Malta Book Council Apologises If Writers ‘Hurt’ By Employee’s Brutal Takedown Of Industry
The National Book Council has apologised to writers who might have been “hurt” by a particularly critical comment by one of its own employees about the state of the local literature industry.
“We sincerely apologise if anyone from the writing community and the general public was hurt, and we are treating this as an opportunity to foster support and transparency moving forward,” the MBC said in a statement.
The MBC was believed to be referring to a now-deleted Facebook comment by one of its employees that writers have to “whore themselves out” to succeed in the local industry.
Lovin Malta is not publishing the employee’s name at her specific request.
“That way you will have several ‘friends’, even though they will smear you when your back is turned,” the employee wrote.
“That way, they will write a review for my work, naturally on condition that I write one for them as well. Obviously such reviews won’t appear as a conflict of interest even though the relationship is practically incestuous. I don’t like this situation at all, although I know that this is what those who ‘succeeded’ in the local literature scene did.”
She said some people have told her that she is more talented than some established poets, but don’t want to say so publicly because they are scared they could be denied work or positive reviews if they bruise powerful egos.
Following this comment, which sparked a lot of online debate within the industry, the Malta Book Council said it will revise its social media policy and launch training courses for staff on how to keep online interactions “professional and respectful” so that such incidents “don’t repeat themselves”.
“We appreciate all the suggestions we received from the writers’ community and we encourage open dialogue among writers, publishes, editors and translators so as to better address similar situations and strengthen our work with others to improve the local literary ecosystem.”
Cover photo: Malta Book Council executive chairman Mark Camilleri
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