A brilliant piece, Liza that sums up the situation in the traditional publishing industry pretty well and why who can earn the privilege of being hired as a literary gatekeeper well…must be gate kept. Literary agents tend to be lazy, have bad grammar, uneducated on good literature and what makes for good literature, have no manners and are totally unprofessional, and left-wing or far-left in their politics. They are glorified sales people who never read Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, or Eliot in their life! They simply just read whatever is sent to them and if it checks the boxes of what the literary establishment wants, it’s gets in. If it’s good but doesn’t check those boxes, it is rejected.
This has GOT TO change! First off, the publishing industry must be comprehensively reformed from top to bottom. The qualifications to become a literary agent need to be increased. One should have to have an English degree or some sort of training in the Humanities first off. Second, they must be a skilled and exceptional writer. Third, to become a literary agent one must pass a rigorous test that is all about different works of literature and literary concepts as well as submit a written essay that demonstrates their knowledge of literature as well as correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Fourth, the pay for literary agents must be raised significantly. Lastly, their must be a through background check of all potential agents to make sure they are of good character and aren’t far-left or Jihadist nuts. Also, I call for the immediate abolition of sensitivity readers. For the time being, I call for the public to empower non-leftist Indie publishing houses and self-published authors and snatch up their work such as Girl Soldier!
In closing, for any literary agents that might be reading Liza’s article I’ve got a reading list for you to help deradicalize yourself and get out of the woke cult:
• Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science by Alan Sokal
• Cynical Theories: Why Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity and Why This Harms Everyone by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
• The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad
• America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything by Christopher F. Rufo
• The Madness of the Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity by Douglas Murray
• The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America by Coleman Hughes
• Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism by Ibn Warraq
• Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi
• Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred McClay
Ummm. Literary agents are not gatekeepers. Acquisition editors are gatekeepers. Agents represent books to the gatekeepers. Agents could change what they represent, but as long as the acquisition editors are looking for the same things, that will just mean that those agents don't make any sales and quickly go out of business. Agents take on those clients they think they can sell to the gatekeepers. It is not the agents whose minds you need to change, but the publishers.
Literary fiction killed itself by being, well, literary fiction, a thing set apart, rather than being the cream of the crop of regular fiction. It busied itself in philosophy and psychology and aesthetic experimentation that people quickly tired of. It became prestige literature, something to put on the coffee table to make the neighbours think you are an intellectual. But the prestige has worn off.
Philosophy, psychology, and aesthetic experimentation... How tiring! I am tired just looking at those words. 🥱 Save me regular fiction! Mercifully wash all philosophy, psychology and aesthetic experimentation from my brain.
Yes, but they are still not the gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are the ones who decide what will be published, and that is the acquisition editors, not the agents. The agents simply know what the gatekeepers are looking for and choose to represent only what they can sell. They transmit the message of the gatekeepers, but they are not the gatekeepers. If they were, changing their minds would change what gets published. But it won't. Changing the minds of the acquisition editors is what will change what get published. And when the editors change their minds, the agents will change their tune. Blaming agents for telling you what the editors will and will not buy is like blaming the postman for bringing you bills. They are just the courier. They did not create the message.
"The gatekeepers are the ones who decide what will be published, " Wrong again. Okay, they are part of the gatekeeper phalanx. But! Acquisition Editors CANNOT decide whether or not a book will pass... if they never even see it.
So you think there is a phalanx of agents out there who, through ignorance of the market, don't send editors the kind of books they are looking for? Wrong! You know why? Because agents who don't send editors the kind of books they are looking for don't make any money and have to go retrain as baristas. Market forces ensure that good agents know what is worth representing in their area of expertise. Lisa's post calls for reeducation of the literary agents to favor a more literary kind of work. But that would not change what got accepted by publishing houses. It would just ensure those agents went broke. Don't shoot the messenger, in other words. And don't try to retrain the messenger to tell you lies because you don't like the message.
Ok, I will give my opinion one more time. NO, I DON'T "... think there is a phalanx of agents out there who, through ignorance of the market, don't send editors the kind of books they are looking for?
I think they send editors EXACTLY the kind of books they are looking for. I think that today's literary agents and acquisition editors are of the 'same mind.' They are Siamese twins. Marx and Engels. Same with book review sites, and book clubs. They are 90% young feministas who all think the same.
I’ve sat in a number of conferences in which literary agents or hotshots in publishing houses have proudly spoken about their responsibility to shape the culture and their desire to weed out unwanted cultural elements in society through the power of literature. You can guess which way their cultural affinities lean.
In the same breath as all of that, one speaker from a very well respected publishing house (she was also VERY high up in it) declared that she actively monitored Wattpad for the next big thing, so…
I worked for a very large media & entertainment company for 10 years. The content that was created was minimally driven by gatekeeper/curatorial concerns and maximally driven by the $ (euphemistically referred to as the "audience"). If content made money, more similar content would be green lit. If not, then not. This is the unavoidable reality of the duty to maximise shareholder return.
Barnes & Noble is owned by Elliot Capital, a vulture hedge fund unlikely to put the advancement of cultural Marxism (or indeed any other consideration) ahead of shareholder return. I think it is hard to see how the publishing industry could be working against its owners' commercial interests. "Simply won't sell" probably is the market reality with no further rationale needed.
By the same argument, if the market demand changes then the retail and publishing offering will change in response. It's very difficult to enable/force any industry to change in opposition to its short term commercial interest without legislation.
Liza, I think the gatekeepers that need better gatekept are - as you've written elsewhere - those for High School reading lists. That's a foundational opportunity for shaping audience sensibility and, practically speaking, a very direct driver of book sales.
I’ve heard this argument before, and it would be true if most books published today actually made money, but the reality is that most traditionally published books sell fewer than 3000 copies and often come at a loss to big publishing houses, who stay afloat on big names. If Jonathan Franzen does well, then publishing cares less about the smaller-name authors because they’re likely to flop anyway. This is where ideology comes in, allowing agents and editors to use this gap to push their agenda.
I get that books aren't movies and that the lower production costs in publishing enable a long loss-making tail to be subsidised by the latest new editions of David Foster Wallace. But I don't think loss making items have a long term commercial future and books no one reads don't advance any agenda.
Education can shape literary tastes and values. Commercial organisations will only ever seek to follow them.
"maximally driven by the $" No Capitalism is not the problem here. It is Fascism in Publishing. Look up the definition of fascism. Government and Business colluding. We've had 75 years of the slow creep of liberalism.
I'm genuinely confused by the central argument here. You acknowledge that "an increasing number of readers and writers alike are turning to self-publishing and non-traditional outlets such as Substack to both disseminate and consume high quality fiction" - but then spend 3,000 words arguing that literary agents are "destroying the potential for great literature."
If self-publishing and Substack work for disseminating quality fiction to readers, then... agents aren't destroying anything? They're just not giving you their particular credential.
The real tension seems to be here: "Good writers deserve to have their writing differentiated from the mediocre Internet crowd by having their novels appear in bookstores, publicized in mainstream media outlets, and promoted on social media."
That's not about literature reaching readers - that's about wanting the status marker of traditional publication. Which is fine to want! But it's a different thing than "literature is dying." Andy Weir went from free web serial to bestseller to major film. Brandon Sanderson crowdfunded $40M. Wildbow built a massive following without ever touching the traditional system.
If your actual concern is great literature reaching readers, the current moment is incredible - the gatekeepers are increasingly irrelevant. If your concern is that *you specifically* want the validation that comes from passing through those gates... that's a personal frustration, not a civilizational crisis.
The Western publishing industry has been infiltrated by people who recycle revenue from books that actually sell, e.g. by J.K. Rowling or Jordan Peterson, into their pet projects, subsidising terrible writing and allowing fashionable ideologues to cosplay as professional authors. The problem with this model is that the audience for woke books doesn't read. If they actually buy a physical copy, it is to display on their bookshelf during video calls, or to give as a gift for someone else to do the same. Therefore it doesn't matter how bad the books are.
First let me say that I think you are very brave. Telling the truth gets people killed in some parts of the world. Here in America it gets them flamed and worst, shunned. But you do it and you deserve much credit.
I believe it’s just not the agents that are standing athwart of good literature and stories, the publishing houses are too, and much of the literati.
And, I would add, even some of the bigger literary blogs on Substack seem to be, in my opinion, too cliquish, most of their featured writers drawn from MFA factories and the Big Apple. I also see writers reluctant to venture an opinion on the issues of the day. LIkely they are afraid they’ll go on a list. You can say what you will about the great literary giants of the mid-20th century, but they boldly stated their opinions and famously argued for them on and off camera. Nowadays, unless you embrace the new shibboleth of the literati that would be writer career suicide.
You are right about Barnes and Noble. I go in there and there are tables everywhere with the kind of smarmy lefty agitprop you describe. And, as you note, it does sell. But, I believe, it is akin to addicting someone to greasy unhealthy fast food instead of whole foods cooked over time with love and care. Politics is indeed, downstream from Culture. And the lefty ladies of lit are using it to destroy hearts and minds… in my humble opinion.
I went to a meeting of SALC (Sierra Arts Literary Community) yesterday. There were about fifty of us, mostly elderly and mostly female. The presenter asked how many of us had literary agents. There was one, I believe, out of fifty. And, what surprised me even more was that none of the writers in the group seemed interested in getting an agent. I believe most of them saw it as a huge waste of time. Having spent two years trying (despite having had two agents over the years and publishing four books with commercial houses), I certainly see it that way. Yes, you could tailer your story/novel to what the literary lady bosses now demand… to increase your chances. But that’s Soviet anti-art. That’s whoring out one’s talent to suck up to the literati bosses. Even if it means never publishing anything ever again, I would never sink that low.
I am so burned out with pushing against this tide (for over twenty years), that I have pretty much decided to stop sending my work out to, not only agents, but also publishing houses—NYC giants and small presses. They’re all staffed by….; I can’t say it… it will get me in trouble.
So I will have a trusted friend and editor make one more pass through my latest novel, The Fake Memoir of a Fool in Love, and SERIALIZE it on my Substack over a couple of weeks, as Pilcrow is now doing. As a 77 year old author, I cannot wait for the publishing gate-keepers to grow up so I’ll have access to readers.
And, Liza, it is so encouraging to see someone like you openly and bravely stating the problem. I pray that you will find a way to get your work out there.
Glad you finally admitted you're not Shakespeare, Liza! But I think the problem runs much deeper here: Richard Hofstadter, Allan Bloom, and Neil Postman have all traced the decline of literacy in the United States to fundamental design flaws in the whole Enlightenment project right from the get-go. And of course Aldous Huxley brilliantly predicted how science and technology, worshiped for their own sake since the Death of God, would ultimately enslave and enfeeble us, dumbing us down along the way-videos and tweets are much more seductive than deep reading. Americans have never been worshipers of literature to begin with-this isn't France we're talking about here, and that whole Appalachian know-nothing-on-steroids strain in our culture is increasingly triumphant-look at our current president, who brags about never reading books, but who was the first GOP candidate to win the popular vote in thirty years.
Why must you drag politics and 'our current president' into the conversation? I could, if I wanted, say things like, our last president struggled to get through 'Heather Has Two Mommies, because he was and is, by all definitions, senile, and the words were too big for him. In my response to Liza's post I let politics out of it. You ought to try that.
You're the one dragging politics into this, pal. If you'd read my entire post, you would understand that I was using the current commander in chief's functional illiteracy to make a much larger point about literacy in the United States in general, or the lack of it, and how this has only gotten worse over time. Try reading Neil Postman or Richard Hofstadter, who I referenced. By the way, I am in no way saying that Trump is stupid-far from it, he has a certain genius, and I can't argue with the massive success of his foreign policy over the last year. But now I am getting into politics..,
Look, we can follow the thread, right up there; you're the one that dragged politics into this thread by reflexively mentioning Trump.
This thread was void of that until you brought it up. And you're still putting out the BS. "... the current commander in chief's functional illiteracy..."
The whole publishing literary world has been taken over by political idealogues. If you are too blind to see it, I'm not going to waste anymore of my time trying to help you.
You can, of course, type all you want about this, but start a new thread. I'm not going to waste anymore of my time replying to state the obvious.
Add Charles Murray to your reading list as well. His great book Coming Apart describes the massive epistemic closure among our educated elites-something I have been well aware of for some time. And it wouldn't hurt to reread The Closing of the American Mind,as well. But to paraphrase the great Lori Cardille as Sara in Day of the Dead, 1985: "But you're just describing what is already happening, instead of looking for what's MAKING it happen!" One more screed against the political left is meaningless if we don't get to the root of the problem-how meaning has been transferred from one sphere to another-the disenchantment of the world over the past four hundred years has had the baleful effect of supercharging everyday life in unexpected and even out and out evil ways- Flannery O' Connor saw this.
Gonna say I agree there are problems with lit agents. But don't think the problem is we live in the age of Genre fiction. All fiction fits within one genre or another. One may as well say the problem is fiction in that case. The other problem is most literary stuff is mindless fluff about the problems of girls in the modern age.
What's needed is to dispense with the insistence on Literary/Academic nonsense to focus on good writing and getting the current generation of lit agents who are obsessed with literary fiction and smut out.
The Japanese have a saying, 'the nail that sticks up, gets hammered down.' Other cultures have similar sayings. Liza, thank you for being brave enough to speak the truth to power. Yes, that's what it is, truth to power. Because now, the literary Feminocracy has all the power. Your stating as much, and my 'amens,' will have a cost. But this great injustice must not stand.
It is almost like market economies do not necessarily always lead to the best results or production in every industry, and at certain times it could be a net benefit for society for certain well-meaning governments to step in to help. Norway, for example, seems to be one of these cases in the circumstance of literature by creating endowments for struggling writers.
Oh wait, this is pure evil that I just espoused in claiming any collectivism whatsoever could be positive, or at least portraying such a view as tenable. Good thing I caught myself in time before spreading my indoctrination by the radical left cabal, and that if not soon I was going to be carrying pictures of Comrade Mao and calling for internment camps for reactionaries.
( . . . rather that being so busy "enlightening" others.) I suppose that's right. Here's a thought: sheep and shallowness can found at the extremes, not only in the "middle."
A brilliant piece, Liza that sums up the situation in the traditional publishing industry pretty well and why who can earn the privilege of being hired as a literary gatekeeper well…must be gate kept. Literary agents tend to be lazy, have bad grammar, uneducated on good literature and what makes for good literature, have no manners and are totally unprofessional, and left-wing or far-left in their politics. They are glorified sales people who never read Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, or Eliot in their life! They simply just read whatever is sent to them and if it checks the boxes of what the literary establishment wants, it’s gets in. If it’s good but doesn’t check those boxes, it is rejected.
This has GOT TO change! First off, the publishing industry must be comprehensively reformed from top to bottom. The qualifications to become a literary agent need to be increased. One should have to have an English degree or some sort of training in the Humanities first off. Second, they must be a skilled and exceptional writer. Third, to become a literary agent one must pass a rigorous test that is all about different works of literature and literary concepts as well as submit a written essay that demonstrates their knowledge of literature as well as correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Fourth, the pay for literary agents must be raised significantly. Lastly, their must be a through background check of all potential agents to make sure they are of good character and aren’t far-left or Jihadist nuts. Also, I call for the immediate abolition of sensitivity readers. For the time being, I call for the public to empower non-leftist Indie publishing houses and self-published authors and snatch up their work such as Girl Soldier!
In closing, for any literary agents that might be reading Liza’s article I’ve got a reading list for you to help deradicalize yourself and get out of the woke cult:
• Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science by Alan Sokal
• Cynical Theories: Why Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity and Why This Harms Everyone by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
• The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad
• America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything by Christopher F. Rufo
• The Madness of the Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity by Douglas Murray
• The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America by Coleman Hughes
• Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism by Ibn Warraq
• Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi
• Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred McClay
Ummm. Literary agents are not gatekeepers. Acquisition editors are gatekeepers. Agents represent books to the gatekeepers. Agents could change what they represent, but as long as the acquisition editors are looking for the same things, that will just mean that those agents don't make any sales and quickly go out of business. Agents take on those clients they think they can sell to the gatekeepers. It is not the agents whose minds you need to change, but the publishers.
Literary fiction killed itself by being, well, literary fiction, a thing set apart, rather than being the cream of the crop of regular fiction. It busied itself in philosophy and psychology and aesthetic experimentation that people quickly tired of. It became prestige literature, something to put on the coffee table to make the neighbours think you are an intellectual. But the prestige has worn off.
Philosophy, psychology, and aesthetic experimentation... How tiring! I am tired just looking at those words. 🥱 Save me regular fiction! Mercifully wash all philosophy, psychology and aesthetic experimentation from my brain.
You write, "Literary agents are not gatekeepers." You are wrong. 99% of commercial publishing houses WILL NOT look at un-agented manuscripts. Period.
Yes, but they are still not the gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are the ones who decide what will be published, and that is the acquisition editors, not the agents. The agents simply know what the gatekeepers are looking for and choose to represent only what they can sell. They transmit the message of the gatekeepers, but they are not the gatekeepers. If they were, changing their minds would change what gets published. But it won't. Changing the minds of the acquisition editors is what will change what get published. And when the editors change their minds, the agents will change their tune. Blaming agents for telling you what the editors will and will not buy is like blaming the postman for bringing you bills. They are just the courier. They did not create the message.
"The gatekeepers are the ones who decide what will be published, " Wrong again. Okay, they are part of the gatekeeper phalanx. But! Acquisition Editors CANNOT decide whether or not a book will pass... if they never even see it.
So you think there is a phalanx of agents out there who, through ignorance of the market, don't send editors the kind of books they are looking for? Wrong! You know why? Because agents who don't send editors the kind of books they are looking for don't make any money and have to go retrain as baristas. Market forces ensure that good agents know what is worth representing in their area of expertise. Lisa's post calls for reeducation of the literary agents to favor a more literary kind of work. But that would not change what got accepted by publishing houses. It would just ensure those agents went broke. Don't shoot the messenger, in other words. And don't try to retrain the messenger to tell you lies because you don't like the message.
Ok, I will give my opinion one more time. NO, I DON'T "... think there is a phalanx of agents out there who, through ignorance of the market, don't send editors the kind of books they are looking for?
I think they send editors EXACTLY the kind of books they are looking for. I think that today's literary agents and acquisition editors are of the 'same mind.' They are Siamese twins. Marx and Engels. Same with book review sites, and book clubs. They are 90% young feministas who all think the same.
Have a nice day.
I’ve sat in a number of conferences in which literary agents or hotshots in publishing houses have proudly spoken about their responsibility to shape the culture and their desire to weed out unwanted cultural elements in society through the power of literature. You can guess which way their cultural affinities lean.
In the same breath as all of that, one speaker from a very well respected publishing house (she was also VERY high up in it) declared that she actively monitored Wattpad for the next big thing, so…
I worked for a very large media & entertainment company for 10 years. The content that was created was minimally driven by gatekeeper/curatorial concerns and maximally driven by the $ (euphemistically referred to as the "audience"). If content made money, more similar content would be green lit. If not, then not. This is the unavoidable reality of the duty to maximise shareholder return.
Barnes & Noble is owned by Elliot Capital, a vulture hedge fund unlikely to put the advancement of cultural Marxism (or indeed any other consideration) ahead of shareholder return. I think it is hard to see how the publishing industry could be working against its owners' commercial interests. "Simply won't sell" probably is the market reality with no further rationale needed.
By the same argument, if the market demand changes then the retail and publishing offering will change in response. It's very difficult to enable/force any industry to change in opposition to its short term commercial interest without legislation.
Liza, I think the gatekeepers that need better gatekept are - as you've written elsewhere - those for High School reading lists. That's a foundational opportunity for shaping audience sensibility and, practically speaking, a very direct driver of book sales.
I’ve heard this argument before, and it would be true if most books published today actually made money, but the reality is that most traditionally published books sell fewer than 3000 copies and often come at a loss to big publishing houses, who stay afloat on big names. If Jonathan Franzen does well, then publishing cares less about the smaller-name authors because they’re likely to flop anyway. This is where ideology comes in, allowing agents and editors to use this gap to push their agenda.
I get that books aren't movies and that the lower production costs in publishing enable a long loss-making tail to be subsidised by the latest new editions of David Foster Wallace. But I don't think loss making items have a long term commercial future and books no one reads don't advance any agenda.
Education can shape literary tastes and values. Commercial organisations will only ever seek to follow them.
"maximally driven by the $" No Capitalism is not the problem here. It is Fascism in Publishing. Look up the definition of fascism. Government and Business colluding. We've had 75 years of the slow creep of liberalism.
I'm genuinely confused by the central argument here. You acknowledge that "an increasing number of readers and writers alike are turning to self-publishing and non-traditional outlets such as Substack to both disseminate and consume high quality fiction" - but then spend 3,000 words arguing that literary agents are "destroying the potential for great literature."
If self-publishing and Substack work for disseminating quality fiction to readers, then... agents aren't destroying anything? They're just not giving you their particular credential.
The real tension seems to be here: "Good writers deserve to have their writing differentiated from the mediocre Internet crowd by having their novels appear in bookstores, publicized in mainstream media outlets, and promoted on social media."
That's not about literature reaching readers - that's about wanting the status marker of traditional publication. Which is fine to want! But it's a different thing than "literature is dying." Andy Weir went from free web serial to bestseller to major film. Brandon Sanderson crowdfunded $40M. Wildbow built a massive following without ever touching the traditional system.
If your actual concern is great literature reaching readers, the current moment is incredible - the gatekeepers are increasingly irrelevant. If your concern is that *you specifically* want the validation that comes from passing through those gates... that's a personal frustration, not a civilizational crisis.
Yes
The Western publishing industry has been infiltrated by people who recycle revenue from books that actually sell, e.g. by J.K. Rowling or Jordan Peterson, into their pet projects, subsidising terrible writing and allowing fashionable ideologues to cosplay as professional authors. The problem with this model is that the audience for woke books doesn't read. If they actually buy a physical copy, it is to display on their bookshelf during video calls, or to give as a gift for someone else to do the same. Therefore it doesn't matter how bad the books are.
True, true, true, sad but true.
First let me say that I think you are very brave. Telling the truth gets people killed in some parts of the world. Here in America it gets them flamed and worst, shunned. But you do it and you deserve much credit.
I believe it’s just not the agents that are standing athwart of good literature and stories, the publishing houses are too, and much of the literati.
And, I would add, even some of the bigger literary blogs on Substack seem to be, in my opinion, too cliquish, most of their featured writers drawn from MFA factories and the Big Apple. I also see writers reluctant to venture an opinion on the issues of the day. LIkely they are afraid they’ll go on a list. You can say what you will about the great literary giants of the mid-20th century, but they boldly stated their opinions and famously argued for them on and off camera. Nowadays, unless you embrace the new shibboleth of the literati that would be writer career suicide.
You are right about Barnes and Noble. I go in there and there are tables everywhere with the kind of smarmy lefty agitprop you describe. And, as you note, it does sell. But, I believe, it is akin to addicting someone to greasy unhealthy fast food instead of whole foods cooked over time with love and care. Politics is indeed, downstream from Culture. And the lefty ladies of lit are using it to destroy hearts and minds… in my humble opinion.
I went to a meeting of SALC (Sierra Arts Literary Community) yesterday. There were about fifty of us, mostly elderly and mostly female. The presenter asked how many of us had literary agents. There was one, I believe, out of fifty. And, what surprised me even more was that none of the writers in the group seemed interested in getting an agent. I believe most of them saw it as a huge waste of time. Having spent two years trying (despite having had two agents over the years and publishing four books with commercial houses), I certainly see it that way. Yes, you could tailer your story/novel to what the literary lady bosses now demand… to increase your chances. But that’s Soviet anti-art. That’s whoring out one’s talent to suck up to the literati bosses. Even if it means never publishing anything ever again, I would never sink that low.
I am so burned out with pushing against this tide (for over twenty years), that I have pretty much decided to stop sending my work out to, not only agents, but also publishing houses—NYC giants and small presses. They’re all staffed by….; I can’t say it… it will get me in trouble.
So I will have a trusted friend and editor make one more pass through my latest novel, The Fake Memoir of a Fool in Love, and SERIALIZE it on my Substack over a couple of weeks, as Pilcrow is now doing. As a 77 year old author, I cannot wait for the publishing gate-keepers to grow up so I’ll have access to readers.
And, Liza, it is so encouraging to see someone like you openly and bravely stating the problem. I pray that you will find a way to get your work out there.
Thank you!
Glad you finally admitted you're not Shakespeare, Liza! But I think the problem runs much deeper here: Richard Hofstadter, Allan Bloom, and Neil Postman have all traced the decline of literacy in the United States to fundamental design flaws in the whole Enlightenment project right from the get-go. And of course Aldous Huxley brilliantly predicted how science and technology, worshiped for their own sake since the Death of God, would ultimately enslave and enfeeble us, dumbing us down along the way-videos and tweets are much more seductive than deep reading. Americans have never been worshipers of literature to begin with-this isn't France we're talking about here, and that whole Appalachian know-nothing-on-steroids strain in our culture is increasingly triumphant-look at our current president, who brags about never reading books, but who was the first GOP candidate to win the popular vote in thirty years.
Why must you drag politics and 'our current president' into the conversation? I could, if I wanted, say things like, our last president struggled to get through 'Heather Has Two Mommies, because he was and is, by all definitions, senile, and the words were too big for him. In my response to Liza's post I let politics out of it. You ought to try that.
You're the one dragging politics into this, pal. If you'd read my entire post, you would understand that I was using the current commander in chief's functional illiteracy to make a much larger point about literacy in the United States in general, or the lack of it, and how this has only gotten worse over time. Try reading Neil Postman or Richard Hofstadter, who I referenced. By the way, I am in no way saying that Trump is stupid-far from it, he has a certain genius, and I can't argue with the massive success of his foreign policy over the last year. But now I am getting into politics..,
Look, we can follow the thread, right up there; you're the one that dragged politics into this thread by reflexively mentioning Trump.
This thread was void of that until you brought it up. And you're still putting out the BS. "... the current commander in chief's functional illiteracy..."
The whole publishing literary world has been taken over by political idealogues. If you are too blind to see it, I'm not going to waste anymore of my time trying to help you.
You can, of course, type all you want about this, but start a new thread. I'm not going to waste anymore of my time replying to state the obvious.
Later.
Add Charles Murray to your reading list as well. His great book Coming Apart describes the massive epistemic closure among our educated elites-something I have been well aware of for some time. And it wouldn't hurt to reread The Closing of the American Mind,as well. But to paraphrase the great Lori Cardille as Sara in Day of the Dead, 1985: "But you're just describing what is already happening, instead of looking for what's MAKING it happen!" One more screed against the political left is meaningless if we don't get to the root of the problem-how meaning has been transferred from one sphere to another-the disenchantment of the world over the past four hundred years has had the baleful effect of supercharging everyday life in unexpected and even out and out evil ways- Flannery O' Connor saw this.
I admire your boldness with practically every new post!
Gonna say I agree there are problems with lit agents. But don't think the problem is we live in the age of Genre fiction. All fiction fits within one genre or another. One may as well say the problem is fiction in that case. The other problem is most literary stuff is mindless fluff about the problems of girls in the modern age.
What's needed is to dispense with the insistence on Literary/Academic nonsense to focus on good writing and getting the current generation of lit agents who are obsessed with literary fiction and smut out.
“We live in an age of the rule of money, rather than the dominance of mind.” Lewis Lapham.
It's the publishers who have the deep pockets. If the agents don't filter to the publishers' requirements, they will go out of business.
So they are being gate-kept. It's the publishers who need a gate-keeper.
The Japanese have a saying, 'the nail that sticks up, gets hammered down.' Other cultures have similar sayings. Liza, thank you for being brave enough to speak the truth to power. Yes, that's what it is, truth to power. Because now, the literary Feminocracy has all the power. Your stating as much, and my 'amens,' will have a cost. But this great injustice must not stand.
Well, my novel is about vampires, so there’s hope? 🤣
It is almost like market economies do not necessarily always lead to the best results or production in every industry, and at certain times it could be a net benefit for society for certain well-meaning governments to step in to help. Norway, for example, seems to be one of these cases in the circumstance of literature by creating endowments for struggling writers.
Oh wait, this is pure evil that I just espoused in claiming any collectivism whatsoever could be positive, or at least portraying such a view as tenable. Good thing I caught myself in time before spreading my indoctrination by the radical left cabal, and that if not soon I was going to be carrying pictures of Comrade Mao and calling for internment camps for reactionaries.
A bold statement (some might say "radical"!). When will far left (and right) sheep encounter their own enlightenment?!
( . . . rather that being so busy "enlightening" others.) I suppose that's right. Here's a thought: sheep and shallowness can found at the extremes, not only in the "middle."
He who claims to be enlightened is not.