Writers: Subscribing to and reading literary magazines is NOT OPTIONAL
The very-sweet-over-email Carolyn from Pinky’s Paperhaus wrote on Pinky’s:
So we’re sitting in class tonight and our teacher asks something like, How do you find the fiction that you read?
First, the class says _nothing_. This isn’t unusual, though. The dozen of us in class have been little more than bumps on our chairs tonight. Eventually, someone speaks up.
- I read what my teachers tell me to read.
and then
- I find books I like on Amazon and see what other people have bought.
No one says “I read the Sunday book review from the newspaper.”
No one says “I read litblogs.”
No one says “I read award-winners and nominees.”
No one says “I read the New Yorker.”
No one says “I read literary magazines.”When I snuck into AWP last year a couple of the literary magazine folks said that MFA students wanted them to run their stories, but they didn’t want to subscribe, even read the magazines. I said bosh and poppycock. I was wrong. Sigh.
At least no one said, “I read what Oprah tells me to read.”
This is flat-out, 100%, without a doubt, no if ands or buts the biggest, most vexing, incomprehensible, indefensible, messed up issue with some writers: namely, the phenomenon of Writers Who Don’t Read.
Carolyn had linked to a September post by Jade Park, that opened:
One of my writing peers in my MFA program once said in workshop, “I try to read those literary journals but I just can’t get into them. Why would I subscribe to one of them? I mean, I know I want to get published in them, but why would I subscribe?”
Ahem. It was a very honest statement on her part, altogether too revealing of the plight of literary journals. I was horrified to hear what she said, and as an avid reader and subscriber of literary journals I raised my hand to respond. But our professor beat us to the punch.
Our professor went onto say that as writers we really should subscribe to and support literary journals. They do a great service to the writing community–they discover new writers, for one. And how would they survive to do such things without our support?
Carolyn and Jade Park introduce the two salient points about Writers Who Don’t Read:
- Writers Who Don’t Read aren’t learning how to write because they’re not studying their own craft. They are studying their own writing, but not their craft.
- Writers Who Don’t Read are cannibalizing the community their artistic survival depends upon.
Alright, forget writing for a second. You’re a luthier. You make guitars. You spent $40,000 at the North Bennet Street School to learn how to make musical instruments, so now you’ve got the basic skills. But you want to start your own guitar-making business. How much sense would it make, then, to start your craft-business by not learning about your sales outlets, your competitors and their methods, your potential collaborators, your potential mentors? You realize that much of the craft is beyond your two hands. Being a luthier, as being a writer, is a profession. You must therefore strive to be a [gasp] professional.
Your name in lights in 32-point font
“All Things Considered” contributor and author Sarah Vowell has a stock origin story for her love of writing: she says it was what she was good at, and she just wanted to be able to make money at what she was good at.
Many writers, however, often write to be a capital-w Writer, as any editor or agent can attest. (Visit Miss Snark for daily evidence.) They like the idea of being a writer. Writerhood equates intelligence, seriousness, and depth in a way that no other mediumhood does. It’s fame for all the right reasons.
It’s predictable how many writers will give up writing after giving up that illusion. Writing is a profession. It has things other professions have, like guilds and conferences with “break-out sessions” and job boards and uneventful business travel and glass ceilings.
What’s not predictable is how many writers keep the capital-w Writer illusion but drop the craft. They so love the idea of being a writer—or perhaps so strongly feel it’s all talent and not a work ethic that makes a better writer—that they only think of it as an activity (“What do you do?” “I write.”) and not as a craft to be improved, expanded, and shared.
Literate: able to read and write
Both. Read and write. If you cannot read, you are illiterate. If you do not read, you are illiterate. As it was written:
If I write with the words of men and of angels, but have not read, I am only a resounding Lexmark or a clanging Underwood.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all bestsellers, and if I have a last name that can move merchandise, but have not read, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the Getty and surrender my body to the University of Iowa, but have not read, I gain nothing.
[ . . .]
And now these three remain: name recognition, strong characters and reading. But the greatest of these is reading.
So subcribe to and read literary magazines—and join a writing group
I disagree a hair with Jade Park: I don’t think literary magazines are in trouble. Frankly, I think there are too many stretched too thin by trying to sell nationally. Go into most any bookstore, not just an indie store, and you’ll see there’s no lack of literary magazines managing to stay afloat.
But where she’s right is that you must read litmags to be published in litmags. In part it’s about knowing your market and your competition. Moreover it’s about community. A story untold, or unread, is not a story. To survive artistically, writers must be read—and it starts with you, the writer/reader. And it’s simple:
- On a rainy Saturday afternoon, go to your bookstore and pull a chair up to the magazine section.
- Pick five or six literary magazines—all different kinds, glossy ones, book-length ones, poetry ones, local ones—and spend half an hour with each.
- Read at least one whole story.
- Note the names of the editors-in-chief.
- Read the author biographies.
- Pick your second favorite of the five. Buy it.
- Pick your top favorite of the five. Take out the blow-in subscription card. Fill it in—you can ask the publication to bill you later—and drop it in the nearest mailbox. (The litmag, remember, makes more money per item on subscriptions than on single-copy sales.
- Share each issue you read with writer-friends.
- Start a writing group with those writer-friends. It will include a little exchange of writing, a good deal of beer, and a whole lot of camaraderie.
And that’s it. You’re on your way to being a Writer to Reads. Or if you’re ready now:
Identity Theory—it’s free
The New Criterion subscriptions
What are you waiting for?
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