Q & A 3
If you have questions about writing or publishing or whatever, leave them in the comments or e-mail them to roxane at roxanegay dot com and we will find you some answers.
Q1: How do you get a poetry manuscript published?
Sam Pink
write a poetry manuscript that you like and show it to people.
Sean Lovelace
That’s a tough one. I would say contests and then send it out to presses who you admire, or who have a sensibility somewhat like your own work. Also, publish the individual poems, build a presence, voice, and you might just get a publisher contacting you, saying, “Do you have a collection?” Like all writng, if it is a strong collection and you believe in it, it will eventually find its place.
Alexis Orgera
So far editors have asked for the chapbooks I’ve published. I’m told you just have to send out relentlessly, particularly to places where the editors’ aesthetic is similar to your own. For instance, I wouldn’t send a manuscript with lots of shit-fuck-goddamns…well, that’s not true. I send everything everywhere.
The five stages of publishing
Hey, writers! Where are you in the publishing process?
Denial: I think maybe I’ll write a novel. I have a really great idea for one. My friends think I’m a pretty good writer. I once got a rejection from The New Yorker that referred to the “obvious merit” of my fiction. Sure. I’ll write a novel and then send it to an agent!
Anger: No one is publishing me because they don’t understand how amazing my work is. They just don’t get it. Philistines. Agents won’t even look at my manuscript. The whole system is corrupt. You have to be one of those New York elites to get a book published. You have to be from money. You have to know people. You have to get an MFA. Publishing is a racket.
Bargaining: What the heck. I’ll go ahead and get an MFA. It might be fun to hang out with a bunch of writers like myself—people just trying to figure out how to get their work out for the world to see. It’ll be fun. I’ll learn some stuff about my craft. Maybe I’ll get into a huge argument in a workshop!
Depression: Even though I have an MFA, Knopf has not yet given me the big, Jonathan Safran Foer-esque, two-book deal. This sucks. Why have I been wasting my time? Publishers are only interested in turning people’s mildly funny conceptual blogs into books. Why the hell didn’t I just take a photo of my cat wearing a monocle, and then ask other people to submit photos of their cats wearing monocles to me? I’d have a book contract right now.
Acceptance: You know, it’s actually surprisingly easy for me to just do this myself. Maybe I’ll just start my own small press.
Fuck You
glow interview with Ed Sanders over at Poetry Daily. If you have seen it, Fuck You. If not, Fuck You.
It’s pretty good to write here, because people leave us alone.
William Burroughs’s Stuff
Peter Ross took some photos of possessions found in Burroughs’s windowless New York City apartment, preserved since his death in 1997. Here is an interview where he explains the project.
This is such a blog post
I forgot that when I get really tired and I’m at work it’s good to write a long blog post that doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t really say anything. READ MORE >
Captain Beefheart on Writing
For years I didn’t get the music. I’d slam my fists in anger over those who’d say how Beefheart knew. Funny how often those things you come to like among the most are ones that make you angry to begin with. Accumulation of a grime.
“There is only the slightest movement of the fingers that makes the v-sign different from the Nazi salute. Always watch that.”
“They’re about to poke their genitals into our cream cheese moon right now. That’s my eye; the moon is part of me. Why don’t they poke it in the sun? They’re not very daring.”
“I don’t think there’s any way you can *know* music. The minute you *know* it, you stop playing, and the minute a person stops playing, the music isn’t playing anymore.”
“For instance, the English language is the only language that has an *i* before *e* except after *c*. What’s before an *i*? Before my eyes is a sea. But the *c* I see is a sea. I’m not that word-oriented. I’m trying to use words like music so that they don’t take your mind anywhere that I want them to.”
“It’s hard to use the English language. I’d rather play a tune on a horn, but I’ve always felt that I didn’t want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you’ve got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it’s better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.”
“There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers.”
“I was able to turn myself inside out, and that’s all I’m trying to do.”
BONUS: 2x Beefheart on Letterman (worth watching in full)
Every Book and Magazine with Typos/Errors?
I am reading Face by Alexie and on page 35 there is a sentence that needs indenting. This a game, finding these tiny errors, locating them in magazines, canonical works, some huge publisher.
One part of me—the part editing The Broken Plate and about to teach about copy-editing—is paranoid. Many magazines feel less (or no) errors are related to the quality of the publication.
Some feel like a typo in a book is a human gesture, a beautiful mole, unsymmetrical ears, the smudge in the painting, the flaw that makes the thing.
How much is on the editor, the writer?
How closely do you look at your galleys (if you get them)?
Do you have a technique to catch errors? The writer, too near, as the worst diagnostic?
War story? One time a magazine had my word “years” changed to “ears.” That smarted a bit. Years, ears…
You?
(image by Mr. Eggers)
Mexican Getaway with Julia Cohen & Mathias Svalina
All poetry power-couples should be required to have dueling(/dualing) blogs. As JC has mentioned on her blog before, her parents are retired to sunny Mexico, and so she and MS went down from Denver to spend the holidays in the not-snow. His slideshow is here. Hers are here, here, and here. Also, his new (debut full-length!) collection, Destruction Myth, and her chapbook, For the H in Ghost.
Here are photos they took of each other.
Oh, and here’s Mexico-
Good deal.
2010 is the Year Of …
2007 was the Year of the Fact. 2007 was the Year of the Bus.
2008 was the Year of the Body. 2008 was the Year of the Future.
2009 was the Year of Lagom.
This is my alternative to resolutions. Sometime in January, usually within the first few days, I settle on a key word or two for the coming year. It is perhaps a bit like a resolution, as I hope that the words guide the year somewhat, but this guidance is pretty undefined, and the year may work in reaction to the word. The Year of the Bus was probably closest to a resolution–I planned to ride the bus more, and I did.
Lagom is a word I learned at a Unitarian church that I thought about joining (I took a lover instead). It is translated from the Swedish as “enough” or “in moderation,” but lagom isn’t just enough; it’s enough plus some. Enough is only enough to survive on; lagom is enough to live on and be well. Everything in moderation, including moderation.
Year of is also less personal, less private. It doesn’t belong to me, though other people may disagree about what it’s the year of, certainly. I am not going to specify how I came up with this Year Of; you can fill in your own blanks, if you decide that you agree. And without further ado:
2010 is the Year of the Program.
2010 is the Year of the Filter.
Doomed Goals/Projects/Resolutions?
With the 2010 a few hours away, I’ve decided to post some of my doomed goals/projects/resolutions for the coming year. These are things that I’ll probably try to achieve for a few weeks in January, then I’ll forget about them as the more important aspects of my life churn through the waning giddiness of the New Year. Feel free to share your own for 2010. I’m really interested to hear about what goals HTMLGIANT readers set for themselves aside from the standard ‘I will finish a manuscript this year’ sorts of goals and whether or not you’re able to follow through. Sometimes I follow through, most of the time I don’t. Enjoy.