Roy Miller's Blog, page 225
April 6, 2017
Reflections on Rejections: How I Learned to Query by Working as a Lit Agency Reader
This content was originally published by Guest Column on 6 April 2017 | 4:00 pm.
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Rejection is brutal.
When I was querying my first novel, I sent out ninety-nine queries. Ninety-nine. I had plenty of partial requests, lots of full requests, but ultimately ninety-nine rejections arrived via email or through that particularly grating squeal of deafening silence.
This
guest post is by
Shannon M. Parker
. Parker
is the author of
THE GIRL WHO FELL
and the forthcoming
T
HE RATTLED BONES
, both with Simon & Schuster. She is a proud contributor to
WELCOME HOME
, a YA anthology on adoption, coming from Flux in September. Parker works as an author and freelance manuscript editor. You can find her and her books at
shannonmparker.com
.
I told myself I didn’t need to publish a book; I could stop writing. Maybe I was even too busy to write.
My six-year-old son overheard me say I was giving up my dream, and he looked at me with his wide eyes and so-much-zest-for-life smile and said, “You’re so close, Mom! You have to try for one hundred!”
In his young, kindergarten-trained brain it only made sense to strive for a perfect score, right?
His optimism melted me in the way a child’s optimism always liquefies my heart. But that moment was something so much bigger because my son knew too much about profound rejection, more than any person should encounter in a lifetime. For years, he’d suffered some of the worst abuse and neglect a human can endure. He was cast aside. Before joining our family, he survived in a world that was so big and scary and frightening and yet … yet. He managed to retain hope and tenderness and pure joy at the prospect of someone else’s opportunity to achieve their dream. He saw how hard I’d tried to get an agent and his toothless smile nudged me to try one more query. I did. Just one. For him.
Well, I signed with that one hundredth agent and I was happy. So happy.
Until the rejections from editors started.
Oof. Those hurt.
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I mean, they were kind. The editors loved my writing style, or the characters—but they all agreed the manuscript lacked that essential something. Turned out, it was plot.
My book had no plot. Not kidding. None.
My agent stuck with me. She was lovely. But then two years passed, more editors passed on another project, and my agent retired. I was without representation again, but I was okay with it. I’d been at the writing game long enough to know I wasn’t going to be published.
And still, writing called to me.
Maybe I wasn’t going to be published, but I still wanted to be part of publishing. I’d grown up without any books in my home, so maybe I was trying to fill some childhood desire to be surrounded by spines and spines and more spines.
So I answered an ad for an unpaid Literary Agency Intern. I would be volunteering my time. But I would be reading, talking, and discovering books alongside an agent, and maybe editors!
[10 Ways to Make Your Submission Stand Out in the Slush Pile]
Each day after work, putting the kids to bed and the laundry to shelves, I read submissions. I was quickly on the “inside” reading query letters.
While training as an intern, I familiarized myself with the types of works agents were looking for and I jumped into the query pile each day. The very, very, very big query pile. Imagine a lot of queries arriving each day—then quadruple that number. When I came across a query that had a strong pitch and was something an agent was looking for, I forwarded it to the agent. The agent and I considered the first ten pages of the submission separately. We made and compared notes.
If a submission resulted in a request for partial or full pages, the agent and I would read and then exchange ideas. We discussed comparable titles. Did the voice engage us and not let up? Was it the type of story the agent thought she could sell, given her particular set of editorial contacts? Was it a story the agent was excited about given her particular literary tastes?
The best days were when the answer was yes to all of these questions. The agent would contact the author and offer representation. I wasn’t involved in the offers of representation (I never had any direct contact with the authors), but it always brought me great joy knowing a writer was getting “the call.”
There were some projects I fell in love with. Deeply. I wanted to see manuscripts become novels, but the agent felt differently. The agent needed to fall in love.
For querying writers, it’s hard to get the rejection that is some variation of: I just didn’t fully connect with the story or characters. This may seem like a form rejection, but I saw the way this really had to matter. An agent is there to champion a writer’s work. They have to connect with all aspects of the story, characters, and setting in order to continually support the project through all phases of development. It was hard knowing these writers would receive a rejection. I wished I could have told the authors how much I connected with their stories, that they should keep writing and not give up. But maybe that was because I was a writer, and I knew how important it was to receive encouragement while fielding rejections.
As my work continued, I edited manuscripts for existing clients across all genres—debut authors and New York Times bestsellers alike. Agents asked me to note where a story might need more development. Were there plot holes? What worked on the page? The agents I worked with encouraged me to be part of their team. They considered me a trusted colleague. They took the time to constantly thank me for my close reads and detailed feedback. And I witnessed just how special it was when a writer, manuscript, and agent found each other in that perfect literary storm that resulted in representation.
And somewhere in the after, after, after hours of work and interning, I wrote.
I read, critiqued, and edited manuscripts for two years without ever telling an agent that I was a writer. I didn’t want my desire to become a published author to infringe on the beautifully professional relationship I had built with my colleagues in New York. So I queried my new project to a few other agencies—just to test the waters. I got some bites; I got my hopes up. Then came the day when I submitted editorial notes on a manuscript and the agent I worked most closely with told me I should be a writer.
I confessed I was.
She asked to see a manuscript.
I shared one. She loved it. She told me where it might need work. She started talking to editors about my project. I put the project aside, adopted another child.
Then, at some point in the chaos of an over-demanding life, I finished my revisions and sent the reworked manuscript to the agent. Not “my” agent—I hadn’t signed with her; she was just looking at the project.
She asked me if I was okay to go on sub with my novel.
Um, yes!
[How to Overcome Rejection by 200 Literary Agents (& Still Land a Book Deal)]
I was prepared to settle in for a long wait. I was prepared for rejection. But the book sold in only a few weeks.
I signed with my agent.
I signed with Simon & Schuster.
A year and a half later my book was on shelves at Barnes & Noble.
But none of that would have happened if I hadn’t interned as a lit agency reader. As I was reading submissions, I became skilled at seeing where writers buried plot under too much backstory. Used too many “info dumps.” Filled the manuscript with “telling” instead of “showing.”
I was able to return to my work-in-progress with honed, critical eyes. I removed my info dumps. Heightened the stakes for my main character. Made sure there was a plot. (That’s still a tricky one for me.)
And somewhere between the reading and the writing and the parenting and the dreaming, a real book was born. And then two. And then a short story in an anthology on adoption. My then six-year-old is now a fifteen-year-old who just completed a freshman book report on my sophomore novel. He is anxiously awaiting the release of the adoption anthology in the way every reader’s heart quickens at the chance to discover a story that mirrors their own.
Looking back on my very windy road to publication, I think maybe rejection was the best thing for me in those early—albeit brutal—query stages. Rejection made me want to work harder, which is really what my writing needed. And shortly after my debut was published, I learned that there were people who didn’t particularly like my story or my writing. But even that newest form of rejection felt okay, because the readers who didn’t like my book were going to like other books. They would keep reading, buying, and recommending books—and that, for me, is what this industry is all about.
Then there were the readers who did like my book. Some who truly loved it enough to send fan mail telling me that my book might help save kids. Their words reminded me to honor the little six-year-old boy who saved my writing nine years ago. The boy who managed to believe in dreams, despite everything.
The biggest literary agent database anywhere
is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the
most recent updated edition online at a discount.
If you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at cris.freese@fwmedia.com.
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Professor Moriarty Wins Writer’s Digest’s #ArchVillianMadness
This content was originally published by Brian A. Klems on 6 April 2017 | 6:40 pm.
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What once started as a group of 16 finalists who battled it out in round after round has landed on one champion. While the final vote so close (only five votes separated the final two competitors), we have a winner: Professor Moriarty is our undisputed champion, defeating Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort in an epic showdown of historical classic versus modern classic.
Throughout the tournament—between the blog, FB and Twitter—we received thousands of votes. #ArchVillianMadness was a great success! Thanks so much to all who participated, whether that was voting or driving the conversation about all-time great book villains.
And if you want to learn how to write a terrifying bad guy who may one day win our #ArchVillainMadness tournament, check out this great tip-driven article by Peter James:
How to Write Better Villains: 5 Ways to Get Into the Mind of a Psychopath
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2017 April PAD Challenge: Day 6
This content was originally published by Robert Lee Brewer on 6 April 2017 | 5:00 am.
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New day, new city. We’ve made it to Austin–just in time to write a new poem.
For today’s prompt, write a poem about a sound. The poem could be about a small sound, a loud sound, a happy sound, or a creepy sound. And yes, music sounds count as well.
*****
The 2017 Poet’s Market, edited by Robert Lee Brewer, includes hundreds of poetry markets, including listings for poetry publications, publishers, contests, and more! With names, contact information, and submission tips, poets can find the right markets for their poetry and achieve more publication success than ever before.
In addition to the listings, there are articles on the craft, business, and promotion of poetry–so that poets can learn the ins and outs of writing poetry and seeking publication. Plus, it includes a one-year subscription to the poetry-related information on WritersMarket.com.. All in all, it’s the best resource for poets looking to secure publication.
*****
Here’s my attempt at a Poem About a Sound:
“pulling to a stop”
pulling to a stop
because of hail
clunk clunk clunking
on the car’s hood
& windshield
i can’t help but
worry about what
the car behind
me will do &
wonder if the storm
has any surprise
twisters waiting
to strike out
*****
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He has driven through hail a few times, and it’s always loud and scary.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
*****
Find more poetic posts here:
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April 5, 2017
Emma Donoghue’s New Novel Makes Diversity an Understatement
This content was originally published by RAPHAEL SIMON on 5 April 2017 | 9:00 am.
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Photo
Levine Books/Scholastic." itemprop="url" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/... all-of-a-kind family: From “The Lotterys Plus One.”
Credit
Caroline Hadilaksono, via Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic.
THE LOTTERYS PLUS ONE
By Emma Donoghue
Illustrated by Caroline Hadilaksono
303 pp. Scholastic/ Arthur A. Levine Books. $17.99.
(Middle grade; ages 8 to 12 )
O Canada, must you be so wonderful? While our government is busy breaking up immigrant families and banishing innocent trans kids from school bathrooms, along comes this postcard from a progressive Eden to the north. So sorry, guys! Wish you were here!
To be fair, even in Toronto the family at the center of Emma Donoghue’s “The Lotterys Plus One” is exceptional. “Once upon a time,” reads the prologue to Donoghue’s delightful new middle-grade novel, “a man from Delhi and a man from Yukon fell in love, and so did a woman from Jamaica and a Mohawk woman.” As if in a modern-day fairy tale, the four friends win the lottery, and go on to co-parent seven children in a rambling old mansion known as Camelottery.
To call this family diverse is an understatement bordering on euphemism. All named after trees, the Lottery kids are a multicultural, multicolored crew, each with a distinct set of issues. There is, for example, Aspen, a 10-year-old with an attention disorder; Oak, a baby with developmental challenges; and Brian, nee Briar, a trans (so far) 4-year-old. To say nothing of the frightening pet rat, the introverted cat, the three-legged dog or the rescue parrot.
Donoghue is the author, most famously, of “Room,” the claustrophobic best seller for grown-ups about an imprisoned mother and son. While her new book, her first for children, could hardly be more of a departure, fans will recognize not only her gift for representing a child’s point of view, but also her knack for showing how a family, no matter how small or large, develops its own language, even its own culture.
Photo
At Camelottery, decisions are made democratically in family “fleetings.” During “one-on-ones” with their parents, the home-schooled kids study things like Haudenosaunee long houses or how the art of weaving led to the invention of computers. On their own they pursue “citizen science” projects like monitoring milkweed for a monarch butterfly program. And on their birthdays, they get letters from the other family members explaining just what makes them so lovable.
If all this seems a little too good to be true, the novel’s heroine, 9-year-old know-it-all Sumac, doesn’t notice: She’s preoccupied with her study of Mesopotamia. But inevitably, her family’s bohemian bonhomie — and core liberal values — are tested.
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This test comes in the form of an extended visit from an estranged grandfather who is beginning to suffer from dementia. As it turns out, Canada has its own version of Trumpland; Grumps, as they call him, hails from a small town in Yukon, which used to have “the biggest open pit lead and zinc mine in the world,” but now has “more moose than humans.” Not surprisingly, he has trouble adjusting to life with the “hippy-dippy” Lotterys.
To Donoghue’s credit, Grumps is not the lovable curmudgeon one might expect. He is thoroughly unlikable, and we sympathize with Sumac’s resentment when he takes over her bedroom. At the same time, even she admits he has a point when he complains about the family’s “If it’s yellow, let it mellow” policy. Or when he tsks tsks about “gadzillionaires” Dumpster diving for fun. As designated family ambassador, Sumac does her best to integrate her grandfather, but eventually must confront her own not-so-selfless desires. If the book ends on a reconciliatory note, it’s only after bruising misbehavior on both sides.
Unlike Grumps, most young readers will be amused by the pee-filled toilets. And no doubt they will revel in the independence of the Lottery children. I suspect, however, that some will be put off by the many names in the novel, and by all the brilliant family chatter, as fascinating as it is. (I for one did not know that female garter snakes form “mating balls” with up to 25 males.) I hope these readers will not toss the book away; it couldn’t be better suited to a time when so many people are feeling tossed away themselves.
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I can only imagine what Donoghue’s expansive vision of family would have meant to me when I was a lonely middle-school student wondering where I fit in. Or for that matter, when I was a newly out college student wondering whether I’d ever have a family of my own. Alas, aside from the two dads, the family I wound up with isn’t exactly the Lotterys. I look forward to rereading this warm and funny book with my daughters, and hearing about how boring we are in comparison.
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Michael Levy, Longtime ‘PW’ Reviewer, Dies at 66
This content was originally published by on 5 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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Michael M. Levy, a scholar of science fiction and longtime Publishers Weekly reviewer, died of cancer on April 3. He was 66.
Levy earned his PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1982, and began teaching literature at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 1980. He remained there his entire career.
A professor of English literature and former department chair, his focus was on sci-fi and fantasy; he was known, in particular, for his work on children's fantasy. His reviews were published in PW and other outlets, including The New York Review of Science Fiction. He was also an editor for the journal Extrapolation.
In 2016 a book he co-authored, Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, was released by Cambridge University Press. Earlier books included 1991's Natalie Babbit and 2000's Portrayal of South East Asian Refugees in Recent American Children’s Books.
Levy also served as the first division head for the Children’s Literature group at the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts, and later as both v-p and its president. He also served as president of the Science Fiction Research Association.
Levy is survived by his wife, the poet Sandra J. Lindow, and their two children, Scott and Miriam.
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2017 MoCCA Art Fest Draws Largest Crowd Ever
This content was originally published by on 5 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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More than 4,000 comics readers made Saturday the biggest day yet for the MoCCA Arts Festival, an annual gathering focused on independent and self-published comics and graphic novels. Held April 1-2 at the Metropolitan West event space on West 46th Street, the indie comics festival featured an international array of guests including acclaimed artists Blutch, Gene Luen Yang, Becky Cloonan, Cliff Chiang and Thi Bui.
Not only was the attendance on Saturday the biggest single day attendance yet for the show, the festival drew an additional 3,000 fans on Sunday.
MoCCA Art Fest’s attendance number speak to a familiar story for indie comics festivals (and for pop culture conventions at large), which continue to attract ever larger crowds of fans.
Anelle Miller, executive director of the Society of Illustrators, which organizes the MoCCA Arts Fest, suggested that a larger venue may be needed. (This is the second year the fest was held at Metropolitan West.)
Miller told PW: “We’d love a bigger venue, but I'm not sure I can really find one in Manhattan.” She also acknowledged the brutal costs of renting space in New York City. “[Finding new venues has] always been a challenge," she said, adding that the organizers and fans "do love this space."
For now the event has settled comfortably into Metropolitan West, a two story facility located within sight of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Panels were held around the corner at the nearby Ink48 hotel.
The show featured more than 400 exhibitors, as well as a large swath of the local and national comics community. Attendees included large traditional publishers, such as Abrams, and small literary presses, such as Uncivilized Books. The show also features a large number of self-publishers.
Despite the enthusiastic crowd, MoCCA isn’t as big a platform to debut new titles as the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), a larger independent comics show that is held in May. But, thanks to the diversity of its exhibitors, MoCCA remains a good place to sell books, and has developed as an equally important show for developing contacts and enhancing visibility.
Minneapolis-based Uncivilized Books sold out of Gabrielle Bell’s new graphic memoir Everything is Flammable, according to associate publisher Jordan Shively. Papercutz, a kids/YA graphic novel publisher, had signings for Jessica Abel's new YA graphic novel series, Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars, and John Neilsen's new graphic novel Look. Abrams’ graphic novel imprint ComicArts had a large table presence and brought in newcomer Thi Bui to sign her bestselling graphic memoir The Best We Could Do.
Raine Hogan, co-publisher of experimental comics publisher 2D Cloud, said that even more than sales, MoCCA is about getting books in front of more readers. For MoCCA the publisher debuted Mirror Mirror II, an extremely dark anthology of sexual horror stories, co-edited by Seth T. Collins and Julia Gfrörer.
Europe Comics, a joint marketing initiative by 13 European comics publishers, organized a visit by acclaimed French comics artist Blutch, his first appearance in the U.S. in 20 years. Blutch attracted a long line of admirers at the Europe Comics table. His graphic novel Peplum is published in the U.S. by New York Review Comics.
“He’s really very touched by the response,” said Europe Comics spokesperson Nazeli Kyuregyan.
Other big books at show included PRH’s Pantheon Graphic Novel line’s spring releases, My Brother’s Husband by Gengorah Tagame, the fictional story of a Japanese family’s first-time meeting with the widowed husband of their estranged gay twin brother; and Kirsten Radke’s much anticipated new graphic memoir, Imagine Wanting Only This.
Also taking in the scene was IDW Publishing CEO Ted Adams. Adams said he chose to attend MoCCA rather than WonderCon, a much larger pop culture convention held the same weekend in Los Angeles. “I love it here,” he told PW. “The energy is great.”
Also spotted in the aisles: Karen Berger, former executive editor of DC’s Vertigo Comics, who recently announced the launch of Berger Books, a new graphic novel imprint at Dark Horse Comics. Berger said she "loves" MoCCA. "Everyone’s on equal footing— from art students selling mini-comics to top indie talent. It’s a welcome respite from the mega-crowded, commercially-infused larger cons.”
One aspect of the show that has been expanded this year is sponsorship. In addition to the School of Visual Arts, WACOM (which produces digital drawing devices), and RISO (a printer company), new sponsors included the crowdfunding platform Patreon (which uses monthly payments from patrons to fund creators.) Patreon flew in two successful Web cartoonists who had gotten funding through the company, Christopher Grady of Lunarbaboon and Lucy Bellwood.
Bellwood, who self-publishes a variety of nautical-themed comics, said it was her first MoCCA. “I sold out of my new book, and MoCCA's as friendly as TCAF.”
Miller told PW that she has been focused on increasing sponsors at the show this year. “It’s not a hard sell,” she said, because a lot of companies want to get into the comics space.
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‘Gotham Rising’: Exploring the Decade When New York Grew Up
This content was originally published by SAM ROBERTS on 5 April 2017 | 11:00 am.
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Photo
Jewish refugee children on a ship from Europe as it arrives in New York Harbor in June 1939.
Credit
United States Holocaust Museum
The title and cover photograph of Jules Stewart’s “Gotham Rising: New York in the 1930s” (I. B. Tauris, $29) is just what you would expect from a journalist and historian raised on comic book superheroes.
In 1940, Bill Finger, a creator of the Batman comic strip, was inspired by a phone book listing for Gotham Jewelers to adopt “Gotham” as a nickname for New York. (About 150 years earlier, Washington Irving had also referred to the city as Gotham, in a homage to the proverbial English medieval village whose residents feigned madness to avoid paying fees or taxes to King John.)
The book’s cover depicts an anonymous capped crusader: a carpenter waving triumphantly from the steel skeleton of the Empire State Building, rising from the heart of Manhattan in 1930 to defy the Depression.
This was the decade that defined the skyline, that delivered New York personalities like Barbara Hutton, Fiorello H. La Guardia, Eugene O’Neill and Walter Winchell to global audiences, and that experienced intellectual foment in the Harlem Renaissance and an infusion of refugees from Nazi persecution.
Mr. Stewart, who now lives in London and whose earlier books cover locales ranging from Madrid to remote parts of Afghanistan, concluded in his research that “the city as we know it today came of age” during the decade sandwiched between the razzle-dazzle of the Roaring Twenties and the grim rumblings of World War II.
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His book may not be revelatory for many New York aficionados, but its historical digressions, nuggets of forgotten footnotes and the stark contradictions in a city ascendant — but also disproportionately poor, homeless and unemployed — make for riveting reading.
Who knew that the Empire State Building was almost named the General Motors Building, another thumb in the eye of Walter Chrysler, whose namesake skyscraper’s reign as the world’s tallest was surprisingly short-lived.
Or that the International Building North in Rockefeller Center was originally conceived as Deutsche Haus, a vision that was abandoned in 1934 for public relations and humanitarian reasons.
Mr. Stewart recalls that Mayor Jimmy Walker endeared himself to New Yorkers in 1932 by staging a “We Want Beer” parade during Prohibition and that Mayor La Guardia, in a nanny-state imperative that presaged Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign against the Big Gulp, banned the sale of artichokes because the market was controlled by organized crime.
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He also recounts the remarkable rags-to-riches rise of Abraham E. Lefcourt, the prodigious developer who died leaving an estate of $2,500.
Gotham rose on the backbreaking labor of immigrants who had transformed New York, as James Bryce wrote, into “a European city of no particular country.”
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“Gotham Rising” begins the decade with the words of Gan Kolski, a jobless 33-year-old artist from Poland who, before leaping to his death from the George Washington Bridge in 1932, wrote this plaintive appeal: “If you cannot hear the cry of starving millions, listen to the dead, brothers. Your economic system is dead.”
The book ends with another immigrant vision, one of hope for the blessings of that system: a photograph of young Jewish refugees from Europe catching their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty as they arrive in New York Harbor on June 3, 1939, a few months before Germany invaded Poland.
“The children’s backs are turned to the camera,” Mr. Stewart writes, “and we can only envisage the looks of joy and wonder on their faces, as we see them waving to the symbol of their deliverance from horrors that defy the imagination.”
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Biden Books Go to Flatiron
This content was originally published by on 5 April 2017 | 4:00 am.
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Flatiron Books president and publisher Bob Miller has announced the acquisition of two non-fiction works by former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as a third book to be co-written with Dr. Jill Biden, his wife.
Sources say the deal is valued at $8 million; Flatiron and its parent company, Macmillan, would not comment. The Bidens were represented by CAA in the world rights deal, Flatiron Books' editorial director Colin Dickerman is set to edit.
Speaking to the titles, Miller said they "promise to give us all a deeper understanding of recent political history." He added that they will also be "about the values that have given the vice president strength in both good times and bad."
Both books have yet to be titled. The first of the two titles will focus on how Biden dealt with political turmoil in the White House while mourning the death of his son, Beau.
This story has been updated with further information.
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2017 April PAD Challenge: Day 5
This content was originally published by Robert Lee Brewer on 5 April 2017 | 6:00 am.
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This is the 10th annual April Poem-A-Day Challenge. During the first one, Tammy and I had to hunt down (and pay for) Internet access in a “cyber cafe” (located in an arcade) to post the prompt and poem. Now, we’re in New Orleans (on our way to Austin for the Austin International Poetry Festival), and we have free wifi. We’ve come a long way since 2008. Now, let’s poem!
For today’s prompt, pick an element (like from the periodic table), make it the title of your poem (or part of the title), and then, write the poem. Anything goes from hydrogen to oganesson.
*****
Learn how to write sestina, shadorma, haiku, monotetra, golden shovel, and more with The Writer’s Digest Guide to Poetic Forms, by Robert Lee Brewer.
This e-book covers more than 40 poetic forms and shares examples to illustrate how each form works. Discover a new universe of poetic possibilities and apply it to your poetry today!
*****
Here’s my attempt at an Element Poem:
“oxygen”
you could say oxygen is great
& there’s no way i would argue
for instance its number is 8
which means that oxygen is great
& there’s very little debate
by anyone who’s not a fool
you could say oxygen is great
& there’s no way i would argue
*****
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He likes oxygen, triolets, and the number 8.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
*****
Find more poetic posts here:
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‘Unwanted Advances’ Tackles Sexual Politics in Academia
This content was originally published by JENNIFER SENIOR on 5 April 2017 | 9:14 pm.
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Kipnis has now written a book, “Unwanted Advances,” about feminism, relationship statecraft and the shadow world of Title IX investigations. It is invigorating and irritating, astute and facile, rigorous and flippant, fair-minded and score-settling, practical and hyperbolic, and maybe a dozen other neurotically contradictory things. Above all else, though, “Unwanted Advances” is necessary. Argue with the author, by all means. But few people have taken on the excesses of university culture with the brio that Kipnis has. Her anger gives her argument the energy of a live cable.
Photo
Laura Kipnis, author of “Unwanted Advances.”
Credit
Pieter M. van Hattem
You might be wondering how Kipnis wound up the subject of a Title IX investigation when the law was originally created to address gender discrimination in education. She had the same question, and soon found her answer: In 2011, the Department of Education expanded the Title IX mandate to include policing “sexual misconduct,” an idea so hazily defined it can apparently include publishing an essay — if the content is said to have “a chilling effect” on students’ ability to report sexual malfeasance.
The problems with this development are fairly obvious. “It seemed to pit a federally mandated program against my constitutional rights,” Kipnis notes.
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Part of me wishes she’d written a book devoted exclusively to this subject. As soon as Kipnis’s story made news, she became the confessor to students and professors from all over the country who’d been brought up on Title IX charges, too, and what she discovers is disturbing: Subjects generally don’t know (as Kipnis didn’t) what they’re accused of until they sit face to face with investigators; they’re usually discouraged, if not forbidden (as Kipnis was), from bringing in outside counsel or presenting exculpatory evidence unless they’ve been charged with sexual violence.
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Yet free speech, for better or worse, is not Kipnis’s primary preoccupation. Sexual politics is. (Her last book was “Men: Notes From an Ongoing Investigation.”) The case that most transfixes her is that of Peter Ludlow, a philosophy professor at Northwestern who’d been drummed off campus following allegations of sexual misconduct with two students, one a graduate and one an undergraduate. She devotes roughly half the book to readjudicating it, going through each of his accusers’ stories frame by frame, trying to determine if there’s another way to read them. She decides there is — and that it is inseparable from the way universities now think about women and sex.
Once upon a time, explains Kipnis, female students celebrated their sexual freedom and agency. Today, students and faculty alike focus on their vulnerability. This, in her view, is a criminally retrograde story line, one that recasts women as pitiful creatures who cannot think and act for themselves — and it’s a story they seem to have internalized. Armed with Title IX and a new, academically fashionable definition of “consent” — which insists that sex is never truly consensual between adults unless they both have equal power — women can now retroactively declare they never truly agreed to specific sexual acts, even whole relationships.
“We seem to be breeding a generation of students, mostly female students, deploying Title IX to remedy sexual ambivalences or awkward sexual experiences,” Kipnis writes, “and to adjudicate relationship disputes post-breakup — and campus administrators are allowing it.”
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This, in her view, was the case with Ludlow’s accusers, whose stories were full of inconsistencies and improbabilities.
Now: I certainly appreciate Kipnis’s forensics. And the story she tells is psychologically complex. But one of the women in Ludlow’s case comes across as genuinely troubled. That wouldn’t be unusual. As Kipnis herself points out, college and grad school is precisely the time that mental illness tends to first rear its head, which makes professors “sitting ducks for accusations.” But if that’s the case, isn’t that an argument in favor of forbidding relations between faculty and students? Because some students might not be able to handle them?
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Kipnis never minimizes the devastating consequences of sexual violence. And she’s on to something, really on to something, when she rails against the “neo-sentimentality about female vulnerability.” But the most powerful and provocative part of her book, its final chapter, suggests that today’s young college women really do suffer from a crisis of agency. The pressure to drink themselves senseless and then hook up is so pervasive that they seem to have trouble saying no.
She knows that this assessment looks suspiciously like victim blaming. But there’s no evidence, she writes, that targeting male behaviors alone has worked in curbing sexual assault. If she were queen, she’d call for mandatory self-defense classes for freshmen women. Call it sexual realpolitik. “There’s an excess of masculine power in the world,” Kipnis writes, “and women have to be educated to contest it in real time, instead of waiting around for men to reach some new stage of heightened consciousness — just in case that day never comes.”
Partially shifting the onus to women to protect themselves will surely earn Kipnis an inbox of hate mail. It will come without trigger warnings. But after all she’s been through, I’m guessing she can handle it.
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