Citizens of Literary Land

This week’s email is inspired by a 3,000 word rant, written by author and podcaster Meghan Daum on Substack. The piece was entitled “Who Killed Creative Writing” and among other things, it says this:

“In the past couple of years, I’ve come to see the MFA in writing as the educational equivalent of a draft dodge. If the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference is any indication, getting an MFA in writing has little to do with actual writing and nearly everything to do with finding a place in a social clique. This clique, which convenes mostly online, seems less interested in the values or dynamics of any particular program … than in something called literary citizenship, a term I didn’t hear until probably 2017. Separate from caring about literature, literary citizenship implies adherence to an unspoken moral code, one that pays lip service to equity and inclusion while still making gossip and exclusivity the main event …

Over the past five or six years, the cult of literary citizenship has thrown me into a merciless spiral of revisionist history. I see who shows up to AWP, who wins prizes and judges them, who edits literary journals, who gets tenure-track teaching jobs and fellowships and speaking tours, and I think these are some of the most mediocre people I’m likely to ever encounter. I think these are people who wanted to take on the trappings of university life but couldn’t cut it in real academic programs. I think these are people who were too lazy to go to law school, too insecure to seek mentors on their own, too entitled to just get regular jobs and write at nighttime and on weekends if it really meant so goddamn much to them. Real writers write no matter what. 

Now that’s harsh, of course. Too harsh.

Plenty of fine writers teach on university creative writing programs. Plenty of fine writers travel through them too. And, when she’s not in ranty-mode, I’ll bet Meghan D would acknowledge that too.

But she has a point, and it’s a relief for someone to make that point loudly and publicly.

To put that point in my language, not someone else’s, is that there are three overlapping groups of people.

One group comprises:

• People who teach on university literary programmes
• People who attend those programmes
• People who run or write for literary journals
• Literary agents
• Editors and other publishing types
• Marketers, publicists, events organisers and all that
• Writers who are highly involved in that milieu, with all its events and gossip and interconnections

A second group comprises:

• Writers

A third group – the biggest – comprises:

• Readers

Of these three groups, only two, the last two, really matter.

Of these three groups, only one, the first one, makes a lot of noise.

Indeed, if you wanted to develop a data-based method of discovering whether somebody was or was not a member of group #1, the easiest technique would involve mining Twitter accounts. It’s not impossible to be a member of the first group without an active Twitter account, but it’s certainly rare. If you wanted a more old-school method of crunching data, you’d simply count the number of mostly-literary parties a person was invited to over the course of a year, and figure out your groups that way.

The fact is, however, most professional writers don’t live much in group #1. I mean, sure, if you have a book out with a Big 5 firm, and that firm puts some wellie behind your book, then you’ll end up with a bit of noise around you during launch. (And I do mean a bit of noise – quite likely less than you expect or want.)

But the real group #1-ers don’t swim temporarily in their noisy pond. They live there. They enjoy it. It’s a huge part of their motivation for working in a career that has worse hours / pay / dependability than most.

And almost certainly, you don’t live in that pond. Yes, this mailing list attracts a fringe of agents and publishing types, but they’re the rare exception. The vast majority of you just write. You want to get published, or you intend to self-publish. But either way, once you’ve written one book, you’ll move onto the next one. You probably live too far from London or New York to go to many parties. And quite likely you wouldn’t really enjoy them much if you went. Also: you probably do have a regular job. You probably do write in evenings and weekends, on trains and in coffee shops, or squeezed around childcare and all the compromises of ordinary life.

Some authors do of course live in Group #1 and their careers, in all honesty, do almost certainly benefit. (I remember talking with an agent once about a major recent prize winner. I said that I thought her book wasn’t especially good, and he agreed. But he commented, ‘She really knows how to play that literary game.’ She was a group #1-er through and through.)

But that’s not you. It’s not even me. Weirdly – although I run a large writing-focused business – I’m not a group #1-er myself. I don’t tweet. I’m not interested in other people’s tweets. I don’t send mwah-type messages at other people’s cover reveals. I’m not invited to those parties.

And I don’t care.

Nor should you.

Writing matters. Reading matters. The rest is optional.

I really hope I see you in Townhouse on Thursday. Details below. Again: everyone’s welcome, but my own commentary will focus as much as possible on Premium Members. See you there.