Oh Becky, this one hit so close to home for me. I grew up rural working class, and have had such a heavy chip on my shoulder for years about class issues. When I moved away from home to attend college, I never felt so ‘other’ than to be surrounded by kids of such means. It was a diverse group but they all came from a certain level of money, whereas I was there on a Pell Grant. I had to work my way through, so there were no football games and parties and generalized college fun for me. And the lit world came with a whole new set of rules and worlds that made me feel utterly unwelcome, so much so that it would take me another 25 year to return to writing and the literary scene. Even now as I submit I feel every acceptance as proof that I get to be here, too. It’s sticky and messed up and needs to be talked about in the light of day, so thank you for this, truly. I will say that I noticed Tiny Molecules offers something particular to working class writers in their submission guidelines, although off the top of my head and can’t recall what. I thanked them for that in my cover letter. Even though I’m no longer of that group, I will never escape the feeling of being so, of this constant drive to prove my own self-worth.
Class is *absolutely* a factor. Social and economic justice and culture creation are inseparable, but many (most?) of the white-glove organizations that give out prizes, grants, book contracts, and so on favor those whom they know and the people they know are almost always as socially-economically privileged as they are. There are outliers, of course, like Octavia Butler who worked in a factory and then went home and wrote until she was able to support herself with her writing. I would argue, however, that Octavia would be unable to accomplish that feat today because her union factory job would be gone, her health insurance would cost too much, and the magazines she wrote for would not longer pay any decent fee for her work. For translators, the situation is even worse. Our profession is barely in demand or compensated in this xenophobic nation and remains the privilege of people with inherited wealth, economically stable mates, and/or university teaching jobs. I've been independently employed since 2001 and it's goddamned hard to find the time and energy to write and translate. I literally moved away from NYC to a small town in the South so that I could afford to write! And even so, my many publications barely garner a few thousand dollars a year, much of that income going to pay membership fees at such fundamental organizations like AWP, ALTA, and the AG, all of which are great and essential. But what person in my state -- or with even less income, for I am privileged compared to many -- can afford to go to a conference in another state to network? None, that's who. In short, when we put up with an economically unviable publishing landscape, we are de facto excluding the voices of the struggling and oppressed from any hope of success in literature and translation.
It's shameful to be poor. Obviously. Is there going to be a poor pride month? Who is proud to be empoverished, to struggle to put food in front of your kids, to not have insurance? It's quiet. It's silent. It's not loud and proud. It doesn't get a parade. And yes, the irony is, those who need actual assistance--not the more abstract assistance of "equity"--don't get help.
So well and so succinctly put, Jeff. I'll add that poverty is the very opposite of "cool".
I resist saying much more because I'm not American and, although poverty isn't cool in Europe either, the idea is at least accepted that the state or government (i.e. the better off) have a duty to alleviate poverty. How much is done for the poor varies over time and from country to country, but at least the principle is fairly generally accepted, whereas it seems not to be in the States.
I love your comment about being a waiter at Bread Loaf! I suppose the honor is such that there's no need to tip. If I work hard, perhaps one day I'll earn a fellowship to clean the toilets there, and if I'm really lucky, I can wipe the leftovers from the plate of a "dream" agent or someone who's been published in The New Yorker.
One literary magazine that addresses the concerns of the working class is Blue Collar Review, published by Partisan Press. I've twice published poems in the journal, which gets scant attention from the wider literary community. Much of the work that appears in Blue Collar Review would be considered too unsophisticated for most lit mags, but so many of the poems have heart and emotional impact and they linger in your memory longer than most poems I read. They have a plainspoken dignity that captures the lives of workers and people struggling to stay afloat in the harsh capitalist world. You should feature them in one of your editor interviews.
A while back, I was in a writing workshop. I submitted a story for critique written from a redneck POV. The instructor cautioned me to be careful about using slurs like "redneck," although she saw nothing objectionable in the content of my story.
This startled me. I was raised on the land and off the grid in rural and remote areas across Canada because my father couldn't find work. I lived in trailer parks and campgrounds, and sometimes we squatted in people's yards living in an RV. One other person in the workshop was also a self-proclaimed redneck living in US Appalachia.
I do not use "redneck" as a pejorative, and think that those who do are engaging in classism.
It makes me wonder how many redneck stories get published. I know I've had a hard time with some of my stories written in Maritimes vernacular from the POV of redneck characters. I've had an editor tell me that I need to run my story through Grammarly. So yes, there's an elitism going on when the use of vernacular is deemed "wrong." That's how folks actually talk. It should have representation.
Good for you. Keep at it. Unfortunately, too many folks are worried about the possibility of offending someone in their readership. Life is filled with various shades of beauty and things we find objectionable. Stories can be too.
I say to treat readers as strong and capable. They're not going to wilt, but if they do, that's on them. We should present our stories in our truth with our vernacular, without intent of malice or harm. But somebody will be upset, no matter what. That's just the way it goes. We live in an age where offence demonstrates virtue.
Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young did a major piece of research on how class is the pivotal form of literary elitism. Every word is worth reading, but the key takeaway is that attendance at a handful of elite universities is the determining factor in who gets major literary prizes. https://asapjournal.com/feature/on-poets-and-prizes-juliana-spahr-and-stephanie-young/
Thanks for linking this. Not surprising, but it's good to see it mapped out. And I know he's a saint to many, and I love his writing and politics, but George Saunders, for one example, has been king-making for years, and he SUNY to prize pipeline (Mary Karr is also there) has gotten a bit off-putting. Being a student of a certain professor puts people on the fast-track, and this would be fine in a peer-review-based field, where any work went through a rigorous test based on quantifiables, but art is so subjective that this smacks of nepotism in the worst way.
Everything about being a writer costs either money or time, and many people who work for a living have little of one or both. I grew up working class and got the message consistently that my dreams weren't worth pursuing, that art and writing and all that were for other people, not for me. So you come to it late, you come to it without much support and you struggle to afford workshops, sub fees and feedback opportunities, and you struggle to find the time to even allow yourself the time. It can be a lot to push back against. And I'm one of the lucky ones- I had an elite college education and now live a comfortable life. But a lot of people aren't lucky and push back against it their whole lives.
I would argue that working class/impoverished writers are the only group of marginalized writers that should be given free submissions. I find it racist and discriminatory when mags offer free subs and special treatment for BIPOC, Asian, LGBTQ, etc because it implies that because of your skin color or sexual preferences, you can't afford a submission fee. If an Asian or BIPOC writer is unable to afford submission fees, then they would be covered under the one umbrella of "working class/impoverished." Right? Listing every possible marginalized group (disabled, queer, women, BIPOC, Asian, etc) seems ridiculous to me.
Right on! Asian-Americans [and my wife is one] have the highest income of any 'racial' group. And there are far more poor whites than blacks in America.
Why can't we just see people as people. as individuals?
I don't think this is a correct point and I think this comment and frankly to many people in the comments are missing an important acknowledgement and understanding of intersectionality.
Firstly, the reason why free submissions are given to people who have come from minoritized racial backgrounds is to directly acknowledge and try to fix the systemic discrimination authors from BIPOC backgrounds have faced in the writing world.
We still have an number of lit journals who actively publish new pieces, anthologies, issues, that do not include authors from BIPOC backgrounds, maybe one or two, and honestly, many of them who pass the "paperbag" test.
Free submissions isn't the only thing to fix this among many other issues of racial bias and systemic racism in the writing sphere, but it is an extremely important and necessary step to ensure groups that have been historically discriminated against are finally given the opportunities that they rightfully deserve, the chance to share their words, and very much remind people that whether it is romantic poetry, erotica, coming of age short stories, non-fiction + social commentary, etc that writers from minortized backgrounds can write in all these genres. Writing should never be exclusive to anyone. So no, it is not special treatment to acknowledge and try to repair the damage of racial discrimination in writing.
Two, can BIPOC folks come from non-low income backgrounds, absolutely. There are many BIPOC folks who don’t worry and face discrimination based on income. However, there are many BIPOC folks WHO ARE ALSO low-income. I'm a Black, female FGLI (first gen, low income) student myself. My identity as a Black woman has obviously caused people to treat me different. I also know that if I was a Black woman who came from a higher income background, some of the experiences and struggles I've had (and currently are fighting through) in academia would not have happened. At the same time, I am also aware that so many of the struggles I have, as a FGLI student, are further intensified and exacerbated by my Black identity. I have non-BIPOC low-income friends and we talk a lot about our experiences in college and the struggles we’ve had to overcome in maneuvering through spaces that are still not ready to accept us. However, there is a major element of PRIVILEGE, my friends have had because THEY ARE NOT BLACK. Despite our shared FGLI identity, there are things my non-BIPOC friends have had to go through and have been able to achieve opportunities faster than I have.
This the point of intersectionality, to acknowledge that yes, not all BIPOC people are low-income, but as long as you are a BIPOC person in this country, that on it’s own creates division and barriers. Nevertheless, if you are BIPOC AND First Gen, AND low-income.
I am extremely passionate about fighting for FGLI folks. I am extremely aware that very often low-income folks are not acknowledged as coming from a minoritized group and in fact, I have done a lot of work at all the institutions I have been a part off to remind people about FGLI people exist in higher academia. Not everyone has financial security and we need to not only do a lot better in increasing FGLI representation across all spheres of life, we need to give them the resources that will allow them to thrive.
So yes, we absolutely need to ensure that low-income writers can access lit journals and the writing world. Trust me, I know.
But what I don’t like is what subtly ends up happening with these arguments, and sorry if this might hurt people but this needs to be acknowledged, in which there are ways that non-BIPOC people can weaponize their FGLI identity in justification of their own biases and racism. Being FGLI, having a disability, being queer, etc, is not an excuse to justify racism and discrimination towards racial minoritized groups. When we use this style of thinking, this not only harms racial minoirtized folks, this also harms LOW-INCOME PEOPLE AS WELL.
We can advocate for lit journals to acknowledge low-income folks as a minoritized group that should also be eligible for free submissions, fee waivers etc. And we can do that without trying to diminish the historical discrimination BIPOC folks have experienced in the writing world, and once again try to exclude them. Nevertheless those who are BIPOC and FGLI, and many other identities.
You can advocate for inclusion and equity without justifying taking away resources and opportunities for other groups who just as much deserve support as well. Because if that is your advocacy approach, this fellow low-income writer is gracefully asking you to sit this out. We need unification, not division.
Hi Becky, I love your voice in the writing/publishing space. Thanks so much for highlighting this issue. Class consciousness seems to be one of the most stubborn hurdles in the American imagination. What's that quote about there being no poor in America, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires?
This is a good point. When I taught a course called Race, Class and Gender in America at a small university in New Jersey, class was the category that surprised students out of their assumption that there is no class in America. (That was before the 1% became such a visible category.) And those classes were varied--the kids of small business owners, working class and "white collar" parents, as well as students who grew up on assistance and were there on scholarship because they could not otherwise afford college. It took a lot of evidence to convince them that there were classes in America and that obstacles kept the poor from advancing into the middle class.
That is fascinating! As a teen, I would get penpals from abroad (remember paper letters?). A guy from England asked me what class I was and no one in my family or friend group could help me with the answer, ha!
This is such an intriguing anecdote. I was hard put, when asked about my ethnicity, to answer, as no one in my family was inclined to identify himself as "Pennsylvania Dutch" until I was well into adulthood, and an older cousin was remembering his childhood. The more recent immigrations, from Germany and France, were not even remembered! Class was easier because as the daughter of a welder, I did not find my like among the "intellectuals" I hung out with, all of them with fathers who came home wearing business suits. But I remember reading English literature in college and having class explained to me in, likely, a Victorian literature course. What a different world in which you could not aspire to change your social class--as I did by going to college and graduate school and getting a tenure track position.
There is so much that should or could be said about this topic. One thing I think should be noted immediately is that seeking racial, religious, immigrant, and refugee literature is, to a great extent, seeking working class literature. I don't think the literary community should reinforce the errors of our politics writ large where working class = white working class people.
Another thing that should be said is that there is no requirement that a working class person write to sound like a country song or whatever. I've always worked to write as well as I could about whatever topic that interests me. I grew up in and around doublewide trailers, truckers, factory unionsim and working class stiffs, but don't always -- rarely-- put them in my work. What does it mean for working class people to be represented in the magazines? That they do the writing or that they're in it? I'd rather it be that they do it, every time.
It seems understandable to me that there is overrepresentation of upper middle class people in literary circles for all the reasons we all know: they likely grew up in houses with more and better books, they likely could take the unpaid internship, they likely were encouraged to pursue a field that interested them rather than that which would lead most quickly to permanent employment. When I was in grad school for lit. theory, I remember sharing a dinner with colleagues who I loved very much. I was sincerely taken aback when one scoffed at the marxist pretensions of another, and said, "I mean come on, it's not like any of our parents came from the factory floor." In fact, my parents met on the factory floor.
I think thinking about this is really important because we want our literary community to represent real communities, not just the self-selected and self-funded among us. I fought really hard to pursue a literary and academc life. It's not going great but it is my engagement with the literary community that makes me believe it's still worth it. The goal, I think, would be to find folks with like trajectories and support them -- especially at the K12 level. My mom read to me and I had two really good English teachers, one in fourth grade and one in 10th. If I hadn't had that, I'd probably still be working at the McDonalds in town. My two cents.
I can relate in part--I had a really good English teacher in high school, though I think whatever word-skill I might have is in part due to a severe language defect I had as a child: I essentially spoke gibberish, and the first doctors my parents took me to told them I was an 'idiot' --the medical term back in the 50's.--and should be put away for life. Thank God they instead got me years of speech therapy where I learned how to pronounce every letter.
And the reality is that most humans in the past 100,000+ years have been illiterate: when Tolstoy wrote, only 6% of Russians could read and write. Today, most people can read but what do they read? The internet? if anything....
I often wonder what my working class childhood means now that I am a retired professor who has moved in educated and professional circles for most of my life. Some working class parents read to their kids, read themselves, do crossword puzzles and maybe say, like my grandmother, "I'm proud you kids are going to college. I always wanted to go to high school." She had to drop out of 8th grade in order to make lace in a factory in Camden, NJ.
Ageism is just as significant a factor, I believe. I try and keep my bio to six words, two of which are my name; then my state. My acceptance rate has plummeted dramatically in the last five years. And sure, it could be the writing but I read lit mags. Something’s off here.
I don't know how old you are, Tim, but I only became widely published in my 8th decade--close to 250 lit mags now in 21 countries-- so not all editors are ageist nitwits, thank God!
That’s a remarkable accomplishment, Nolo. I’ve had some success in decent mags (nothing along your lines however), but will soldier on nonetheless. Cheers.
I just started writing seriously after turning 50 and now I am starting to get widely published. It's all in lit mags and anthologies, but I'm hoping to get a book out soon.
Pleased to hear that because I have to come clean. I'm the Founding Editor of the magazine! We should reopen in a couple of weeks. I'm recovering from back surgery...
I don't know whether or not they're snotty, but for sure grad students will find it difficult to identify with the sensibilities of 50-plus writers. I can often tell when an essay writer is very young - like, less than 30. I'm sure they in turn can tell when a writer is no longer young. Does this make them dismiss older writers? Let's find out.
Shan, thank you for sharing the link. Your essay is amazing. The mussels like purple grapes and the dental “correction”—so many vivid details and emotive storytelling. I was born in Newfoundland but my mother had a psychotic break and was sent to the States and my grandmother took me there too.
No doubt true, John, but I feel sorry for the young today-- they've been 'fudged-up' by their elders--parents, teachers, politicians, etc. AND we've made the world more dangerous than it has ever been in history.
I don't experience this. Perhaps I have low expectations but my first poem was published in a major journal in my 68th year. Since then I've had about a 5% success rate at 2% (according to Duotrope) journals.
So you weren't being agist when you rejected my first 12 subs to OneArt?😂😇🙂
And thanks, Mark. In my case, writing became a revelation — something that seemed to match the moment — in my life, in the life of the nation AND the pandemic which gave me more time to devote to learning than I knew existed!
Lit mags are just following the political switch from class segmentation to identities. Politicians, essentially Democrats, found it more expedient to slice and dice the electorate along "identity issues": race, gender, sexual orientation ... it allowed for targeted messaging (it also diluted the Democratic message, something that's creating a lot of trouble right now), but targeting also means fragmentation, so you get the alphabet soup of for instance LGBTQetc. In the end nobody is satisfied and you start playing identities against each other. You can't say you support women when you get tied in knots about defining "woman". Abandoning "class" was a bad move, why people don't see that is beyond me. Poverty cuts across "identity", even if some groups are over-represented in the class. I always found "identity" reductive, while "class" isn't. Might be the old school socialist in me!
I can relate in part: As a young man I was a socialist, now as an old man, a libertarian. wanting as much freedom as possible for everyone--though that also goes taking responsibility. I know, an old fashioned notion....
I know many have good intentions but honestly, I am damn tired of putting people in 'categories'. It is discrimination to favor any one type/race/group/sex/age/economic status over another. It is also condescending. Dickens grew up dirt poor, Blake died not very well off. Poverty does not stop someone, ANYONE from thinking, feeling, creating--and more than 'wealth' enables thinking/feeling/creating. If money can't buy happiness [and it can't], it also can't buy creativity. For real, guys.
And when you put people in groups, you are abetting the very thing you say you hate: prejudice. It doesn't matter who created what, because the only thing that really matters is that your creation, be it art, music, writing, resonates in another's mind--or soul, for those of us who sense a reality beyond the material world.
[ And I can tell you firsthand; the soul has no race, no sex, no age, etc. It just IS, endlessly.]
Wow Becky, thank you for this courageous and important post. You are absolutely right that class marginalization is a yawning, vast blind spot in the well-intentioned liberalism of the literary world (and beyond). It's so marginalized that it doesn't even occur to editors etc. that it's not in their view.
It would be refreshing if lit mags could simply say that they welcome voices from anywhere in the world and from any walk of life, instead of devoting paragraphs of guidelines in an attempt to prove that they too wade in approved cultural currents.
It would be even more refreshing if lit mags read their submissions without taking into account the identity of the author. Perhaps they could read all submissions blind and select the strongest work that aligns with their editorial aesthetic. Hopefully, that aesthetic would include a variety of compelling viewpoints that give their readers insights into other ways of living and being.
It seems though that they fear backlash if contributor bios don't have the right words. Many insist (under penalty of disqualification) that you provide one, which (fairly or unfairly) gives the impression that they care more about who the author is than what the author submitted.
Yes Victor. All submissions should be read blind but even those mags that have this policy review the bio once the piece has been shortlisted and accept/reject based on cultural/political bias.
Jim, Cynthia mentioned on this thread that it would be an improvement if they only asked for a bio after an acceptance. That would be nice, and wouldn't add too much more overhead to the process.
In my wanderings through guidelines and submissions in the last year, I may have seen something like that in a pub's policy, but (in my experience anyway) it's the rare exception.
Oh Becky, this one hit so close to home for me. I grew up rural working class, and have had such a heavy chip on my shoulder for years about class issues. When I moved away from home to attend college, I never felt so ‘other’ than to be surrounded by kids of such means. It was a diverse group but they all came from a certain level of money, whereas I was there on a Pell Grant. I had to work my way through, so there were no football games and parties and generalized college fun for me. And the lit world came with a whole new set of rules and worlds that made me feel utterly unwelcome, so much so that it would take me another 25 year to return to writing and the literary scene. Even now as I submit I feel every acceptance as proof that I get to be here, too. It’s sticky and messed up and needs to be talked about in the light of day, so thank you for this, truly. I will say that I noticed Tiny Molecules offers something particular to working class writers in their submission guidelines, although off the top of my head and can’t recall what. I thanked them for that in my cover letter. Even though I’m no longer of that group, I will never escape the feeling of being so, of this constant drive to prove my own self-worth.
Class is *absolutely* a factor. Social and economic justice and culture creation are inseparable, but many (most?) of the white-glove organizations that give out prizes, grants, book contracts, and so on favor those whom they know and the people they know are almost always as socially-economically privileged as they are. There are outliers, of course, like Octavia Butler who worked in a factory and then went home and wrote until she was able to support herself with her writing. I would argue, however, that Octavia would be unable to accomplish that feat today because her union factory job would be gone, her health insurance would cost too much, and the magazines she wrote for would not longer pay any decent fee for her work. For translators, the situation is even worse. Our profession is barely in demand or compensated in this xenophobic nation and remains the privilege of people with inherited wealth, economically stable mates, and/or university teaching jobs. I've been independently employed since 2001 and it's goddamned hard to find the time and energy to write and translate. I literally moved away from NYC to a small town in the South so that I could afford to write! And even so, my many publications barely garner a few thousand dollars a year, much of that income going to pay membership fees at such fundamental organizations like AWP, ALTA, and the AG, all of which are great and essential. But what person in my state -- or with even less income, for I am privileged compared to many -- can afford to go to a conference in another state to network? None, that's who. In short, when we put up with an economically unviable publishing landscape, we are de facto excluding the voices of the struggling and oppressed from any hope of success in literature and translation.
It's shameful to be poor. Obviously. Is there going to be a poor pride month? Who is proud to be empoverished, to struggle to put food in front of your kids, to not have insurance? It's quiet. It's silent. It's not loud and proud. It doesn't get a parade. And yes, the irony is, those who need actual assistance--not the more abstract assistance of "equity"--don't get help.
So well and so succinctly put, Jeff. I'll add that poverty is the very opposite of "cool".
I resist saying much more because I'm not American and, although poverty isn't cool in Europe either, the idea is at least accepted that the state or government (i.e. the better off) have a duty to alleviate poverty. How much is done for the poor varies over time and from country to country, but at least the principle is fairly generally accepted, whereas it seems not to be in the States.
I think you nailed it.
Notable comment about "Poor Pride Month"
It's worth a conversation about why we even need to have this conversation.
I love your comment about being a waiter at Bread Loaf! I suppose the honor is such that there's no need to tip. If I work hard, perhaps one day I'll earn a fellowship to clean the toilets there, and if I'm really lucky, I can wipe the leftovers from the plate of a "dream" agent or someone who's been published in The New Yorker.
One literary magazine that addresses the concerns of the working class is Blue Collar Review, published by Partisan Press. I've twice published poems in the journal, which gets scant attention from the wider literary community. Much of the work that appears in Blue Collar Review would be considered too unsophisticated for most lit mags, but so many of the poems have heart and emotional impact and they linger in your memory longer than most poems I read. They have a plainspoken dignity that captures the lives of workers and people struggling to stay afloat in the harsh capitalist world. You should feature them in one of your editor interviews.
This is an extremely important topic and I have much to say.
I've written about this a bit... notably in a piece I wrote on my experience with Class Dysphoria.
My brief answer to this question:
"Do editors generally not consider poor people to be underrepresented in literature?"
Wholeheartedly, YES.
Poor people are invisible.
That's why no one sees them.
They get a glance, then nothing. Erased.
too true
A while back, I was in a writing workshop. I submitted a story for critique written from a redneck POV. The instructor cautioned me to be careful about using slurs like "redneck," although she saw nothing objectionable in the content of my story.
This startled me. I was raised on the land and off the grid in rural and remote areas across Canada because my father couldn't find work. I lived in trailer parks and campgrounds, and sometimes we squatted in people's yards living in an RV. One other person in the workshop was also a self-proclaimed redneck living in US Appalachia.
I do not use "redneck" as a pejorative, and think that those who do are engaging in classism.
It makes me wonder how many redneck stories get published. I know I've had a hard time with some of my stories written in Maritimes vernacular from the POV of redneck characters. I've had an editor tell me that I need to run my story through Grammarly. So yes, there's an elitism going on when the use of vernacular is deemed "wrong." That's how folks actually talk. It should have representation.
Good for you. Keep at it. Unfortunately, too many folks are worried about the possibility of offending someone in their readership. Life is filled with various shades of beauty and things we find objectionable. Stories can be too.
I say to treat readers as strong and capable. They're not going to wilt, but if they do, that's on them. We should present our stories in our truth with our vernacular, without intent of malice or harm. But somebody will be upset, no matter what. That's just the way it goes. We live in an age where offence demonstrates virtue.
Anyway, I applaud you. And again: keep it up.
Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young did a major piece of research on how class is the pivotal form of literary elitism. Every word is worth reading, but the key takeaway is that attendance at a handful of elite universities is the determining factor in who gets major literary prizes. https://asapjournal.com/feature/on-poets-and-prizes-juliana-spahr-and-stephanie-young/
Thanks for linking this. Not surprising, but it's good to see it mapped out. And I know he's a saint to many, and I love his writing and politics, but George Saunders, for one example, has been king-making for years, and he SUNY to prize pipeline (Mary Karr is also there) has gotten a bit off-putting. Being a student of a certain professor puts people on the fast-track, and this would be fine in a peer-review-based field, where any work went through a rigorous test based on quantifiables, but art is so subjective that this smacks of nepotism in the worst way.
Discouraging.
Yeah but good to have the direct picture
Thanks for linking this, hadn't seen it. Academic/literary genealogy for sure.
Everything about being a writer costs either money or time, and many people who work for a living have little of one or both. I grew up working class and got the message consistently that my dreams weren't worth pursuing, that art and writing and all that were for other people, not for me. So you come to it late, you come to it without much support and you struggle to afford workshops, sub fees and feedback opportunities, and you struggle to find the time to even allow yourself the time. It can be a lot to push back against. And I'm one of the lucky ones- I had an elite college education and now live a comfortable life. But a lot of people aren't lucky and push back against it their whole lives.
Alas, it's true-- art, music, writing, don't pay much in general-- but if you can throw a ball hard, you get rich!
God, why do we get our priorities so wrong?
I would argue that working class/impoverished writers are the only group of marginalized writers that should be given free submissions. I find it racist and discriminatory when mags offer free subs and special treatment for BIPOC, Asian, LGBTQ, etc because it implies that because of your skin color or sexual preferences, you can't afford a submission fee. If an Asian or BIPOC writer is unable to afford submission fees, then they would be covered under the one umbrella of "working class/impoverished." Right? Listing every possible marginalized group (disabled, queer, women, BIPOC, Asian, etc) seems ridiculous to me.
Right on! Asian-Americans [and my wife is one] have the highest income of any 'racial' group. And there are far more poor whites than blacks in America.
Why can't we just see people as people. as individuals?
Amen.😇
I don't think this is a correct point and I think this comment and frankly to many people in the comments are missing an important acknowledgement and understanding of intersectionality.
Firstly, the reason why free submissions are given to people who have come from minoritized racial backgrounds is to directly acknowledge and try to fix the systemic discrimination authors from BIPOC backgrounds have faced in the writing world.
We still have an number of lit journals who actively publish new pieces, anthologies, issues, that do not include authors from BIPOC backgrounds, maybe one or two, and honestly, many of them who pass the "paperbag" test.
Free submissions isn't the only thing to fix this among many other issues of racial bias and systemic racism in the writing sphere, but it is an extremely important and necessary step to ensure groups that have been historically discriminated against are finally given the opportunities that they rightfully deserve, the chance to share their words, and very much remind people that whether it is romantic poetry, erotica, coming of age short stories, non-fiction + social commentary, etc that writers from minortized backgrounds can write in all these genres. Writing should never be exclusive to anyone. So no, it is not special treatment to acknowledge and try to repair the damage of racial discrimination in writing.
Two, can BIPOC folks come from non-low income backgrounds, absolutely. There are many BIPOC folks who don’t worry and face discrimination based on income. However, there are many BIPOC folks WHO ARE ALSO low-income. I'm a Black, female FGLI (first gen, low income) student myself. My identity as a Black woman has obviously caused people to treat me different. I also know that if I was a Black woman who came from a higher income background, some of the experiences and struggles I've had (and currently are fighting through) in academia would not have happened. At the same time, I am also aware that so many of the struggles I have, as a FGLI student, are further intensified and exacerbated by my Black identity. I have non-BIPOC low-income friends and we talk a lot about our experiences in college and the struggles we’ve had to overcome in maneuvering through spaces that are still not ready to accept us. However, there is a major element of PRIVILEGE, my friends have had because THEY ARE NOT BLACK. Despite our shared FGLI identity, there are things my non-BIPOC friends have had to go through and have been able to achieve opportunities faster than I have.
This the point of intersectionality, to acknowledge that yes, not all BIPOC people are low-income, but as long as you are a BIPOC person in this country, that on it’s own creates division and barriers. Nevertheless, if you are BIPOC AND First Gen, AND low-income.
I am extremely passionate about fighting for FGLI folks. I am extremely aware that very often low-income folks are not acknowledged as coming from a minoritized group and in fact, I have done a lot of work at all the institutions I have been a part off to remind people about FGLI people exist in higher academia. Not everyone has financial security and we need to not only do a lot better in increasing FGLI representation across all spheres of life, we need to give them the resources that will allow them to thrive.
So yes, we absolutely need to ensure that low-income writers can access lit journals and the writing world. Trust me, I know.
But what I don’t like is what subtly ends up happening with these arguments, and sorry if this might hurt people but this needs to be acknowledged, in which there are ways that non-BIPOC people can weaponize their FGLI identity in justification of their own biases and racism. Being FGLI, having a disability, being queer, etc, is not an excuse to justify racism and discrimination towards racial minoritized groups. When we use this style of thinking, this not only harms racial minoirtized folks, this also harms LOW-INCOME PEOPLE AS WELL.
We can advocate for lit journals to acknowledge low-income folks as a minoritized group that should also be eligible for free submissions, fee waivers etc. And we can do that without trying to diminish the historical discrimination BIPOC folks have experienced in the writing world, and once again try to exclude them. Nevertheless those who are BIPOC and FGLI, and many other identities.
You can advocate for inclusion and equity without justifying taking away resources and opportunities for other groups who just as much deserve support as well. Because if that is your advocacy approach, this fellow low-income writer is gracefully asking you to sit this out. We need unification, not division.
Thank you.
Hi Becky, I love your voice in the writing/publishing space. Thanks so much for highlighting this issue. Class consciousness seems to be one of the most stubborn hurdles in the American imagination. What's that quote about there being no poor in America, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires?
Thanks for what you do!
This is a good point. When I taught a course called Race, Class and Gender in America at a small university in New Jersey, class was the category that surprised students out of their assumption that there is no class in America. (That was before the 1% became such a visible category.) And those classes were varied--the kids of small business owners, working class and "white collar" parents, as well as students who grew up on assistance and were there on scholarship because they could not otherwise afford college. It took a lot of evidence to convince them that there were classes in America and that obstacles kept the poor from advancing into the middle class.
That is fascinating! As a teen, I would get penpals from abroad (remember paper letters?). A guy from England asked me what class I was and no one in my family or friend group could help me with the answer, ha!
Also for anyone teaching working class issues and/or poetry, this anthology is amazing: https://www.rebeccagaylehowell.com/editorial
This is such an intriguing anecdote. I was hard put, when asked about my ethnicity, to answer, as no one in my family was inclined to identify himself as "Pennsylvania Dutch" until I was well into adulthood, and an older cousin was remembering his childhood. The more recent immigrations, from Germany and France, were not even remembered! Class was easier because as the daughter of a welder, I did not find my like among the "intellectuals" I hung out with, all of them with fathers who came home wearing business suits. But I remember reading English literature in college and having class explained to me in, likely, a Victorian literature course. What a different world in which you could not aspire to change your social class--as I did by going to college and graduate school and getting a tenure track position.
There is so much that should or could be said about this topic. One thing I think should be noted immediately is that seeking racial, religious, immigrant, and refugee literature is, to a great extent, seeking working class literature. I don't think the literary community should reinforce the errors of our politics writ large where working class = white working class people.
Another thing that should be said is that there is no requirement that a working class person write to sound like a country song or whatever. I've always worked to write as well as I could about whatever topic that interests me. I grew up in and around doublewide trailers, truckers, factory unionsim and working class stiffs, but don't always -- rarely-- put them in my work. What does it mean for working class people to be represented in the magazines? That they do the writing or that they're in it? I'd rather it be that they do it, every time.
It seems understandable to me that there is overrepresentation of upper middle class people in literary circles for all the reasons we all know: they likely grew up in houses with more and better books, they likely could take the unpaid internship, they likely were encouraged to pursue a field that interested them rather than that which would lead most quickly to permanent employment. When I was in grad school for lit. theory, I remember sharing a dinner with colleagues who I loved very much. I was sincerely taken aback when one scoffed at the marxist pretensions of another, and said, "I mean come on, it's not like any of our parents came from the factory floor." In fact, my parents met on the factory floor.
I think thinking about this is really important because we want our literary community to represent real communities, not just the self-selected and self-funded among us. I fought really hard to pursue a literary and academc life. It's not going great but it is my engagement with the literary community that makes me believe it's still worth it. The goal, I think, would be to find folks with like trajectories and support them -- especially at the K12 level. My mom read to me and I had two really good English teachers, one in fourth grade and one in 10th. If I hadn't had that, I'd probably still be working at the McDonalds in town. My two cents.
I can relate in part--I had a really good English teacher in high school, though I think whatever word-skill I might have is in part due to a severe language defect I had as a child: I essentially spoke gibberish, and the first doctors my parents took me to told them I was an 'idiot' --the medical term back in the 50's.--and should be put away for life. Thank God they instead got me years of speech therapy where I learned how to pronounce every letter.
And the reality is that most humans in the past 100,000+ years have been illiterate: when Tolstoy wrote, only 6% of Russians could read and write. Today, most people can read but what do they read? The internet? if anything....
I often wonder what my working class childhood means now that I am a retired professor who has moved in educated and professional circles for most of my life. Some working class parents read to their kids, read themselves, do crossword puzzles and maybe say, like my grandmother, "I'm proud you kids are going to college. I always wanted to go to high school." She had to drop out of 8th grade in order to make lace in a factory in Camden, NJ.
Ageism is just as significant a factor, I believe. I try and keep my bio to six words, two of which are my name; then my state. My acceptance rate has plummeted dramatically in the last five years. And sure, it could be the writing but I read lit mags. Something’s off here.
I don't know how old you are, Tim, but I only became widely published in my 8th decade--close to 250 lit mags now in 21 countries-- so not all editors are ageist nitwits, thank God!
That’s a remarkable accomplishment, Nolo. I’ve had some success in decent mags (nothing along your lines however), but will soldier on nonetheless. Cheers.
Nicely done!
I just started writing seriously after turning 50 and now I am starting to get widely published. It's all in lit mags and anthologies, but I'm hoping to get a book out soon.
Thank you! I am much amazed myself this late on the merry-go-round of life....
Have a look at Thin Skin magazine (thin-skin.com) which showcases the work of older writers
Thanks for posting this, Abby. I like what they say on their "About" page. Submissions are currently closed, but I will keep an eye on them.
Pleased to hear that because I have to come clean. I'm the Founding Editor of the magazine! We should reopen in a couple of weeks. I'm recovering from back surgery...
Yes, best fortune with your recovery [I had a bad back for 30 years until I started sleeping on a Tempu-pedic mattress.]
Abby, does your mag consider novellas?
Fraid not, sorry
Hope your recovery goes well, Abby, and I'm delighting in reading issues 1, 2, and 3.
Ageism is absolutely a problem.
Too many lit mags run by snotty grad students.
I don't know whether or not they're snotty, but for sure grad students will find it difficult to identify with the sensibilities of 50-plus writers. I can often tell when an essay writer is very young - like, less than 30. I'm sure they in turn can tell when a writer is no longer young. Does this make them dismiss older writers? Let's find out.
Submit your work to any university-based lit mag and tell me what happens.
One of my personal essays was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by a lit mag run by grad students: https://redivider.emerson.edu/saddles-in-the-kitchen/
Some young people have old souls....
Shan, thank you for sharing the link. Your essay is amazing. The mussels like purple grapes and the dental “correction”—so many vivid details and emotive storytelling. I was born in Newfoundland but my mother had a psychotic break and was sent to the States and my grandmother took me there too.
Thanks. I love your essay.
I agree, I do too
Thanks! I'm glad!
For what it's worth, I'm post-menopausal and have had a few things published in university-run lit mags.
Me too.
No doubt true, John, but I feel sorry for the young today-- they've been 'fudged-up' by their elders--parents, teachers, politicians, etc. AND we've made the world more dangerous than it has ever been in history.
I don't experience this. Perhaps I have low expectations but my first poem was published in a major journal in my 68th year. Since then I've had about a 5% success rate at 2% (according to Duotrope) journals.
You're an extremely good writer, Dick. I think that's why. There is a tipping point where skill outweighs prejudices.
So you weren't being agist when you rejected my first 12 subs to OneArt?😂😇🙂
And thanks, Mark. In my case, writing became a revelation — something that seemed to match the moment — in my life, in the life of the nation AND the pandemic which gave me more time to devote to learning than I knew existed!
Haha, very funny.
I do love hearing the stories about good things that came out of "The Great Pause" during the pandemic.
Yes, Mark, but is it because the world shut down, or because we all felt the tinge of a deathly disease wrapping about our shoulders?
Ah, I like that word 'revelation'-- I really don't know how I write many of the poems that come out of my head--mind--soul.
Hopefully, Mark....
I can relate-- I was first published at 70! Never saw that coming....
Lit mags are just following the political switch from class segmentation to identities. Politicians, essentially Democrats, found it more expedient to slice and dice the electorate along "identity issues": race, gender, sexual orientation ... it allowed for targeted messaging (it also diluted the Democratic message, something that's creating a lot of trouble right now), but targeting also means fragmentation, so you get the alphabet soup of for instance LGBTQetc. In the end nobody is satisfied and you start playing identities against each other. You can't say you support women when you get tied in knots about defining "woman". Abandoning "class" was a bad move, why people don't see that is beyond me. Poverty cuts across "identity", even if some groups are over-represented in the class. I always found "identity" reductive, while "class" isn't. Might be the old school socialist in me!
It's our culture. America pretends that we are a classless society, or, at least, has, despite much evidence to the contrary.
"Might be the old school socialist in me!" I find myself standing beside you here.
I regularly find myself too much on the right for some and too much on the left for the rest. Must do something right....
I can relate in part: As a young man I was a socialist, now as an old man, a libertarian. wanting as much freedom as possible for everyone--though that also goes taking responsibility. I know, an old fashioned notion....
I know many have good intentions but honestly, I am damn tired of putting people in 'categories'. It is discrimination to favor any one type/race/group/sex/age/economic status over another. It is also condescending. Dickens grew up dirt poor, Blake died not very well off. Poverty does not stop someone, ANYONE from thinking, feeling, creating--and more than 'wealth' enables thinking/feeling/creating. If money can't buy happiness [and it can't], it also can't buy creativity. For real, guys.
And when you put people in groups, you are abetting the very thing you say you hate: prejudice. It doesn't matter who created what, because the only thing that really matters is that your creation, be it art, music, writing, resonates in another's mind--or soul, for those of us who sense a reality beyond the material world.
[ And I can tell you firsthand; the soul has no race, no sex, no age, etc. It just IS, endlessly.]
Wow Becky, thank you for this courageous and important post. You are absolutely right that class marginalization is a yawning, vast blind spot in the well-intentioned liberalism of the literary world (and beyond). It's so marginalized that it doesn't even occur to editors etc. that it's not in their view.
It would be refreshing if lit mags could simply say that they welcome voices from anywhere in the world and from any walk of life, instead of devoting paragraphs of guidelines in an attempt to prove that they too wade in approved cultural currents.
It would be even more refreshing if lit mags read their submissions without taking into account the identity of the author. Perhaps they could read all submissions blind and select the strongest work that aligns with their editorial aesthetic. Hopefully, that aesthetic would include a variety of compelling viewpoints that give their readers insights into other ways of living and being.
It seems though that they fear backlash if contributor bios don't have the right words. Many insist (under penalty of disqualification) that you provide one, which (fairly or unfairly) gives the impression that they care more about who the author is than what the author submitted.
Yes Victor. All submissions should be read blind but even those mags that have this policy review the bio once the piece has been shortlisted and accept/reject based on cultural/political bias.
Jim, Cynthia mentioned on this thread that it would be an improvement if they only asked for a bio after an acceptance. That would be nice, and wouldn't add too much more overhead to the process.
In my wanderings through guidelines and submissions in the last year, I may have seen something like that in a pub's policy, but (in my experience anyway) it's the rare exception.
https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/q-is-class-a-feature-of-marginalization/comment/125940053