The Union of Quebec Writers (UNEQ) was founded in the fall of 1976 in the basement of Radio-Canada by some fifteen writers. This was done a few days after “The international meeting of Quebec writers” organized by the magazine Freedomwhich was held in the Laurentians where, for three days, we talked about literature around the same table, between walks and games of ping-pong.
Most of the writers present at Radio-Canada that day had taken part in the meeting in the Laurentians. The idea came from I don’t know who, but it was no doubt inspired as much by the desire to prolong the pleasure of the colloquium, the pleasure of breaking the loneliness that is the lot of writers, as by the need to defend our interests.
Since then I have only attended one or two UNEQ meetings, but I have had the pleasure of sometimes going to the Maison des écrivains, one of the rare public places where I can find all my books, to take part in a literary event, seeing again or discovering writers from here and others from abroad (that’s where I was able to meet Le Clézio).
At this founding meeting of UNEQ, one of us mentioned the unlikely danger of Writers’ Unions in the countries of Eastern Europe and another, the almost inevitable danger of bureaucratization which condemns every organism to become more or less its own end.
The specter of writers subjected to the communist regime or paid by the state was perhaps not to be dismissed so quickly, because money can be as constraining as an ideology. I didn’t really know what to think of this doctor, whom I met at the same conference, who had become a full-time writer thanks to a salary paid by his country (Finland, I believe).
I imagine the head of Jacques Ferron who had written about thirty books without abandoning his patients and often without being paid, just like his professors of yesteryear who taught in addition to doing research without receiving a subsidy. I am not against writing scholarships granted to those who need it, but I resist the idea that writing is a job like any other, a job that responds to orders other than personal, interior ones.
Free act
I have nothing against the unions: I belonged to L’Union des artistes when I sold 8 minutes weekly of literary chronicles to the cultural channel of Radio-Canada; I belonged to Sartec when I sold my screenplays to production houses and I was very happy that this union defended me one day against a producer who refused to pay me.
I never forget that writing is a free, free act, that no publisher buys my books, that he produces and distributes them. I am grateful to UNEQ for having taken several initiatives, including that of the program of visits by writers to schools, the transfer of our rights for a limited period, the directory of members (I regret the paper version! ).
I don’t know if it’s to “my union” that I owe the checks I receive from Copibec and those from the Conseil des arts for reprographic rights, but I always receive them with pleasure, even if I am one of those privileged people who can do without. And when I get a check from my publisher every four or five years that’s over $1,000, I’m glad he’s still in business, I tell myself that even though he’s probably richer than me , he’s a “good boss” who shouldn’t forget, however, that he depends on me and that he has an interest in doing everything he can to keep me.
When UNEQ was founded, it went without saying that this union would bring together writers, the writer being a person who composes literary works: “Not every author is a writer”, as Monique LaRue reminds us (“L’ UNEQ and the House of Writers”, The dutyDecember 30, 2022).
Very early, this distinction was abandoned, under the pretext that it can be difficult to determine what is literary, whereas it is not a question of determining the literary value of a book, but its nature. It is understood that representing say 500 writers or 1600 authors does not give the same political weight to an organization and leads to higher administration costs.
Long live the UNEQ, a necessary link between the community of solitaries and the book market.