The consequences of the book tax for print literature have been grave. Readership is way down and people aren’t buying books. They are, however, using the internet. Chile has the highest internet usage per its population in South America, beating out even Brazil and Argentina. The most frequent internet activity is checking one’s email. 9 out of 10 internet users have Facebook, but more and more of these users are also accessing their news online.

As a writer who is interested in publishing in both Chile and the United States, these statistics offer a practical lesson. I’m realizing that an important part of being a writer is more than just “knowing your audience.” You have to know how your audience is accessing what its reading. If I want my work to be read in Chile, print publishing is clearly not the way to go. Yet its hard to find online venues that pay authors.

This dilemma has guided me to the study of literary journalism and those writers whose brief but essay-driven prose have been published in Chile and Spain’s major newspapers. That is to say, good nonfiction is alive in Chile’s press.   In 1997, Jorge Teillier started a piece for Chile’s most read widely-read newspaper, El Mercurio, with an anecdote about his childhood: “Allow me to remember a summer afternoon in Lautaro, my childhood town….” Jorge Edwards published this opening sentence of his literary chronicle “The Legends of Mississippi” in the national newspaper El Pais in 1982: “We were in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, in the south of the United States, together for an international conference about Yoknapatawpha and William Faulkner.” Just today, guest columnist and director of the National Museum of Barcelona, Manuel Borga-Villel, published a literary essay about artist Antoni Tápies, also in El Pais, called “This Unspeakable Magic.”

Literary journalism does not have a very large market in Chile, but it is an appealing option for a writer abroad. Is it also a realistic option for nonfiction writers in the United States?

Works Consulted

Impuesto al libro, impuesto al conocimiento http://www.elciudadano.cl/2009/03/04/6354/impuesto-al-libro-impuesto-al-conocimiento/

Chile cambia “dictadura” por “régimen militar” http://www.museodelaresistencia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=394:chile-cambia-qdictaduraq-por-qregimen-militarq&catid=62:internacionales&Itemid=224

Internet Usage South America   http://www.internetworldstats.com/south.htm

Jill Abramson

In March there was much debate about whether people would begin subscribing to the New York Times since the newspaper began charging for previously free online access. I decided that I would finally make good and subscribe. One of the reasons I hadn’t yet was because the massive amount of paper involved in a daily newspaper subscription horrifies me. But with the new subscriptions, online-only access was going to be an option—the perfect option for me.

The weird thing is that I continued to be able to click on what seemed like unlimited articles each month. This is where the first of two embarrassing parts of this post comes in. After telling people, with pride, that I read the New York Times online, I discovered I had never read more than the 20 free articles in a month. I don’t suppose reading less than one article a day really counts as being a legitimate “reader” of a newspaper.

Not that I’m complaining about the free reading I continue to do. I love the free Times. I love the free times.

In September the New York Times hired a new executive editor. Of the three candidates, the one who got the offer stood apart, in part, due to her commitment to digital innovations. Jill Abramson is the first female executive editor of the Times and if you were to believe the prediction of Clifton Daniel, the paper’s managing editor in 1962, Abramson’s appointment is a miracle. It is reported that in 1962 Clifton told a female reporter who was applying for a job at the Times, that “no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times” (Ken Auletta “Changing Times,” The New Yorker, October 24^th 2011, p. 43).

Abramson has plans to “turn the Times into something more than a newspaper” (Auletta 54), which will include increasing audio, video, archives, and better including participation on the part of readers.

I’d also like to suggest that the Times improve its algorithm for determining its “Recommended for You” lists. Here is where the second embarrassing part of two in this blog post appears. Below you will see the articles the Times thinks I’ll enjoy, based on my reading history:

Recommended for Me November 21, 2011 (after clicking on “Khmer Rouge Leaders Accused of Brutality ‘Defying Belief’” by Seth Mydans and “Torture’s Future” by Eric Lewis).

1. “Drugs Used for Psychotics Go to Youths in Foster Care”
2. Op-Ed Contributor: “Central Bankers: Stop Dithering. Do Something.”
3.”Treasury Auctions Set for This Week”
4. Briefly: Education: “U.K. Job Shortage Prompts Entrepreneurial Network”
5. Opinion: “Goodbye, Golden Years”
6. This Life: “Can Gary Chapman Save Your Marriage?”
7. “A Love Language of My Own”
8. “On the Move, in a Thriving Tech Sector”
9. Opinion: “Is Your Dog Smarter Than a 2-Year-Old?”
10.Riff: “‘Housewives,’ Rebranded”

“Goodbye Golden Years”? What did I click to deserve this? Gary Chapman? I’d never even heard of him until the Times thought I’d like to read about this minister’s thoughts on things such as make-up sex. “A Love Language of My Own?” Did this happen because I read Modern Love a couple of weeks ago when a Facebook friend recommended it? I never read about dogs and I’ve never seen or read anything about Housewives or any other reality television show in the newspaper. I know I’m overly sensitive, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be offended by this list.

The articles in the recommended for me list that actually interest me: 1) foster kids getting drugs and 2) the op-ed piece on bankers doing something rather than dithering–only two of the ten in this list.

The following list interests me slightly more—1) the lawyering article looks interesting, 2) I actually read the Elizabeth Warren article, and 3) generally read anything that has to do with energy production (fracturing in Pennsylvania). I also often read the psychology articles, such as 4) “Sorry Strivers: Talent Matters.”

Most Emailed November 21, 2011

1.“What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering”
2.Op-Ed Columnist: “How About Better Parents?”
3. Gray Matter: “Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters”
4. Opinion: “Is Your Dog Smarter Than a 2-Year-Old?”
5. “Teaching Good Sex”
6. Opinionator: “No Turkeys Here”
7. “Heaven Is a Place Called Elizabeth Warren”
8. Opinion: “Goodbye, Golden Years”
9. “The Fracturing of Pennsylvania”
10. Opinion: “Poet-Bashing Police”

Do you subscribe to the New York Times (do you read enough articles/month to  need to)? How does the paper do with recommendations for you? What would you like to see the paper do to beef up its digital offerings?

Cronies are simply long-standing friends, chums, sidekicks, supporting cast-members, fat-fingered Facebook acquaintances, sycophants with low-credit scores, groupies, posse, a shared-history contingent, homies, neighbors with good fences… etcetera.

Cronyism, like most “ism’s,” allows those time-honored relationships to morph into something else.  Something with its own peculiar ring of Dante’s Hell.  That is, unfair advantage, favoritism, the old-boys network, the ya ya sisterhood… Think of George W. Bush telling the former F.E.M.A. director, Michael Brown, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of job!”   And now consider that statement in light of the fact that Brownie, the one-time city manager in Edmund, Oklahoma, had absolutely no experience in dealing with disaster when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

I mention this because I wonder, perhaps cynically, about cronyism when it comes to literary achievement and writing gigs.   I wonder about articles, stories, poems and whole books being published as a result of the networks one has carefully crafted rather than the inspired or hard-won words on the proverbial page.

It is a shame, for example, to learn about the 2001 memoir, written by Jerry Sandusky, the now-retired assistant coach to Joe Paterno at Penn State.   The defensive coordinator, of course, now stands accused of sexually molesting 40 young men, some as young as ten-years-old.   His book, “Touched:  The Jerry Sandusky Story,” received the endorsements of assorted famous friends, among them, Dick Vermeil, who called the accused pedophile “the Will Rogers of the coaching profession.”  Realizing, of course, that the publication of these pages, is the least of our horrific, psychologically damaging and life-debilitating problems, it certainly calls into question the powers that be at Sports Publishing.  Or maybe not.

Maybe what’s called into to question is the very notion that publication=greatness or that publication=truth, or that one’s writing ought to be the kind of thing that fuels or that crowns or that manifests a lasting friendship.

Let’s face it:   Sports Publishing is not the Norton Anthology of American Literature.  To be sure.  Moreover, with the free-market and the latest and greatest self-publishing software–any semblance of a sentence may vault over the roving eye of an editorial review board.

And yet, in the case of “A Million Little Pieces,” Oprah Winfrey endorsed James Frey’s book, sold lots of copies for Doubleday and no one flinched.   That is, sales crested and began to fall only after the Random House subsidiary realized that James Frey had lost his most popular friend.   And my point is — what if Oprah had had a longer crony-connection with the aforementioned writer?   Would we be still categorizing this memoir as ninety-five percent true?   Would we be nuancing another layer of genre?   Something between non-fiction and attention-getting neurosis?

Cronyism, you see, is a scary proposition.   Politically speaking, the ripple-effects are probably not as documented as we would like.   Unfortunately, among literary aficionados (with no aspirations for high office in any institution), ghosts still linger.   What’s haunting is that we may never know who might have written what for which readership or unacknowledged segment of the population because certain cronies weren’t available to pull the strings.

On the other hand, had Emily Dickinson had more friends in high places there is the possibility that she never would have written with such proclivity and creative flare and lonely angst:  “But reduce no human spirit/ To disgrace of price.”  Had the poet been pushed and promoted by a literary agent from the Amherst hood, she may have gone the route of a Victorian J.K. Rolling.

And this, finally, takes me (and perhaps you) to the whole motivation we have to write and to put before the reader a version of experience or a meaning that either reinforces or subverts the status quo.   If it’s to make mega-money or to have a lucrative career, my hermeneutics of suspicion kick into high gear.  I’m talking here, not about surviving and having the resources to meet Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  I’m talking the ego-driven writing that seeks an Easter Island head of stone overlooking wave upon wave of posterity.  Eating and sleeping and having security are honest reasons to write and to aspire to write well.   Beyond and co-mingling with these, however, my gut goes with Natalie Goldberg and Tennessee Williams

–  Goldberg who claims:

“I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me… I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell… I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I’ll ever have.”

– And Williams, the famous playwright, who declares I wrote “because I found life unsatisfactory.”

Other than these gut-check rationales for putting pen to paper, I continue to be amazed by the potential to pump up the hot air balloon and let the ambitions lift up high, high, high into the stratosphere.   The danger from this height is that we can no longer get a sense of the geography in which the solitary life lays a claim amid the hurricane force winds of postmodernity.

Granted, we’re all constructing something that looks like a linear narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end.   But the ways in which that a narrative dupes the world may resemble those cavities left in the wake of the Mount Vesuvius eruption in the first century.   That is, we’ll know that something lived and died, but the vacuity that remains will trump every conjured episode in the life of narcissist.

By contrast, as literary friends, let the cronies do their best to encourage… even if their critiques cut deeply.

Peace–

Scott

It’s a sweet tradition. And when, one day in the future, I publish my first book, I will certainly want to thank the people in my life who believe in me and my poetry. Because they make me want to get up in the morning and write and make them proud and stuff.

But they’re not the only ones who affect my poetry and inspire me to write. In fact, if I were being truthful when assembling my acknowledgment page, I would have to include a whole other list of unsung heroes: my anti-muses.Last year, I had an encounter with a male poet (who shall remain nameless) who said some especially pointed and rather discouraging things about my poetry. So, naturally, I was discouraged. But after a whole pizza and two pints of ice cream, I calmed down and discovered a different, more productive emotion: anger. Before I knew it, there was a pen in my hand and several pages of intense poetry. And yeah, maybe it was a little ranty, but I eventually got a few poems out of it and even now, when I find myself getting a little stuck, I visualize his face, grab a pen, and think, Suck on this.

And he’s not the only one. I’ve also got a handy grab bag of ex-boyfriends, dumb guys whom I never even dated but still piss me off sometimes, family members who don’t think poetry is a real degree, and uppity girls that I went to school with who didn’t think I’d ever be more than a secretary. They are all, occasionally, my anti-muses.

Sometimes it’s people whose names I don’t even know, like the two little boys who obnoxiously smacked their way through half a tray of cookies and slurped a cup of tea in the middle of a poetry reading. Or the lady at Macy’s who suggested I shop in the plus size section.

To be clear, I’m not an angry person, and I’m sure there’s some sort of scary psychological reason why negative emotions are capable of inspiring my writing in a way that positive emotions aren’t. Maybe the inner poet in me is also the inner rebel. When people tell me I can’t do something, my initial response is to want to prove them wrong. And I don’t think I’m the only one. Who knows, if Robert Frost hadn’t told Wallace Stevens that his problem is he writes about bric-a-brac, (an insult that I imagine simultaneously annoyed Stevens and made him proud) maybe we wouldn’t have gotten a poem like, “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” And if Ezra Pound hadn’t been cropping up everywhere and insulting pretty much everyone, maybe there wouldn’t have been a push in the poetry world to write like anyone other than Pound.

I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we all have our own anti-muse (or anti-muses) out there. And maybe they aren’t the first ones that come to mind when we think of people to acknowledge, but I think they play an important role. And if I were to list them in front of a collection one day, I wouldn’t be lying when I said I was grateful. They push me to write things I wouldn’t normally write and they keep me going when I question myself.

So here’s to you, pretentious bitch in my first poetry workshop, guy who thought it was acceptable to whip it out and urinate in front of me while I was knitting by the Spokane River, editor who suggested I have the emotional maturity of a high school girl, state governor who thinks it’s okay to cut 50,000 education jobs, waiter who called me “sir” twice, and everyone who chews gum during an exam. I couldn’t have done it without you.

My favorite back then was Dennis Cass’s “Book Launch 2.0,” which won the 2010 Moby Award (The Oscars of the Book Trailers) for Best Performance by an Author.

Now I have a new favorite.

Here’s Max Barry promoting Machine Man.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEN10axDJtA&feature

I can’t stop laughing. It must be the Australian accent.

This is how I ended up with a large print edition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

I’ve always been aware of the existence of large print books, but I can’t remember ever having seen one up close before. I think I assumed they would look like regular books inside, just with, you know, bigger words. But this is not the case.

Ladies & gentlemen of the jury, if I may direct your attention to Exhibit A.

Exhibit A. Also, the pages are weirdly white, like printer paper white.

I’m no design expert, but something is not right here. Sure, the print is bigger, which makes sense because some people don’t have the greatest eyesight and need bigger words for easier reading. But it also seems like the margins are off. It looks like the text could be read straight across both pages. Is that also something people with poor eyesight need? Or maybe it’s a font problem. I don’t know what this font is, but it’s not particularly dignified. I kind of feel like this font is talking down to me, saying hey, you’re clearly an elderly person whose eyes don’t work right so you don’t deserve a nicely formatted page.

This is some ageist bullshit right here.

Actually, I have seen books that look like this before. I’m not sure what the genre is called, but they’re the books in between picture books and YA novels. When I was a kid, I remember them being referred to as “chapter books,” but I think that’s just a term adults use around youngsters to make them feel more grown up. Like “big boy pants.” Anyway, these books have big letters and crumby fonts. Which is weird because little kids usually have the best eyesight and also don’t you think The Great Brain deserves a little more respect than that? Come on, those were good books.

The moral of the story here, I think, is that really old people and really young people are totally getting shafted by the publishing industry. This is concerning because 1) children are the future, so shouldn’t we be cluing the future in on what a proper book is supposed to look like? And 2) someday we will all be old. I don’t want to read books that look dumb when I am old.

Toad Suck Review

If you are a person who is getting (or has gotten) an MFA in creative writing, there is a high likelihood that you are also a person who has at least toyed with the idea of starting your own literary magazine. Don’t even pretend like this isn’t true. I know you. Don’t lie.

And if you have considered starting your own literary magazine then you know there are a lot of big decisions to make before undertaking such a project. Like, you will probably need to figure out how to get a lot of start-up cash and a Web site and a printer you like and trust and other smart friends who will help you edit it and many other things that you haven’t even thought of because logistics are boring and therefore not a part of anyone’s literary magazine daydreams. In the land of what-if-I-started-my-own-magazine, there is really only one concern that reigns supreme.

What am I going to name it?

I’ve spent quite a lot of time poking around Duotrope recently and I’ve noticed most lit mag names can be slotted into a few main categories. And so, for literary magazine success, you should probably just follow this formula. Categories (as well as original name suggestions) below. Please help yourself to whatever you like. You’re welcome.

-A single, made-up word

e.g. Unfathomication

-A real word that no one knows the meaning of

e.g. Antediluvian

- A word most people do know the meaning of, but which somehow seems artsy out of context

e.g. Vas deferens

Makeout Creek: Both a magazine & an excellent vacation destination!

-The name of the place where the magazine is produced followed by the word “quarterly” or “review”

e.g. Browne’s Addition Review or Windowless Basement Apartment Quarterly

-An important landmark near where your magazine is produced

e.g. Offshore Oil Rig

-A made-up place

e.g. Bonertown, U.S.A.

-A play on some other, more famous work of literature

e.g. Holden Caufield’s Little Bother’s Baseball Mitt

While I was looking for Makeout Creek, I also found The Shit Creek Review. True story.

-A somewhat obscure term from the printing/publishing industry

e.g. Erratum

-A word used so widely in the world of writing that any reference to your journal will actually be inevitably confusing

e.g. Sentences

-A mode of transportation preceded by an adjective not usually associated with said mode of tranist

e.g. Slippery Blimp

-Some random animal

e.g. Wallaroo

-Some random animal plus another thing that is not an animal

e.g. Cobra Pants

That’s all I got. What else?

I spoke to Daniel near downtown Vancouver, perhaps one of the least noir cities on the planet, on a sunny Monday morning in September. Despite giving a top-notch wedding toast, and lighting up the dance floor the night before at his older brother’s wedding, Daniel was kind enough to answer a few of my questions after refueling with a delicious brunch.

Let’s talk a little bit about the genesis of the book.  Do you remember when you first had the idea?

After college, I had a job managing a team of writers at an E-learning site and wrote in the evenings or on lunch breaks.  It started as an experiment that seemed to go okay.  I’d basically never written fiction.  I didn’t really have, well, almost any idea, even what the book would be about, which is not a great idea, obviously, its about the worst possible way. I wouldn’t recommend it.  It’s the sort of thing where you have to admit to yourself that you’re trying to write a book, and not just messing around in your room.  That took some time. It’s easier to say I’m just writing a few words here or a chapter here or a chapter there. You sit down, you write an outline, you set a goal for yourself. And if you don’t reach that goal, you haven’t succeeded.   Anyway, I finished a draft.  I quit my job.  I had some money saved so I thought I’d revise the heck out of this and then go traveling.

Did you outline much of the book once you decided to get serious?

Not really.  Looking back I did so many things wrong with that first draft.  I’m surprised the book is even legible.  I think it sort of carried its own momentum.  Once I got into it, I felt like I was always five chapters ahead in my mind. And I had a pretty good idea of the very end.  I never had a formal outline, which was, again, a bad idea.

Would it have been easier if you had the outline?

It would have been better.  I mean it’s a mystery novel.  The plot is kind of important.  It matters.  Truthfully, It took a lot of revisions to massage it into something that makes sense.

Can you talk about your relationship with your editor at Doubleday?

I worked with Rob Blume.  We seemed to click.  I felt like we had similar ideas of where we wanted the book to go.  He brought a good pair of eyes to it.  We went back and forth a few times.  There were some plot holes we were trying to fix.  And we’d try to fix it one way and it wouldn’t work.  And I’d get a slightly new idea and we’d go in a different direction with it.  He was a big part of the process, but no one is going care about the book as much as you do.  And you want to be harder on it than anyone.  I can remember a week before it was going to the first pass pages, and then you can’t make substantial changes after that, I had this epiphany: Okay it’s 115,000 words and when I’m done it will be 100 (thousand).  I just started shaving things.

Is there anything you’re doing differently now that you’ve finished one book?

Everything.  Most concretely I spent a lot of time working on an outline.  It’s a lot of effort, and it’s a strange thing because you don’t see an end-product when you’re done.  You can work for five hours and have like three sentences.  Character X dies.  Great, that was really worth all that time.

Do you have a writing routine when you’re drafting?

I don’t really.  I move around so much.  I haven’t been in a settled enough circumstance to have a routine.  I just try to work all I can.  When I’m writing I say a 1000 words a day, and I don’t always hit it, but if I do I can enjoy the day, I can play chess.

And you don’t have any formal education in writing? 

I didn’t take any creative writing classes, but you certainly do a lot of writing in college.  I didn’t grow up in the Ozarks hunting possum and only recently discovered the written word.  No, I did a lot of writing for other classes.  I wrote for the school newspaper.  But I wasn’t real serious about it.  A lot of people in college think of themselves as writers, but I didn’t think that way.  But later, I felt like maybe I could do it.  And once I started, I realized I liked it and I wanted to pursue it seriously.

You don’t have an MFA.  Have you considered it? Is it something you’d consider in the future?

It’s not really something I considered.  I didn’t think about for practical reasons—I didn’t have any money.  I wasn’t so committed to the idea of writing something until I shortly before I finished it.  Also, I didn’t like school when I was in it and don’t have much of a desire to go back.  I don’t have anything against it, but I couldn’t imagine it for me.

Do you have other writing projects?

After I wrote the first book.  There was a long hiatus when I didn’t know if I would ever see a dime from it and I started to work on a few other things.  But then once I sold the first one, all my time went there.  I’m always thinking of future projects.  But for now, it’s just been the Low-Town trilogy for the last year and half or so.

 I want to get at the idea of genre literature v.s literary fiction.  Any initial thoughts?

I think the reality is whether you’re talking about literature, music, film, that the vast majority is shit, proportionally speaking.  If you randomly walk into the fantasy or mystery section of bookstore and grabbed a book it would probably blow.  But I think the same could basically be said for literary fiction.  There are some genre guys whose prose is as good as anyone.  Chandler would be the number one guy.  He’s actually a terrible plotter.  And his mysteries don’t make a damn bit of sense.  But if you take a conversation that he’d written you’d have to recognize his strength as a writer.  I don’t exactly understand why when it comes to literary fiction it’s like: how boring a plot can we make a person read? Maybe that’s not exactly fair.

What’s striking about your book is it’s an alternate earth. Magic is real, though controlled by corporations, which makes perfect sense.  Is that’s what makes it interesting enough for you to write about?

I could see myself writing crime, genre fiction in the real world.  I love noir.  That’s where my heart is.  When I had no idea what the book was about, I had this idea that I’ll write a book with elves and I’ll put a pen name on it, and that would be the end of it.  But it’s hard to do something ironically that’s as much work as writing a book.  And you start writing what you love. And I love noir, and that’s how the book came to be. The other facets- the fake world.  I guess what I tried to bring was the recognition of the dark nature of human existence.  And that in an alternate world life would still be like that.  It wouldn’t be Shangri-La because people can shoot fire out of their hands?

How much of the world of Low-Town do you know.  I see the line: “13 Lands.”

Right.  Do I have 13 lands? No.  I don’t.  I could probably work out seven.  But it’d becomes pretty loose after three of four.  I’ve got a good background in fantasy from youth.  But one of the things that made me want to give up was the absurd length.  The endless backstory.  For it to be epic work you needed hundreds of pages of histories of places that don’t exist.  I just think that’s bad writing, that’s bad use of people’s time.  It’s just padding.  Occasionally there are people that do it well.    George R. Martin is one that comes to mind.   What I love about the crime and noir is that it’s real quick. That’s what I love about Chandler.  “My name is Philip Marlowe.”  And that’s all you need to know. Everything you need to learn about this person and the world he inhabits you learn as you go through.  But to better answer your question:  I know a lot more about the world than the audience will ever find out.   And it’s been an interesting thing, because one of the criticisms I get is that people want to know more about the world.  And when I think of the handful of sci-fi/ fantasy guys I like, the main thing I really like is being in a world that’s familiar enough you can follow along, but that you don’t really understand.  That there are unfamiliar words, unfamiliar concepts.  Anyway, in my case it’s fleshed out to some degree, but ultimately, the setting has to take a second seat to the plot and the action.

How do you feel about the characters?  Do they become real? Do they ever tell you what to do or do you feel you are completely in control of them and they do what they want?

They’re not marionettes.  They have to have a certain amount of weight to them.  You can’t feel the way they are behaving is contrary to their actions.  But they are in the service of your book.  I tend to find you discover who these people are as you’re writing them.  You have this mindset or quirk that you want to play with.  But you need character A to do action B, so what kind of person would character A need to be to do this. I mean, it’s not Proust.  It’s not ultimately about…. It’s about the plot.  You never lose sight of that.  It’s not about the innermost working of the human spirit.

That’s about it. Anything else?

Buy my book.  It’s a pretty good book as far as books go.

You can buy Low Town here.  And learn more about the author here.  Apologies to Shawn Vestal for stealing his author interview idea and format.  Highest form of flattery, right?

Like this, but with a pair of Pilot soft-grips rather than Glocks.

“Me? I made like Chow-Yun Fat.” — Max Payne

So at this point, I’m now officially a grad-student. The sheer surreality of that admission still leaves me reeling. Understand, there was a time growing up when I never even thought I’d have a degree, let alone be going back for a second, let alone in pursuit of the craft at which I always thought myself a fumbling amateur. So, you’ll excuse me if I just need to take a moment here and let my head be flown. All summer I’ve been submitting pieces, reading slushpiles, partying and hanging out with all the big-baller second-years. And now, on the cusp of my first day of classes comes that sudden stunning reminder: Oh. Right. I’m still just a punk first-year. I still know nothing, by comparison.

Or, as Our Lord and Savior Tommy-Lee Jones once put it: “Let me tell you something about your skills. As of right now, they mean precisely dick.”

This is not going to be easy. I’m neck-deep in internships, I’ve got a full load of classes, and I’m writing for the most killing-it Creative Writing blog this side of the Divide. I’ve got issues with Financial Aid, a job that can’t nail down my schedule, a nonfiction prof I’m afraid may well eat my face, and a bottle of Tanqueray that I’m going to have to call “Maria” because how you gonna spend all day kissing a woman whose name you don’t even know? 

All right? What I’m trying to say here is: I am absolutely screwed.

Now don’t trip. This is not me going on a pity-party here. I’ve done fifteen months deployed; I’ve dropped thirty-thousand feet straight down in the belly of a C-130, I survived the last two years working AND going to school, got my last two pieces murdered in workshop and then got them published anyway (But I ain’t mad atcha). So I might be scared out of my wits, understand, I might have no idea what I’m doing, but I got this. It might not be easy, and I might not get a lot of sleep, and sure somebody’s feelings might get hurt by the end of it but I got this. And so do you. And so do you.

Those of you lucky enough to be here at the INwCW, no matter your year or emphasis, be proud. Represent. You have earned the right to be here, and don’t let any hater, any jealous fellow student, any smug Columbia washup try to tell you otherwise. You get yours. You get that paper, booboo. And when you do and when you are up there at Monet’s VoiceOver, or at your big thesis-defense, you will be killing it and I will be killing it with you. We are all writers. We are all creatives.  And we are all screwed together. So let’s do this. Slow-mo, with arms akimbo, wielding fountain-pens like they was twin Mac-10s.

We will make like Chow-Yun Fat.

Photo Credit: Cold Front Magazine

I have minimal investment in the Bark/BlazeVOX conflict. I’ve had friends and teachers publish with Blaze, but have never actually submitted there myself. I’ve also never met Brett Ortler, and likely never will, despite both of us being fellow Barkers. Still, I’ve watched events unfold these last few days, and though I may not have the same history with Bark, the same experience as a seasoned MFA, I feel compelled to speak. My opinions are neither those of Bark, nor of Eastern Washington University. But I speak anyway.

The world of letters is viciously competitive. It is a world filled with talent and ambition, but also with frauds and hucksters, entities like James Frey who would take the naive or the desperate and exploit their hard work for profit. I do not sincerely believe BlazeVOX to be among this number, and indeed I was disheartened to think that they would shut down. I am glad now after all that has transpired to see that they may not. That said, it is still hard to look at their correspondences with Mr. Ortler and not feel that they have crossed an ethical line. At best their model is ill-conceived; at worst it is dishonest. If one wishes to charge authors to cover the costs of publishing, then fine. That is one’s prerogative. But if such is the case, one should not cloak one’s intentions in the latter paragraphs of an acceptance letter, or fail to keep one’s numbers completely consistent.

Now to be fair, I do feel that there are solutions here which don’t involve BlazeVOX sacrificing its revenue, or shutting down entirely. Sam Ligon and others have raised some excellent points about the changing nature of publishing, and discussion of fundraising methods such as crowdsourcing and joint-financing certainly have my ear. I like to envision the idea of collaborative publishing as similar to an artist’s collective, wherein dues are maintained to secure funding, support, even patronage for the work of all involved. Indeed, if publications like BlazeVOX were to adopt such a model I would absolutely support them. Alas, the numbers supplied by BlazeVOX don’t appear to support the assertion that they do. Also — and forgive me for speaking so candidly — I think that when Duotrope pulls one’s listing, one may have bigger problems than a few discontented authors. If one or two writers could bring down a publisher, the skies of New York would be raining editors.

As to the circumstances behind Duotrope’s decision, or whether they were even influenced by Mr. Ortler at all, I can’t say. I don’t have the facts, and I’m not going to speculate.

In truth, I would like to see BlazeVOX continue on with their work; after all, it’s hard enough to find receptive publishers in this world. But I do think their models need some serious reworking, and I find the response of some within the writing community to be shameful. I’ve read as aspiring professionals — writers whose words form the bases of their reputations — laced into this young man, who as far as I can tell wanted only to express his frustrations at trying to have his own voice be heard. I think we’ve all been there. It surprises me that the level of invective from other writers here has been so vicious, and were I Mr. Gatza I’m not sure I would want such supporters in my corner.

I personally have been on the receiving end of such harassment: in 2007 I was blogging about my experiences in Iraq, and when my dispatches became increasingly angry, depressed, and critical of the war, I was subject to threats for expressing my opinions. It may not have been my best writing, certainly, and I may have been less mature then in comparison to now, but no one had the right to try and silence me. The same is true of Mr. Ortler. The same is true of any writer.

We are all writers. We are all creatives. We should be working to support each other, not cannibalizing those who raise unpleasant questions. I’ve watched as the hateful responses of some have led fellow Barkers to question whether they should even be posting here. And when writers are intimidated into staying silent, especially by other writers, that is a bad thing. 

I support the right of BlazeVOX to continue publishing, and to seek funding by whatever methods it deems appropriate. But I also support the rights of authors to be dealt with fairly. If you plan to charge authors to publish, then come right out and say it. Don’t offer excuses or shoddy math, because you’ll only end up hurting yourself in the end. In turn, I support Brett Ortler in his statements, and indeed I thank him for his candor. He has started a discussion which I think we as a community all need to have. I support Mr. Ortler, and the concerns that he has raised, and the right of this blog’s readers and contributors to speak their minds in a forum where they feel safe to do so, no matter the topic.