James Patterson donates $1M to campaign to fight book banning, other issues facing authors.
This article was published Jan. 31 in ‘The Palm Beach Daily News’ and is reprinted here with permission.
By Jodie Wagner, The Palm Beach Daily News
Palm Beach resident James Patterson, an outspoken opponent of book removal efforts in Florida’s public schools, has joined a group of bestselling authors in supporting a new campaign to address the myriad issues facing authors today.
Patterson and his wife, Sue, have committed $1 million toward a $10 million capacity-building campaign launched by the Authors Guild Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that is the charitable and educational arm of The Authors Guild.
The 12,000-member organization advocates for the rights of writers by supporting free speech, fair contracts and copyright protections.
Money raised through the campaign will be used to meet immediate needs to increase staff to assist with legal services for authors and advocacy and to fight book bans at the state level.
The money also will help the guild litigate and lobby to protect authors from artificial intelligence theft. It will help to build a licensing platform for AI use of authors’ works, so that authors can control and be paid for those uses they allow, as well as challenge copyright infringement and piracy, said Mary Rasenberger, the Authors Guild’s CEO.
To date, the foundation has received more than $5.6 million in commitments for the campaign from Patterson and other prominent authors including David and Michelle Baldacci, Suzanne Collins and Charles “Cap” Pryor, John and Renee Grisham and Doug and Christine Preston.
Additional supporters include the Nora Roberts Foundation, Dan Brown and Judy Blume.
“We are delighted with the success of the campaign thus far and extremely grateful for the generosity of the authors who have stepped up to lead this campaign,” Rasenberger said in a release. “The Guild has always been a fiscally efficient and effective organization, and with this campaign, we will be able to achieve that much more.”
Patterson said he was pleased to support the guild’s efforts to fund advocacy initiatives, protect authors and hire legal and support staff.
“Sue and I are proud to help lead this important initiative to fight book bans, create more legal capacity for the guild and develop a new licensing platform to help authors protect their work,” he said.
Patterson has written more than 200 books during his nearly five-decade career. He has decried efforts around the country to remove books from public school libraries.
After his popular young adult series “Maximum Ride” was pulled from Martin County School District elementary school libraries last March, he asked members of the public to “send a polite note” to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“The Maximum Ride series was recently banned by the Martin County Florida School District,” he wrote on Twitter, now X. “Honestly, who would want Maximum Ride banned from schools? On what possible grounds? What do the majority of parents in Martin County think of this arbitrary and borderline absurd decision?”
In a follow-up interview, he told the Daily News that efforts in the U.S. to ban books were “frightening.”
Patterson’s books were among more than 80 titles that were removed from Martin County’s elementary, middle and high schools in February 2023 through a process put in place by the Florida Department of Education that allows community members to challenge reading material in K-12 schools.
Authors whose works were banned include Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison and best-selling young-adult novelist Jodi Picoult.
“The idea that a group of people in a school district who haven’t even read the books can remove a Patterson book, or a Toni Morrison book, or a Jodi Picoult book is frightening,” Patterson said. “It seems arbitrary.”
Patterson praised the guild’s multipronged approach to combat book banning, which includes legal action, support for authors, coalition building and public advocacy.
“Just on a common-sense level, I do not need strangers — none of us do — telling us what our family members should and shouldn’t read,” he told the Daily News. “We do not need other people to come in and tell us this. We can take care of ourselves. My basic thing has always been: You take care of your house. I’ll take care of mine.”
For more information on The Authors Guild, visit authorsguild.org.
