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the
current
Monday
Report
below!
This week's report by King Wenclas
TAKEOVER!
Big Money Move$ into the
Small Press World, PART 2
Click here to read Part One of King's Report
CONSOLIDATION!
As small press organizations are gobbled up by conglomerates,
roads of access to publication and promotion for writers are further
narrowed.
BUYING ACCESS
The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (www.clmp.org)
is staging a big writers conference in New York City on
November 2 to 4. Present will be a large contingent of
representatives from the big book monopolies, with a smattering
of actual small press editors.
(CLMP was founded in 1967 by small press folks. Until recently
it was run by them.)
A few observations about the CLMP conference:
A.) Literary power is further concentrated into one city: New
York.
B.) Note that it's open to "post-MFA" students. How many
hurdles for the writer will the lit-world construct? Give literary
Overdogs time and they'll soon be offering post-MFA degrees.
Then, post-post-MFA ones.
C.) Admission to the conference is $350.
It's about buying access; nothing more. (The scheduled classes
are designed around how to network representatives of the
conglomerates.) Three conditions are laid down for those who
wish to speak with mainstream editors, publishers, and agents
through attendance at the conference.
1.) That the writer have the requested certification.
2.) That the writer live in or near New York.
3.) That the writer have $350.
Talent and originality are secondary considerations-- if regarded
at all.
CONFORMISTS WITH MONEY
This is what the monopolies want. It's who they publish. Original
voices are blocked. ("Post-MFA" people have well-demonstrated
little more than an unending willingness to conform.) A Wild Bill
Blackolive, who writes like no one else; who lives in humble
circumstances in east Texas; and who doesn't hold required
credentials, is shut out. As are many other writers. (Nearly
everyone in the Underground Literary Alliance is!)
THE MAINSTREAM
The charge has been made to me that the ULA rejected the
mainstream. In fact, the mainstream long ago rejected us. The
Society of Privilege is constructed to reject those from improper
backgrounds as well as those who won't conform. In the long run,
for literature this is suicide. Literature isn't finishing school. It's
not a debutante ball. Neither is it technical engineering.
Literature is passion, conscience, and art.
Meanwhile, an organization created to represent the small press;
to give outlets to independent voices-- the CLMP-- has been
corrupted and absorbed.
THE GALA
Present at the conference's opening day Gala Reception as
featured guests aren't any small press notables. Not one. Not the
two small press guys on the CLMP board, Johnny Temple and
David Lynn. Not Soft Skull's Richard Nash. Instead, four monied
publishers: Jonathan Burnham, Morgan Entrekin, Jonathan
Galassi, and Sonny Mehta, "leading publishers from
Harper-Collins, Grove-Atlantic, Farrar Straus & Giroux, and
Knopf--"
The CLMP Gala Reception is a celebration of Hierarchy and
Power; in-your-face acknowledgement that in the literary field
monopolies rule. Literature belongs completely to them. There
will be many clinking glasses that evening! Many red bloated
faces; slapping of backs and chortles of laughter. Meanwhile, in
the priority of things the solitary writer with a manuscript has
been pushed further down the ladder.
THE WRITER
Why do writers tolerate this-- put in the position of supplicants;
given the task of having to crawl up a greased mountain? Does
Morgan Entrekin or Sonny Mehta know more about writing and
literature than you do?
Writers-- the actual creators-- have by a twist of malice been
placed at the very bottom of the literary pyramid. Why do
writers accept this? True writers don't. The real original artists
of any time wouldn't bow in such fashion to absolute subservience
and conformism. The original artist doesn't purchase his own
corruption for the price of 350 dollars! It's abhorrent to the soul
of art.
What the Sonny Mehtas and Morgan Entrekins collect with the
dollars are the literary world's sheep: Those who have so little
belief in themselves and their work they have to be told what to
do. Like helpless five year-olds in kindergarten they need to be
led by the hand through every step of the conformity process;
patted on the head and scolded, "Little child, your opening
paragraph isn't proper! It doesn't look like paragraphs from the
other children."
The helpless neophyte, who's already been bilked of every penny
he owns, his pockets ripped apart, stares wide-eyed at his literary
Betters. (Very few who can actually themselves write anything
truly creative or worthwhile.) After all the hoops and hurdles:
finally, FINALLY, the end of the line. A glowing tunnel, at the
end of which awaits the smiling faces of Burnham, Galassi,
Entrekin, and Mehta.
The hapless writer is so grateful! Tears well in his eyes. His heart
seems ready to burst. At last, he could write something filled with
energy and grit; not the usual mechanical "literary" crap, but
something resembling true art. (Intellectually he knows this isn't
allowed.) He steps weakly toward the vision of light at the end of
the tunnel. He feels better! He feels: fresh air against his face.
He's outside. The $350 tour of the literary world is over. A heavy
steel door slams shut behind him.
Writers have no value in this society because they place no value
on themselves. The Underground Literary Alliance, ruled by
writers, has reversed this. We're not trained circus animals.
We're America's authentic original voices. If Burnham, Galassi,
Entrekin, and Mehta wish to clink glasses with the ULA they'll
have to pay US $350.
They certainly have the bucks.
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King Wenclas is the ULA's publicity director and head of the newly
created Action Unit. His lit-blog is Attacking the Demi-Puppets.
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