Society of Authors
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Society of Authors (UK) is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights (with particular attention to copyright protection and, later, the establishment of Public Lending Right).
Bernard Shaw was an early member who took a prominent part in action and discussions, founding the League of Dramatists in 1931 as part of the Society. The Authors' Lending and Copyright Society was also formed after much action by the Society.
The Society publishes a quarterly journal, The Author. This comments on all things of interest to professional writers, including Wikipedia, which it perceives as lacking the quality and standards of a traditional encyclopaedia. In the autumn, 2006 issue, for example, editor Andrew Taylor observes that on Wikipedia, 'Jordan's implants take up as much space as the entire article on the Yi language spoken by 6.6 million Chinese.' However, suggests Taylor, rather than ignoring this particular example of popular culture authors should take the opportunity of using Wikipedia to add links to their own books and web pages: 'And of course if you don't have an entry to yourself already, you can always create one.[citation needed]'
Authors who may be thinking of following Taylor's suggestion should be aware that Wikipedia itself has a different viewpoint. Wikipedia's guidelines on autobiography state:
Creating an article about yourself is strongly discouraged. If you create such an article, it might be listed on articles for deletion. Deletion is not certain, but many feel strongly that you should not start articles about yourself. This is because independent creation encourages independent validation of both significance and verifiability. All edits to articles must conform to Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:Verifiability.
In 1958 The Translators Association (TA) was established as a specialist group within the Society of Authors.
Prizes for fiction and non fiction [1] include:
- The Betty Trask Award;
- The Cholmondeley Awards;
- The Encore Award;
- The Eric Gregory Awards;
- The McKitterick Prize;
- The Olive Cook Award;
- The Richard Imison Award;
- The Sagittarius Prize;
- The Somerset Maugham Awards
- The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award;
- The Tom-Gallon Award;
- The Travelling Scholarships.
[edit] References
- Victor Bonham-Carter. Authors by Profession (two volumes. London, 1978, 1984.)
