, and is not using these for any personal financial gain. I imagine that the first step should have been to engage with Adam’s critiques of the book, if not on the level of what it says, then by asking about the form in which it comes and the technology it uses. Both of which put into question the legalese that are in the demand letter, which does not (probably cannot) even imagine creativity to matter.
But it SHOULD matter for writers and publishers, creative as they are, too. Certainly we do not want to be the people who will dismiss and silence creativity because it is critical? And certainly we want to be open to the way in which critique might be done creatively?
The demand letter is painful to read. It reminds of how writers and thinkers continue to be silenced in this country, and how those with the financial resources can threaten those who already earn so little on good ol’ writing and creativity.
That this happens on #LiteratureMonth, well #TheStateOfTheLiteraryEstablishment in this country.