A special Rumpus lamentation with possible added pep talk.
***
So last week the New Yorker published their once-a-decade Fiction Issue, in which they printed eight stories, along with their list of 20 Writers Under 40.
I’ve read most of the stories by now, and I have to say: they’re pretty awesome. The Josh Ferris piece was dark and funny, a spot-on send-up of the Los Angeles fantasy machine. Phillip Meyer’s story was a bruiser, in the best way, and Rivka Galchen’s short totally slayed me. I’m in love with her voice. It was, in fact, an unmitigated pleasure to read such fine prose, to feel inspired toward deeper feeling, fresher language, new and tumultuous paths to the old verities.
I hereby congratulate every single one of the 20 Under 40 Writers. I know most of your work, though not as well as I should, and you all kick serious ass.
Likewise, I congratulate the New Yorker for being the one magazine that still devotes itself to the singular pleasures of short fiction – my first and final love. I can’t say that I adore every story you publish. But I recognize all of them as exceptional work.
***
I must now sadly interrupt this lovefest to confess one more thing: I found the 20 Under 40 issue totally depressing.
I could fabricate all kinds of supposedly legitimate reasons for this. I could say, “It’s a stunt that feeds the culture of literary celebrity.” Or, “It’s appalling that the New Yorker would privilege young writers in this way.”
But my reasons – like yours – are narcissistic and almost touchingly petty. I feel wounded.
Because here’s why: I spend most of my life doubting my legitimacy as a writer, not feeling that I suck exactly, but often convinced that I’m your basic mid-list hacker who will never write anything enduring, and therefore never be recognized by the various Bad Parents of literary legitimacy.
For whatever unassailable merits the New Yorker’s most recent list offers, it sends the basic message that they’ve chosen those writers who matter for the next decade – and by implication those writers who don’t.
Is this a totally solipsistic and self-pitying view of the situation? Hell yes. It also happens to be how most of the fiction writers out there feel deep down (my best estimate: 85 percent).
I’m not suggesting that I deserve to be on the New Yorker’s list. I’ve written a handful of stories – okay, maybe two – that might have merited serious consideration at the magazine.
I like to tell myself that my work is too overt in its emotional and moral concerns for the New Yorker, a line of reasoning that is frankly tiresome and perhaps fraudulent.
The truth is, I recognize the limits of my talent and drive. That’s the whole problem. I’m just good enough – as a writer and a reader – to recognize my spot in the pecking order. It feels slightly cruel to have that place by affirmed by the magazine I worship.
***
I remember when the New Yorker’s inaugural list came out. I was 33 years old, a full-time writer of short stories, most of them damned by the worst of all attributes: competence.
I knew at that point that I didn’t deserve to be among the luminaries pictured in that issue. But I read their stories, and studied their photographs, and I fantasized a good deal about what it might feel like to receive the golden touch of the anointed.
In my bent cosmology, the New Yorker always has represented the pinnacle of New York publishing. A lot of people grouse about the articles being too long, or the house style being too staid. But it’s the only slick I can even stand reading anymore, because it faithfully delivers the most precise and insightful prose on earth.
In my healthier moments, I viewed that initial list as an exhortation. Here was my chance to prove the Bad Parents of New York Publishing wrong.
In my less than healthy moments, I sat brooding and plotting, the default setting for the mid-list hacker. At one point, I grew so desperate to be known at the magazine that I submitted a short story with a letter addressed to the fiction editor Bill Buford, noting that “it was great to have talked with” him, and mentioning that I was enclosing the story he’d requested.
He wrote me a kind, if bemused, note of rejection, which I immediately posted on my wall.
***
My depression this time around is tempered with a certain strain of resignation. In the intervening years, I’ve managed to publish a handful of books, including two story collections. I’ve graduated, in other words, from wannabe to never-was.
I no longer worry about being the Next Big Thing. Those days are over. What I worry about is the essential internal struggle – which is against self-doubt and distraction and envy.
On bad days, it feels to me like the world of writers is a big, unhappy family, with thousands of children, all of them working so hard to be noticed and none of who get the attention they deserve. The culture at large has drifted away from the solitary pleasures of reading, toward the frantic enticements of commerce.
And so, too often, we turn on each other. Particularly when a Big Daddy like the New Yorker singles out his most talented children for praise. The rest of us are left feeling we’re doomed to obscurity, that these 20 hot young thangs are going to suck up every bit of cultural oxygen that exists for fiction writers.
The truth is, they will suck up a lot of that oxygen. They’re going to get book deals easier than you, and reviews easier than you. They’re going to find readers more easily than you. And here’s what really stings: for the most part, they’ll deserve the attention. There’s nothing you can do about any of this.
***
Actually, there is one thing you can do about this, which is to handle the situation with more grace and maturity than I seem to have mustered.
Seriously.
Your job as a fiction writer is to focus on your characters, and to ignore – to the extent you can – the rest of the bullshit. Your other option is to surrender to grievance, the very emotion state our Republican friends have used to infantilize this country.
Such feelings, how ever seductive, will do nothing to make your work any better. They are merely an old song you can’t shake.
It is perfectly natural – perhaps inevitable – to dream of being “discovered” and rocketed to the top of the Bestseller list. As Americans, we’ve been trained to dream in this way.
But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form.
Most of us will have to find our readers one by one, in other words, and against considerable resistance. If anything qualifies us as heroic, it’s that private perpetual struggle.
Put down the magazine, soldier. Forget about the other guy. Remember who you are.
80 responses
Beautifully — and honestly — written, Steve. I liked this essay a lot.
Wait, are you still under 40? If it’s any consolation, you’re on my personal list of favorites.
Hey this is great. Just read Ferris’ story last night and thought, hmmm, I wish he’d edited the beginning a little. Hah!
Reading this today made me smile. Here’s my favorite part:
But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form.
Most of us will have to find our readers one by one, in other words, and against considerable resistance. If anything qualifies us as heroic, it’s that private perpetual struggle.
You’re a better sport than me, but then, I never had a shot…unless they decide on doing the 20 Over 60 issue.
LOVE.
For consideration from V. Vale (RE:Search publisher):
“DOMINANT CELEBRITY CULTURE INJECTS US WITH: fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement.” Vale + Aime Cesaire
though I don’t think he had in mind literary celebrities, who I don’t think can ever again be part of the dominant celebrity culture.
But any of us can feel smacked in the face missing out on a big prize. I refer to my book (unpublished) as self-help because it is a memoir of mistakes–all anyone has to do to feel good about themselves is read it. This could be a hit! I’m getting no help from my brother whose friend is Malcolm Gladwell, on staff at the New Yorker. My brother won’t tell him his sister has written a book, even though MG famously wrote about “connectors” and “mavens” as the way to get ahead. Sheesh. My brother, the businessman, thinks it would be inappropriate to mention that his sister is looking for an agent, any advice MG?
So I go it alone. Right now I’m wondering if I can send you a pic of me in bad hair, and how would I do that? My bad hair is a beautiful purple mohawk.
Brilliant, inspiring final words, Steve Almond.
When wallowing in self-doubt I like to remember that Quentin Crisp, a fine and funny writer, didn’t achieve any success till he was in his sixties.
Nice essay, but don’t beat yourself up about your writing, not many can write about their life in an honest and creative way you did. I believe you are an excellent writer and it’s Their Loss not mine and the other readers who find you extremely talented.
Terra
If anyone actually believes that the NYer or any other publication, e.g., Granta, creates THE list for the next x years, he or she should be a master of the fairy tale. Many of these writers are already on my “to read” list while others may or may not get a further look from me.
I am interested in experimental writing and have a good record of finding new authors from a wide range of reading. These “under 40s” are fortunate in that they are being exposed to a potentially strong audience, readers with $. There is a price to pay for that exposure, however, in that, should they violate their readers’ expectations, they shall be dropped.
We should recollect Proust’s self-defense against exactly this kind of reader (which evidently included Andre Gide!)in the first volume of IN SEARCH FOR LOST TIME. Habits inculcated by the academy and mainstream experience are difficult to break (through).
Feel so much better reading your take on this 20 under 40 issue. I will never do more writing than for my own pleasure, but it somehow hurt me when I realized the NY’er that arrived in the mail on Saturday was only the young and up-and-coming writers that are in a certain age group! It’s petty but I doubt I’m even going to read any of the articles now, it’s just too offputting to me that they’re saying, “Oh, here’s the *really* important writers of the future”. In that case I’ll look elsewhere much the same way that when our backwoods midwestern capitol city’s library declares a “One Book, One Lincoln” book that everyone’s supposed to read, well you guessed it – I do not cooperate, not at all. Probably to my own detriment, but there you have it.
I love you, Steve. I do. This is so right I could weep.
Nice. A good way to get yourself into the New Yorker. Smart. P.S. You’re pretty well known already, no?
So true. It is disheartening to see the adoration of youth by The New Yorker even as I adore them myself.
Trying to find one’s voice over 50 is an embarrasing proposition and it doesn’t help that the effort seems irrelevant to so many. Well, you keep on keeping on. It does help put the work into perspective. (Not that I have perspective, but I can sometimes smell it in the distance.)
I like that another poster mentioned Quentin Crisp, a lovely and admirable being. He inspires me as well, not so much for his writing (although it is quite grand, really) but for his late life success in finding happiness in New York City and aging beautifully with a continuing growth curve – a lovely parabloa to watch and one I hope to emulate.
Carry on, all.
Possibility: Steve Almond motivational doll that fits into your pocket/pill bottle.
First I was too young to produce anything worth reading and now, months away from 40, I’m too old to be a fresh and interesting voice. I won’t lie and say I don’t cry into my pillow over such things, but it will always be something. You never really arrive no matter how much success you achieve. I’m just glad I’m not the only lamenting and desperate for a pep talk. Thank you, Steve.
Steve, you nailed it in every way, and nailed many of my feelings. The day after this list really bummed me out, I worked on my book, and it lifted me, just being in that verbal muck, and typing my way towards who I was. Who I wanted to be, which is someone who writes a book. Because, as you know, it’s hard fucking work, and the joy really is in the creation, and struggle to create.
I feel like the glimmers of writing success we have — for me, often, just finishing a day of writing and feeling like the world is what I daydreamed it was — really is worth it. And once I listened to the New Yorker podcasts about the 20<40, I realized that it wasn't about naming these people above me (I mean, obviously, I'm not a consideration with my publishing history), but it was about celebrating literature. And, seriously, Wells Tower? That dude deserves to be on every list on earth, if it'll sell more of his books, and stories. And Galchen and Ferris, too. And I'm about to crack open Alarcon's Lost City Radio, a little because he won the Literary Death Match in SF a few days ago with such a beautiful story, but, really/honestly, more because he was on this list.
In short: I love the honesty of this piece, Steve, and that you wrote it.
Essays like this fill me with such admiration and affection for the author that I scarcely dare print the words for fear they will be used against me somehow, somewhere — perhaps in the not-too-distant distant Fox News future when religious and political bigot-zealots have seized total control and legislated against males like me letting flare up within themselves quasi-homo-affectionate feelings of the kind I presently feel, fully immanently aflare, toward Mr. Almond.
“Rock and Roll Will Save Your Soul” is excellent and awesome, too.
It’s no small task to critique the list of Writers Who Matter while being conscious enough to separate genuine complaint from sour grapes. You’ve threaded that needle perfectly.
The sad state of the book world is that fame and merit are not always one, that age has far too much to do with who gets chosen, that one may be excellent and never be deemed New Yorker-worthy. So, as so many have already said, we write in order to create. But damn it, it’s hard not to want the gold star, too.
I had the opposite reaction to this list, if only for the inclusion of one of my dearest friends. I don’t say this to name drop, I say this because his interview was brutally honest and incredibly encouraging. It added perspectives on one of my closest friendships. It felt like it was addressed to me, (it wasn’t) and I won’t tell him it made me cry or anything, (it did). All this from a guy I spend most of the time trying to surprise with a quick gut punch (literally, like with my fist) and our most heartfelt conversations can be summed up with the words “suck it.”
Philipp Meyer basically supported me the summer just before “American Rust” came out. I was having a hard time, like one may have trying to write, I had no place to live and was flat broke. I didn’t ask to stay with him and the agreement when unspoken, and I’ll never know all the reasons he put me up, but he did. I knew a little of his story. That he had quit a high paying job to write, as I had. That he had to move back home. I won’t reiterate it all, it’s in the interview. Even knowing this I just assumed he had always written well and had been overlooked due to some literary injustice (13 Joyce Carol Oates stories per literary journal, per year for one). Then to read what he told the New Yorker this month put my career in incredible perspective. Sure he’s a guy at the top of his game now, but to borrow Almond’s word, only felt competent for much of his early career.
Philipp will never tell anyone to write, or not to, he has said (and I paraphrase) that he can’t tell someone what to do. Especially when it comes to a career as unlikely as “writer.” But with his addition to this list I think he did just that. Read his interview (available online or in this issue of the New Yorker) and find out if it’s all worth it.
I apologize if this is hastily written, I’ve got a deadline. I also apologize if I’m overselling it.
*when unspoken=went unspoken.
Yes. Just yes. Thanks.
i’m grateful to hear that meyer is a good egg. you always hope…
… which is not to say that writers should have to be good eggs. the work should be enough.
Thanks for this!
“But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form.”
I can’t even do this, most days, especially for the past year. Thought that continues to haunt me: There’s so much good writing out there. Why bother?
This, I think, is a sensible thought.
However I also experience a lot of anxiety/frustration/sadness when I don’t write. Part of writing, for me, is being quiet, listening, observing, trying to be open and receptive. When I don’t put observations/experiences in words I sometimes don’t feel they’re quite “real.” Without writing I would feel less engaged in life, less connected to myself and others. Often I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling unless I’m getting it down on the page. That’s probably an overstatement, but not by much.
Writing is life heightened and deepened. It’s a mystery I follow as I type. And while I do, while writing some things, try to keep “the reader” in mind, I often find this challenging. As there is of course no one reader. As there is only one reader I know well enough to speak for (myself)–even this is a challenge.
Sometimes I write out of gratitude, out of the desire to preserve a moment, out of the desire to create a sort of painting or poem or song (to try and mostly fail). If I write deeply and vividly enough what I write will resonate with some.
But I don’t care to resonate with the vast majority, because, well, I would have no idea how to do that.
Thought it’s true I have written straightforwardly and gotten very positive and appreciate responses, people telling me that’s what they think, etc.
Other times I write what is baffling to me and to others. But if it takes me somewhere other, somewhere deep and strange I am willing to risk bafflement. And sometimes I enjoy it.
We hope to connect to readers, some, some of the time.
I hope to keep people company–as writers have kept me company since I was 10. There have been months, even years, when I have carried certain books or quotes with me for company, to keep me going. Without writing, music and comedy I would have quit this world long ago.
I write to understand, to paint, to joke, to share, to express bafflement, horror, joy, to extend solace, to question and affirm.
If some of us accomplish some of this sometimes isn’t writing worth it?
I am one over 43 who often feels more like not-quite-one under 20 going on 12 going on 87.
Write.
Keep readers in mind. YOUR readers.
Other times, write like no one’s reading–because, well, they aren’t.
Thanks again for this.
I’m a visual artist, but writers writing about writing have always been a great resource. And more bluntly — Once again this difficult year, Rumpus saves my day. I read all the comments before mine, too, and they were all splendid. I’m glad to be among the thousands over 40, showing up, making the work, gaining an audience one at a time, maybe, if not day by day, week by week or year by year. I do video – you can’t even sell them. To anyone. Painting may be dead, but at least people need things to put on their walls. Pecking order? Well, the Guggenheim is collaborating with YouTube. It’s like your parents on Spring Break, I guess, but sign me up! One of the chestnuts of artists is that you don’t choose to be one; you do it because you can’t not do it. And the art is long, life short. (someone can correct me – was that actually said first about medicine? Doctor my soul…) Thanks, Steve Almond.
I love Steve Almond but I quit reading the NYer in 2003 when they were so gung-ho to invade Iraq.
I’ve really enjoyed not reading the NYer and can’t get too bothered about their Literary Issue. Books of short stories may be art but they’re also commodities, for sale in the marketplace. The NYer has always been mainly about the commodity side, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Good work is always being done and often finds an outlet. That’s okay with me.
thanks for this beautiful thing.
I love the paragraph that other people love too — “showing up at the keyboard” — but I worry about subscribing to a culture that validates/romanticizes(?)/accepts that “hopeless” feeling as par for the writing course. What about joy? I’m not saying I don’t feel hopeless before my computer every morning, or many mornings, but should that really be acceptable; should we really press on; or are we only doing it, only accepting it, because everyone else is?
xo.
Read the editor’s column online and she answers a lot of those issues. They were experimenting with this list, and will most definitely pick a different age or characterization next year. Annie Proulx started writing at 50. There’s hope for all of us. It’s the story that counts. So keep on writing, no harm in trying to distinguish yourself. Competition can only make you better if you keep on trying. (Cancer really puts things in perspective. Daniel Landon in CATCHER, CAUGHT, forthcoming from AmazonEncore, taught me a thing or two about perspective, and he learned some of that from Holden Caulfield.)
Just stumbled up here from somewhere and such a nice article. I really admire you.
I like Sarah Honenberger’s points up there, especially about Annie Proulx.
It’s something to note that most of the female book authors I admire never published anything significant until they were over 40. Didn’t mean they weren’t writing. But the truth is a lot of women writers — and actually these days this can apply to a lot of men, too — are giving their thirties to bearing and raising children. I’ve noticed that many of those female book authors, the ones I admire, only started publishing after their children were well into school age. Being in my 30s and having small children myself, I can attest to how difficult it is to show up at the keyboard every day, much less really focus on the craft.
For some of us, it’s “just show up at the page … every moment you can, when your kids don’t have pink-eye or dentist appointments or random viruses and aren’t needing your attention *right now,* and when you’re not steamrolled by pregnancy … just keep showing up and knowing that, however little writing you get done, you’re still doing it, still there, still committed.”
I read this, and honestly didn’t expect to recognise or the name of the writer, let alone to have read any of his stories, but I did and I have. It’s neither encouraging or discouraging.
I appreciate your honesty, especially considering you’re “somebody”.
Paul
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you.
This is wonderful. Thanks for writing it!
Mr. Almond is too modest. His own writing is superior to at least half of what is in the New Yorker issue. That aside, a welcome reflection.
I’m taping parts of this above my desk. (Specifically, the excerpt that Stephen Elliott quoted from in his The Daily Rumpus newsletter.)
A wonderful piece. Simply wonderful. Thank you.
As Nathan Englander said in the NYTimes: “If you get on it, then it’s a nice confirmation. If you don’t get on it, then it doesn’t mean anything.â€
Melissa Price, you said if for me when you said, ‘Writing is life heightened and deepened. It’s a mystery I follow as I type.” Yes. I go about my busy life, skipping over important moments, because, there is something else to be done. Or, its significance is not available to me. Writing and reading, particularly the short story, brings me back to those overlooked moments that enrich my life, or give character to deeper wells of feeling and knowledge that are straining to emerge. That striving toward significance, so personal, that connecting to a three-dimensional self, is what I read for, and what I would write for. Otherwise, my experience of time is a series of errands, repeating themselves, daily, weekly, monthly. A great work of fiction explains time and experience to us in ways that we yearn for but arrive at only on occasion. Or as you said, “When I don’t put observations/experiences in words I sometimes don’t feel they’re quite “real.”
Yes.
“The truth is, I recognize the limits of my talent and drive”.
We all experience as children a dream. Sometimes, that dream takes the form of, “everyone will know how special I am.” “Or, maybe I am James Joyce, how would I know if I don’t try.” Even, “I’ll show that stupid English teacher
who gave me a B- who really is the smartest. I’ll publish the great american novel, and then she’ll be sorry.” A variation on this theme varies, I am sure. It’s that little piece of us, maybe related to survival, maybe not, that yearns to be noticed, to be the center of attention, eliminating those other voices hearing the same hum.
Then we grow up and realize the bell curve is what it is. There are a few geniuses. Very few. No, I am not James Joyce. Yes, I need to work at Safeway to bring in a few bucks until I am discovered. Yes, this credential I am getting is just enough to make a living wage, but that dream can be worked on during my ‘down time’. Then,
the baby comes into your life and whoops, no down time. Gone.
I think that this is okay as saddening as it is. I think it is called growing up, or to translate: finding out who you are outside of all of the voices and pressures, and hopes and possibilities. There is you. And it is your identity.
I think there is something missing here after more reflection. Steve Almond turns out more quality literary stories then anyone I’ve ever met. I think genius is a tricky term. I don’t know if I really believe in it.
Instead of “genius” why not just say “smart monkey”?
(Remind me to read what I type in comments next time and edit. D’oh. Too much Facewoofing.)
I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you, Steve Almond, out there as a role model for navigation of all things that are true and right in the fiction world.
Thank you.
I’ll admit to being a bit disconcerted to seeing my own private pity-party posted on your site. On the other hand, I had not seen the 20 under 40 as somehow rejecting other writers–under 40 or not–but as upholding these particular bunch. In their words, from the web site: “Twenty young writers who capture the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction.” That means that they are representatives (albeit appointed rather than elected) of the rest of us–including you, Steve Almond. And me. In the NYer podcast, the fiction editor and deputy editor mentioned another writer they publish who’s just beginning his career in his mid-forties. Wasn’t it the NYer that published that great piece about early-bloomers and late-bloomers? Well worth reviewing in this heady moment. Anyway, I think great books beget a hunger for great books, and the fact that fiction is not being declared dead is a good thing, too. On the up side. The rest–20 under 40–is a “hook,” a conceit to catch our attention. Boy, did it. But read the story by Gary Shteyngart. It’s a total send-up of youth culture and the end of books!
Thanks to Antonia Malchik and Sarah Collins Honenberger from this thirty-nine-year-old mom-of-two-under-three published-but-not-listed author who finds being alone at my keyboard a true pleasure. And thanks to Steve Almond for brutal honesty and summoned courage.
Wonderful stuff, Steve. I’m with Antonia about the general impossibility of even bringing myself to the keyboard daily–or weekly, or sometimes monthly. But I do know and feel deeply that the process, when it’s happening, is what ultimately drives writers: the act of writing, those emotions and endorphins. We all want success, but I would also postulate that it is not really why any of us started writing. Nobody sits down that first time to write a short story of literary fiction because they want to be rich and famous. If that were the real goal, they’d become an options trader or a surgeon. Writers write because we have to, we crave it, we love it (even when we hate it.) It’s hard to remember that when the green eyed monster slides up alongside you, but the reminder you’ve issued here isn’t facile or glib, it’s profoundly true. If we knew we would never even publish again, ever, anywhere, how many of us would consequently never write another word? Well, I guess anyone who’d say they’d truly quit should then go ahead and nurse their envy, because they’re in it for the wrong reasons and writing fiction is a pretty dumb thing to be in for the wrong reasons since those goals are hard and iffy to attain even for the real (and most dedicated, savvy) geniuses among us. But most of us . . . well, we’d write anyway, wouldn’t we? In moments of emotional extremity, we’d still reach for the written word. The purpose isn’t fame or economics–and the world doesn’t owe us these things. Writing is, in a very real sense, its own reward, and the rest is just gravy.
Steve Almond, keeping me sane.
Hey, funny timing I was reading the New Yorker and then went to a reading of a colleague’s incredibly successful first book and was stuck with the slight pang one writer can get from another writer’s success. The twinge of compare and despair and yes I have the familiar old mantras “my only real competition is me in the past..etc…” but still until another friend that went to that same reading with me left depressed as well but for a totally different reason. She said she was depressed because she feels like in art we can do anything… we are so lucky we can be anywhere and anyone and do anything so when she hears cliche’s and people that don’t do very much it makes her sad. She said it’s like with sex we have so much magic and to just do one same thing all the time is silly we can do anything. And this idea, this memory of being able to go to the page and allow my characters to do anything was invigorating beyond the compare and despair.
Great points, Antonia. What seems even more damning (to me) is that of the 10 women on the list, only two of them actually have children–Yiyun Li and Nicole Krauss. And Nicole hasn’t had a book since she had her first child. Of the supposed top ten female writers under forty! There’s something odd going on here, which may be, as you say, because most women devote their 30s to children–or, it may be because there’s an odd and disconcerting bias against women who write and have children. It’s as if a woman is seen to deplete her creative powers when she generates an actual person, as opposed to an imaginary one. It’s an issue of perceived worth, not actual worth. And I feel it every single time I go on book tour.
Frankly, though, in the end, we can’t let the New Yorker tell us our worth. It’s fine to celebrate the writers under twenty who appeared on their list. They could have made two or three other lists just as strong with entirely different writers. Timing has a lot to do with it–Salvatore Scibona, a very fine writer who deserves to be on a list like this–wouldn’t have been there two years ago, before his book was nominated for a National Book Award. If we allow the New Yorker to make us feel bad about not being chosen, it’s like allowing the popular kids in high school to force us to wear J. Crew and boat shoes. All the writers I know get their power from being the sly, sharp, critical eye at the edge of the lunchroom, and not allowing a soul to tell us what to do or who to be. Honestly? There’s something snotty about the New Yorker imposing these twenty writers to the exclusion of others–the reason why so many people are irritated is because it’s not, actually, fair in the great-minded sense of the word. Use the anger, the feeling of alienation, the sadness. And make a point to support young writers who aren’t on the list–let’s be honest, they probably deserve to be celebrated, too.
I found out this week that “more chapters have been requested” by a big house and of course, have been walking on air. Until last night when I looked at the publisher’s website and saw the huge – HUGE – names who call this publisher home.
Uh oh. Who told me I could walk among those giants? I don’t have that kind of talent. I’m a hack. I’m lucky I can string two words together. The big house is probably not just going to reject me, they’re probably going to come seize my laptop and all of my pens and paper as well.
A friend counters, “but they want to see more.” I respond, “they’re probably just out of toilet paper on the 21st floor.”
We all do it. I’ve been published at least monthly for over ten years, but ask me, even on a good day, if I’m any good? I’ll tell you it’s all sheer luck.
And the sad thing is, unlike the guys who work at the factory all day or at the office all day or even at the bar all night – we don’t often have the opportunity to get together with “co-workers” and vent about things or seek reassurance over a beer at the end of our shift. Plot issues, pov questions, dialogue, lack of faith in your talent – who gets that but another writer?
Yet we struggle through and stumble on and we do manage to string together more than two words in a row. Because we have no choice any more than we have a choice about breathing. We’re writers.
But something else to consider. For every writer who wins some award or special kudos, there’s at least one reader who finds their work pretentious or boring or lacking in vision or pedantic… No one is perfect in everyone’s eyes. But we’re all perfect in someone’s eyes. Corny, I know, but true!
Thank you for sharing Steve. I’d venture to guess most of us don’t regard you as a mid-level hack! 🙂
I’m not a writer, but a lover of short fiction (addict, even) and an avid reader. What I don’t like about their list is that they will now probably go to these writers too much, like they did with Haruki Murakami a couple years back – it seemed like every other week they ran a Murakami story.
When I read the New Yorker I don’t expect to find somebody “new” or even “young”. I read One Story and some other “little mags” for that. I get All Story for stuff that’s perhaps new, or outside the box, or from other countries or writers from other disciplines. I like Granta for their refreshing brace of non-US writers. Harpers and The Atlantic run some good writers. McSweeney’s is a fave, too and I’m so glad I live in a world with Dave Eggers in it.
I guess, for writers, the New Yorker can be both a Holy Grail and a Bad Dad, but be of good cheer. There are readers like me out there (wish there were more of us) who actively look for you and your writing. Be confident I will be looking for Steve Almond and will read you hungrily, like I read everything.
Just write! Keep writing! Don’t let the bastards bothaya. =)
This was great. It’s always reassuring to see writers with the success I yearn for– writers who are successfully published, and who can obviously write well enough to make their point and/or move a reader– suffer, at least sometimes, from the feeling of that not being enough. I’m pretty confident that until I learn to be satisfied and celebrate my successes humbly and gracefully, I won’t ever be content no matter how much praise my first book wins or how big the advance is. Your piece was a great reminder, too, that ultimately writing is about relationships– namely, the relationship between the writer and the reader– and that we can find and cultivate these relationships “one by one.” I know some writers who are great at this– Stephen Elliott is a perfect example– and they’ve built modest empires of devoted followers. They’re a real inspiration, as was your article. Thanks again.
Meh.
First of all, Harper’s is immeasurably better than the New Yorker in terms of the fiction it publishes, its discussion of books, and in pretty much every other way. (The main way Harper’s falls down is by continuing to publish the long, banal, barely coherent essays of Lewis Lapham.) To wit: they’d never pull a stunt like this.
Second, this list is what the editors of the New Yorker like. Some of them are good (Galchen), others are middling (Foer, Alarcon) or not good at all (Li). The New Yorker publishes what it thinks pseudo-intellectual baby boomers who might be persuaded to read fiction would be willing to read. Appealing to that demographic might be the only way to make it big, but it’s far from the only way to be a good writer. With a few exceptions I find their fiction as bland and staid as the rest of the magazine. The exceptions (Galchen, Bolano, Gilb) have usually already published better stories in Harper’s.
I guess you’re saying the same thing in so many words. I guess I’m saying get a Harper’s subscription. I guess I’m saying some of the authors deserve to be on the list, and some are only on it because they’re passable writers who (a) are viewed as “exotic” or (b) already have well-known works in print.
Steve,
I too am appalled that the New Yorker would privilege young writers in this way. If they are going to privilege them in any way, it should be by sending them a letter of encouragement, encouraging them to quit this pretentious past-time that is writing and to get a real job. If they continue spending their lives pecking away fictional stories instead of selling washing-machines at Best Buy, these young writers will all end up lonely, insecure, and drunk. The best of the bunch will probably commit suicide–and it will all be the fault of those at the New Yorker.
Those responsible for this list of 20 writers under 40 must know that every good writer eventually self-destructs, and that the better the writer is the worse this destruction will be. They must remember what happened to those members of The Algonquin Round Table…Or, at the very least, they should remember what happened to the great David Foster Wallace. I’m sure that poor soul would not have continued writing if he hadn’t made it on the list and instead received a letter of encouragement to quit. And if he hadn’t continued writing, right now he would be happily selling washing-machines.
As for the New Yorker’s list making you depressed–well, Steve, if you don’t want to become another good writer victimized by the New Yorker, I would do what I do: for starters, I don’t “worship” the New Yorker. Instead, I hate the New Yorker. Every chance I get I tell myself that it’s nothing more than a pretentious rag. I tell myself that they have never published a writer of note. Eggers, Cuppy, Salinger, Parker, Franzen, Capote, Perelman, Benchley, Updike, Barthelme, Carver, Keillor, Cheever, Didion, O’Hara, Thurber–they are all hacks.
Real writers don’t receive accolades from the New Yorker. They do what I do. They self-publish their books, and their books aren’t read…ever.
Don’t be ridiculous. Who gives a shit what the New Yorker has to say about anything? Christ are they still around? Just a bunch of pretentious journalism graduates living in overpriced ratholes in New York, riding the smelly subway, getting mugged on their way to the delicatessen. None of whom could write a book if their life depended on it. Thanks for the whining, which automatically disqualifies you from greatness. Do you think Tolstoy wept in his vodka when the Duc d’Engleterre gave WAR AND PEACE a bad review in the Continental Digest? 100 years from now no one will remember the New Yorker or who worked there, but the study of Steve Almond and Stephen Elliott will be a stable of every Great Books course at the InterGalactic Moon University.
How lovely you found angst which moves you to lament in public. (For this I am grateful to the New Yorker.) Go for it. Pine. Pummel for pain. Beware the peaceful mood which may strike at any moment, robbing you of your breath of fire and argue. Be not content with the truth of that which is. Wail! Kick the tires and the bushes! Let the tirade go deep.
I am enjoying the hell out of this watering hole camaraderie. I join the well-wishers gathering in a chorus of rant. To thank you for being you and so loud about it. Well spit.
Now back to the keyboard.
Remember Tillie Olsen’s words in “Silences†(1962):
Literary history and the present are dark with silences: some the silences for years by our acknowledged great; some silences hidden; some the ceasing to publish after one work appears; some the never coming to book form at all. … These are not natural silences–what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)–that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot…. Censorship silences. Deletions, omissions, abandonment of the medium (as with Hardy); paralyzing of capacity (as Dreiser). Publishers’ censorship, refusing subject matter or treatment as “not suitable” or “no market for.”
Olsen was “silenced” as a writer for 20 years while working to earn a living and single-handedly raising four daughters. Then at age 50 her short story collection “Tell Me A Riddle,†was published. The title story won the O’Henry Award and the story has been anthologized 72 times. Four of the stories have been adapted into stage productions, three into films, and one into an opera.
Hey Steve,
You pop rockets, baby.
Ain’t it all get to the keyboard?
Roll along long enough and you know the rest is bullshit – even if it can still get in your head.
One more reader won over (some time ago).
I think someone should publish a chapbook of Neal Elliott’s posts on this site.
We don’t get the new yorker where i am this summer, and i have to say my self esteem as a writer has improved considerably.
I love this essay and your stories. That one where they swim in the lake holding books over their heads. Still remember it. Thanks for writing that and this too.
i agree with the posters here who are suggesting, somewhat piecemeal, that female writers who seek to have families (or wind up with them) are at a marked disadvantage in the arena of recognition. there’s a good rumpus essay to be written about that…
Envy is probably the easiest way to derail one’s discipline. You simply have to drop it.
It’s really about enjoying your own work, at the end of the day. To sit with the work and realize, “I love what I’m doing.” Removing the b.s. from one’s intentions and simply getting into the flow.
And then there’s getting all these wonderful comments from people who have read what you wrote and resonate with it.
I’m going to read your books, now, Mr. Almond. That last section is beautifully stated. Thanks for your honesty.
Steve Almond, as always = smart.
I’m 60. I’ve been writing since I was in the single digits and publishing since I was 23, and none of you have ever heard of me. I don’t care — I just keep on going because, really, I *have* to. And I love to write.
Meanwhile, I’m happy that my writing is getting better and that new projects keep popping up. I’ve got an agent, I’ve got a little money coming in, I’m excited and enthusiastic aboutthe future.
I read The New Yorker all the time (have subscribed for years) but I rarely if ever read the fiction because I usually do genre work and their stuff doesn’t speak to me. Sorry, but I like stories and a bit of action — what can I say?
So good luck to all of ’em, but I’m still gonna be out here telling my little stories and having some fun. It’s what I would wish for all of youse.
You hit the nail on the head. Of course, most of the time you hit your thumb instead. But that’s part of the charm. Like my daddy quoting Beckett: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Steve, I feel you. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve enjoyed your writing immensely since you popped up sometime after Wesleyan (I went there, too, but we didn’t really know each other.) The New Yorker, fantastic though it is for what it is, isn’t the be-all end-all. Process as much as product, because in the end, it’s all recycling.
Thanks so much for this, Mr. Almond. I didn’t see the issue until today, and it instantly put me in a foul mood. I’ve been going through my own mid-life writerly malaise, and this list didn’t help much. Your blog helped immensely, though. Back to work!
Spot on!
You know you always have my vote when it comes to the Brilliant over Brilliant List. And…I hear you. I just keep my head down and write.
Ok, I’m going to stop moping about and write again. I feel thoroughly inspired now and I don’t even care if I can only write one sentence a day.
Fabulous article! One reader at a time…
I agree with Dwight! In fact, I would write that essay if I weren’t so darned busy raising my kids.
The hell of it is that _My Life in Heavy Metal_ is the book that got me into reading short stories.
Don’t sell your own talent short, Mr Almond.
I assume that the reason the “40 under 40” are noteworthy is not because they are the ones who have made it before disappearing over the hill but because success after 40 is the more common scenario.
I love the piece. Obviously, it’s much easier to knock the list than to admit to feelings of doubt inspired by it. When you say “Actually, there is one thing you can do about this, which is to handle the situation with more grace and maturity than I seem to have mustered,” you are being disingenuous.
You have mustered plenty of grace, Steve, but your work at this website would benefit from some editing.
“On bad days, it feels to me like the world of writers is a big, unhappy family, with thousands of children, all of them working so hard to be noticed and none of who get the attention they deserve.”
Strike who. Enter whom. I might say that using the wrong pronoun, in this instance, doesn’t matter, but these small mistakes surely matter to well-established publications.
“It feels slightly cruel to have that place by affirmed by the magazine I worship.”
I’m not sure I understand what you are saying even if you strike the first “by.”
“Your other option is to surrender to grievance, the very emotion state our Republican friends have used to infantilize this country.”
First, you veer off-topic needlessly. Republicans and their grievances have little to do with literary self-worth. This analogy–comparing the pitfalls of young, discouraged writers to the rhetorical stance of a political party –is useless. It’s a sneaky jab. I would agree that the Republicans deserve it, but the quip is out of place in an essay that relies on honesty and self-reflection. Second, why do you shift from the singular “you” to the plural “our.” In one sentence, there is no reason to first address a single reader and then, without introducing a new context, refer to a group. It’s disorienting. Whose republican friends are we talking about? Who composes the “our”?
I offer these comments in good-faith, from one child in the unhappy family to another. I must say, this family would not be nearly as unhappy if we (referring to the components of the family, writers) could all look at ourselves honestly–like you do.
Completely, utterly, totally correct. Killing me softly here, Steve Almond. And for the record, you have now cemented your place in the pantheon of writers who matter–to me.
P.S. But re: writers and self-pitying, I would hazard a guess that the percentage is closer to 98.45.
Is Neil Elliot Stephen’s dad? Strange.
Yes.
It’s nice to know that Steve Almond, who I think of as a celebrity in my own small personal world, has the same thought I get when I see others win/become great/vanquish: What about me?
But also, unlike me, wants to be a better person about it. I mostly just imagine how I can trip them and steal their metaphorical Miss/Mister Writing USA crown.
Your timing is impeccable, Steve. Thanks for writing this when you did.
At first I thought, hey, I don’t remember writing my feelings down about the gang of under-40 (and so eloquently!). Then I got to the wise, mature part and realized that no, I never did write them down, but you sure captured it — the whole self-doubting roiling tub of emotions. And your answer to it–perfect. Thanks.
Steve, this can’t be you writing this. Nah, I don’t believe it. You’re the guy who told me to “keep pumping” next to the copy machine in Grub Street. You keep pumping. Fuck the rest of it
a baby frog is called a polywog
Bravo, so well said. Extremely moving.
hey, lots of us don’t even have fans. You do, and you deserve them !!
Click here to subscribe today and leave your comment.