By the 1950s, young writers could apply to a dozen creative writing programs; the Beats could publish in Chicago Review, experimental writers in Black Mountain Review, internationalist writers in TriQuarterly, young Southern writers in Georgia Review and Shenandoah. All on the university dime. By the early '70s—and with the development of inexpensive offset printing—every school seemed to have its own quarterly. Before long, the combined forces of identity politics and cheap desktop publishing gave rise to African American journals, Asian American journals, gay and lesbian journals. Graduates of creative writing programs were multiplying like tribbles. Last summer, Louis Menand tabulated that there were 822 creative writing programs. Consider this for a moment: If those programs admit even 5 to 10 new students per year, then they will cumulatively produce some 60,000 new writers in the coming decade. Yet the average literary magazine now prints fewer than 1,500 copies. In short, no one is reading all this newly produced literature—not even the writers themselves. And with that in mind, writers have become less and less interested in reaching out to readers—and less and less encouraged by their teachers to try.
Little wonder then that the last decade has seen ever-dwindling commercial venues for literary writers. Just 17 years ago, you could find fiction in the pages of national magazines like The Atlantic, Elle, Esquire, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, GQ, McCall's, Mother Jones, Ms., Playboy, Redbook, and Seventeen, and in city magazines and Sunday editions like the Boston Globe Magazine, Chicago, and the Voice Literary Supplement. Not one of these venues (those that still exist) still publishes fiction on a regular basis. Oh, sure, The Atlantic still has an annual fiction issue (sold on newsstands but not sent to subscribers), and Esquire runs fiction online if it's less than 4,000 words. But only Harper's and The New Yorker have remained committed to the short story.
One would think that the rapid eviction of literature from the pages of commercial magazines would have come as a tremendous boon to lit mags, especially at the schools that have become safe harbors for (and de facto patrons of) writers whose works don't sell enough to generate an income. You would expect that the loyal readers of established writers would have provided a boost in circulation to these little magazines and that universities would have seen themselves in a new light—not just promoting the enjoyment of literature but promulgating a new era of socially conscious writing in the postcommercial age. But the less commercially viable fiction became, the less it seemed to concern itself with its audience, which in turn made it less commercial, until, like a dying star, it seems on the verge of implosion. Indeed, most American writers seem to have forgotten how to write about big issues—as if giving two shits about the world has gotten crushed under the boot sole of postmodernism.
Read more.
There's never been a large market for literary fiction, But two things have happened simultaneously that changes the literary landscape: publishing houses being bought by huge corporations; and the explosion of MFA programs, producing more writers than the culture knows what to do with and largely writers whose primary adult experience is literature itself. Self-perpetuating elitism. No wonder my most exciting students are usually older students coming back to school after jobs, failed marriages, the military. They have life experiences to write about.
But I am optimistic. I think there is hidden literary wealth on the net. There also is more literary crap than ever seen in the history of the world. What is needed more than writers now are critics, literary entrepreneurs with high standards who find the great stuff and assemble it onto an online resource. The standards are the key. Too much modern literature is masturbatory, elitists jacking off for elitists. There are probabky more talented writers in the country than ever before but they can't find their audiences. At this time and place, we need fewer writers and more champions of literature, the kind that speaks widely to the human condition. We need the champions of literature, critics, to show us where the good stuff is hiding. And I don't mean "reviewers," I mean critics who have a literary theory upon which to base their choices. We need to find the high brow writers who appeal to everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment