January 27th, 2010 / 1:59 pm
Web Hype
Bio envy
Self Portrait, William Gaddis
If you’re going to write a book, who asked you to? It is, in fact, quite an act of ego to sit down in a room, while others are getting on trains and subways, and put one’s vision on paper, and then ask others to pay to read it. Not only to pay but say, “Isn’t he brilliant.”
– William Gaddis (1980)
Seems hypocritical since, um, he wrote a bunch of books, and thick as hell I might add. It is interesting that he evokes transportation to work (trains, subways, etc.), as he struggled at a full-time job (he was a clerk at a law firm) during his early career. A little resentment goes a long way, as if Gaddis is solemnly nodding to his past approvingly, almost preferring his indignation.
In author bios, you never read “[So and so] works at [company name] as a [profession],” apprehensive about the “reality” of one’s day job, as (unless you’re successful or broke) most of us have. Good for the adjunct, lecturer, or professor who teaches writing, seriously, I mean that. But the unspoken thing is most of us have unrelated day jobs, which is never mentioned, ignored like Down syndrome.
I often struggle with my author bio, feeling that I need to “impress” journals with publication credits or honors, uncertain if they’ll think I’m so charming once I say what I really am, which is an administrative assistant (ppl. who have “failed” in life). Writers are pressured into offering themselves as more interesting or accomplished than they are, resulting in cloying tales of the minutiae of one’s life: has lived in n number of continents; nominated n times for a pushcart (or “lesser” award); “splits” time between New York and [other metropolitan city, preferably in Europe]; is also a [insert other artistic vocation]. There’s a mix of glibness and desperation in these long drawn-out bios, as if the writing weren’t enough. Save the narrative for your characters, not your bio.
This is less about hubris than compliance. Writers — implicit in this industry — need to be interesting, the same interesting that earns you a fuck at a bar. Life, apparently, is a dating show. I enjoy reading the contributor notes in the back of anthologies, just to see how far people will go. Thank you for letting me know your dog’s name, or that you are a member of the Anarchist Party. I painfully repeat the same 3 points in my bios: my job, my geographical location, my wife — that’s all I have. I actually grimace when I write “lives in San Francisco,” just seems so cliche and inadvertently interesting. (SF is not interesting, just a smaller New York in slow motion and more pot.) How embarrassing; not my life, my bio.
With you on the bio thing. I usually leave off my day job because I doubt my employer would want to be associated with the stuff I publish. I’m a copywriter, for the record.
I have to disagree about the hypocrisy of Gaddis’s statement, though. I don’t have any context for the quote, but it’s only hypocritical if you think “an act of ego” is a bad thing. He doesn’t seem to qualify it.
I think it’s an act of ego, too, even though I don’t make a living off it. I’m fine with both.
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January 27th, 2010 / 2:34 pmAmber—
Same for me. I work in politics, so I’m just waiting with baited breath for the day a co-worker or boss discovers my “other life” and freaks out. I go to extraordinary lengths to separate the two lives.
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Ken Baumann is.
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David Peak is a glorified indentured servant with student loans who gets to work in the morning by taking the L train and transferring to the Uptown-bound 6 train. He lives in a city that couldn’t possibly care less about his well-being. Last night he fell asleep while drinking Pepsi Throwback and listening to the commentary track of Mike Leigh’s 1993 film ‘Naked.’ He woke up with a cat sleeping on his chest. He aspires to eating an egg salad sandwich and successfully not smoking for one more day.
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January 27th, 2010 / 2:45 pmTim Horvath—
I used to look almost identical to the main character in that film. When it came out and I saw it in the theater I was tempted to impersonate the actor and sign some autographs. Couldn’t quite muster up the chutzpah.
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i share gaddis’s sentiment a lot. im always aware of how selfish writing feels. it can be ethically painful and i go months often without writing new things because it just feels dirty or that i really should be doing something more substantial with my time. writing is pure take in a give/take ratio and unless i’m fulfilling give in some other realm i won’t write.
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January 27th, 2010 / 4:06 pmLee—
Oh Darby, but when you give, you give it real good: http://eyeshot.net/mel.html
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January 27th, 2010 / 5:12 pmdarby—
aw shucks
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i love that drawing.
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January 27th, 2010 / 3:49 pmMoGa—
ditto. i love the drink in hand.
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Wallace Stevens is my hero because he loved working at an insurance company, even at the height of his fame, and living this very ordinary and very unsexy life alongside his glorious poems. His co-workers were all slightly puzzled by the fact that he wrote poems in his spare time, and no doubt his fellow poets were all slightly puzzled by the fact that he worked in insurance.
I want to be just like him. Well, except not in insurance. But you get my drift.
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worse i think are author pics, especially online. like at narrative, the pic is so big and next to the text its like they are staring you down as you’re reading it.
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January 27th, 2010 / 3:49 pmMoGa—
this made me laugh
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January 27th, 2010 / 4:14 pmlarry—
Yes indeed! The only person who deserves to have their photo in the back of a book is the late Shel Silverstein. Otherwise, I don’t care to see what you look like.
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January 28th, 2010 / 8:04 amDavid E—
yes! i remember shel’s head/face almost as much as his poems
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January 27th, 2010 / 6:50 pmRoxane—
I really hate author photos. I hate being asked for them. I hate looking at them. I don’t care what anyone looks like.
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The ideal insurance company…Stevens, Ives, and Kafka. Probably in that order of seniority–descending.
In fact, Carter Scholz’s The Amount to Carry appears to takes its title from Charles Ives’ insurance treatise.
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January 27th, 2010 / 2:52 pmAmber—
I did not know that last fact. And that is awesome.
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fence’s reading lists instead of bios have always seemed to me the best idea
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Per wikipedia: Gaddis worked in public relations for Pfizer, Eastman Kodak, IBM, and the United States Army, among others.
Writing is selfish if you’re just stroking yourself then forcing readers to admire your sputnum (ie, prose).
Good writing gives something to readers, plays with them, works on them, enhances perception, makes life worth living — it’s generous.
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January 27th, 2010 / 3:28 pmchristian—
I agree, Lee. But I think there’s a distinction to be made between selfishness and “quite an act of ego.” I think great writers are generous, but it’s definitely arrogant to suggest to a stranger that you are generously enhancing his/her perception and making life worth living.
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January 27th, 2010 / 3:41 pmLee—
Yeah, but I think it’s OK to say to a stranger, hey I worked really freakin hard on this for a long-ass time, foregoing all sorts of worldly pleasures, and I hope you connect with it in some way that recalibrates your brain and heart and transforms you into a rainbow-bright one-horned horse with hooves of flame. Or something like that.
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January 27th, 2010 / 3:42 pmchristian—
Word.
January 27th, 2010 / 3:44 pmJimmy Chen—
“one-horned horse” unicorn porn!
I’m thinking about going to law school (seriously, I am), as a means of augmenting my ability to pursue writerly interests that my current knowledge and experience preclude. I’m also interested in the language, aesthetics, history, and theory of the law. I admire writers like Chris Adrian or Scott Turow or Danielle Ofri who have hybridized careers as writers and something-usefuls. I’d love to be able to walk into a courtroom and advocate on behalf of a Haitian immigrant fighting deportation, and I’d love to be able to write a piece for Slate or the New York Times Magazine about the uses and abuses of the immigration system, but from a place of knowledge and experience. I’d like to write fiction that draws from an intimate knowledge of the workings of power, and not just from the point of view of the little guy, but also from the point of view of the powerful. I’d like to better understand the cultural and institutional machinery that shapes us before we are born and forms the context for our coming into being. I’d like to do it all skillfully and beautifully and viscerally, without relying on the tropes we ordinarily associate with this kind of book. I’d like to exploit the language particular to the law and turn it, as E.M. Forster advocated, in the direction of beauty.
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January 27th, 2010 / 4:04 pmAmber—
Yes yes yes! This is EXACTLY why I do what I do (political advocacy on behalf of workers.) If I could like this a hundred times I would. Do it, Kyle. Go to law school. I took some law classes in grad school and I learned amazing things about use of language in, for example, my Constitutional law class.
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January 28th, 2010 / 8:18 amDavid E—
great, kyle, hope things work out
you are much purer of spirit than me. i went to law school b/c my dad and grandparents did and i hated journalism and i knew i’d never make $ as a fiction writer.
i don’t doubt you’ll parlay your experiences at law school into even stronger writing and actually helping people
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January 28th, 2010 / 8:23 amDavid E—
ha, one lawyer supports you and a number of writers below say no. consider my endorsement with some AlsoSalt
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January 28th, 2010 / 9:30 amjames yeh—
that’s pretty inspiring, kyle. and i kind of hate lawyers. but the way you put it makes a lot of sense. i think that kind of knowledge, experience and take on things would parlay into some pretty brilliant and surprising fiction.
every few months or so my parents still ask me whether i’ve thought of law school. it’s something they’ve done ever since i switched my major from engineering to english, and then after i graduated, and then after i moved to SF, and then after i got into grad school, and then after i graduated grad school… it used to make me angry but now it makes laugh, mostly.
don’t listen the people below. do what you want. you should be a lawyer because there probably aren’t enough good ones out there, like there aren’t enough good ones anywhere, of anything, writers included. i think you’d make a great lawyer. i’d hire you in a second.
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January 28th, 2010 / 10:03 amDavid E—
if you want to feel even better about not going to law school, james, read http://www.abovethelaw.com – such bitterness from anon law students and lawyers
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Well, who cares that you are married? Why is that pertinent to your bio? Is this because you want all the lovely ladies reading your bio to know that you are taken? You bemoan the fact that it’s all just a dating show, yet you go ahead and give your relatioship status. That seems about as vestigal to your work as what kind of toilet paper you use.
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January 27th, 2010 / 4:32 pmJimmy Chen—
i mention my wife because there’s not much to say about me: just my job, my residence, and my wife. i said i “painfully” repeat it in bios. i thought i made that clear.
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January 27th, 2010 / 4:53 pmchristian—
I’ve included my wife in my bio a bunch of times. She’s a dance/theater artist and a big influence on me. Even if she wasn’t, the relationship affects my writing more than my MFA program ever did.
Also, from a more cynical, marketing standpoint — I’ve been accused of being misanthropic and bleak and whatnot by reviewers a lot. Sometimes I think it creates an amusing dissonance to portray myself as a family man when I do what I do.
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January 27th, 2010 / 5:11 pmLee—
Alternately, it comes off as sort of sketchy if you’re single and cite your intimate data (eg, penile and/or bust measurements) and list your position preferences (eg, bird of paradise, sun salutation, downward-facing dog, light-hitting utility infielder).
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January 28th, 2010 / 8:20 amDavid E—
‘light-hitting utility infielder’ – nice
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How is Pepsi throwback?
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January 27th, 2010 / 5:49 pmdavidpeak—
oh dude so good, so good for you
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Kyle, don’t go to fucking law school. Jesus.
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January 27th, 2010 / 5:23 pmjereme—
second this.
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January 28th, 2010 / 8:21 amDavid E—
you all are on record saying you don’t want Kyle helping Haitians? Is this the Paul Shirley hour?
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January 28th, 2010 / 2:12 pmjereme—
spoken like a lawyer. hahaha.
counselor did i say i didn’t want kyle to help haitians? nope.
i said don’t be a lawyer.
he can go help all the haitians he wants regardless of the degree.
January 28th, 2010 / 2:50 pmDavid E—
under depo a good lawyer (not me) could get you to look like you meant he shouldn’t help haitians. there’s a reason they bill close to $1000/hr
it’s the ancient art of subterfuge, taught on a key day in law school (many miss this day, like the demi moore character from a few good men)
incidentally, of the 20-30 lawyers i stay in touch with (from firms, law school, etc) probably only 3-4 say yes when asked by younger relatives if law school is a good idea
January 28th, 2010 / 2:56 pmDavid E—
actually i was sick that day too…so i’m not sure a good lawyer could do that to you, jereme, but he or she would likely make you pull out strands of your beard
January 28th, 2010 / 3:03 pmjereme—
yeah i know lots of lawyers. they are all unhappy.
even the ones with the $$$.
my favorite one is dead now. i miss him.
Law school: NO.
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what it be pretentious and annoying to write a bio about what you are not?
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January 27th, 2010 / 6:16 pmdan—
wow, i don’t know how to spell “wood”
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January 27th, 2010 / 6:18 pmMather Schneider—
this made me laugh, thank you.
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If I ever get published again, I’m going to give a bio that lists my favorite writers and says nothing about where I’ve been published or where I live or any of that.
Also, if I ever get in Annalemma, I’m going to talk to Chris about allowing me to use a photo of Ryan Bradley or Amber. No one is getting a shot of my face that spread out. At least Annalemma
avoids the “Narrative” problem that Darby mentions, because in Annalemma you have to click on the photo link at the bottom of the story. So there’s that.
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If bios create anxiety–along with the whole enterprise of selling one’s authorhood (“A writer’s name is a brand,” etc.)–then it seems there’s a journal that’s trying to bypass all that:
http://www.buckbeeawriter.com/newanonymous/index.html
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