Penelope Shuttle

A Supreme Court ruling, countless successful tribunals and a reading public heartily sick of activists. All count for nothing if you are denounced as a Terrible Person. More on the censorship of my 25 year poetry retrospective Afterlife by Gutter magazine.

🚨📣 New FSU Member Testimonial Polly Clark is a novelist and TS Eliot Prize–shortlisted poet who recently published Afterlife: New and Selected Poems. Before publication, Polly was informed by her publicist that Gutter Magazine had selected her book as its ‘Book of the Month’, describing it as ‘funny, feminine and violent; confessional yet mysterious’. The review was initially published but disappeared after a few days. When pressed on why it had been removed, Gutter said: ‘A reader drew our attention to social media posts by Polly Clark that they considered to be offensive.’ Gutter added that it is a ‘welcoming publishing space’, including for trans writers and that, by promoting Ms Clark, it ‘risked undermining this goal’. Ms Clark has raised the issue with both Gutter and Creative Scotland — the body that provides funding to the magazine — but neither has agreed to reinstate the review or address its removal. Gutter has described this as an ‘editorial decision’, while Creative Scotland has stated that it ‘does not play a regulatory role’ in relation to the organisations it funds. Far too often, writers are censored because someone has taken offence at their work. In this case, it is almost certainly due to Ms Clark’s gender-critical views — which are protected under the Equality Act 2010 and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last April. The Free Speech Union and Freedom in the Arts are supporting Polly and have helped her submit a Subject Access Request (SAR), as well as draft complaint emails to Creative Scotland. We are awaiting the SAR results. Watch Polly below 👇

🚨📣 New FSU Member Testimonial Polly Clark is a novelist and TS Eliot Prize–shortlisted poet who recently published Afterlife: New and Selected Poems. Before publication, Polly was informed by her publicist that Gutter Magazine had selected her book as its ‘Book of the Month’, describing it as ‘funny, feminine and violent; confessional yet mysterious’. The review was initially published but disappeared after a few days. When pressed on why it had been removed, Gutter said: ‘A reader drew our attention to social media posts by Polly Clark that they considered to be offensive.’ Gutter added that it is a ‘welcoming publishing space’, including for trans writers and that, by promoting Ms Clark, it ‘risked undermining this goal’. Ms Clark has raised the issue with both Gutter and Creative Scotland — the body that provides funding to the magazine — but neither has agreed to reinstate the review or address its removal. Gutter has described this as an ‘editorial decision’, while Creative Scotland has stated that it ‘does not play a regulatory role’ in relation to the organisations it funds. Far too often, writers are censored because someone has taken offence at their work. In this case, it is almost certainly due to Ms Clark’s gender-critical views — which are protected under the Equality Act 2010 and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last April. The Free Speech Union and Freedom in the Arts are supporting Polly and have helped her submit a Subject Access Request (SAR), as well as draft complaint emails to Creative Scotland. We are awaiting the SAR results. Watch Polly below 👇

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