Poppy Z. Brite -- one of New Orleans' most interesting writers -- may be hanging it up for good, and she's got some peppery things to say about the current state of publishing:
I've written nothing to speak of since mid-November of 2006. To go so long without writing is unusual for me, and what's even more unusual is the fact that I don't miss it. I miss spending time with my characters, but I don't feel the writing urge itself. I don't know if I am taking stock of my life or getting my house in order or retiring or what. I do know that I'm not sure I can continue working with big publishing houses. The business is filthy and cannibalistic. They build careers for a few fortunate (and frequently talented) writers and shove the rest of us through the grinder like cheap hamburger. Editors and authors alike jump from house to house. There's no continuity. Our editors are as overworked and underpaid and frequently unmotivated as we are.
There's more -- a lot more -- on her blog, including a reproduction of the letter from her editor declining her next two book proposals (well worth reading on its own). Brite comments:
Posting it here is not the most professional thing I have ever done, but I think it's worth showing what condescending, insulting dreck we put up with from people who are practically half our age, who don't know our work other than the books they themselves have edited, who have no interest in the arc or our career or the obsessions that drive us.
There's an old saying in the newspaper business -- three's a trend, meaning that if you can find three examples of something new, it's a legit topic for a trend piece. I don't have three, but I'm disturbed just to have two, and the other is Patty Friedmann, whose wonderful, hilarious new book A Little Bit Ruined is the first significant post-Katrina novel:
On Wednesday night I launched my novel A Little Bit Ruined, and before I read told the gathering of people I loved deeply, without benefit of alcohol, that I was calling it quits....Julie Smith and I drove three hours up—and three hours back—to Jackson, Mississippi, to do a signing with Ace Atkins at Lemuria Bookstore for our anthology, New Orleans Noir. Ace is a hot commodity in Mississippi, and he’d done a noon TV show in Jackson. We drew six people. It was a perfect final lesson in book marketing. A perfect capstone to a writing career.
Both of these women have published several well-regarded, critically acclaimed, reasonably-selling novels...and they can't find a way to make it work any longer, or perhaps they no longer have the stomach for it.
Three's a trend; I do believe that. So I don't want to hear about a third.
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