Roxana Robinson Elected as the New President of the Authors Guild

Posted on March 17, 2014

The Authors Guild has elected author Roxana Robinson as its new president. She will succeed Scott Turow, who has held the post for four years. Judy Blume, Richard Russo, and James Shapiro were elected as vice presidents. C.J. Lyons will join the Guild's executive Council.

Ms. Robinson said after the election, "As writers, we are living in very interesting times. The challenges are huge, and I am thrilled to be a part of it all. We're going to move ahead, we're going to extend our membership, we're going to continue to offer practical help and advice and a sense of community to our writers, and we’re going to continue to support the craft of writing."

Scott Turow took very aggressive legal positions during his tenure in order to protect authors' copyrights from mass book digitization in the Google and Hathitrust cases. Turow was tireless in demanding payment to authors for the use of their work. He maintained that authors must have control over the scanning and display of their works. The Authors Guild lost both of those cases; they are currently on appeal. Turow said, "Groundbreaking lawsuits are most often decided in higher courts. We know we were right to bring these cases, and we expect to prevail at the end of the day."

Roxana Robinson is an acclaimed novelist, biographer, teacher and art scholar. Her biography of Georgia O’Keeffe was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named one of The New York Times Most Notable Books of the Year. Her most recent novel is Sparta, a gripping study of the effects of war and PTSD on a returning Iraq war veteran and his family. It topped many reviewers' lists of the best books of 2013.