Tilly's Army - of literary nobodies
Supporters of the ex-Waterstones bookseller include "a genderfluid transvestite goblin", retired librarian and 98 bloggers
This week The Guardian broke the news that over ā500 authors and book industry professionals have signed an open letter calling on Waterstones to reverse a decision to dismissā Tilly Fitzgerald, a bookseller.
In case you missed the preceding events, the paper explains: āFitzgerald was sacked after responding to a post on X by author Christina Dalcher, which appeared to endorse a publishing network for those āconcerned about the impact of gender ideologyā on the sector. Fitzgerald wrote: āOoh, Iāll enjoy tearing up your books and popping them in the bin today. Thanks for the heads up.āā
Soon after being fired, Fitzgerald took to social media to do what grown adults do: film themselves crying and then put it on media. In a lot of words she told the world āITāS NOT FAIR!ā
The Wokies were moved by Tillyās tears, and formed something of an army to protect her.
Leading the charge was author and comedy writer Sara Gibbs (who didnāt have much of a sense of humour about my calling her campaign āAuthors for Fascismā).
She rallied āauthors and book industry workersā, getting them to sign an open letter in support of Tilly. Seeing this, and The Guardianās write up - which mentioned that ā500 authors and book industry professionalsā were signatories - youād get the impression of a serious commotion in the literary world. You might imagine that everyone from Jilly Cooper to Ian McEwan to Richard Osman was furious about Waterstonesā decision.
However, I soon discovered that these ā500ā literary insiders are mostly nobodies, people who enjoy reading and those with skin in the game - including a āgenderfluid transvestite goblinā. Successful authors - such as Joanne Harris of Chocolat fame - are the exception rather than rule.
Had the political Right made equivalent claims to The Guardianās piece, make no mistake: Her Royal Truthness, Marianna Spring, would be investigating them for ādisinformationā.
As a measure of the low calibre the open letter is, it includes ā98 ābloggersā, some of whom I couldnāt even find online - or had difficulty identifying from the measly online results.
I searched for āA Hunt, Bloggerā, for instance, the first name on the open letter, and found two possibilities: the author of Tales of Me & The Husband:
or Andy Hunt of Toolshed Technologies:
Then I searched for another blogger on the list called Aine O'Connell. I could only find a woman whose Twitter profile says sheās āProud to milk cowsā
and this person:
I accept that some of my suggestions above could be wrong - so I apologise in advance to any innocent bloggers - but I had to demonstrate the gap between ā500 authors and book industry professionalsā and reality.
Other signatories - remember, these people have been put into the same category as (love or hate her) Joanne Harris in terms of literary merit and success - include retired librarians, readers, book lovers, multiple bookstagrammers, āIT Support at large publisherā, a āBook Blogger and Human Beingā, as well as former Waterstones staff.
Additional signatories (which have been separated from the elite list of librarians and human beings) include:
Jessica Thomson, Best friend of a trans girl
John Parkinson, Just an enjoyer of books
L Jackson, Waterstones customer
Linda Fathi, person who buys books
Lucinda Parfett, Unemployed
Suzanne Rust, Bookworm
Violet G., Concerned member of the public
Zoe Rider, Avid reader
You canāt exactly imagine Waterstonesā press team saying to each other āWell, if Linda Fathi - āa person who buys booksā - thinks Tilly should be reinstated!ā
However, the more sinister truth is they may see The Guardian headline, sh*t themselves and overreact (into rehiring Tilly), all because they have been tricked into thinking literary giants are raging across Blighty.
I searched for more names on the list - fairly randomly, as there were 500 to get through - and it got EVEN worse.
Hereās a small selection, so you can sense the calibre of these ābook industryā insiders:
Bitter Karella, author and āgenderfluid transvestite goblinā
Julie Gourinchas - Karella (above)ās agent - a āshe/theyā who is:
ākeenly interested in hearing from authors traditionally underrepresented in the industry, including but not restricted to writers of colour; queer, trans, and nonbinary writers; working class writers; disabled writers; etc.ā
Jenet Le Lacheur, Author (whose talents extend to acting. Le Lacheur recently rewrote and starred in Yerma, ātransposed into the queer kink scene of modern Britainā in an āurgent adaptationā with an āall trans castā):
Jeanna Louise Skinner, Author of Plus-Size Fantasy Romance
For some reason I am blocked by this person.
Billie Lauren Hindle, Script Editor, who last week tweeted:
āDid you know I identified as nonbinary from 2020-2023? It ended up not being the right road for me in the end but that doesnāt mean it isnāt for others!ā
Kip Alizadeh, illustrator of this heartwarming childrenās story:
Caitlin Francis, Content writer - who seems to have bigger fish to fry
Kizzia Mildmay, Blogger
Another literary giant who blocked me before I knew they existed.
Larissa Caroline Nikolaus, Hobbyauthor
Wednesday Holmes, Artist & Author - and ānon binary queer artistā
Wednesday has apparently been commissioned by BBC Bitesize; another rabbit hole, ey.
James Felton, Author and Great British Bellend
Lindsay Moakes, Author
Adam Schembri, author
Writing this, I discovered Iāve muted him, but I canāt remember why. My mute threshold is quite high, so he must be particularly awful.
Case in point: he recently mourned the end of Queer History MA at Goldsmiths with a retweet:
Cailean Steed, Author and they/themer
Professor Sally Hines, Author and the recipient of almost Ā£700,000 in taxpayer cash to study pregnant men (her other terrible studies have had large funding amounts too).
Owen J Hurcum, Author and taxpayer-funded PhD Researcher in Transgender Archeology.
Also a professional irritant on social media (taxpayersā time, Owen!):
talking of professional irritantsā¦
Equality Amplified, Editor/BloggerĀ
Equality Amplified is a company thatās basically been set up to sound as itās important (āwe spoke to Equality Amplified for this news pieceā).
But up until recently itās only had two members, one of which is a whiny man who sits on X getting annoyed at JK Rowling and fighting for children to have puberty blockers:
Willett is a Doctoral Researcher in Creative Writing at Brunel University, where he āexplores spaces of queer transformation, both corporal and incorporeal, and how we can disrupt the binary nature of gender, sex and power.ā
Sounds great.
And why not round off with these household namesā¦
Laura Steel-Marshall, Author
Mirrigold:
So you can see, in short, that Tilly in no way deserves to be rehabilitated; certainly not when Gibbs may as well have asked a neighbour, or someone good at the local pub quiz, to sign her āopen letterā.
Frankly, it deserves to be torn up and popped in the bin. Which Iām sure no signatory will mind me saying.
The curse of the internet and social media - without them, these people would be in oblivion. Which they were for me, until now. Amazing how quickly a storm can be raised by so few insignificant and weird people.