Gratitude? No thanks.

A holiday letter for my readers

Everyone’s always so thankful this time of year. We’re thankful for our friends, thankful for our family. We’re thankful for the harvest and thankful for the moon. It’s the last Thursday of November and here in the U.S., all anyone does around now, besides stuff our faces with cranberry sauce and drive for hours to see people who stir up all kinds of weird feelings, is say thank you thank you thank you.

Well guess what. I’m not going to do it. Nope. Not this year. Not here.

I will not say thank you for your ongoing support and readership of this newsletter. And I will not say thank you for sharing the newsletter so that our little community here continues to thrive and grow.

And I especially will not say thank you for all the ways you have been participating in the discussions, with comments that teach me so much about who you are as writers and also about the literary world at large, comments that really do make me feel like I am part of a writing community, surrounded by thoughtful, engaged, and quite often funny people, who care just as much about writing and independent publishing as I do, and who are not afraid to openly share questions, frustrations, and the real honest grit and experience that all this writing and publishing work entails.

Nope. Not going to say thank you for that.

I also refuse—refuse!—to say thank you for the articles so many of you have sent along, allowing me to fill slots weekly with voices from all over the world, offering perspectives on zine culture in the sixties, contemporary lit mag publishing in Africa, censorship online, and so much more. Nor will I thank those of you who read these articles and write such supportive and/or thoughtfully critical comments, reminding me regularly how much we all care about all it is we do as writers and readers.

And I will not—absolutely will not!—say thank you to those of you who come out to attend our monthly info sessions, those Q & A jams and study halls. Yes, you know who you are. Those sessions are too fun, and I laugh way too much, and I feel good the whole rest of the day every time, and it is just such a treat to meet so many of you in person, and you all have such great questions and interesting experiences to share. I am not going to thank you for it.

Also, I am never ever going to thank the editors who have given their time and let me record our conversations and pick their brains about their magazines. I’ve learned so much about lit mag publishing and gotten to hear from such a range of editors about what they struggle with, what sustains them in this work, and what they look for as they curate issues of their magazines. These editors have taken the time to open up the door and let us see what goes on behind the gates, and our conversations have been delightful. You editors know what you’ve done. I will not thank you.

Those of you, also, who show up to attend these video chats, who ask questions, who listen, who take notes, who absolutely brighten my day with your engagement and interest, yeah, you’re not getting a thank you either. Nope. Not you.

Oh, and all of you who are participating in the Lit Mag Reading Club, who inspire me to read lit mags and think more deeply about what it is I’m reading, who order the issues that will support these small magazines, who discuss the journals in the threads and who show up to the video chats to ask really good questions of the editors, questions that show you’ve read the issue, that you’ve thought about the work within, and that all this matters, yeah, to you, nuh-uh, not going to say thank you.

I am done with all this gratitude business. I wipe my hands of it.

What’s more, I am definitely, under no circumstances, not even a little bit, going to wish all of you well, wherever you are, with whomever you find yourselves on this holiday, and let you know that I’m thinking of you, and that I appreciate you, and that it’s because of all your engagement and support that this newsletter remains such a pleasure for me to create, and for that reason, I seriously am grateful.

Nope. I will not say that.

I am also not going to leave you all with a dancing turkey, because goofing off is just not my style, as you all know by now. I am a Serious Person and more importantly I am a Seriously Serious Writer with Nothing but Seriously Serious Things to Say.

And this season is a time, if nothing else, for us all to be Extremely Serious.

So, Happy Holiday, friends.

Thanks for nothing.

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