2 things i’m wondering
1. I met with a student to give advice on his MFA sample writing portfolio. Since I read these portfolios for my university and wrote one for my MFA, I felt ‘qualified,’ but with Tao Lin quotation marks. Some of the student’s poems had images and word-play. Tropes. Alliteration, at least one spondee. The first page was strong. I told him, “Good. You showed on the first page that you have read poetry and care some about words. The first page is important. Thoughts are being made.” I said, “You have images immediately. A lot of people sending in won’t have any images. They won’t get in. A lot of people like to write poetry, not poems. I mean they write about pride or love…” (trailing off. not quite sure what I meant here)
Content: The poems were about hangovers, beer, marijuana. I said, “These are sort of derivative ‘beat’ poems. That’s OK, write what you want once you’re in graduate school, but I think you should play the game a little. Get in grad school first.” I told him many readers would groan when they read poems about hangovers, beer, marijuana. “People are going to think you read some Bukowski. They’ll think you’re a type.” The phone rang 4 times and I ignored it. I said, “Do you have poems about any others things?” He did. Put some of those poems in the sample, I advised. I said again, “This isn’t a criticism of your work. Any subject is fine. Write what you want. I’m just trying to help you get into grad school.”
To MFA or to not: Reflections on utility
Are you tired of hearing this tired debate? To MFA or to not MFA? I am, but I’m writing about it anyway. If you’re bored with it, don’t bother reading this post. It won’t hurt my feelings any.
I’ve been thinking more and more about how “useful” my MFA has been. I went to a decent grad school (Notre Dame) and got my MFA in 2006 in prose. I knew walking into the program that I would have a hard time getting a job, that by the time I got my degree, I would be underqualified for certain jobs (the ones I wanted, mainly, professor jobs) and overqualified for just about everything else. Even though I knew this, I was deluded enough to think I was different, special maybe.
What happens when you talk about money?
Right now you can pre-order the 10th issue of MAKE.
Pre-ordering is like clapping for a performer before they’ve appeared on stage. You’re clapping for what they’ve already done, hoping that the performance about to begin will be at least as good as that. Or maybe it’s more like buying a ticket, saving your place by saying, I want to be there when it finally happens. Of course you’re saying it, but with money.
Just now, typing this, I’m noticing that what usually happens when I talk about money is happening–I start to listen to myself from a place outside of myself, and the self who goes on talking starts to feel that what she’s saying is lame, and the self who listens gets suspicious of the self who goes on talking even though she feels that what she’s saying is lame. Does something like this split happen to you when you talk about money? If it does, I wonder whether it’s an American thing to feel this. Does this happen for people in China? Russia? The Congo? How do other people feel when they talk about money?
Most editors really want your shit to be as awesome as you think it is
Ever go back and look at the things you wrote and submitted years ago and thought were great then and felt miffed or mad when they were rejected, and then realize with that time passed between, Hey, holy shit, this sucked, thank god nobody published this, I can’t believe I didn’t realize… ? So, maybe it’s not always the case, and maybe some editors’ tastes are too safe, or behind the curve, but maybe more often you could think of a rejection as a second chance, and say thanks for the protection.
Talking With Vouched’s Christopher Newgent
In her post about Barnes & Noble, Roxane Gay wrote a great introduction to this interview with Christopher Newgent about his Vouched project. She was walking around the store, saddened by the selection and (more importantly) the detachment from literature that the store promulgates. She wrote:
I walked around some more and thought about the Vouched Books project where Christopher Newgent brings his table of indie books and magazines he can vouch for to various literary/arts events around Indianapolis. There’s a lot to be said for bookselling on such a small scale. I’ve seen Christopher at work at a reading in Indy and he was never without interested people hanging around his table. People seemed really excited to be able to talk to someone about potential books and magazines worth buying and reading. One young man I saw was totally excited to learn about writers he had never heard of. I saw him walk away with like three books. As booksellers struggle with how to stay alive, I think part of the conversation should center around how we can make people feel connected to books.
That’s kind of like the dream scenario. And Christopher’s idea continues to grow. He runs a reading series, has a gang now, and as he announced in their new bi-monthly column at Small Doggies, they’re starting to run reviews (I think I have one forthcoming about that book Chris Higgs wrote). I’ve been excited about Vouched since Christopher first contacted me to order PG books. Before the project gets too big and leaves us all behind, I thought I’d throw some questions at literature’s newest Sam Walton. READ MORE >
Let’s Keep It Real
I’m a little obsessed with this New York magazine article about James Frey. He has a fiction factory where he enters into partnerships with writers that may or may not pay off for both parties involved.The advance is $250 up front followed by another $250, it’s pretty ludicrous. You may or may not get credit for your work. You can’t audit so you’ll never know how much you really should be making on royalties. Here’s the contract which is both cynical and corrupt but if you’re a sentient adult who signs this contract you get what you get. Writer Maureen Johnson weighs in on the more troubling aspects of that contract. John Scalzi writes an open letter to MFA programs about educating writers on the actual business of writing that is one of the best conversations about this topic I’ve ever seen.** The folks at Pop Matters have an opinion. Then there’s this guy who basically says, “This is the reality of publishing.” I was going to write a big long post about this topic but then I changed my mind. Let’s get real. I think most of us, at some point or another in our careers, would have considered signing this contract and getting into bed with James Frey. Before I knew any better, I would have. As I read the article, a part of me thought, “I’d work for Frey. Where do I sign up?” I have student loans, man. My student loans have loans. I would let Frey be my rainmaker. I have too much of an ego to not get credit for my work so I dismissed those thoughts pretty quickly, but they were there and frankly, I think a lot of writers were/are thinking the very same thing. That is a sad commentary on how indebted and poorly compensated most of us are. I am equally certain that even with all this negative press, Frey will never stop having a supply of writers. His business model will continue to succeed for the same reason people continue to pay $20 per submission to Narrative and enter writing contests and otherwise pay to be published. The desire to be published, for some, is so desperate and so intense they will do whatever it takes. Frey knows this. He knows this and is comfortable with exploiting that desperation by creating a Ponzi scheme or a lottery, where he dangles the hope of commercial success in the faces of the relatively hopeless. One of the reasons we’re all so up in arms about this whole thing is because of what we’re willing to do. We’re not comfortable with that.
**As an aside, it would also be useful to talk about how many small presses/magazines are publishing without contracts, or with crappy contracts, a scenario where, in the long run, everyone is vulnerable.