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the
current
Monday
Report
below!
This week's report by WRED FRIGHT
Underground Literary
America Tour July 17-23
This month while most of literary America is under the spell of a
teenage British magician named Harry Potter, in the backwoods
of Michigan another Potter by the name of Jeff is busy declaring
literary independence by cranking out a series of books by
Underground Literary Alliance authors. First came The
Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus, a comic tale of a local garage
rock band, authored by myself. Next came Security, a story about
an American vagrant who ends up a security guard in Paris,
France, authored by James Nowlan. And, the latest book, by
Crazy Carl Robinson, is Fat On The Vine, a savage but strangely
sweet depiction of a character breaking down after a breakup,
descending into misanthropy and self-hatred, written in a
wildly-original comic manner.
To celebrate Potter's book line, two of the authors, Crazy Carl
and myself, are playing Jack Kerouac, and getting on the road to
read from our novels at a variety of bookstores and coffeehouses
across the USA on a reading tour we've dubbed Underground
Literary America. All the readings are free and each one will
feature at least one special guest from the area we're reading in.
The schedule is below.
*Tuesday, July 17, 7 p.m.: Red Emma's
Bookstore/Coffeehouse (800 St. Paul, Baltimore,
Maryland 21202) with Sean Stewart of Thoughtworm.
*Wednesday, July 18, 7 p.m.: Germ Books (2005
Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19125)
with Frank Walsh, King Wenclas, and Jellyboy the
Clown of the ULA, and David Talento.
*Thursday, July 19, 7 p.m.: Freebird Books and
Goods (123 Columbia St., Brooklyn/New York City,
New York 11231) with Mike Faloon of Go Metric.
*Friday, July 20, 9 p.m.: bela dubby (13321 Madison
Ave., Lakewood/Cleveland, Ohio 44107) with The
Balomai Brothers and The Dad Of Rock.
*Saturday, July 21, 7 p.m.: Quimby's Bookstore
(1854 W. North Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60622) with
Grant Schreiber of Judas Goat Quarterly.
*Monday, July 23, 7 p.m.: Joseph-Beth Booksellers
(SouthSide Works, 2705 East Carson Street,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15203) with Karen Lillis,
author of the new novel The Second Elizabeth.
Now, we're certainly doing these readings in the hopes that
people who attend will like what they hear and read the books,
but we're also hoping to blaze a trail for future independent
authors, and raise awareness of the vibrant underground literary
scene across the nation and around the world. In this
revolutionary month of July, we'd like to make this declaration of
literary independence because American literature, like
American democracy, is not in the healthiest of shapes at the
moment. We think going back to the grassroots will invigorate
the literature of the nation, and perhaps even the nation itself.
Since the Declaration of Independence, albeit one of the finest
documents in history, was basically a list of complaints about the
British king, we'd like to emulate it by listing a number of
complaints about the current state of American literature.
1) Currently, books seem to be judged not on their literary
merits, but on the size of their marketing budgets. As a result,
independent authors have great difficulty in getting their books
reviewed. We're not even asking for a good review, just a review
that acknowledges the book exists. We know there are more
books being published than ever before, newspaper review space
is being cut back, your book review blog gets so many books that
you have no choice but to not review books and put them up for
sale on Amazon.com instead, blah blah blah, but when we see
Stephen King's son's book getting reviewed everywhere and we
see former supermodel Paulina Poriskova's novel getting
reviewed everywhere and the remainder of the book review
sections filled with releases by corporate publishers and not one
release by an independent publisher, we just have to shake our
heads in disgust. Reviewers, please look beyond the hype, and
even your overflowing mailbox. Even if you haven't heard of a
book before, or it's print on demand, or it's self-published or
whatever reason you have set up to automatically ignore it, how
about ignoring that policy instead and adopting a new one? And
the new policy is if a book looks interesting, then try it. A book
should be judged on its literary merits, not on the amount of
money behind it. Ahem, maybe more people would read your
book reviews if you reviewed more interesting books, and not just
the latest vomit the corporate publishers cough up.
2) And speaking of large, corporate publishers . . . look, we love
New York City. It's the center of the publishing industry. It has a
vibrant literary culture. People are constantly reading all over
the city, in subways, etc. We're even going there on our tour. But
New York City is not the entirety of America. In fact, of the five
boroughs, only the Bronx is actually on the North American
continent. As the old famous New Yorker cartoon jokes, New
Yorkers may think of Manhattan as the center of the world, but
it's not. American literature extends beyond the island of
Manhattan, so maybe the publishing industry should start
thinking beyond its immediate neighborhood. When all the
nominees for the National Book Award in Fiction live in New
York City (as happened in 2004), that's not cute and funny; that's
embarrassing. There's a reason the Swedes haven't given an
American writer a Nobel Prize in Literature since 1993, and it's
not anti-American bias. It's because most of American literature
at the moment, or, since the underground is fairly healthy but
ignored, what's presented as American literature isn't
world-class. It isn't even a national literature. It's a regional
literature, and the region is New York City. Until that changes,
New York writers can give one another all the prizes in the city
(regardless of their "national" labels) and no one outside the city
will care until the writers start writing literature that transcends
the city (and especially the wealthy characters and concerns
usually depicted in such literature) and starts being socially
relevant to the rest of the country. A lot of major publishers and
even the large independent publishers tied into them through
distribution deals are worried about the impending collapse of
the book business, or at least the collapse of their company in
particular. If they're looking to do something about it, then
putting out some better books would be a good start. Leave Paris
Hilton to tabloid television and publish a book by an author
someone might actually still read a couple decades later, and
maybe then the Swedes will take notice.
3) And speaking of Nobel Prizes . . . last year's winner Orhan
Pamuk of Turkey currently lives in New York City, where he is a
visiting professor at Columbia University. He's merely one of
many talented international writers who have settled temporarily
or permanently in the United States, usually taking up a position
at a American university. These writers are certainly welcome,
and no doubt contribute to the tradition of American literature
in their own way. However, we do think their own countries
suffer a loss when they leave (in Pamuk's specific case, Turkey
brought criminal charges against him for daring to speak about
mass killings of minorities in the country's past, so if that's the
way Turkey treats their writers, then it deserves to lose them),
and having American institutions effectively buying international
writers is no substitute for producing homegrown talent. It's like
the outsourcing of American literature. Since the rest of the
country's industries seem to have sent more of the manufacturing
jobs overseas, perhaps publishing is doing the same (they
certainly have done so in printing the books already, so why not
the writers too?). We say start looking in your own backyard as
well. Oh, and by the way, real diversity means more than
publishing African-American writers from wealthy backgrounds,
gay writers from wealthy backgrounds, South Asian writers from
wealthy backgrounds, etc. We think it's great you publish rich
people as they're part of the tapestry of American literature, but
you shouldn't only publish writers from wealthy backgrounds.
All that reading about champagne one can't afford gets a bit
boring after a while. How about more working class writers
being published? Maybe then more working class readers would
start reading and you'd develop a new base of readership. Yes,
we know the rich, particularly today in America, have all the
money, but there's only so many of them, so how many books can
they really be expected to buy? American literature should
address all of America, not just its supposed owners (who
seemingly are incompetent and currently ruining the country
environmentally, financially, politically, and, in the case of
contemporary literature, culturally too).
4) Speaking of class divides . . . Having writers such as Pamuk in
American universities is a good thing, and including literature in
higher education is certainly welcome. However, as of late, the
proliferation of creative writing programs in colleges has become
a bit worrisome. One shouldn't need to be certified by a
university in order to be a writer. The certification should be in
the writing itself. One shouldn't need to be able to afford
thousands of dollars in tuition or go into debt for years just to
become a writer. How does one become a writer? One writes. So
start writing. There you go! You're a writer! Now, getting
someone to read what you've written is a bit trickier, but still not
too complex. If you want to be a good writer, write lots, read lots,
and live lots. Honest to God, it's that simple. Now if you still feel
you need more detailed guidance and you have the money, by all
means sign up for a creative writing class. They do a nice job of
teaching craft. They can't give you talent, originality, or a work
ethic, but they can teach you craft (of course, you can also save
some money and figure out craft on your own). The only stickler
is that lately the creative writing programs are producing so
many Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing that there
probably isn't enough demand for them in the publishing
industry, so most of them end up teaching creative writing,
creating more MFAs to add to the glut. At a certain point, the
whole exercise becomes more akin to a pyramid scheme or a mad
version of musical chairs, subsidized by taxpayer money usually
too, than it is a benefit to American literature, and we've reached
that saturation point. The additional danger is that as writers
become part of the state apparatus (or in the case of private
colleges, the establishment at the very least), we might end up
with a system similar to the bureaucracy of the Writers Union in
the Soviet Union, where irreverence and originality get punished
and mediocrity and obedience get rewarded. At the very least,
one wonders how radical a writer's ideas will be when he or she
is trying to get tenure or a promotion. Climbing a hierarchy
(often assisted by nepotism, where one is advanced not on merit
but because one has special relations with those in power)
shouldn't be the prime concern of a writer. Writing should be. In
short, one shouldn't need to be state-certified or
university-credentialed or rich or in debt to be a writer in a free
society. One should need to write, and the only pledge of
allegiance a writer should make is to the truth.
Readers, if you want more corporate lit crap, keep buying it and
you'll be sure to get more of the same. If you want something
different and better, then dig for an indie gem. Independent
literature may still be regarded as vanity press or minor league
writers and there's no doubt some truth to that. However,
independent literature at its best is about restoring control of
literature to the writer with no agents pushing the writer to write
a Harry Potter clone or whatever's selling that day, no editors
telling the writer how to write, and no publishers taking an
unfair share of the money to pay bloated executive salaries
further up the media food chain. Instead, independent authors
have autonomy over their work, and readers for better or worse
(we think better usually) get exposed to the writer's vision as the
writer intended. In short, independent writers make for
independent literature. And independent literature can make for
some great reading worthy of the tradition of American
literature! So declare your independence as a reader and explore
underground literary America!
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Wred Fright's site: www.wredfright.com
ULA Press books: www.ulapress.com
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