Losses in literary community; culture in decline; CIA in lit mags; merger of Chill Subs & Write or Die; nuns in poetry; the end of Briar Cliff Review; rejection de-coder; jobs at lit mags;150+ markets
For those who are interested in the CIA influence in lit mags, there's a good interview by Mary von Aue in VICE from five years ago with Joel Whitney, the author of Finks. In short, the direct CIA funding of some very famous writers and lit mags (and who else now? Do we even know?) to conduct "soft" propaganda and do actual spying on the ground connects in my mind with my article about work in translation in this space last week. The world is now awash with American narratives in translation to other languages while the flow in the other direction is still stuck at 3%. That reality speaks for itself and the agenda of the military-industrial complex. Who's getting that money now, I wonder? By the way, I don't know where this "MFA pipelines" is supposed to be located: it certainly wasn't anywhere near the program I graduated from. Perhaps you have to go to the Iowa program to get a ticket to ride, I don't know.
Becky, you are SO plain WRONG. For years, the CIA and FBI have gone after writers especially thoss e of us on the left, the good trouble makers who brought unions, social securiity, the weekend off from work,and old theUS of the horrors of racsim., child labor, and the abominable treatment of women . I have personally known authors, famous and not so famous who lost their livelihoods, had contracts rescinded, who were hounded by the FBi and CIA, whose books were pulled off library shelves. It is not surprising that this blatant neg(ation is not wider known because that would taint our lovely little literary imaghhes. There are two books at least that show what REALLY HAPPENED. Get Herbert Mitgang's DANGEROUS DOSSIERES : Exposi thng the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors " a damning indictment ov overzealous intelligence operatives who, in thezeal to find subversives in our midst, unustly darkened the reputations of America's best and brightest." including- the millions of dollars fruitlessly spent tracking such revered playwrights,poets. artists, and sculptors as Thornton Wilder,William Saroyan, Robert Frost, Aexander Calder, Ben Shahn, and Georgia O'Keefe and - the barring of John Steinbeck from US Army service because of unfounded doubts as to his loyalty; "the seizure of Carl Sandburgh's notebooks,manuscripts and books and subsequent false labeling of him in an FBI file "as a well-knhaveown ommmuniitst in Chicago." and "The FBI'S secret effortss to discredit Ernest Hemmingway because he had once called the agency an "American Gestapo
Mitgang's book came out in 1988. I havent seen much written about it or discussed.
There is a more recently published book about the CIA, Writers, and The Cold War, with particular concentratons on Paul Engle, one of tnehe chief founders of the famed Iowa Writing Program and the whole birth of the MFA, and on Wallace Stegner who set up a very influential Writing Fellowship at Stanford University. And it almost universally acknowledged that these two MFA connectedd fellowship programs are among the very top plums of the "profession" and the apex of the proliferation of a degree that barely existed at the end of the war. The newer book published in 2015 is Workshops of Empire :Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing during the Cold War by Eric Bennet associate professor of English at Providence College. tbc
I made The Rejection Whisperer. Thank you so much for the shout out Becky! Happy to hear any impressions, especially if it helps anyone after their next rejection :)
Also,re writers in translation. Most books publlshed in the US are male white writers from the US and England. Occasionally there are books b German and Irish writers. That forms over ninety percent of the books readily available. "Foreign" books, an obnoxous term that outlived its vivacitoyo decades ago form under ten percen,arguable proof that we have in the hierarchy of culture, a distinked jingoistic bent. Yes some pubiishers do occasonally publish international literature- New Directions for one but many "small" pressToes publish writers from , say, Latin America, Eastrn Europe, Africa, South America.
Some colleges and universities have made steadfast commitments to publishing topflight literature of international novelists and poets. For example, Syracuse University and the Universiity of Arkansas and Pittsburgh all publish Middle Eastt Authors. The University of Virginia publishes Caribeean writers such ast the Haitian Rene Depestre, and the African American Melvin Tolson, and the powerful Martinique writer Aimee Cesaire. Anvil magazine out U Michigan State pubishes topflight Eastern European writers such as a the Serbian Vasko Popa
A LOT. Overall message is that it wasn't so bad or prevalent when the US government has been keeping files on writers and harassing us and supressing our work for almost a century. Start with Mitgang's book, read Bennet's, and find the many excellent books about the hammering of the Hollywood Ten ( who WERE members of the American Communist Party), and top it off with Lawrence Jackson's The Indignant Generation about the treatment of proworkingclass and leftist black writers in the thirties,forties, fifties. Ive known many writers who lost their livelihood and whose works were blacklisted and unavailabe for YEARS. The terrific Midwest writer Meridel LeSueur had FBI agents parked outside her house. My fellow National Writers Union founding member and recent president of The Screenwritrs Guild remembers the result of his father's blacklisting where the familly ate oatmeal three times a day.
Hundreds of Americans were blacklisted and lost their jobs.My seventh grade English teacher was fired after a thirty year teaching career which include wStateinning TWICE an award for outstanding Social Studies teacher in 1947 and 1948 as the best social studies teacher in New York
The insistence that only an MFA grad could possibly write well enough to qualify for publication is a myth and one that is controverted by the evidence of the stories that turn into best sellers. The general reading public wants a strong story with characters who inspire empathy. Of course there are exceptions: Hannibal Lecter, but the detective is the character we support.
It is insulting at best and tragic at worst that everyday people who write stories that do not involve the current morass of sexual confusion and global atrocities, but who give everyday readers a chance to explore the issues that confront them in their families, jobs and communities. It's the same knee jerk superiority that makes city dwellers think rural means 'stupid' or 'uneducated' and that makes politicians think they can get away with anything, and that keeps us running away from diversity because it doesn't look like 'us,' instead of embracing the universality of human emotions, desires and fears. Most serious writers read widely, attend classes or critique groups or book panels. Most serious writers practice and practice honing their words and creating memorable characters and digging deep into human foibles and challenges. One doesn't need an expensive degree to be a serious writer, but as long as editors promote their own path as the only right one it narrows the door of opportunity. Story is king. Long live the story and not the messenger.
For those who are interested in the CIA influence in lit mags, there's a good interview by Mary von Aue in VICE from five years ago with Joel Whitney, the author of Finks. In short, the direct CIA funding of some very famous writers and lit mags (and who else now? Do we even know?) to conduct "soft" propaganda and do actual spying on the ground connects in my mind with my article about work in translation in this space last week. The world is now awash with American narratives in translation to other languages while the flow in the other direction is still stuck at 3%. That reality speaks for itself and the agenda of the military-industrial complex. Who's getting that money now, I wonder? By the way, I don't know where this "MFA pipelines" is supposed to be located: it certainly wasn't anywhere near the program I graduated from. Perhaps you have to go to the Iowa program to get a ticket to ride, I don't know.
Happy/ honored to have a poem in the last Briar Cliff. I'd actually never held one in my hands until today. Gorgeous journal. Sad it's gone.
Becky, you are SO plain WRONG. For years, the CIA and FBI have gone after writers especially thoss e of us on the left, the good trouble makers who brought unions, social securiity, the weekend off from work,and old theUS of the horrors of racsim., child labor, and the abominable treatment of women . I have personally known authors, famous and not so famous who lost their livelihoods, had contracts rescinded, who were hounded by the FBi and CIA, whose books were pulled off library shelves. It is not surprising that this blatant neg(ation is not wider known because that would taint our lovely little literary imaghhes. There are two books at least that show what REALLY HAPPENED. Get Herbert Mitgang's DANGEROUS DOSSIERES : Exposi thng the Secret War Against America's Greatest Authors " a damning indictment ov overzealous intelligence operatives who, in thezeal to find subversives in our midst, unustly darkened the reputations of America's best and brightest." including- the millions of dollars fruitlessly spent tracking such revered playwrights,poets. artists, and sculptors as Thornton Wilder,William Saroyan, Robert Frost, Aexander Calder, Ben Shahn, and Georgia O'Keefe and - the barring of John Steinbeck from US Army service because of unfounded doubts as to his loyalty; "the seizure of Carl Sandburgh's notebooks,manuscripts and books and subsequent false labeling of him in an FBI file "as a well-knhaveown ommmuniitst in Chicago." and "The FBI'S secret effortss to discredit Ernest Hemmingway because he had once called the agency an "American Gestapo
Mitgang's book came out in 1988. I havent seen much written about it or discussed.
There is a more recently published book about the CIA, Writers, and The Cold War, with particular concentratons on Paul Engle, one of tnehe chief founders of the famed Iowa Writing Program and the whole birth of the MFA, and on Wallace Stegner who set up a very influential Writing Fellowship at Stanford University. And it almost universally acknowledged that these two MFA connectedd fellowship programs are among the very top plums of the "profession" and the apex of the proliferation of a degree that barely existed at the end of the war. The newer book published in 2015 is Workshops of Empire :Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing during the Cold War by Eric Bennet associate professor of English at Providence College. tbc
I've got a piece coming out in Transition this month. Will I ever get that CIA taint off me?
Hear!Hear! Can’t imagine Flannery O’Connor, Hemingway, Joyce, Plath, Sexton, or Woolf publishing through the cookie-cutter MFA pipeline.
I made The Rejection Whisperer. Thank you so much for the shout out Becky! Happy to hear any impressions, especially if it helps anyone after their next rejection :)
Thanks, Ernie. Let's connect "off line."
Glad you are publishing a novel about the SF State strike; I wasn't there
at the time, but Kay often spoke about it; incident w/ Hayakawa is cited in
biographies.
Also,re writers in translation. Most books publlshed in the US are male white writers from the US and England. Occasionally there are books b German and Irish writers. That forms over ninety percent of the books readily available. "Foreign" books, an obnoxous term that outlived its vivacitoyo decades ago form under ten percen,arguable proof that we have in the hierarchy of culture, a distinked jingoistic bent. Yes some pubiishers do occasonally publish international literature- New Directions for one but many "small" pressToes publish writers from , say, Latin America, Eastrn Europe, Africa, South America.
Some colleges and universities have made steadfast commitments to publishing topflight literature of international novelists and poets. For example, Syracuse University and the Universiity of Arkansas and Pittsburgh all publish Middle Eastt Authors. The University of Virginia publishes Caribeean writers such ast the Haitian Rene Depestre, and the African American Melvin Tolson, and the powerful Martinique writer Aimee Cesaire. Anvil magazine out U Michigan State pubishes topflight Eastern European writers such as a the Serbian Vasko Popa
A LOT. Overall message is that it wasn't so bad or prevalent when the US government has been keeping files on writers and harassing us and supressing our work for almost a century. Start with Mitgang's book, read Bennet's, and find the many excellent books about the hammering of the Hollywood Ten ( who WERE members of the American Communist Party), and top it off with Lawrence Jackson's The Indignant Generation about the treatment of proworkingclass and leftist black writers in the thirties,forties, fifties. Ive known many writers who lost their livelihood and whose works were blacklisted and unavailabe for YEARS. The terrific Midwest writer Meridel LeSueur had FBI agents parked outside her house. My fellow National Writers Union founding member and recent president of The Screenwritrs Guild remembers the result of his father's blacklisting where the familly ate oatmeal three times a day.
Hundreds of Americans were blacklisted and lost their jobs.My seventh grade English teacher was fired after a thirty year teaching career which include wStateinning TWICE an award for outstanding Social Studies teacher in 1947 and 1948 as the best social studies teacher in New York
The insistence that only an MFA grad could possibly write well enough to qualify for publication is a myth and one that is controverted by the evidence of the stories that turn into best sellers. The general reading public wants a strong story with characters who inspire empathy. Of course there are exceptions: Hannibal Lecter, but the detective is the character we support.
It is insulting at best and tragic at worst that everyday people who write stories that do not involve the current morass of sexual confusion and global atrocities, but who give everyday readers a chance to explore the issues that confront them in their families, jobs and communities. It's the same knee jerk superiority that makes city dwellers think rural means 'stupid' or 'uneducated' and that makes politicians think they can get away with anything, and that keeps us running away from diversity because it doesn't look like 'us,' instead of embracing the universality of human emotions, desires and fears. Most serious writers read widely, attend classes or critique groups or book panels. Most serious writers practice and practice honing their words and creating memorable characters and digging deep into human foibles and challenges. One doesn't need an expensive degree to be a serious writer, but as long as editors promote their own path as the only right one it narrows the door of opportunity. Story is king. Long live the story and not the messenger.
Nice to see Nick Ripatrazone's article get a shout out. Excited about Sub Club as well.
Inevitable degeneration following on the heals of 'ownership' of creativity. It isn't and you can't.