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    Some Words I Like
    If she happens to suggest
    A love based on trust and respect,
    Tell I've been wasted since last week.
    If she wants to stop on by,
    Tell her that I almost died.
    Tell her I ain't seein' people yet.
    But see if she'll send cigarettes.

    If she asks don't tell her 'bout the bloodshed in the streets,
    The less she knows, the less she can repeat.
    If she happens to bring up
    The pin pricks and the throwin' up,
    Tell her it's just part of growin' up.
    If she wants to get involved,
    Tell her to stay in St. Paul.
    Tell her I'm not up to takin' calls,
    Ask her for some Adderall.

    --"Ask Her for Adderall," by The Hold Steady


    Currently Reading...
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      Based on a True Story
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    • Marsupial: Our Mother for the Time Being
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      Calamari Press
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    Matt Bell lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is working on his first novel. His writing has previously appeared or is upcoming in magazines such as Hobart, Barrelhouse, Caketrain, Juked, Keyhole, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency and will be included in the anthologies Best American Fantasy 2008 and Online Writing: The Best of the First Ten Years.  His story "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken" was a finalist for the 2007 Storyglossia Fiction Prize and the winner of the 2008 Million Writers Award.

    He is also the Book Review Editor for NewPages and will be a member of the Dzanc Writer in Residence Program for the 2008-2009 school year.

    He can be reached via e-mail at mdbell79@gmail.com.

    Published Stories
    « Cella's Round Trip #01 | Main | Last Night's Reading at Crazy Wisdom »
    Thursday
    26Jun

    "Why Writer's Cant Go It Alone" from the Guardian

     

    The Guardian has an interesting column in its book section about the lack of respect for writers who publish their work themselves or through independent publishers.  It's a short but interesting read, with several good points, including the pointed question "Can you imagine any serious film reviewer refusing to watch anything other than the major Hollywood blockbusters?"

    David Barnett also uses the indie music and film scenes to showcase the state of the situation:

    Without indie music, there would be no Smiths, no Happy Mondays, no Kylie, even (she was on Stock, Aitken and Waterman's own indie label, PWL). Without indie cinema, there would be no Reservoir Dogs, no Ghost World, no Night of the Living Dead. Without indie publishing there would be no ... who? Who are the big indie writers, those who refuse to compromise by not allowing The Man to dictate what and how they should write, and earn massive respect because of it?

    Obviously, for those of us who follow the independent presses and the writers found there, we could easily point out people we'd consider to be "big writers," but the point is still valid.  Certainly a Brian Evenson is not known at the level of Reservoir Dogs, and Ander Monson doesn't have half the name recognition of a movie like Ghost World, despite having three prize-winning debuts in three different genres with three great small presses. 

    It's an interesting article, if a depressing one.  The Guardian pins a lot of the blame for the situation on the reviewers, and I don't think Barnett is completely off base there.  It's one of the reasons we do book and literary magazine reviews at NewPages, focused mostly on independent and small presses or smaller writers at the big houses who are either still emerging or work in fields that get less press (short stories, poetry, translations).  It's the same reason sites like The Short Review are so important.  By virtue of only reviewing short story collections, they guarantee that they'll also cover a lot of independent press publications.  Rain Taxi does a lot of this work as well, as does Bookslut.  More than anything else, these are the reasons that these publications have become indispensable resources to my own reading, while the big print review sections continue to wan in both size and importance.

     


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    Reader Comments (1)

    Hey, Matt. It really is an interesting blog post, isn't it? Thanks for your thoughts on it. If you are interested, I posted a pretty long-winded reply to it at Adam Robinson's blog, http://publishinggenius.blogspot.com, in the comments.

    July 4, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJoseph Young

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