I nearly fell off my chair laughing when an American friend sent this through.
Shelf Awareness Pro for Wednesday, October 9.
Congratulations to Michael Jacobs, president and CEO of Abrams Books,
who has been elected chairman of the board of the Academy of American
Poets. He is also chairman of the National Coalition Against Censorship
and is a member of the Board of Governors of Yale University Press.
I’ve already commented on the joke of someone like Michael Jacobs having anything to do with literature or poets. But to see him as Chairman of the National Coalition Against Censorship just highlights the rot going on in America, like the current Government crisis. I’d go so far as to call it evil. Michael Jacobs is the man who fixed an internal enquiry at Abrams, breached book contracts and lied to the US Authors Guild. The Guild lawyer informed me he would try to blacken my name, and insisted he respond, so he backed down. One of the whole points of that fight was the lies my ex and my editor had told over months, and a fight against the most fundamental principles of both law and non-censorship. Then he instructed an entire department at Abrams not to read this blog, while hiring lawyers in the UK to try and silence me too. I resisted. He had already wrecked my career in America, censored my books and stories, behaved appallingly in an extraordinary family crisis in late 2009, exploited a situation to remove Publisher Howard Reeves at Abrams, who he did not like, perhaps because Howard is gay, and finally it has lead to his two law firms provenly perjuring themselves to defend a law action in the New York Supreme Court, which involved a stream of lies and distortions. I have already asked the question, if any of this is libel, why hasn’t Phoenix Ark been taken to court, or elements of a blog removed? Because it is true and they cannot censor it or me.
It is only about money, highly orchestrated sales of questionable series like TTFN or Diary of A Wimpy Kid, upholding the ‘joys’ of text messaging or dubious attitudes inside Abrams to secrets of abusive behaviour, that came to define the abuse of an author and fundamental principles, but Michael Jacobs being an anti Censorship figure-head is like the money lenders deep in the Temple or like appointing President Assad to a Board of Clean Air and Anti-Pollution!
DCD
Phoenix Ark's Blog 
Hello, my name is Jonathan Thurston. I am a pre-law student in Tennessee and a wolf watcher for years. I have written one fictional book inspired by “The Sight” and have always loved the powerful messages your books have made. I have also, again inspired by your works, worked with wolves and wolf conservation for years in the National Wolfwatcher Coalition. I would ask you what you think I can do as an American to help with the problem of American censorship, especially from the world of authors and publications.
Thank you,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
many thanks for that and sorry to take so long to write back. Well done to you for working with wolves, aren’t they so inspiring, yet on the edge of the ‘problem’ of wild nature too? Which might not be such a problem if we weren’t so full of fear and ignorance, rather than understanding ourselves as animals too. I don’t know how to answer your question on American censorship. I blogged an attack on Michael Jacobs because I saw how cynically he behaved at Abrams and now see he is the Chairman of a board against it! What I saw in that fight is how money and careers now so dictates people’s judgements, opinions and actions, and how there is a most terrible climate of fear too, of people who are handling books and authors, making editorial decisions, being brought into any kind of public eye. A thing authors have to face, but which editors and business men in publishers do not have to deal with, and who can behave so appallingly behind the scenes. I think my best answer to you is work with integrity, speak up for what you can, and hold to the law too, which is always a thing that can be changed with work and commitment. Very best with your law studies in Tennessee.
warm wishes, David Clement-Davies