- By Ting Chen (Rotkehlchen) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By now, you’ve heard: Jonathan Franzen, alleged* writer of the Great American Novel, wrote an essay about birds for the New Yorker that was so poorly sourced it drew the ire of the Audubon Society. Their response will really give you some new respect for those bird advocates (the phrase “sad ravings” is used). But hey wait a minute! Why are we even wasting time on this? Here are some reading alternatives to J-Franz’s Feelz About Birdz that should actually be on everyone’s radar.
And J-Franz is actually sort of a caveat, because he gets a grim shout-out in Saeed Jones’ great critique of the literary world, “Self-Portrait of the Artist as Ungrateful Black Writer.” Jones made headlines this week when he announced Buzzfeed’s Emerging Writers Fellowship, and he’s just generally killing it, constantly. He’s one of those rare internet writers with a foot in the literary world, which is to everyone’s benefit. This essay, which very bravely discusses the quiet—and not so quiet—racism of the literary world, should be required reading for anyone who cares about diversity in publishing. Emphasis mine, because, seriously:
The same evening as that party in Miami, a poet who is also black and gay told me that he’d been so nervous about our books coming out within a month of each other. I couldn’t pretend not to understand his anxiety. When literary gatekeepers and publishers continue to overlook the vast diversity of writers, the special few who make it into elite spaces are constantly compared to one another in both flattering and troubling ways. It’s an anxiety that straight white men will never know. Could you imagine telling Jonathan Franzen that he can’t release his novel because Michael Chabon has one coming out next month? When, in 2015, a new literary magazine manages to emerge with a masthead including almost 40 contributing editors with only two women and no people of color among them, the oxygen starts to get a bit thin. Combing through mastheads and tables of contents for the names of writers who are not straight white men can make you feel crazy. And it is crazy that doing so is still necessary.
*alleged ’cause I’ll believe it when I see it
Jones continues:
This is the culture our work (and our bodies) exist in as writers of color. This is a culture in which I can tell you about an anecdote that happened twice, months apart and with different people at different literary events. “They think I’m you,” a younger black poet said to me once at a literary conference. Seeing the confusion on my face, he added, “A woman walked up to me and asked about your book and I realized she thought I was you. She said she loves your work. I said, ‘Thank you.’” A version of this happened once at a writers conference in Boston and then again at a reading in the East Village.
You can make yourself crazy simply by paying attention. The publishing industry on which my work depends is 89% white. And so, when one of those white people puts their hands in my hair, it’s difficult for me to speak up in the moment, or even months later, because I want to have a career, not just one book. I suspect there are limits to the literary elite’s willingness to tolerate an insistently “angry black writer” in their presence. Writers who speak out too loudly, too often will never be told explicitly “you’ve bitten the hand that feeds you” but there are so many ways to starve.
I suggest you go read the whole thing.
Poet and publisher Gina Myers also wrote a great piece that touches on problems of diversity in publishing, over at the Poetry Foundation. It might seem a little inside dorkball, since it’s about not going to the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference. That conference—which happens next weekend in Minneapolis, and yes, I will be there—is a shitshow for many reasons. I’ve previously described it as a juggernaut of vaguely uncomfortable experiences, including rampant mansplaining of the literary variety; the sad, sad sight of under-the-radar authors brushing off the only people who truly idolize them; and just a general, pervasive sense of quiet desperation.
That said, AWP also houses the biggest, most comprehensive bookfair ever, and the booksellers often give out free candy, so, you know, YMMV.
Here, Myers explains why she’s opting out:
Instead of going to AWP, I’m going to read several books and probably take a few naps and I will definitely drink some beers and probably eat some nachos.
I will walk around my neighborhood.
I will think about Ted Berrigan saying, “Survival is the hardest test for a poet.”
Will writing against AWP get me kicked out of poetry? Will I never get an NEA grant or a residency at Vermont Studio Center? Will I remain un-anthologized?
For some people, I imagine AWP is a good place for conversations to take place. I like that poetry happens everywhere and that conversations can take place everywhere.
I wonder if Barrelhouse will ever sell a t-shirt that says, “I was forcibly groped at AWP.” I would buy that.
What I love about Myers and Jones’ pieces is that they acknowledge some hard truths about publishing. The stakes are obviously different for each piece—they seem much higher for Jones—but each, in its own ways, says something about the industry that no one else will, while making it clear that speaking up carries its own potential peril for those still on the cusp of breaking out.
Jonathan Franzen does many things. But this kind of honesty just isn’t one of them.