MUST READ | In his blog post “Writer-on-Writer Crimes” from August 18th of last month writer and editor Andrew Scott promises “I will no longer give my time or money to fiction writers who work to boost themselves at the expense of other fiction writers.” Why? Because writers using valuable and modest review space are wasting our time with negative reviews that exist maybe primarily to hoist the profile of the reviewer over that of the writer. It’s petty, and really it only creates an epidemic of “shitting where you eat.”
Not convinced this happens too often to worry about? Scott’s article links at least four examples on the subject released in July and August alone. Still, the best thing you can do is decide for yourself (then blog about it, of course). #LitnivorousMustReads
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OMG I would LOVE to read a post on that! Yes! COOL!
I’m so glad you linked to this–what a great article! That Joshua Ferris “personal essay,” especially, has been putting SUCH a bad taste in my mouth. Like … she hated him because everyone in their MFA paid attn to him??? But he IS a great writer. I loved his book Then We Came to the End. It really HELPED ME when I had a horrendously depressing office job–it made me feel so much less lonely, it made my life feel more beautiful & okay, it basically did all the beautiful things literature can do!
I think as writers, if we’re going to have the community–and the wonderful writing–that we DESERVE, we need to be better than this. And we need to not be so cocky & afraid that we can’t look up to other writers, even if they are supposed to be our peers, or if they are the same age as us or even younger!
Lucy! I agree with you. And Scott really circumvents the point that we as the “writing community” don’t need the negativity when so little of the world actually reads and is interested in what we do–their negligence IS ENOUGH negativity.
The Joshua Ferris article was pretty flabbergasting, but as I’m reviewing some other articles and things I’ve seen this summer I’m seeing this culture of the negative has really permeated a lot of the online literary writing. What I loved this summer was the discourses between Marjorie Perloff and Matvei Yankelevich. They didn’t bash each other as much as have a highly intelligent exchange that in the end wasn’t about agreeing or disagreeing, it was about their combined critical genius! I’ve been wanting to do a post on it, but it’s a daunting task, though now I’m really thinking it’s worth it. To show there’s a way to open a discourse even when you don’t agree with someone, that can benefit everyone (not just yourself).