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.

.

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.

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.

Literary community: The importance of reading

Law Library, U.S. Capitol, circa 1895

Today’s post is the first installment in a three-part series.

***

Every writer has some relationship to the idea of a literary community. For many of us, it’s a very complicated one. But for all writers I know, their first experience with literary community happened when they were drawn into another writer’s imaginative space through the pages of a book.

For some, writing is a solo act, and the idea of a community is a distraction. If they commune, it is with a muse—the imagination, the deep mind, perhaps the divine. And there is also a kind of community that happens all alone when we immerse ourselves in the pages of books—we resonate with a story, poem, or essay, and we feel authentic closeness with the mind that birthed it.

As an aspect of community, reading is at once the most powerful and the least acknowledged. Books can change us. Books have changed me—this seems unassailably true about every book ever. Most have changed me for the better.

Reading is also an aspect that is frequently skipped by busy people, to their detriment—whether they are writers or not. Cutting ourselves off from other writers working today is especially harmful to those of us who try to write and publish, though, when we consider that we are both products and shapers of our time. A poem might happen on its own, but literature is a joint venture. The Odyssey is a fine poem and tale, but it would be an odd and probably even an irrelevant expression if it were produced today. 

When we neglect the writing world, we run the risk of getting fixated on the work we read when we were just starting out as writers. I’ve been in more than one college writing class where the professor was teaching from twenty-year-old books—excellent ones, but clearly dating from their own student days. Their failure to include anything newer gave me the sense that they weren’t current with their reading, and because of a paucity of current influences, it was beyond their ability to mix things up.

I know books don’t come with an expiration date. But that provocative and challenging poetry book from twenty years ago, as world-shattering as it may have been (and may still be), shouldn’t carry the whole weight of our relationship to verse. The world has changed; our zeitgeist has changed. The book we once carried in our purse all the way to the gate of the airport to greet some a forgotten boyfriend and tut-tut over a stain on a blue dress from the Gap, Marcy Playground loaded into our Walkman—who even is that person? Yet “there she was / like disco lemonade ….”

It seems ridiculous to stop there, doesn’t it? We’re wearing different clothes, different eye shadow, different attitudes and aspirations. Why would we wear the same fiction? How could we show ourselves in public that way?

Those works still matter, obviously—and not only as artifacts. They’re part of an ongoing conversation, and we refer to them all the time, both tacitly and overtly. They were a necessary step to the place we are, and they continue to have vital things to say. But the conversation moves on, and we have to move with it.

So there is something to be said for devoting ourselves to that part of literary community—the part that reads and reacts and feels. I wish we were a nation of devout readers. We couldn’t be anything but a compassionate nation then, and we would care for one another the way our fiction and poetry teach us, over and over, to do.

But as awesome as the community of books is in our lives, the literary community can’t stop at our desk. A responsible member of a community doesn’t just take from it; we give back to it. Giving back can mean something as small as offering a book recommendation or as large as organizing a literary event. I believe, though, that it is incumbent upon all of us to find ways to contribute meaningfully to the ongoing conversation.