On Friday, Slate.com published a fantastic piece by Chad Harbach titled “MFA v. NYC : America now has two distinct literary cultures. Which one will last?”
The question he should have asked was “Which one can last?” because the MFA culture he describes clearly exhibits characteristics of the same sort of inadvertant pyramid scheme I have already described in regard to the consumerization of writing.
Another week, another round-up. Or roll. Or soup. Whatever you like to call it.
Sadly, many publishing pro blogs are suffering the same summar blahs that have afflicted the lit agent blogs. (*Knock Knock* Mr. Rinzler? Ms. Kroszer? Are you okay in there?) But, I still have plenty of intriguing stuff for you to check out!
So, let’s get right to the publishing pro links: Continue reading
In a recent Huff Post blog, author Melanie Benjamin joins the chorus of publishing-related people who are starting to speak some sense in the maelstrom of “everyone can be a writer” cheerleading.
While her main point is that aspiring writers should also be avid readers (her raison d’écrire was Tin House publishing’s decision to require a bookstore receipt for unsolicited manuscript submissions) she touches on the core of my argument that publishing is in danger of becoming a pyramid scheme.
I think that’s the problem today; too many authors, not enough readers. So many people dream of seeing their book on a front table in a bookstore; so few people actually buy books that are on front tables–or back shelves–of bookstores. So few people even know where their closest bookstore is located.
As someone who can think of three chain bookstores, two independent bookstores, and three used bookstores within walking distance of where I live (not to mention the bookstores in the National Mall’s various museums) I could not agree more.
But more importantly, “too many authors – not enough readers” is the Formula of Ultimate Doom for the publishing industry’s current toxic combination of DIY marketing and cross-consumerization of readers into wannabe writers. It’s the reason all pyramid schemes fail: not enough new recruits funneling resources to the top cats who are reaping all the rewards.
Benjamin goes on:
I have no problem with a publisher requiring an aspiring author to show proof that he’s read at least one book lately. Wouldn’t it be great if every writers’ conference required the same thing for all applicants? Wouldn’t it be wonderful–if not strictly ethical–if every literary agent did this, too?
I’ll be honest: considering some of the quirky pet peeves for which agents reject queries, I can’t see the ethical problem in asking for some proof that a writer is involved in the literary process beyond clicking send on an email, so long as the agent doesn’t require that the book be one she or her firm represented.
I have a stack of books knee-high already from 2010 alone. Bring it on!
Heck, if every aspiring author read ten books a year, this industry would not be having the problems it’s having today.
I will see that bet and raise you, Melanie. If half of the aspiring authors (specifically those for whom getting published is more for dazzle than devotion) would shift their enthusiasm for literature entirely from writing to reading, publishing would be both financially and artistically richer.
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For a similar piece by Joseph Bednarik, read “The Law of Diminishing Readership” at Poets & Writers.
I am considering combining the weekly lit agent round-up with the “miscellaneous” publishing pros.
Between the blogs that inexplicably dry up — or consist mainly of their own link lists, Happy Release Day posts, or “everyone can be a writer, don’t give up!” cheerleading — the lit agent offerings have been growing thin. Maybe it’s because of this god-awful heat! What’s the summer version of hibernation?
On to the lit agent links! Continue reading
Last night I walked to the National Mall (because I can) to watch the Independence Day fireworks.
In the course of my travels through the crowd I witnessed several conversations and scenes that could very easily be adapted to fiction.
Oh what a week! As critics and pundits debate the merits of non-literary fiction (whatever that might be), agents and writers are debating the merits of agents shifting from a representative model of payment to a pay-per-service model.
It’s getting hot up in here! But, let’s slip quietly out the back door of this tavern brawl and just read some literary agent links, okay?
The other day, I pointed you to Carolyn Kellogg‘s masterful debunking of Lee Siegel‘s snide and absurd assertion in the New York Observer that fiction is dead and culturally “irrelevant.”
Now, Jason Pinter has added insult to well-deserved injury with his attack on Siegel, with a piece in the Huffington Post arguing that it’s not fiction, but the snooty “literati” class that is dead and culturally irrelevant for dismissing the importance of genre fiction.
Pinter states:
The more the literary establishment simply ignores anything other than the moldy old status quo, the quicker they will join Lee Siegel in his musty ivory tower, missing out on all the wonderful books, blogs and writers who revel in writing outside the archaic rules of the literary establishment.
This observation brings to mind a quote from the greatest work of genre fiction of the 1900’s, and perhaps the most influential fiction of any sort in that century, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I can still remember when being a fan of Tolkien was an occasion for ridicule, but the themes of addiction, the strength of the “little guy,” and overcoming despair in the face of violent evil were addressed nowhere as vividly as in Tolkien’s fantasy story about furry-footed hobbits.
Put into the mouth of Gandalf in the film adaptation, the quote brought to mind by Pinter’s observation above is from Faramir in the book:
The Númenorians … hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted the names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars.
Do I have my misgivings about certain trends in today’s literary world? Absolutely! I could use fewer sparkly pedophilic vampires, and I am less than sanguine about the recent trend toward sampled mash-ups.
But, unless the literary elite want to end up throne-less and irrelevant, they will move with the flow of culture’s river, appreciate the best writers driving today‘s literature, and leave aside their foolish dreams of a perpetual Golden Age based on dry honors and impotent nostalgia.
I have noticed a distinct gender imbalance to my writer links. Sure, I have Les and Scott and John and J on my list, but the overwhelming majority of writers on my regular rounds are women. In fact, all of the links I’ve roped up over the past week are from women writers.
Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with this, but I would like to get a few more dudes to provide more of a “guy’s take” on writing. Insofar as there is such a thing. Is there such a thing?
Okay, moving on. To the writer links! Continue reading
At the New York Review of Books, British novelist Tim Parks tackles four books, the first two of which repeat the time-worn complaint that Americans are too self-involved and isolationist, and this manifests itself in the paucity of books in the States translated from other languages.
