I feel like if anything’s been lost it’s the ability for boring writers to relish in their mediocracy. A lot of the anger people have with publishing isn’t that publishers are putting out unoriginal slop, but that they aren’t putting out MY unoriginal slop.
I know you're being funny but maybe in this case more effective to be accurate: this week's New Yorker story is by David Bezmogis. They've recently published Colm Toibin, Joseph O'Neill, David Rabe, and David Szalay. The anxiety you're rightly mocking is not only ridiculous, it's based on a delusion!
That seems to be a very important part to miss! I was going to throw a stack of names from middle ish to high ish brow at this text but that piece of info really changes the assessment (also I might be just too old to know).
We ought to be aiming for a publishing climate that publishes the best work, which will naturally be a variety. No - it doesn't matter whether a particular author is male or female. But what does matter is failing to select good work because of being focussed on the immutable identity characteristics of the author. This is an issue whichever direction it falls because it's unfair to the individual, and also a net loss for literature itself.
In my world, in visual arts, you have a kind of monocultural totalitarianism, where the people running the institutions literally don't care about art - they merely see it as a tool to further their (middle-class identity-obsessed) politics. This is corrupt and sinister, bad for art, and bad for humanity.
yeah - i think it's really disingenuous (sorry Henry) to not admit that this issue is basically an analogue of Soviet Realism - art as an empty propaganda tool - and that this is a huge problem across the whole arts sector, which we actually need to address. And 'write better books' doesn't address it - and might, in fact, be a bit of the old greengrocer's sign...
I had to look up “the greengrocer's sign,” but thanks for mentioning it because I’ve been meaning to get around to reading Vaclav Havel since I heard MC Paul Barman mention him in a song, probably twenty years ago now. At least I’ve skimmed the wikipedia now.
An extremely idiosyncratic anecdote here (not a fiction writer!) -- a couple years ago I found myself aggressively pursued by the New Yorker, and even got a couple yeses on pitches. I'm sure this was in part a diversity thing -- don't get me wrong, I'm very good, but I was also the sole Latina they could've approached for that section. I then casually let slip in an e-mail with an editor that I was a college dropout who was finishing her Bachelor's part-time at a community college, at which point they stopped responding to any of my e-mails (including about my pitches in progress, which they had already accepted). Oops!
It is very telling to me that Savage's article bemoans MFA programs for their demographics and for the wussy writing style they engender in white men, rather than suggesting that perhaps, just maybe, it's bad that all our "creatives" come from a handful of elite university programs.
I enjoyed this piece but it felt more like rhetoric than anything else. And I can't imagine it being written about any group other than white men. Would be interesting to see the hard numbers and some analysis/suggestions as to what might be causing any disparity. The advice to white men to try a bit harder (who need a publisher after all!!) seems (ironically) to be taking the easy way out.
"The New Yorker" doesn't care as much about fiction and poetry as it used to- they've shifted their focus more to investigative journalism and the like. And you won't get accepted in there unless you already have the seal of approval the pretentious people who read it and judge its content. Whereas genre fiction like science fiction and mystery not only acknowledges the existence of new writers, it provides places for them to thrive.
Loved this. When I read the comment sections of the ridiculous articles on this topic, I always find a heap of men lamenting over their incredible manuscript that was turned down only because they are male, they are white, the culture doesn't want to hear from them, blah blah. Nope. The book is boring, the voice is flat, and they are unable to step of their own victimhood long enough to realize that a high school diploma, Comp I & II, and the handful of books they are imitating just aren't going to cut it. If you want a career, you'll have to write a lot that ends up in the garbage. But no, they'd rather read stupid tweets that reinforce their impossible position.
One of the top agents in the world, who had read my novel “A Prince Among Men” several times in manuscript, told me in 2020 after the George Floyd / BLM riots that I had “no chance of a traditional publishing experience” and recommended I self-publish and hope for the best. Fact.
Several writers I know have experienced exactly this. They weren’t rejected because their work was dull or unworthy it was because their ideas didn’t align with the prevailing ideology. And yes, in some cases, simply because they were men.
The publishing industry, once a steward of diverse thought and creative exploration, has become loyal not to storytellers, but to ideological conformity. It no longer champions the richness of human imagination it curates acceptable narratives from what it considers acceptable identity groups.
The truth is, we no longer need traditional publishing to share our stories with the world. I took that road once, saw through the illusion, and chose self-publishing. I’ve never looked back.
To anyone hitting the same wall I say free yourself. The gatekeepers are relics. Your voice doesn’t need their permission to be heard. To hell with the publishing industry.
Fast forward to 22/23 and my documentary film is privately praised by one of the top film festival programmers in the world, only to be rejected by 30 consecutive festivals after Sundance ultimately passes on it.
Yeah, I guess if I had a marketing person they'd recommend that I find some way to get that general notion across without writing a nuanced eleven thousand word essay about it. I'll see what I can do, but I'm working with next to nothing. I think I'm finally beginning to get beyond the burnout of making the damned thing with next to nothing, though, so even if I personally just want to move the hell on, maybe I can put some energy into getting it in front of at least some public eyes.
I’m currently doing some research on publishing trends of the past year. There are no white men being published. Absolutely none (unless they are also queer).
This completely reductionist take ignores the realities of the publishing world and how men are being discriminated against (I outline a lot of this in my essay The Strange Death of Literary Men). It also assumes that everything being published is good (most of it is not).
This is the equivalent of telling someone with depression to “just be happy.” It’s like, oh, you sunk 500 hours into your novel and can’t get a publishing deal? Just write a better book!
Sure, we should all strive to write better books. But the issue here is not that white men are writing bad books. It is that everyone else is writing bad books and still being published—so long as the book contains certain identity politics trends. Sure, you can tell men to self-publish. That does not address the underlying problem that white men are being shut out of mainstream publishing. Why should they have to suffer while far worse writers are being let in?
Really disappointed by The Common Reader. I enjoy some of his takes on literature, but he clearly did not do his research on this one.
“At some point, these lost Miltons (can anyone name any of them?) need to ask whether they want to climb an established hierarchy or whether they want to write a great novel. This is art, for God’s sake, not a career path to a VP job.”
Great piece, beautifully written. Also worth thinking about how people get out there and recognized in terms of the history of novel writing and novel publishing. I wrote a piece a while back on my Substack about how serial publication and lending libraries in the 19th century shaped the content that readers received, and there must be interesting scholarship out there about what has happened since. (The Duck-Billed Reader: Feb. 20 essay called More Than Entertainment: Teachings in the Victorian Novel.)
I think your point about thinking about novel writing/publishing as part of a historical continuum is well made and helpful. For me, it ties in neatly to Henry’s specific point about Proust.
Tony's "Rejection" and Helen Dewitt's "Lightning Rods" were two of the most fun and gross and outrageous novels I've ever read. We're lucky to have them!
I feel like if anything’s been lost it’s the ability for boring writers to relish in their mediocracy. A lot of the anger people have with publishing isn’t that publishers are putting out unoriginal slop, but that they aren’t putting out MY unoriginal slop.
I know you're being funny but maybe in this case more effective to be accurate: this week's New Yorker story is by David Bezmogis. They've recently published Colm Toibin, Joseph O'Neill, David Rabe, and David Szalay. The anxiety you're rightly mocking is not only ridiculous, it's based on a delusion!
oh the original claim was white men under 40 in fact
That seems to be a very important part to miss! I was going to throw a stack of names from middle ish to high ish brow at this text but that piece of info really changes the assessment (also I might be just too old to know).
does it? the point is still that being in the New Yorker is a silly measurement
Hm these are a bunch of oldsters I guess lol
We ought to be aiming for a publishing climate that publishes the best work, which will naturally be a variety. No - it doesn't matter whether a particular author is male or female. But what does matter is failing to select good work because of being focussed on the immutable identity characteristics of the author. This is an issue whichever direction it falls because it's unfair to the individual, and also a net loss for literature itself.
In my world, in visual arts, you have a kind of monocultural totalitarianism, where the people running the institutions literally don't care about art - they merely see it as a tool to further their (middle-class identity-obsessed) politics. This is corrupt and sinister, bad for art, and bad for humanity.
I might agree with you about the prevalence of bad taste, but I think that is anther problem and calls for the same solution.
The same's been happening in independent film for years now. This thing is in control across the humanities.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cinematimshel/p/ideologically-out-of-line-and-insufficiently?r=16t7t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
yeah - i think it's really disingenuous (sorry Henry) to not admit that this issue is basically an analogue of Soviet Realism - art as an empty propaganda tool - and that this is a huge problem across the whole arts sector, which we actually need to address. And 'write better books' doesn't address it - and might, in fact, be a bit of the old greengrocer's sign...
I had to look up “the greengrocer's sign,” but thanks for mentioning it because I’ve been meaning to get around to reading Vaclav Havel since I heard MC Paul Barman mention him in a song, probably twenty years ago now. At least I’ve skimmed the wikipedia now.
An extremely idiosyncratic anecdote here (not a fiction writer!) -- a couple years ago I found myself aggressively pursued by the New Yorker, and even got a couple yeses on pitches. I'm sure this was in part a diversity thing -- don't get me wrong, I'm very good, but I was also the sole Latina they could've approached for that section. I then casually let slip in an e-mail with an editor that I was a college dropout who was finishing her Bachelor's part-time at a community college, at which point they stopped responding to any of my e-mails (including about my pitches in progress, which they had already accepted). Oops!
It is very telling to me that Savage's article bemoans MFA programs for their demographics and for the wussy writing style they engender in white men, rather than suggesting that perhaps, just maybe, it's bad that all our "creatives" come from a handful of elite university programs.
I enjoyed this piece but it felt more like rhetoric than anything else. And I can't imagine it being written about any group other than white men. Would be interesting to see the hard numbers and some analysis/suggestions as to what might be causing any disparity. The advice to white men to try a bit harder (who need a publisher after all!!) seems (ironically) to be taking the easy way out.
It's true that it's only socially acceptable to give this advice to white men, but it is still good advice.
"The New Yorker" doesn't care as much about fiction and poetry as it used to- they've shifted their focus more to investigative journalism and the like. And you won't get accepted in there unless you already have the seal of approval the pretentious people who read it and judge its content. Whereas genre fiction like science fiction and mystery not only acknowledges the existence of new writers, it provides places for them to thrive.
yeah totally
Loved this. When I read the comment sections of the ridiculous articles on this topic, I always find a heap of men lamenting over their incredible manuscript that was turned down only because they are male, they are white, the culture doesn't want to hear from them, blah blah. Nope. The book is boring, the voice is flat, and they are unable to step of their own victimhood long enough to realize that a high school diploma, Comp I & II, and the handful of books they are imitating just aren't going to cut it. If you want a career, you'll have to write a lot that ends up in the garbage. But no, they'd rather read stupid tweets that reinforce their impossible position.
One of the top agents in the world, who had read my novel “A Prince Among Men” several times in manuscript, told me in 2020 after the George Floyd / BLM riots that I had “no chance of a traditional publishing experience” and recommended I self-publish and hope for the best. Fact.
I don't doubt it. I do know that "traditional" is not the way many great writers have succeeded.
Fair point.
Several writers I know have experienced exactly this. They weren’t rejected because their work was dull or unworthy it was because their ideas didn’t align with the prevailing ideology. And yes, in some cases, simply because they were men.
The publishing industry, once a steward of diverse thought and creative exploration, has become loyal not to storytellers, but to ideological conformity. It no longer champions the richness of human imagination it curates acceptable narratives from what it considers acceptable identity groups.
The truth is, we no longer need traditional publishing to share our stories with the world. I took that road once, saw through the illusion, and chose self-publishing. I’ve never looked back.
To anyone hitting the same wall I say free yourself. The gatekeepers are relics. Your voice doesn’t need their permission to be heard. To hell with the publishing industry.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kennetheharrell/p/the-age-of-publishing-gatekeepers
Fast forward to 22/23 and my documentary film is privately praised by one of the top film festival programmers in the world, only to be rejected by 30 consecutive festivals after Sundance ultimately passes on it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cinematimshel/p/ideologically-out-of-line-and-insufficiently?r=16t7t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Marketing person: Rejected or “banned”. “The documentary they don’t want you to see.” 😏😉
Yeah, I guess if I had a marketing person they'd recommend that I find some way to get that general notion across without writing a nuanced eleven thousand word essay about it. I'll see what I can do, but I'm working with next to nothing. I think I'm finally beginning to get beyond the burnout of making the damned thing with next to nothing, though, so even if I personally just want to move the hell on, maybe I can put some energy into getting it in front of at least some public eyes.
I’m currently doing some research on publishing trends of the past year. There are no white men being published. Absolutely none (unless they are also queer).
This completely reductionist take ignores the realities of the publishing world and how men are being discriminated against (I outline a lot of this in my essay The Strange Death of Literary Men). It also assumes that everything being published is good (most of it is not).
This is the equivalent of telling someone with depression to “just be happy.” It’s like, oh, you sunk 500 hours into your novel and can’t get a publishing deal? Just write a better book!
Sure, we should all strive to write better books. But the issue here is not that white men are writing bad books. It is that everyone else is writing bad books and still being published—so long as the book contains certain identity politics trends. Sure, you can tell men to self-publish. That does not address the underlying problem that white men are being shut out of mainstream publishing. Why should they have to suffer while far worse writers are being let in?
Really disappointed by The Common Reader. I enjoy some of his takes on literature, but he clearly did not do his research on this one.
“At some point, these lost Miltons (can anyone name any of them?) need to ask whether they want to climb an established hierarchy or whether they want to write a great novel. This is art, for God’s sake, not a career path to a VP job.”
THANK YOU! Spectacular piece 💥
Loved this, thank you! It‘s also worth noting that as fields become feminized, prestige and pay go down. Let‘s keep a sharp eye on that!
Great piece, beautifully written. Also worth thinking about how people get out there and recognized in terms of the history of novel writing and novel publishing. I wrote a piece a while back on my Substack about how serial publication and lending libraries in the 19th century shaped the content that readers received, and there must be interesting scholarship out there about what has happened since. (The Duck-Billed Reader: Feb. 20 essay called More Than Entertainment: Teachings in the Victorian Novel.)
exactly! go find your readers! Thanks :)
I think your point about thinking about novel writing/publishing as part of a historical continuum is well made and helpful. For me, it ties in neatly to Henry’s specific point about Proust.
Excellent piece
I’m trying
Tony's "Rejection" and Helen Dewitt's "Lightning Rods" were two of the most fun and gross and outrageous novels I've ever read. We're lucky to have them!
I am halfway into Rejection. Really good.
The section featuring a custom video request is obscene, you'll enjoy sort of, I couldn't believe what I was reading.
@Klara Feenstra another Rejection fan here!
ugh, the most depraved/incredible reading experience!!
I'm a straight white man under 40 who published a novel last year: https://amzn.to/4lrpAfk. It was quite the journey.