RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING THE AUTHORS GUILD
WHEREAS, The Authors Guild is the nation's oldest and largest professional organization for writers, with over 9,000 current members that include novelists, historians, journalists, poets, academics, and independently published authors; and
WHEREAS, In 2019 the Chicago Ambassadors for the national Authors Guild were honored in the NewCity Lit 50 list of the most important people in the Chicago publishing world; and
WHEREAS, Since 1912, the Authors Guild has been supporting and protecting American authors' constitutional and moral rights to write and speak freely and to benefit from their work, and has been providing working writers with the knowledge, support, and resources they need to succeed; and
WHEREAS, The Authors Guild advocates on issues of copyright, fair contracts, free speech, and fair tax treatment; provides legal advice to its members on all issues pertinent to the writing profession; lobbies for authors on Capitol Hill; negotiates with publishers and other industry players for fair contract terms and treatment; and litigates when authors' rights come under threat; and
WHEREAS, Authors are facing unprecedented challenges in the form „of declining incomes from writing as a consequence of changes wrought on the publishing industry by the technologies and pressures exerted by corporate interests; and
WHEREAS, The Authors Guild provides important educational and informal resources and tools to assist authors in understanding and surviving the changing publishing landscape, and provides community to those who often are isolated in their working life to assist in the exchange of knowledge; and
WHEREAS, The Authors Guild is motivated by the belief that a diverse literary landscape that encompasses the entire range of expression of ideas, stories, and experiences of all American people is essential to our democracy; and
WHEREAS, The work of authors is vital to a democratic society; now therefore
Matt O'Shea Alderman, 19th Ward
BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and members of the City Council of the City of Chicago, gathered here this twentieth day of November 2019, do hereby recognize the Authors Guild for its longstanding service to and advocacy on behalf of authors in the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and the United States.
