A Body Is a Bill to Pay
If my body is a bill to pay, my voice will be singing the receipts.
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Posts Tagged: paying the rent
CA$H 4 GOLD
I will not end up like these woman, I promise myself, left behind and living in some suburb. I will not be anyone’s baby. I will be a real artist instead, a writer.
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Those Who Serve
To me, service is a transaction, and when you serve with real commitment, you might be on the receiving end of an appreciation that feels like a form of love.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Russell Banks
Russell Banks discusses his new book, Voyager: Travel Writings, why we are never free from our history, and how writing saved his life.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Jaquira Díaz
Jaquira Díaz discusses the challenge of writing about family members, her greatest joy as a writer, and her literary role models.
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The Commune
Our house, we believed, was a microcosm of that country. Every month, we’d gather at the kitchen table for our house meeting, where we, like politicians, unveiled our big plans for change.
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On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood
One week last spring I said it out loud for the first time: “Sometimes I play so long, my fingers go numb.”
...moreBookslut Bids Farewell
Well the only reason Bookslut was interesting was because it didn’t make money, and when I realized the sacrifices I was going to have to make in order for it to make money, it wasn’t worth it. It used to be you could get an advertiser for a month; now it’s all directly linked to […]
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Used-Car Salesman
I wondered if he understood my joke, or its evasion, but surely he knew a used-car salesman always fudged his story. In fact, the car had been in my possession all of three weeks. Also, it didn’t exactly belong to me.
...moreMore Money, More Problems
What happens when writers suddenly face a windfall? Bad things. That’s why the Whiting Awards include a financial planning workshop for winners. Winners of the 2016 Whiting Awards each received $50,000. For authors who are struggling as freelancers or adjunct professors, that is a huge influx of cash. At the New York Times, Sarah Lyall catches up with […]
...moreLiving Wages Cost More Money
A new study has revealed why academic adjuncts are paid so little: living wages would cost universities a lot more money. A new study says that converting adjunct faculty to tenure track positions would cost $27 billion dollars. The study also suggested that as more faculty became full time, as many as 450,000 adjuncts could […]
...moreLiving the Frugal Writer’s Life
Over at Lit Hub, Sunil Yapa shares some guidelines on living cheaply as an up-and-coming writer. High up on his list: living outside of the United States: I believe at some point all writing roads pass through New York but you don’t need to live in New York City to be a writer. In fact, it’s probably […]
...moreAuthors Demand Better Wages
Writers’ wages are down—as much as 30% since 2009. The Authors Guild is looking to change that in 2016. NPR spoke with the organization’s executive director, Mary Rasenberger, about pursuing better contracts from publishers and challenging court cases that have granted companies like Google the right to digitize out-of-print works.
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Guildtalk #3: Lori Ostlund
For our ongoing Authors Guild series, Lori Ostlund speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo about what it means to live a literary life in the 21st century.
...morePaying the Bills
Electric Literature has an infographic of day jobs (originally posted on Adzuna) that both paid the bills and inspired writers to create some of their best work. The professions range from teacher (Stephen King, J.K. Rowling) to insurance officer (Kafka) to coffeehouse/jazz bar owner (Murakami).
...moreHow a Freelancer Prays
The writing life is hard, especially in the finance department and in the unstable nature of a freelancer’s status. Over at McSweeney’s, Marco Kaye writes a poignant representation of the inner monologue of the pleading, praying freelancer: Assist me in negotiating the rate I deserve. Allow for rate negotiations, period. Help me get better at this […]
...moreWe Think Writing Is Sexy
So I’m here to tell you that you can make a living as a writer, but you (might) have to let go of some notions of what “making a living as a writer” means. Over at Huffington Post Books, a new column by Katie Rose Guest Pryal offers some practical advice for how to make a […]
...moreUnique Pageviews Don’t Pay Your Web Hosting Bill
Wil Wheaton created quite a fuss last month with an essay about Huffington Post’s request to republish an essay from his blog sans payment. When we called attention to a Salon article discussing paid versus unpaid creative work, Gawker had a “got you” moment, pointing out that The Rumpus doesn’t pay its writers. Fair enough, although […]
...moreExposure Doesn’t Pay Your Rent
Last week, author and Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton wrote an essay about the seven things he did to reboot his life. The Huffington Post, a publisher recently purchased by Verizon Communications for $4.4 billion, offered Wheaton the opportunity to republish the essay in exchange for the “unique platform and reach our site provides.” Wheaton […]
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Like Mike
All the same, I’m as much a slave to necessity as anyone here. Fear and desire rule the heart. The paycheck has me leashed and basically obedient.
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No Way Out at the Welfare Office
How can it be that the system—the one you paid into for twenty-plus years— doesn’t have remedies for people like you—normally highly employable, but momentarily in need of assistance?
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A Novel Performance: Thirty Days in Seattle’s Central Library
Are writers really introverts, or do we hide our craft out of insecurity?
...moreFamous Writers with Weird Jobs
Did you know that Chuck Palahniuk worked as a bike messenger? Or that both Stephen King and Ken Kesey worked as janitors? Or that Charles Dickens labeled jars in a shoe factory? Electric Literature has a fun infographic detailing these odd jobs and more. This should make writers of any stage feel better about the weird […]
...moreAll Work and No Pay
At The New Republic, Phoebe Maltz Bovy reflects on the implications of the recent #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter trend, taking note of two distinct categories of responses: those expressing outrage that someone assumed they do not make a living off of writing, and those expressing dismay at having to work for free. She concludes that the latter is […]
...moreActively Seeking Words
How do you spot a successful writer? Over at Lit Hub, Shelley A. Leedahl explains how going pro can look a lot like going broke: After all, I do have a career. It just doesn’t pay.
...moreThe Write Life
At The Billfold, Christine Sneed gets real about the long, hard path to finding success writing books—even after being published—and why she wouldn’t have chosen a different career path regardless: I can’t imagine not being a writer. Maybe this seems a failure of imagination. I know that if I needed a steadier and better income, […]
...moreDisguising Payments Hurts Writers
Literary journals don’t always pay contributors. But unpaid contributions are less of a problem for writers than literary journals that conceal their pay rates. Allison Williams, over at The Review Review, takes a look at how some publications handle the issue. She points out that the issue of non-payment might be fine for some writers, but […]
...moreQuit Your Day Job
So what happened in those eight missing years to make a well-reviewed, commercially successful author fall so far so fast? Heartbreak? Rehab? Addiction to designer shoes? Easy. She took the wrong day job. The conundrum of how to support yourself as a writer isn’t a new one. At The Millions, Gina Fattore tells the sad […]
...moreRefinancing the Writing Life
The system for determining worth and value strikes me as terribly strange, and it occurs to me that it just might require a suspension of disbelief. Luckily for me, I know something about that. For Salon, Rachel Basch writes about the humiliation of refinancing her mortgage as a writer, freelance editor, and adjunct.
...moreOur Part-Time Labor Problem
I teach part-time. My students work. They work in fast food or slightly slower food or hospitality. Last spring semester, two were veterans, with at least four trips to the Middle East between them. One of my four parents cut her hours short to race to my class. Every time my students do not learn […]
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