Blake Butler and Dan Wickett on Being an Open Node
Saturday, August 2, 2008 at 09:25AM Blake Butler wrote an excellent post a couple days ago about how to do more as a writer or editor as a publisher to promote each other, to create good relationships inside our literary responsibilities. Dan Wickett picked up the post today, and added his own take on it. Here's the first relevant bit from Blake's blog:
"(1) When you read something you like, in any form, write the author and tell them. You don't have to gush or take forever. Just tell them you saw it, you read it, you liked it. It's a supportive feeling. It's better than not saying anything.
(2) Write reviews of books you like. Short review/long review, whatever. It's not that hard. It takes a little work to think about it clearly, but what goes around comes around. You can't expect to be recognized for your work if you aren't recognizing others for their work. Open the doors.
(3) Interview writers. New writers or well known writers. You like somebody's work a lot? Ask to do an interview with them. It doesn't take a ton of effort. Write up some questions. Let them talk. Spread the word. Talk. Say. Get. Eat.
...
(4) If you have free time, start an online journal. Start a blog, a review, an anything. If you don't know how I'll help you. Say stuff. Mean what you say.
(5) If you have a journal already, respond faster. Pay attention to your inbox. When someone asks a question that feels dumb or unnecessary maybe, answer it anyway. Don't be a fuck. Yeah, we're all busy. Yeah, things take time. Work to take less time. It's okay to move forward at a wicked pace. (And yes, as an editor, I too struggle to adhere to this advice, but I struggle at least, everyone struggles, but you can always struggle more. I am so tired of seeing journals with 200+ days response time, why do you even exist? Does it really take that long to like something? People should stop sending to these places. Seriously. Just stop sending.
Yeah I know the flood comes strong. Stand in the flood. (Me too.))
Seriously, Conjunctions/Ninth Letter/Subtropics: these 3 journals get just as much work coming in as anybody, and they all respond often in less than a month.
To everyone: Push the fucking envelope even harder than you do. Be an open node.
BE AN OPEN NODE.
I am amazed sometimes by people who want to be writers and yet seem to know little to nothing about even the more popular journals, who don't read that actively, who don't buy literary magazines hardly ever but send out their own work constantly, who don't buy even their friends work, who etc etc. Then they want to turn around and call anyone with any stripe of 'success' a 'secret handshake motherfucker' or 'in crowd' or anything like that.
There are people who don't even answer their emails when they get those 'I like your work' mails, which really blows my mind some. You're just typing into a keyboard like the rest of us. Don't be Richard Ford spitting on Colson Whitehead. Don't be a turd person.
Getting involved is being involved, and if you aren't actively promoting others, I don't know why in hell you'd think anyone would ever want to read or support you."
And then here's some thoughts on the above from Dan's post:
As one who doesn't write, doesn't send out submissions, (or feel the pain of rejection), I've been amazed, if not completely stunned, over the past decade when talking to, or reading posts by, authors that were so obviously out of the loop.
Maybe I'm a bit more obsessive about things than most, at least those things that I'm interested in. In 2005, I really became interested in literary journals. I had been before, but not to the level I hit that year. I began interviewing editors of said journals. 85 of them before the year was over. It has to be the most common complaint registered from them - the submission to subscription ratio, and the percentage of submissions that come from people that could NOT have ever looked at a copy, or researched the website at all (novel excerpts to all-poetry journals for instance).
And readings. Why would you ever expect a crowd to show up when you come back to your hometown to read from your first book if you've attended a grand total of 2 readings over the last five years? Why will your friends buy your book and suggest it to their friends if you've never supported them? Maybe they will simply because they treat friendship on a different level than you, but if there's any truth to the idea of karma, well, I'd heartily suggest being an open node.
I can honestly say that following Blake's suggestions, albeit a decade before he posted them, has been the greatest thing I've ever done in my life that doesn't have to do with my children. While they still take a certain precedence (though they might argue with me that they do at times) in my life - it's the acting out of these 6 ideas of Blake's through the 2000's that has led to me finding my closest friends in the world, to finding hundreds of others that I consider friends as well, that has led to me doing what I do 7 days a week 15 to 20 hours a day. Maybe I have become an 'in crowd secret handshake motherfucker,' but I doubt it. I still see myself as that statistics guy interested in the literary world that's amazed anybody stops by here (except for those of you googling 'secret handshake motherfucker') regularly.
I know that for myself, I started getting published when I started sending stories only to magazines I read and loved and wanted to be a part of instead of just the magazines with the big reputations. Guess what? The magazines I liked the best were also the places that were likely to be publishing the kind of work I wrote, and sure enough, I started getting published on a much regular basis.
One of the best things that helped me was--and here's another of the above points--I started doing literary magazine and book reviews. I was in Hobart #5--which is only relevant to show that I didn't do this to get published--but I took Hobart #6 and wrote a review of every single story and essay. Besides trying to promote a magazine I love reading, it also gave me an opportunity to really dive into how a particular magazine is put together, what the editor likes and doesn't like, etc.
I also took that opportunity to try and e-mail as many of the writers in the issue as I could find, or to link to their websites if the had one. I met several of the writers this way, and stayed in some sort of contact over the years, as well as starting to look for their work in other magazines.
Which brings me to my last point: If reading and reviewing and subscribing made me a more successful writer, then reaching out and saying hi to writers I admired--and having strangers do the same to me--has made me a happier one. It is a lonely, solitary thing to be a writer, especially for someone who started out living in a rural community far removed from any literary "scene," and there was a long time where the only people I knew who read literary fiction or wanted to write it were people I'd met on the internet. I'm lucky now to live in a place where there's lots of people trying to make a career in the writing world (okay, there's like twelve, but to me, that's a lot more than I had before), and it's pretty amazing. It's still worth pointing out that almost all of the "real world" relationships I have with Ann Arbor's writers and editors started on the Internet or through submitting and publishing. Everyone I know in real life here I had a preexisting relationship based on reaching out, saying hi, admiring someone's work or asking to be considered. The community you have is the one you make for yourself, and the more you expand your circle, the better off you'll be.
Speaking of which, this is a good time to reach out congratulate Blake on his good news for the week: Calamari Press is going to be publishing Blake's novella EVER. Congratulations, Blake! I can't wait to read it.
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (4)
As editor of Luna Park, an online review of the literary magazine world, I couldn't agree with the fellows above more. Thanks to Bell, Butler, and Wickett for their insightful and clear spoken thoughts about the publishing world and the writer's place in it. Butler's "BE AN OPEN NODE" is such an arresting, motivating, and timely enough maxim that one could imagine it as the basis for one of the most interesting (and perhaps even the first) literary movements of the early twenty-first century.
Addendum: What most astounds me regarding the above thoughts is the very small number of literary magazine reviews/essay I receive over at Luna Park---even though there are untold thousands of writers who want badly the attention of the editorial and publishing staff creating these magazines. On that note: If you want to write about your favorite (or even your least favorite) literary magazine in essay or review form (or even poetic form, whatever), Luna Park would be MORE than pleased to see the results! Send to: lunaparkreview@gmail.com
Again, thanks Matt for the great post. Will link to it from the Luna Park site.
-Travis Kurowski, Luna Park
matt, yes, vital addition there, the value of the friendships over all things in this. man, i really don't know how much i would have kept on writing, or at least trying to publish, if i hadn't met so many incredible people such as yourself on this little interweb thing. it really keeps me going every day, and that is worth more than any publication credit, no doubt.
awesome.
I agree with everything you, Dan and Blake said. If writers are not part of a community, they are nothing.
Amen brothers, to all of you. Thanks for giving a damn and saying so, and calling people on their strengths and shortcomings. Blake, thanks for lighting that beautiful fuse, and doing it so succintly. Suscribe, support and read. Here, here. --a