Returning to the corporate world in March 2020 (my timing perfect as usual) I realised that no matter how much the #SayWhatYouPay crowd boasted about paying, it would never make any financial sense for me to rely on any of it, ever again.

And knowing I was very pointedly *not* #WhomDoYouChoose meant that I withdrew my efforts accordingly.

The issue is, I’m not alone. We’re haemorrhaging talent and this is why. The people who matter think we’re not worth keeping.

Meanwhile, in Irish Writer Land, a well-intentioned organisation called Match in the Dark has started a #SayWhatYouPay hashtag in which publishers and lit mags are invited to openly list their advances and pay rates.

But IMO the hashtag they should *really* be using is #WhomDoYouChoose, because that’s the real source of corrosion in this culture. Whom, and why?