Publishing books is a long-term commitment

After years of serving as editor-in-chief of a major literary journal, and quite successfully, I had an idea: Why not start a press?

Everything was in place to make the idea work. I had a partner who was motivated and smart; we had a capable staff; we had contacts; we had the necessary skills and technology and know-how in all areas of production.

While I could stand in the middle of the magazine office and look around and see everything needed to make a book, what I couldn’t envision clearly enough was an effective way to get books into the hands of readers. This gave me pause—and considerations like these are the reason I never went into book publishing.

Committing to publish books is so very different from committing to publish a magazine. My first-ever publication was with a now-defunct journal called Farmers Market. I loved that magazine, and I treasure my copy of it. Recently I talked with an old friend of mine, and she said that this journal printed her first poem, too. This is a friend I really resonate with, and our Farmers Market connection felt pretty profound.

When a terrific little journal goes away, people like my friend and I can look back on it with fondness. We remember that magazine, and the good work inside, and the care they took with our work, and we feel nothing but warmth. The world was a nicer place with this journal in it.

But when a press goes away, things are much trickier. Journals are supposed to be temporary—the word comes from the Latin diurnus, meaning “of the day” (think “diurnal”) via the French adjective journal, “daily” (as in the soup “du jour”). It’s OK if something so temporary goes out of regular production and out of print. 

When a press goes under, its books can disappear, too. Books, though, are meant to be permanent. When we love a writer, we want to read everything that writer has ever produced, and it’s very frustrating when we can’t get our hands or our eyes on any single part of that collection. A book is an enduring record of a period in a literary artist’s creative life.

Mind you, there is never any reason in an age of digital publishing and print on demand for a book to become unavailable. A responsible publisher takes care to ensure that a press’s catalog goes on after the press or anyone on its staff is gone. One lovely option happens when another press takes over the catalog of one that is going out of business. Since a defunct press has no potential for profit, there are many examples of presses taking over a publisher’s list at no cost. Small press publishers tend to be in their field for love of literature, and making sure the books endure are the foremost concern of the average publisher who is discontinuing that holy work.

I ultimately chose not to become a publisher, but not because I didn’t believe I had it in me to promote new books, distribute them broadly, and fulfill orders efficiently. My sticking point was that after a thorough gut-check, I couldn’t honestly say that I was interested in entering into publishing for the long haul. And one must.

The fact is that it’s somewhat easier to publish a magazine than it is to publish books. To do it justice, every book contract includes a tacit (or possibly an overt) expectation that press releases will go out and media interviews will be sought; advance review copies will go to the major reviewers and to select minor reviewers with plenty of lead time; the release day will include a social media splash. An excellent distributor will be brought in to get books in stores; in addition, local bookstores will be contacted and readings or release parties will be set up. 

Magazines are released to subscribers and via distribution to bookstores. Often there is a system in place to get into local bookstores by consignment or to notify media via press releases of each new issue. My magazine always found most of its readers at the annual AWP Conference, where it was eagerly snatched up—and bullishly offered to those who tried to pass it by. But that’s it. That’s a journal’s commitment to its authors. An issue’s release should include a pause for celebration—unlike a book’s release, which is a huge occasion.

Because I wasn’t willing to devote my life to a press, I didn’t. And this was the right decision. Sure, there are ways that a responsible publisher can allow for a smooth transition if things happen to fall apart. But without that drive to promote and sustain each book, I had no business entering the field. And that’s why I’ve never regretted my decision to stick to magazines.

A Writers' Spirit: Risk and return with language

Language has value. It has been the source of most things of value in my life, and I lean hard on it to help me make meaning and memories and to give something of value to the world.

Language is a vehicle that conveys meaning from a source to an audience. It’s part of a circulatory system; we send it out and we anticipate a response. Most of the pain I’ve known in my life has come from a breakdown of that circulatory system—that river. My “I love you” has been unreturned; my “Goodbye” served as a terminus for the flow; my inability to say “Goodbye” left me parched and wanting.

I have several defined roles in the world, outside of home and family, and these all have language as their core. I teach composition to college students. I do freelance writing and editing for all kinds of people, literary and otherwise. I blog, obviously. And I score standardized writing tests. 

I love language; it’s the most stalwart, constant thing in my life. And I get along with it. Most of the time, it pretty much does what I ask it to, and in return, I frequently set aside time to do what it tells me to do. Sometimes I just have to trust it, but when I do—when I’m wise—it comes bearing gifts. I can read what I’ve written and find surprises inside—beauty in its structures, meaning beneath its surface.

But I don’t think you have to love language for it to operate in this holy way—part mirror, part gazing globe, part oracle.

The fact is, we all lean on the sacred staff of language sometimes. We take a knee, a ring pinched between our fingers; we stand up to be counted or to testify. We sing or we pray or we ask for a raise. We breathe simple syllables toward a baby. We whisper goodbye into the whorls of an ear. 

Sometimes words are just what we need. We’ve all seen the struggle of a couple’s friend to offer the perfect wedding toast, or of a son or daughter who has one shot to sum up the life of a loved one in a eulogy. There are songs common to these occasions, and some are chosen for their words—their perfect words, it seems to the chooser. I know few people of a Christian faith who don’t respond on a cellular level to the lyrics of “Amazing Grace,” and that’s true for me, too, even though I have some deep theological issues with the song. (“Wretch?” Nah. Not me.)

I think of language as a means of exchange, almost exactly like money, an enduring poetic topic for me. Money holds steady unless we pass it along through investment or, to a lesser extent, through banking, which offers interest payments. We see ourselves as depleting money through spending it, but really, we get products or services we desire, and that’s just the money in a different form. The most useless thing we can do with money is keep it in our pocket, where it doesn’t work for us and it doesn’t grow.

Language is like that. We have to risk it for return—and writers take this risk all the time. But you don’t have to be a writer to understand risk and return. Put yourself in high school; just try to procure that prom date without language. You could avoid the risk, but that means staying home in your sweat pants on the big night. A proposal (or a response to it) is a function of language. So is an interview. These are the risks most of us come to know.

I always remind myself that being a writer—having an intimate relationship with language—gives me power that some just don’t have. I’m fortunate in that way, but I remind myself that all power is to be used with generosity and love. I’m not one to mock a misspelling on a menu, for instance, because I’m a terrible cook, and I take pleasure and relief from the fact that someone else has a handle on it. I know many writers who glory in others’ errors. I am not above a good laugh at a goof—spelling “tap” with two Ps, say—when the error goes hand in hand with a larger ugliness or evil. I don’t think this tendency speaks well of me, though. An intentionally or carelessly false accusation is an evil act; mockery of the spelling of the accusation is a wrong.

When I teach students, I have no trouble approaching language with love. Their best attempts aren’t always successful, but there is always success in them somewhere. It’s an honor to help them get insight into their words and find a better way to arrange them.

When I edit, I channel the writer and try to help the work to reflect the writer even better. Grammar and mechanics take a back seat to voice sometimes in a creative work, and when I correct these errors, I find a new way to say the words with the same personality shining through.

When I score standardized tests, I focus on rewarding the good instead of penalizing the bad. These, in fact, are the instructions under which I operate—one of the only kindnesses in the whole endeavor.

In the past week, I’ve witnessed a situation that has hurt a lot of people who love words as much as I do. The closure of a press has left several books abandoned before ever being published, and others orphaned with the prospect of being out of print at the end of the year. Everyone who was involved with the press on either side—writer or editor—is feeling real pain.

I wonder what words, if any, can help the wordsmiths? I think they need to be gentle, humble ones. Risk doesn’t always pay off, but there is much grace in the effort.

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern Would Like to Brace You for Impending Disappointment

Note: Do you rely on a digital reader? Complete readable text may be found in the first comment following this post.

Hello,

Listen, you’re going to get some distressing news about your three-year-old submission to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern in roughly a day or two. We at McSweeney’s would like for you to prepare yourself for the worst—not death-type worst, but the worst thing that can happen to a writer’s submission, barring, say, outright theft and loss of movie rights for a story that becomes the next Avatar or Gone With the Wind or Disney blockbuster animated feature.

The news is not good. If you take statins to lower your cholesterol, we advise you to double up. The next time you check your e-mail, please make sure you are seated away from blunt or sharp edges.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

***

Hello,

Are you OK? This is a test. Had this been your actual bad-news correspondence from McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, it would have included some rather rough news about your submission. That’s coming, and we’d like for you to be prepared.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

***

Hello,

How about if you go fetch a cup of tea, maybe prop your feet up, then go on ahead and open your e-mail again in four to seven minutes.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

***

***

***

***

Hello,

Oops. Just realized that nowhere in our multipart rejection series did we actually alert you to the sad truth that your work was, in fact, being rejected. To be clear, when we said, "We are clearing the deck," what we meant to say was, "Nope."

Sincerely, 

The Editors
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern

***

Hello,

We at McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern are, as our name implies, concerned. We would like you to know that we value you as a human, and that the world is a slightly better place because you are in it, sending submissions into the ether and waiting, with ever-diminishing hopefulness, for a response. We’re feeling kind of bad about that rejection we sent, or rather, that small series of rejections. Are you OK?

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

***

Hello,

It has come to our attention that some consider a wholesale rejection of every submission (with a request to resubmit the same material) to be a poor procedure for dealing with a publication’s submissions backlog. We’re not sure why this didn’t occur to us, but we’ve been informed that we might instead have sent a respectful, ordinary rejection in just one iteration, instead of several. In fact, some experienced editors from other publications have suggested that we could have read, even skimmed, the submissions as an act of good faith, or that any number of grad students would have loved to serve as interns, even temporarily. Heck, a team of interns could have attacked our submissions and knocked them out in a week in exchange for pizza and beer or tasteful literary tattoos.

What we’re hearing is that there may have been a better way. It’s a notion we thought we’d toss your way, see what you think.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

*** 

Hello,

Something else has come to our attention, and it is the fact that most people who submitted to us over the past three years probably have new work, better work, that they could send our way. Maybe requesting the resubmission of work that hasn’t found another home in the past 1,095 days is not the optimal way for us to get our hands on the best new writing. We’re confused on this point, and we wondered what you thought. Fact is, we’re starting to feel a certain comity, or maybe even a friendly acquaintanceship, with you. We were so close to your writing—the very best you had to offer of yourself, woven of hope and invention—and we think it grew on us in a very subtle way, despite the fact that we didn’t actually look at it. Please write back. We miss you.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

***

Hello,

Uh-oh. Some people have noticed the excuses we slipped into our series of rejection letters. We tried to blame our long response time, and our ultimate lack of consideration, on our small staff. We’ve been made aware that a lot of journals have even smaller staffs and less money than we do. We could even list some of those journals, but, you know—the list is really long. Just take our word for it. Some of the best magazines out there have similarly sized staffs.

We’re starting to think we were just careless with writers’ work—again, the very best part of them, submitted with a great deal of trust and good faith. We’re starting to think this isn’t funny.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re starting to feel kind of sorry.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

***

Hello,

We’ve been informed that our brand is known for its archness and its love of parody, and some have even suggested that our unconventional (or, to quote our detractors, our “irresponsible,” or “impersonal,” or “cold,” or “ridiculous”) multiple-form rejection might open us up to the same kind of treatment we love to dole out. Funny thing about satire. It only works when the satirist herself is beyond any real reproach. At any rate, we can dish it up, so we’re sure we can take it.

Still, if you’d put in a good word for us with random bloggers, we’d be grateful. Just tell them they ought to go back to talking about the great pen-versus-keyboard controversy, or the role of meditation in writing, or, really, anything about their cat, loosely linked to the topic of writing. People love that shit.

Tell them we’ll do better. You can tell from our series of notes we mean it; we just exercised some poor judgment, and someone told us that everyone deserves a little slack from time to time. This looks bad, though. We know this looks very bad.

Sincerely,

The Editors

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

Public readings: They're not about the reader

Why give readings?

Poets and other writers give readings mainly because they’re trying to sell books. Audience members attend readings to be moved and entertained—and if all goes well, they might buy a book.

But readings are a vehicle for community. We come together to have a common experience with words. The reader provides this experience, but a reader with books to hawk is not entirely the reason for the experience. Witness those regular reading series, where all of the same audience members show up on the second Tuesday or third Thursday to hear whomever comes out to read.

My first full-length collection is almost a year old, and it has given me many opportunities to share my work with audiences. I can say, candidly, that I’ve had mixed results. All of my readings have done the job, but some have been especially successful. It’s interesting to consider why that may be.

The fact is, I’m trying to become a better reader of my own work, and I think the key to success in this communication—as in most forms of communication—is to really understand and serve the audience.

What do audiences for live readings want from the experience? Several things.

They want to gel as a community. Let’s be honest: An audience at a live reading could just as well stay home and read a book, but it is important for writers to come together in person. What we actually do as writers, we do alone. And honestly, I don’t find it much fun. My poems can be painful to write and painful to read. Not every discovery a poem provides is a pleasant one. Community can provide a balm—a reminder that I have fellow sufferers, and that I’m not all alone.

They want to meet the person whose voice they’ve been hearing. When we love a book, we often have a voice in our head. It’s exciting to hear the actual voice of the (half-) creator of the work. The writing is one thing; the work is another. As readers, we have a hand in making a poem, essay, or story what it is, and the real human voice of our collaborator can give the work new life.

They want to be connected to the world of writing. I used to live in a very small rural farm town in northwestern Ohio. It was a good hour from the nearest reading, but when I heard of a literary event, I got in my Volkswagen and I puttered in that direction. I’d buy the writer’s book, or bring it, and I’d stand in line to get that autograph. Mind you, I’m not a collector, and despite all of my other character flaws, I honestly and truly don’t care about things. Those autographs weren’t about adding value to books; they were about having a chance to converse with a “real” writer, someone who was walking the path I wanted to be on. Every word of those small, private talks seemed vitally important to me then.

They want insight into work they love. When work challenges us, it’s sometimes good to go right to the source and ask a few key questions. Readings and the Q&As and signings that sometimes follow can help us to learn more about the work.

They’re fans. I’ve been there. When we’re fans, we want to meet our heroes and make memories in the process. In college, some friends and I traveled about four hours to see Robert Creeley at an event, the Ohio University Spring Literary Festival. It’s a great festival—amazing writers just milling about like humans—and my friends were wild about Creeley. In fact, one friend, George, had his collected poems, and we were fond of reading from it around campfires, and we’d memorize Creeley poems and draw them forth, on occasion, from memory. I remember George handing Creeley that book—spine broken in four places, all of the pages stained from fingers and smoke, most corners turned. George had carefully taped it back together, and the poet received it with the honor it was due. He had to have known in that moment how much he was loved. That’s why we went, in fact—to tell him.

A writer who is privileged enough to be invited to read should honor the audience, no matter their reason for attending. This is true if the reader is a major celebrity or, ahem, a one-book poet.

When I am the reader, I devote some thought to why might make the event memorable for those present. I’d like to offer an experience, and my poetry, which I generally feel very good about, is not, in itself, an experience. 

Poets are generally cognizant of the fact that one poem followed by another poem, and another and another, etc., can take too much out of an audience. It’s why we include a bunch of jibber-jabber between selections. Some of us are better at jibber-jabber than others. I think I’m kind of funny (we all think we’re kind of funny, just as we all think we have excellent taste), so I like to make my audiences laugh between poems—sometimes to continue the fun, and other times to break the tension or sadness. (I may be funny, but my poems frequently are not.)

It’s good to make people laugh. It’s good, too, to make something happen, artistically—and I haven’t found a clear way to do this. I have a poem with some fill-in-the-blank parts, and it’s fun to let the audience literally finish the work with me. Recently, too, I gave a reading in a gallery, and at the very beginning, I invited everyone present to stand up and look at some rather astonishing artwork with me.

At another reading, this one in Washington, D.C., I contemplated having the entire audience face the White House and scream obscenities with me. I reconsidered, though, and instead had everyone name a person deserving of compassion and grace. It was a thing we did, and it was unusual and strangely healing. Something happened that night, and it’s at least a little bit memorable.

Too often readings are a too-long, inexpressive reading of words on the page. Sometimes that’s preferable to the uncomfortable performative acts of certain writers. Sometimes the work is so good it can sustain it.

I’d love to offer some advice for successful readings. I suppose I’d say things like, “Go short instead of long,” or, “Practice reading clearly,” or “Pick work in which something interesting happens.” The best overarching advice is a combination of “Be engaging” and “Make sure your work doesn’t suck,” but no one really sets out to be boring and bad.

My thinking here is that readers should consider the very real audience who is welcoming them—what they need, why they’re there, what would make them happy. Maybe the most important thing to keep in mind is that when we read, it’s not about us—or if it is, it’s only slightly so.

At the end of the day, if we would be good ambassadors for challenging new writing—and we must—we have to think about ways to engage and connect.

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May I have several hours of your time?

Would you mind reading this poem and letting me know what you think?

What about this essay? This chapbook? This epic? This novel trilogy?

Writers often get hit up for advice. Writers who teach are especially targeted for this. We know the look—the hopeful smile when a student approaches us with a sheaf of papers and a request.

I used to sport that same smile. I remember asking every professor I had to read my work. They didn’t even have to be English professors. As an undergraduate, I was looking for praise. As a grad student, I wanted affirmation and further challenges. A lot of good people gave me a lot of good time—time they could have spent doing many other things.

And that’s really the issue. When we ask fellow writers to devote time to our work, we are tacitly asking them to devote a little less time to their own. This is something that instructors have to come up with strategies to deal with, or the demands can be overwhelming. But this is also something that all practicing writers need to think about—how to contribute to their community without taking too much time away from our own creative production.

When writers receive a request for feedback, refusing can make them appear unkind. What a requestor may not realize is how many people make the same ask, and how much time it takes to really do justice to a piece of writing—to read, to comment, to discuss. And obviously, quiet time is precious, particularly to writers who work or have families. 

Time spent with another writer’s early drafts is time a writer is not writing her own. It is also lost reading time, and by this I mean time devoted to reading finished, polished, published work—something that is impossible to stay on top of, although this is a task that every writer must try to do.

When the requestor is a good friend, we almost always make time. When the person is a friendly acquaintance, we usually find time for them, too. But often, the people who are asking for our effort—sometimes hours of it—are near strangers to us. As we progress in our writing careers, these people may be actual strangers, people who know us only from the page. 

We often hear stories of literary figures from the past who wrote to their idols for support. Major writers nurtured their protege pen pals, sometimes for a whole lifetime. There is precedent for the request, precedent for the generosity offered in return—in fact, many of our best-loved writers are people we know because a volunteer mentor held their hand in the early going.

I recently taught an introductory writing class with an aspiring fantasy novelist on the roster. The guy was prolific and dealt in every genre. Every week included a new request for feedback—a new story or novel chapter, a new essay or poem.

I am not a professor at this student’s university; I am an adjunct English instructor, the lowest-ranking and lowest-paid instructional staff member at the institution. I get about $2,800 before taxes to teach that student’s class, a cohort of twenty-four who write up to three drafts of five essays. I read and comment on their work, and I also plan for classes, have meetings, spend time on e-mailing and record-keeping, and more. I figured out that I make about $15 per hour before taxes, with no benefits, for the work I do. The student probably doesn’t understand that I’m not in one of those cushy professorships that conservative lawmakers always deride. I’m the working poor—like many adjunct instructors, undercompensated for my expertise.

I think it’s fair to say that I have more than the average amount of affection for my students, and I have unusually strong zeal for my subject matter. I don’t refuse a Composition I student who comes to me with evidence of his similar passion in his hand. So many of the goals of the class can be addressed through their creative work—matters like audience awareness, grammar and mechanics, development. 

What I have noticed throughout my teaching career is that students consider this kind of feedback to be part of an instructor’s job description. They don’t hesitate to ask, and they see it as evidence of their commitment to the subject they teach.

And they are right. A writing student who goes the extra mile—the extra marathon—to draft a novel is a very special person who has earned some extra attention.

As writers, I think we should be cautious about asking each other for time and feedback. I also think we should exercise a few strategies to protect our time when people we don’t know well ask for our assistance with their work. Here are some ideas we can do to keep other people’s writing from interfering with our own:

Set a target. A good community member gives back, and helping other writers in this way is an exercise in literary citizenship. So we might decide that we’re going to work with a certain number of writers—one a month, one a year, six over the summer, etc. Any ask received after that should be encouraged to try getting on our schedule the following year.

Set a price. If writers value our input, they may be willing to pay for it. We might try setting a price for our services as a way of safeguarding our time. If a mentoring relationship develops, we can rethink the money part.

Set a schedule. Can we afford to give the first Monday of every month to other writers? Let the requestor wait until then, and stick to that plan; don’t let the project carry over or linger, but instead do what you can in the time you allocate.

Schedule ourselves first. This is not what we learned in church, but it’s important to be a little selfish with our writing time. For a request that comes while we’re working on a project, we can simply say that we’re focused on that project, and that the writer should ask again in a few weeks or months. If we do say this and the writer remembers to follow through, we should think about making time for them.

Find a faster way. If a writer hands us a novel, there is nothing that says we have to read a whole novel. We can give feedback on the opening few pages instead. When we’re handed a poetry collection, we don’t need to give close readings to all of the poems; we can instead look at something like the way form operates over the course of the book.

Recommend other outlets. It’s good to have at hand a list of favorite coaches, local workshops, or online services that you can suggest to give the writer the help they need.

Say yes—mindfully. Although strangers and acquaintances are hard to accommodate, I actually love reading the work of my writing friends. Occasionally, I find that I’m so busy with my work and family life that this kind of extra project can fall by the wayside, even though I have the will to do it. Lately I have started to set deadlines for myself for those writers I agree to work with. I put deadlines for feedback on my calendar, and I ask each friend to give me a nudge if I forget. 

Say no. Some of us struggle with this, but it’s OK to refuse requests of our time and attention, and we don’t even have to give a reason. As writers, we need to protect our creative time, and it’s very poor form to miss a standing appointment with our muse. If we are serious about what it is we do, we have to put our writing first.

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Writing community doesn't need to include workshopping

Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein and at 27 rue de Fleurus, the Stein salon  

Writing is a solitary—and holy—act. But that doesn’t mean writers don’t benefit from the bonds of community, a topic I’ve been writing a lot about lately. 

Community takes many forms. I’ve written in some detail about local writing events, which, when they occur with regularity, can do much to cement the bonds among writers. 

Beyond literary happenings, a lot of writers love and depend on their writing groups. These may include formal workshops or, for those who are bypassing or finished with a formal writing education, a close group of writer friends who trade and comment on new work. I’ll bet these informal groups are a lot of fun, when it’s the right bunch—and it must be nice to have someone, or a few someones, who really know our writing goals and help us to recognize them so that we can focus our efforts to reach them.

I’ve never really been in a regular writing group, and I doubt I’d be much good to one. I’d be the person leading the conversation off track, or cracking wise, or doing any number of things to distract us from our purpose. If cocktail wieners are simmering, there’s no question about it—I’m eyeballing those wieners.

I think the reason I shy away from feedback groups is pretty straightforward: I don’t want feedback. And further, I’ve grown to resent the default position the declares readers to be de facto workshoppers.

The fact is that I’m not a fan of workshopping. It’s a thing that served its purpose in my student days, but now I’ve reached a point where I trust my work and my voice, and the feedback I need most is a “yes” or “no” from an editor. I’ve never really used input to revise a particular piece anyway, past small line edits; generally, workshop input, for me, demonstrates how my work is received by an audience, or it informs the general direction of future work. 

While I welcome general opinions about my work—even negative ones, since not every attempt is a winner—I do not welcome uninvited suggestions for what to do to change my work. Something that is lost when we focus too much on workshopping is the ability to just be heard. I write poetry mostly, and I take my craft very seriously, but my poems are not craft projects. They are expressions. They come, sometimes, from my deepest self.

I hope my lack of desire for advice doesn’t read sensitivity. I’m really not thin skinned when it comes to my work. I’d prefer readers like my work, rather than dislike it, but either reaction is fine. The issue is that I find, more and more, that I just want to be heard—not fixed.

And isn’t that what community is—a group of people who listen and share and hear? Our very closest community members may be the ones we invite in for advice and counsel, but this isn’t necessarily true. Some people don’t want suggestions. Where my work is concerned, outside ideas, beyond finite suggestions of things like line edits, aren’t even usable, for the most part, because they are generally not in keeping with the way my work is born.

I guess that’s why I’m such a proponent of literary happenings—places where we can hear readings and have fun with language, maybe chow down on some finger foods. Sometimes community is about company in the journey—a sense that we’re not entirely alone, even though, as writers, this may be mostly true.

A Writer's Spirit: The rhythm and disruption of walking

My bat

Yesterday I was out for a hike in Arkansas when a huge butterfly fluttered into my face. It startled me, and I waved it away, barely brushing the tip of its wing with my hand.

And then I really looked, and even though it was early afternoon, gorgeous sunlight all around, that was no butterfly. It was a small reddish-brown bat.

Touching a daytime bat: that’s a gift to a writer. Heck, I’d buy a book of poetry with that title. It’s a real thing that happened, and it’s just begging to be forged into a metaphor for something. Sometimes we do this—we brush against the daytime bat, that thing we had no reason to look for, right there beside our hand ….

But this time around, I’ll keep the bat instead as a mere diary entry, as a thing that happened one beautiful spring day, in that state where almost anywhere you step, there might be a stone chamber beneath us.

Writing forces me to sit at a desk quite a bit, but I love to get out into the woods to renew myself. It’s a family thing; if the weather is reasonable, my whole crew tromps along a dirt path together.

When I walk, I’m always looking downward. I’m fond of snakes, and I’m always hoping to see one. Snakes belong to two worlds, and when they reveal themselves, they bring news of that other place, the one beneath the surface.

I almost never see them, for all my looking. I don’t have that kind of vision. My friend Sherri does. She knows how to look when she’s in nature, and she finds the most astonishing creatures, even though most are designed to stay hidden. I lived in the same town as Sherri for a long time, but I forgot to ask her to help me learn to see. I live in southern Missouri now, and I clomp through the woods all the time. There are snakes everywhere, and lizards, and salamanders, and fabulous bugs. Once, and possibly twice, I did see a tarantula, skittering off the path. Astonishing, this—when I moved here, I never would have dreamed they were all around me, better able to spot me than I them. Sherri would see them. I wish I had her gift.

I don’t walk to exercise, although it’s fine for that. In this, I’m like Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, “The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours … but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.” Thoreau was a big proponent of walking as a tool for improving our capacity for reflection—exercise being a bonus but not the aim of the activity.

Mind you, I’m no Thoreau. Rain keeps me in. So does a chill in the air. So, sometimes, does laziness. I don’t walk every day, although I’d like to be the kind of person who does. 

What I know about walking is that its rhythms lull us into meditation, more quickly and naturally and surely than focusing on our breath can do. And as we walk, we see things—we add to our catalog of reference points and memories in a way we can only do outdoors, away from the familiar. I can stay inside and watch classic TV and have an enjoyable time, but the downside is that no bat will stare into my face, and no tarantula will hide from my feet. Neither will I spot a celt or spear tip—other things I undoubtedly walk over and miss almost 100 percent of the time. (I’ve only ever found one arrowhead, and it was chipped at the tip, blunted, I don’t know when. Maybe it snapped in the ground, or maybe it was discarded by its creator, more annoying than deadly if launched. These are the notions the walker considers.)

Unlike time spent in our interior spaces, which become quickly and permanently familiar, walks—even along accustomed paths—always take us somewhere new. Thoreau knew this, too. He wrote, “An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours’ walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect to see.”

It’s true. Last week I was walking and found odd, closed, white lilies everywhere around me. I hadn’t seen anything like them before; it was a strange country, and I found it by training my eyes downward. (My friends helped me to identify them as white toad lilies, but I’m pretty sure, having seen yellow ones yesterday, that this isn’t quite right. The blossoms I saw were smaller, more singular, and more frail. I think it’s most probable that these were my very own flowers, scattered along my path by some benevolent creator just for me.)

Walking is restorative for anyone, but it has special benefits for writers, who seek at times both rhythm and disruption—both part of any amble—and who require a library of adventures and reference points if they are to have anything to commit to the page.

Walking gives these to me every day. Yesterday reminded me of how a breeze moving over water cools, how a collapsed cave roof can look newly fallen even after the passage of a millennium, or how a sturdy-looking stepstone sometimes sits atop a fulcrum in a stream.

And it taught me something new about bats, which, I just read, sometimes hunt during the daytime in the spring, when nights are cold and bugs are scarce. Have you ever seen a bat nearly snatch a moth from midair? I have. I’ve been that moth, and every single day I am that bat.

Literary community: Paying for what we value

Today’s post is the third in a three-part series. You can see the first part, on how reading factors into literary community, here, and the second part, on how regular local literary happenings cement community, here.

***

The currency of community is friendship, common aspirations, goodwill.

But the currency of community is also currency—money, that is—and members of a community should strive to keep it flowing to support the things they claim to care about.

When a friend scores a book deal, congratulations flow, both in person and on social media. We tend to be happy for our fellow writers when they get a book contract, even if we’re also a little envious, because success for one suggests the possibility of success for others. At an even more basic level, a book contract means that there’s going to be a new book in the world, and that’s a beautiful thing.

So the currency of goodwill flows, even if some of it looks counterfeit. But the currency of money doesn’t move quite as freely, and it really needs to if the community is to thrive.

After the announcement of the book contract comes the post with a link for pre-sales. Literary titles rely heavily on advance sales, which help to determine the number of the initial press run. If all of those congratulatory friends put their money where their mouth is, a release gets a promising boost at the start, and the publisher can have a bit more confidence in the project it is investing in. But if congratulations end at the word, “Congratulations!,” and pre-sales don’t follow, a publisher may be more cautious with an initial order, and perhaps more cautious about promotion.

As a writer with three chapbooks and a full-length collection, I’ve received many kind words, and they really do warm me. But nothing feels quite as good as seeing my book in a friend’s hand, or hearing that a copy has arrived at someone’s doorstep. I was out of town recently and I met a friend for dinner, and at one point he pulled out my book for a signature. The friend is a voracious reader, but he doesn’t ordinarily gravitate toward poetry, but the book looked as though it had been read—the pages were fluffed out, the corners were curled. Nothing makes a writer feel more loved and appreciated than seeing a clear sign that someone has given time to her.

Friends should buy their friends’ books. Friends should read their friends’ books. And friends should spread the word about their friends’ books. That’s all pretty basic, and the reasons are obvious. When those friends are writers, too, the favor is likely to be returned at some point, but my own friend is not a guy with book aspirations; he’s just someone who cares about me, and this is how he enacted that care.

My friend is part of a community—one that includes him and me, our spouses, our mutual friends from our college days. And the people who celebrate each other’s accomplishments in person and on social media are also part of a community; they interact and communicate; they cheer and debate and share their indignation.

But beyond these specific communities is a larger community that is composed of readers and writers of new work. The members of this larger community may never meet or speak, although there is an instant kinship when we do encounter one another. This community is larger than our personal ones, but probably smaller than the community of, say, Star Wars aficionados or gun enthusiasts.

For the literary community to flourish, we need to fund it. It’s not crass to have this discussion; rather, at a time when the National Endowment for the Arts is targeted for elimination in the proposed federal budget, it could not be more urgent to talk about how we support a literary culture that is threatened by loss of public support.

Presses need our dollars if they are to produce the books we love to read. Likewise, literary journals, the proving ground of new writers, have to cover their expenses, and so do festivals, reading series, and the other literary institutions we love.

Today, like most days, I’m supporting the literary community by contributing to an ongoing conversation about what it means to live and work as a writer and a reader. I’m also starting to think about ways I can put my money where my heart is and support the presses and journals that carry the community on their backs.

And maybe after I’ve launched this post, I’ll head out to my local bookstore for a bit, or I’ll preorder a book by a friend, or I’ll just sit down outside on a beautiful day and I’ll read. 

Literary community: Regular local events form literary hub

Campus Pollyeye’s stuffed breadsticks—Bowling Green, Ohio’s, second-best thing

Today’s post is the second of a three-part series. You can see the first part, on how reading factors into literary citizenship, here.

***

I really didn’t know at the time I resided in Bowling Green, Ohio, that I was living in a writer’s paradise.

It’s a town of 30,000, and the second-best thing about it is the stuffed breadsticks at Campus Pollyeye’s, but the first best thing is the literary community fostered by the Creative Writing Program at Bowling Green State University—and touching the entire region and beyond.

One of the best things the program does is host a Thursday night reading series. Every Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. when school is in session, students in the MFA and BFA programs go to a reading together. Often the readers are visiting writers who were invited in by the program. Sometimes the readers are faculty. And sometimes the readers are graduate students (every one of them gives a reading in each of the two years of the program) or undergraduate majors (who get a chance to read once before they graduate). Returning alumni are frequently featured as well.

Undergraduate creative writing majors and minors are required to attend the reading series as a for-credit class, which ensures a nice crowd. (And they seem to like it—they’re majoring in the field, after all.) Graduate students go to support one another, and they quickly adopt it s a key part of their culture. And, most beautifully, townspeople and writers from the region also attend, mainly because the weekly event is the cornerstone of a broad community of writers.

The BGSU Creative Writing Program is a university entity, obviously, but I also know of many similar cornerstone programs that are not sponsored by universities, and they are equally magical. Plenty of regular reading series are set in coffeehouses, bars, galleries, and libraries, as well as other kinds of institutions (a very incomplete list appears at the end of this post). University affiliation is not at all necessary for fostering a literary community, but the regular rhythms of an academic calendar or a set-aside day and time (Thursdays, first Mondays, etc.) help communities to cement. In my experience, there are a lot of lone-wolf writers, but these are vastly outnumbered by writers who love an occasion to get together over words. 

I moved away from Bowling Green nearly five years ago, and I now live in a city without a regularly gathering literary community. My new city has a very strong visual arts community, with a monthly Art Walk serving the role I’m describing, but for visual artists instead of writers. (I should note that this monthly celebration of the arts is a very welcoming venue, and it often includes performances, including readings, as part of the mix.) I find that I miss having a place to be once a week, though, to enjoy the community of writers. When I had this, I didn’t know how lucky I was.

That’s not to say that my town is without opportunities for writing fun. There is a writers guild, a university reading series hosting occasional visiting writers, a vibrant slam scene, and intimate writing groups here and there. A writer looking to commune with fellow scribblers doesn’t have to wait long or look far to find something exciting happening, and the people involved with all of these organizations are very welcoming.

A literary community is especially enjoyable for me when I can participate face to face. A weekly or monthly reading series makes that very easy to do—and it also helps to build audiences for new writing. I encourage all writers and literary enthusiasts to check to see if there is a regular reading series near them, and if so, to try showing up once. Writers tend to be a welcoming bunch, and those who try out a local reading series will almost certainly want to go again.

***

I asked for recommendations from friends of their favorite reading series, and here’s a partial (randomly ordered) list, including towns both big and small. Some info here is unverified:

• New York, NY (population: 8.491 million): Too many to list! I’ve read at the wonderful KGB Bar series, and there are longstanding reading series at the 92nd Street and West Side YMCAs, as well as myriad other outlets.
• Tecumseh, MO (population: 586): The only writing show in town is darned impressive: The River Pretty Writers Retreat, which offers readings and workshops in an idyllic setting twice a year. Lee Busby, Ian Bodkin, and Jen Murvin are the people I know who are the engines of this terrific event.
• Syracuse, NY: The terrific Downtown Writers Center has a vigorous reading series directed by the poet Phil Memmer. 
• Provincetown, MA: Almost every night in the summer, the public can catch readings at the Fine Arts Work Center. 
• Shelburne Falls, MA: Marie Gauthier curates the Collected Poets Series, featuring two poets a month.
• Washington, D.C.: Among many other offerings are the ultra-relaxed Inner Loop monthly reading series and the stately PEN/Faulkner Reading Series at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
• Chicago: The Poetry Center of Chicago has a great reading series at the Chicago Cultural Center, and I’m very fond of the series at the Women Made Gallery, too (I read there once at the invitation of the lovely curator, Nina Corwin. Also: Danny’s Reading Series; Pabula Pura bilingual series; Waiting 4 the Bus.
• Aurora, IL: Lit by the Bridge reading series.
• Batavia, IL: Waterline Writers hosts a regular reading series.
• Sausalito, CA (and coming to New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Austin): The literary force Peg Alford Pursell coordinates the Why There Are Words monthly reading series, based in a gallery.
• Knoxville, TN: Sundress Publications always has something going on, notably its Sundress Academy for the Arts Reading Series at Bar Marley, and its occasional Holler Salon, based at SAFTA’s Firefly Farms. Knoxville also hosts The Only Tenn-I-See reading series.
• Online: SAFTA also does a pretty rad Poets in Pajamas Reading Series on the intertubes, curated by Sam Slaughter.
• Memphis, TN: The Impossible Language reading series happens regularly at Crosstown Arts.
• Arlington, VA: The Iota Poetry Series hosts invited readers and an open mic that follows at the Iota Club and Cafe.
• Houston: The Margarett Root Brown Series, sponsored by Inprint Houston.
• Lawrence, KS: The Taproom Poetry Series, coordinated by Megan Kaminski.
• Cleveland, OH: Brews + Prose at Market Garden Brewery; Mac’s Backs on Coventry; Monday at Mahali’s Poetry and Prose Series.
• Lexington, KY: Kentucky Great Writers Series at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
• Marin County, CA: Book Passage, an independent bookstore featuring numerous readings and events.
• Most cities: That guy who stands under the clock downtown and yells at teenagers on Friday nights.
• Portland, OR: Unchaste Readers Series, curated by Jenny Forrester.
• San Diego, CA: Non-Standard Lit: A Reading Series and Now That’s What I Call Poetry.
• Flagstaff, AZ: Narrow Chimney Reading Series.
• Philadelphia, PA: Tire Fire reading series.
• Minneapolis, MN: The Loft Literary Center; Poets & Pints; Maeve’s Seassions (the Maeve's Cafe reading series).
• New Orleans, LA: The Maple Leaf Reading Series; the Dogfish Reading Series, curated by Jessica Kinnison.
• Lincoln, NE: No Name Reading Series.
• Baltimore, MD: Starts Here!, curated by Jen Michalski.
• Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures at the Carnegie Library; Autumn House Press readings in the parks; TNY (a series combining readers and singer-songwriters, along with homemade baked goods); White Whale Bookstore’s frequent readings.
• Nashville, TN: The Porch reading series, curated by Susannah Felts; East Side Storytellin at East Side Story bookstore.
• Olympia, WA: Gray Skies Reading Series.
• Seattle, WA: Elliott Bay Book Company’s frequent readings.
• Portsmouth, NH: RiverRun Bookstore’s frequent readings.
• Boston, MA: Porter Square Bookstore’s frequent readings.
• Rochester, NY: Writers & Books reading series.
• Northampton, MA: Straw Dog.
• Roslindale, MA: Chapter and Verse.
• Storrs, CT: ROAR Reading Series.
• Davis, CA: Stories on Stage Davis.
• Sacramento, CA: Stories on Stage Sacramento.
• Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake City Art and the Art Barn.
• Berkeley, CA: Lyrics & Dirges by Mk Chavez and Sharon Coleman; Moe’s Books.
• Dublin, NH: Del Rossi’s Trattoria reading series.
• Akron, OH: Big Big Mess.
• Brooklyn, NY: Franklin Park Reading Series; Flapperhouse Reading Series.
• Albuquerque, NM: Bad Mouth reading series, curated by Erin Adair-Hodges and Rebecca Aronson.
• Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Harbourfront Reading Series.
• Erie, PA: Poets’ Hall: The International Family of Poets and Spoken Word Artists.
• Various cities: Festival of Language, sort of a Chautauqua of literary writers.
• Oak Park, IL: Traveling Mollys Reading Series and Open Mic.
• Columbus, OH: The Poetry Forum, Rose M. Smith, Nathan Moore, and Steve Abbott, coordinators.
• Cambridge, MA: The Blacksmith House Poetry Series.
• Madison, WI: Arts + Literature Laboratory, curated by Rita Mae Reese.
• Youngstown, OH: Lit Youngstown.
• Denver, CO: FBomb Flash Fiction Reading Series.
• Charleston, SC: Monday Night Poetry & Music.
• Buffalo, NY: BABEL: Buffalo Hosts World-Famous Authors.
• Cincinnati, OH: Chase Public Reading Series.
• Eugene, OR: Poetry for the People.
• San Francisco Bay Area, CA: Poetry Flash reading series.
• Montclair, NJ: Halfway There reading series.