and read this article by Stephen King. (You'll have to register for NYTimes). He edited the BASS this year and, surprisingly, has a lot of interesting things to say about the plight of the American short story. All I wanna do now is read Poe.
And because it's funny, here's part of an email I received last week:
"Hello,
I am a photographer/writer for The Megaphone. I am contacting you to tell you that you have been nominated by your students as a one of the most attractive professors on campus. I was hoping I could take a snapshot and create a profile on you which would be featured in our next issue.
Please e-mail me back if you would be interested or uninterested in participating. Please let me know when you can meet. This will only take about 2 min. of your time.
It is all in good fun and you should feel no pressure.
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11 comments:
Sounds fine, though I'd like to know what writing-for-writers looks like. (So I can copy it and get into The New Yorker, which is my holy grail) Additionally, I'd appreciate his definitions for "airless" and even "self-referring." He doesn't mean self-referring in that cute avant-garde way that Baxter did in Feast of Love, surely? I'm in too deep!
Additionally, if he claims "Talent can’t help itself; it roars along in fair weather or foul, not sparing the fireworks. It gets emotional. It struts its stuff," couldn't the argument be made that there are simply too many literary magazines publishing too many stories that the self-referential, airless stuff just seeps in, and that fact is why the only audience for literary magazines are the writers themselves?
Wouldn't it follow, then, that he should be blaming the editors of magazines that let these airless stories wheeze out into the public? And what would he blame them for? Being too old? Too out of touch? Too acquainted with a certain, comfortable style of writing? Could he perhaps look in a mirror while he is saying these things? Could we all?
Hot stuff.
cute is a four letter word.
Well, I have to admit. The lines: "guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open" got to me. I paused and thought about my own writing.
And then of course theres this:
"I certainly don’t want some fraidy-cat’s writing school imitation of Faulkner"
Christ.
I'm bored with this article, not this one in particular but the sentiment behind it. I think the ideas are true, the dire predictions for the future, but I read pretty much this same article before applying to programs and it made me feel proud, special, and like I was one of the few elite who would continue to fight the good fight and be on the "correct" side, the side that says "damn the man." Now I'm just like "yeah, yeah." I'm more interested in reading this when it's written by Cary Holladay or George Singleton or any of the many who have several award winning books out, who've been published in most or all of the top-tier magazines and they're still not read, not yet been elevated to the status of a "program-darling" like Don DeLillo. That's when this article will have fire. I don't think the ideas have "umph" when they're uttered by the likes of King.
Boooooo Stephen King. Boo
That book you wrote about the freaky man dressed in a jester outfit who peaked at people from behind a dragon's head on the wall really bit the big one!
He very squarely looks in the mirror:
"So into the bookstore I go, and what do I see first? A table filled with best-selling hardcover fiction at prices ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent off. James Patterson is represented, as is Danielle Steel, as is your faithful correspondent. Most of this stuff is disposable, but it’s right up front, where it hits you in the eye as soon as you come in, and why? Because these are the moneymakers and rent payers; these are the glamour ponies."
I can't hate a man who calls himself a (disposable) glamour pony. No way.
And he addresses that the airless writing also makes it hard for editors to edit, probably speaking in part to his own year-long venture.
I guess I'm a sucker to hear from anyone who has read a megaload of one genre/form/author/etc. over a given year, because I know it's much more than I've read. But I had NO IDEA Stephen King caused so many people to wince. Truly. It gives me hope to hear that our rich uncle isn't such an asshole after all when I hear he's buying and drumming up some awareness for Alaska Quarterly Review and American Short Fiction, two of my many holy grails. And I haven't seen the table of contents yet, but until then, I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he's surely unearthing some authors who in turn will be read and on their way to darling status, so that someday, we can bitch about them, too.
This article may speak to what King considers airless?
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/
(the BBOW article on the homepage).
LET'S SELF-DESTRUCT!
I guess we shouldn't bite the hand that promotes us, but I can't help but feel a little patronized when the rich uncle hefts us up on his knee to get a better look at the world.
I respect that he sees himself as a glamour pony (or at least is willing to address the obvious idea), but where's the argument against the idea that he wouldn't simply pick other ponies? Like T.C. Boyle, who had a terrible story in this month's Harper's, airless like the top of Everest, and is still being carted about as the something of something?
Not to mention Alice Munro, Ann Beattie, John Barth etc ain't toiling in "relative obscurity." Sure, relative to Britney Spears, relative to Stephen King, but come on.
I know a boring story when it smacks me in the face and after this bitching I bet I'll like this BASS better than most. I like horror and I guess I like Maine. But this essay reads less like a call to arms and more like the winner of the popularity contest struggling to find the kind words to express why everyone else lost. Airless, ah-ha. Self-referring, got it. I'd love to see his opinion on why modern poetry's dead.
Now, that Bukiet essay, I can get the hell behind that. He uses "cute" three times! He makes me feel like shit and I've never even been to Brooklyn!
That Bukiet essay's a good one, Thanks wolfe. I guess I feel about those BBoW authors how I feel about indie rock bands--there are too many sad, pasty boys somewhere right now listening to the Decembrists on high-end headphones. I can see a tear streaking down a face not yet recovered from adolescent acne. Can't we all toughen up. By the way, I've read several of the authors mentioned--Eggers, Sebold, Chabon, Foer, I'm sure more. I enjoyed them all at the time. Still, I like my shit a little spikier. I always return to B Hannah, T McGuane, C McCarthy, D Johnson, R Stone. It's not unlike downloading the Decembrists album from itunes, liking it for a day and then going back to Neil Young, Dylan, the Stones.
One last shout out--TO BROOKLYN! I love it here.
This article reminds me of workshop, when everyone in the room says: I don't like it because her attitude was wrong, or she was a blonde, or she shouldn't have lit that cigarette. Details that dance around minor issues, but give no direction for how to fix the major.
Of course, because only the writer knows how to fix the heart of a story.
But if you're going to say "airless" can I get some pointers on how to avoid that?
Besides, he talks about how short stories are on the bottom shelf because their essentially not interesting enough to engage the public of today.
Seriously? Writers are supposed to be blamed for that? I asked my students who wrote Macbeth today, and one answered, "Poe." And then others nodded along with him. They grow up, become consumers, and . . . .
When TMZ can broadcast over basic cable, why should anyone read? Unless we can turn fiction into unadulterated, hedonistic voyeurism, reality-tv fare?
Holy shit! I've got it!
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