Never Give Up by Miranda Miller

Hello Everybody,

I was delighted to see the launch last week of Brave New World? This is a photo (left to right) of Anna Ganley, CEO of the Society of Authors, Deborah Annetts , CEO of the Independent Society of Musicians, Isabelle Doran,CEO of the Association of Photographers and Rachel Hill, CEO of the Association of Illustrators, holding their new report about the impact of Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on authors and other creators.

Most writers, musicians and artists I know are solitary people who pride themselves on not being joiners, but perhaps this is the moment when it’s worth supporting a common cause and fighting for our survival. Last year I was furious when I discovered that three of my novels had been stolen, or “scraped” without any acknowledgment or payment and in May I joined other writers in a protest. We marched on the HQ of Meta, near King’s Cross, waving our stolen books. This enormously rich corporation locked its doors against us and refused to accept our joint letter.

I wrote about this issue to my MP, Jeremy Corbyn, who has replied:

“It is unacceptable that so many creators have seen their work used without consent, as this represents a massive transfer of wealth and intellectual property from individual artists to unaccountable technology companies.

The Government has a duty to ensure that our laws keep pace with technology, and it is essential that we move toward a system based on consent and fair pay.”

Last week, after the Women in Black vigil protesting about the occupation of Gaza outside Friends’ House on Euston Road, a group of us went out to lunch and had an enjoyable meal in the basement restaurant of Palestine House in Holborn.

This is a privately funded community and cultural centre that opened last summer and is well worth a visit. I’ve been taking part in the Saturday morning vigil for nearly two years now, I haven’t been as dedicated as someof the other women, who turn up every Saturday but it has become an important part of my life. The news from Gaza is still heartbreaking. In the four months since the “ceasefire”, at least five hundred people have been killed. Those who are still alive are living in tents in the rubble that was once their neighbourhood. The suggestion that Trump and his property developer friends were going to turn it into the Costa Gaza seemed at first to be a sick joke, but turns out to be true.

Two days ago the High Court in London ruled that the UK government’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action as a terror group was unlawful. I’m not a lawyer and get rather lost in the legal niceties or nastinesses of all this, but this decision will come as a relief to the 2,700 people (many of them my age or older) who have been arrested on various demonstrations for holding up placards supporting Palestine Action.

For the last few weeks I’ve been writing every morning and am now about five chapters away from the end of the first draft of my new novel, Half a Century. Writing is never easy - why should it be - but I wish I understood why it’s sometimes so difficult. My favourite quotation about this is from Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

www.mirandamiller.info