G.M. Potter's Blog, page 2
August 29, 2015
It’s All about Meme . . . Meme. MEme. MEME.
August 29, 2015 - It’s All about Meme . . . Meme. MEme. MEME.
We are all milling about within the morphing boundaries of the world’s largest party: The Intergalactic Kegger. We arrive, are handed a plastic cup full of beer, and mingle in the crowd until we find someone, or some group, to talk to. We are also trying desperately to not eventually find ourselves in the parking lot, drinking alone, and debating whether or not to go home. When we finally find the gumption to say something to someone, or some group of someones, we often choose the form of the meme simply out of a sense of wanting to fit in. You’ve seen them a thousand times before on FB. They are those cheeky quips that pretend to announce an idea, voice a pet peeve, or offer a political bon mot, with some vaguely connected image we are supposed to recognize.
From Wikipedia:The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme(from Ancient Greek μίμημα pronounced [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos, "mime")[4]coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)[1][5] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[6]
The meme is an imitation of thought or expression, by definition. It is, in its current manifestation, an image with a short text message designed to illicit a laugh, a frown, or even a moment of indignation, yet . . . all too often the message is unclear and lacking a universal basis of understanding. It is the ‘in’ joke, or the unspoken nod between the ‘cool’ kids, about something they pretend to understand yet something an outsider could never ‘get’ - an insecure intention to draw the line between those that ‘know’ and those that don’t and by comparison define the ‘in’ crowd and its identity.
Memes come in all sorts of forms. From the political statement, short and incendiary by intention and often lacking a factual basis, to the cute animated image of a yellow Minion declaring something creepy and/or suspicious, yet inciting a simulacrum of deep thought– enough punch to make you watch out for danger around your ankles as one of them might be scurrying about with a large kitchen knife. These short quips have one thing in common, whether they are inspirational messages, political bombshells, or simply one person’s exaggerated passion for monster trucks. They are all imitation and, therefore, incomplete. From a lack of full understanding by those of us NOT in the know, they are only meaningful to the creator of the meme. As if, milling about in this intergalactic kegger, we were only succeeding in connecting with ourselves.
[image error]Hyperbole, by definition, is the act of exaggeration, and in this ever-morphing, growing, and overwhelming party of who knows what, we seem to be only seeking out ourselves to listen to. We want to be heard but can only express ourselves in terms of something we alone fully understand, if at all. This is the current state of evolution in our society. We sense but cannot define (read: irrationally fear) the trend of growing monumental interconnectivity. We must be heard and we must be a part of the ‘cool’ kids if we are to survive the tsunami of crap, all the while not comprehending the fact that quite soon, High School will be over. We exaggerate our message and shun precision and true insight because that would be ‘uncool’. We post what we believe is so outrageous that it can’t help but be noticed, can not help but make us noticed in the process, and in so doing further obscure what we might otherwise have to say.
[image error]
The meme is an imitation of communication and, by extension, an imitation of profundity. It is a pre-adolescent demand for attention without much forethought, much like our need for attention from our parents - if we don’t say something provocative or ‘out there’ we simply won’t be heard by mommy or daddy.
[image error]
This party that we all find ourselves attending has only just started. Our society is connected now. It is connected by wires, by political agenda, by inspirational aphorism, by reference to iconic images and television shows we watched as children, and connected by the need to feel connected. And we are connected to each other by a degree of magnitude never before seen in history. Once we evolve out of the infantile stages of me, me, me, we will begin to embrace messages from other people, to understand how they resonate within us, but not until we move through adolescence and into an emotionally functional adulthood where our hitherto reserved thoughts, feelings, and intentions have a place in the greater web that is our world. We will no longer need to be a part of the ‘cool’ kids and we will finally let go of the fear that we are marginalized. And we will realize, much as we have done years after high school’s period of disaffected suffering, we always had value and we always had something clear, precise, and worthwhile to say. We just needed the courage to say it.
I look forward to the day. Perhaps there will still be some beer left in the kegs. In either case, there is simply much too much going on at this mad party and I will be one of the last to leave.
G. M. Potter can be found on – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmpotterhomeGoodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26151468-clowns-and-buffoons
He is the author of the recently published short story collection, Clowns and Buffoons: Short StoriesAvailable on Amazon.com
August 29, 2015 - It’s All about Meme . . . Meme. MEme. ...
August 29, 2015 - It’s All about Meme . . . Meme. MEme. MEME.
We are all milling about within the morphing boundaries of the world’s largest party: The Intergalactic Kegger. We arrive, are handed a plastic cup full of beer, and mingle in the crowd until we find someone, or some group, to talk to. We are also trying desperately to not eventually find ourselves in the parking lot, drinking alone, and debating whether or not to go home. When we finally find the gumption to say something to someone, or some group of someones, we often choose the form of the meme simply out of a sense of wanting to fit in. You’ve seen them a thousand times before on FB. They are those cheeky quips that pretend to announce an idea, voice a pet peeve, or offer a political bon mot, with some vaguely connected image we are supposed to recognize.
From Wikipedia:The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme(from Ancient Greek μίμημα pronounced [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos, "mime")[4]coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)[1][5] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catchphrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[6]
The meme is an imitation of thought or expression, by definition. It is, in its current manifestation, an image with a short text message designed to illicit a laugh, a frown, or even a moment of indignation, yet . . . all too often the message is unclear and lacking a universal basis of understanding. It is the ‘in’ joke, or the unspoken nod between the ‘cool’ kids, about something they pretend to understand yet something an outsider could never ‘get’ - an insecure intention to draw the line between those that ‘know’ and those that don’t and by comparison define the ‘in’ crowd and its identity.
Memes come in all sorts of forms. From the political statement, short and incendiary by intention and often lacking a factual basis, to the cute animated image of a yellow Minion declaring something creepy and/or suspicious, yet inciting a simulacrum of deep thought– enough punch to make you watch out for danger around your ankles as one of them might be scurrying about with a large kitchen knife. These short quips have one thing in common, whether they are inspirational messages, political bombshells, or simply one person’s exaggerated passion for monster trucks. They are all imitation and, therefore, incomplete. From a lack of full understanding by those of us NOT in the know, they are only meaningful to the creator of the meme. As if, milling about in this intergalactic kegger, we were only succeeding in connecting with ourselves.
[image error]Hyperbole, by definition, is the act of exaggeration, and in this ever-morphing, growing, and overwhelming party of who knows what, we seem to be only seeking out ourselves to listen to. We want to be heard but can only express ourselves in terms of something we alone fully understand, if at all. This is the current state of evolution in our society. We sense but cannot define (read: irrationally fear) the trend of growing monumental interconnectivity. We must be heard and we must be a part of the ‘cool’ kids if we are to survive the tsunami of crap, all the while not comprehending the fact that quite soon, High School will be over. We exaggerate our message and shun precision and true insight because that would be ‘uncool’. We post what we believe is so outrageous that it can’t help but be noticed, can not help but make us noticed in the process, and in so doing further obscure what we might otherwise have to say.
[image error]
The meme is an imitation of communication and, by extension, an imitation of profundity. It is a pre-adolescent demand for attention without much forethought, much like our need for attention from our parents - if we don’t say something provocative or ‘out there’ we simply won’t be heard by mommy or daddy.
[image error]
This party that we all find ourselves attending has only just started. Our society is connected now. It is connected by wires, by political agenda, by inspirational aphorism, by reference to iconic images and television shows we watched as children, and connected by the need to feel connected. And we are connected to each other by a degree of magnitude never before seen in history. Once we evolve out of the infantile stages of me, me, me, we will begin to embrace messages from other people, to understand how they resonate within us, but not until we move through adolescence and into an emotionally functional adulthood where our hitherto reserved thoughts, feelings, and intentions have a place in the greater web that is our world. We will no longer need to be a part of the ‘cool’ kids and we will finally let go of the fear that we are marginalized. And we will realize, much as we have done years after high school’s period of disaffected suffering, we always had value and we always had something clear, precise, and worthwhile to say. We just needed the courage to say it.
I look forward to the day. Perhaps there will still be some beer left in the kegs. In either case, there is simply much too much going on at this mad party and I will be one of the last to leave.
G. M. Potter can be found on – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmpotterhomeGoodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26151468-clowns-and-buffoons
He is the author of the recently published short story collection, Clowns and Buffoons: Short StoriesAvailable on Amazon.com
August 23, 2015
It has been a long time in coming. Years, in fact. My col...
It has been a long time in coming. Years, in fact. My collection of short stories is available on Amazon as both a paperback and a kindle version.Title: Clowns and Buffoons: Short Stories
Author: G. M. Potter
ISBN: 1515036804
ASIN: B014XBN4I
Publisher: Createspace Publishing Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
Publication Date: August 17, 2015
Format: Print and Kindle ebook
Description: Collection of Short Stories
Full Book Description:
Enter a world in which the utterly bizarre reveals the underlying truth of the human condition in G. M. Potter's surreal short story collection, Clowns and Buffoons. Over the course of ten tales, readers will experience the delicate interplay between light and dark, the comic and the absurd, through the adventures of a rather unexpected group of people: clowns. Whether passive participants, rowdy agitators, or tragic victims, the clowns featured in these stories embody something much bigger than their appearance might suggest. Learn the power of love and brotherhood as a group faces its collective fear in "Gang of Six." Reminisce on love and sacrifice in "End of the Gravel Road." Discover the consequences of ignoring your inner voice in "Popcorn and Balloons." Through it all—the frivolity, the jadedness, the pain, the hope—Clowns and Buffoons shines a light on who we are as people, how we function in society, and how we treat each other…and ourselves. Look beneath the bizarre, and you will find a stunning display of the power of imagination, the devastation of losing a friend, the destructive force of egotism, the heroic protection of innocence—and perhaps a bit about yourself.
August 15, 2015
What is that on my shoe?
August 15, 2015
I recently entered a discussion group online and had my ass handed to me. It has turned out to be a wonderful experience. Thank you, Sylvia McKillop Davey for the thumping you gave me over my ignorance of available statistics. Thank you, Ula Elliott for not actually losing your temper over what was mistakenly, and unintentionally, a shallow thing for me to write. Thank you, Lesley Krier Tither, for allowing me to be hoisted by my own petard. Thank you, Michaela Eaton for helping me find the article again so I could discover what I missed.I became a member of a discussion group and entered a discussion about the presumed bias in the publishing industry against women and their literary work. The bastions of the traditional publishing world are, it appeared from the articles discussed, rife with unfair practices. To demonstrate, a woman ran an experiment. She sent query letters to fifty agents about a manuscript she had written, asking for representation. She received, in return, a paltry amount of interest. She then resubmitted her work and queries to these same agents but changed her name to indicate she was a man. She received a great many interested responses; as many as any author could hope for. The conclusion drawn from the article was that women were being treated unfairly. I commented that maybe she wrote like a man, the work resounded like a man’s, and had received an adequate level of interest in her work as an author with a man’s name. What’s the problem? I added. Now I know what I stepped in and it’s up to me to clean up my own shoes.I believe that my apparently shallow comments to this issue came from, in part, my reaction to the presumption that most, if not all, literary agents, and the attending publishers and reviewers, are biased against women and their work. I took great offense at this implied conclusion. My uncle was a literary agent and I have never known a more serious, wise, and humble man in my life. I remember sitting in his office with him once. He picked up a query letter from an author and read it to me. The author had written a book about the wonders of the British Royal Family. My uncle was not impressed and neither was I but behind the veil of his disappointment was something else that resembled pain. He didn’t like the fact that he would have to turn down this author but his job demanded it. He knew, because he had been a literary agent for a long time, that this work was not a marketable property. His judgement declared it regardless that this particular author was a woman. To imply that his judgement was flawed in a way that could be described as biased against women is utterly ridiculous and offensive. And it pained him to turn away from this query letter because he understood very well the creative effort an author must exhibit, the passion required, and the just-plain-hard work. He may have understood then that a bias like this existed and, if this is true, I’m certain he was fully aware of it and detested it. I never knew who his clients were. He kept their privacy sacred. I do know that he made at least one trip to Stockholm as a guest of one of them. His judgement about a piece of writing as far as its merit and marketability could never be questioned. Not in my mind.I am also quite convinced that if he were alive today and read the articles I refer to, visited the discussion as I have, it would pain him even more because of the damage a bias like this was inflicting. My own ignorance of this issue was simply born out of my own experience, or lack thereof, of what is out there. I didn’t sense that women’s writing was underrepresented. I looked at all the books on Goodreads and saw a profusion of books written by women. I know that many authors I enjoy are women and that is part of what I enjoy – a woman’s literary voice. Donna Tartt just won a Pulitzer for her book The Goldfinch. Alice Munro recently received a Nobel Prize for her work. I even recently finished a wonderful novel by Anne Patchett – The Patron Saint of Liars – so I was ignorant of the issue that my discussion group was concerned with. I haven’t found any real evidence of their complaint yet, however. All I’ve found is suspicious facts. Very suspicious facts. Perhaps there won’t be any real evidence of this bias no matter how deeply I dig into it. After all, who in their right mind would openly declare that women and literary work produced by women were inferior? That would be, simply put, STUPID (re: V.S. Napaul’s comments that his work is better than Jane Austen’s) If my friends’ arguments and concerns are real (which I suspect heavily that they are) I understand the pain my uncle would feel over it and in this way I know him even more deeply than I ever did as his nephew. In an industry that is experiencing competition from massive online booksellers, an overwhelming profusion of writers producing work that they wish published, and a turning away by the readers that create all of this industry, I am flummoxed. I cannot understand how a group of focused, educated, supposedly moral people (men and women) who populate the industry of publishing can ignore the facts right in front of them. If they did, wouldn’t they do something about it? Wouldn’t they do everything they could to reinvigorate their business, not following the traditional way of doing things with the hope of surviving, but leading with the certainty of thriving? If the conclusion is true and the publishing industry is biased and trying desperately to hold on to what may have been accepted practice in years gone by, that would be just crazy, right? Crazy or not, I have the clear suspicion that it might be true.I am a recently published author myself. When I wrote my collection of short stories, one of my recurring fears was that my uncle, if I approached him as an agent, would have to turn down the manuscript. If you are under the suspicion that, were he still alive, I would be enjoying some form of entitlement because he was my uncle and a literary agent, you are greatly mistaken. The truth would be exactly the opposite. I chose instead, to self-publish my effort, albeit two years after he passed. I have therefore given up all the possibilities of enjoying what writers believe is still possible: book signings organized by an agent, nice hotel rooms paid for by publishers, and possible notoriety simply from the marketing efforts of a well-oiled industry. In short, fame. Potentially, Rock-Star level fame. The kind enjoyed by J.K. Rowling, or the author of that ludicrous novel 50 Shades of Gray (Both are women, interestingly). I gave up the pursuit of this whether it actually is in the cards for me or not. I do my own marketing. I hired a firm to do the cover art, font stylings of the text, and most of the distribution, everything that a self-published author has access to in this day and age. I did it, both because of what I feared my uncle might be right about, and have to tell me with an agonizing pain in his heart because I was also his nephew, and from my own independent nature (I am not, by experience or temperament, a team player). If women who write, fiction or otherwise, feel they cannot be adequately represented and can give up on what an agent notoriously (and falsely) might promise to them and their careers, they can let their work be read, judged for what it is, and succeed based upon what we all (men and women) truly want to be judged by: The merit of our work.I know my uncle would feel pleasure, not pain, over my efforts to write and my success with it whatever that turns out to be. He encouraged me often to write something, without promising anything, and my only regret is that I will never sit in his office as his nephew again nor will I be able to show him that I actually, finally, wrote something. I will always be immensely grateful for his true kindness at whatever stage of life he found me.G. M. Potter, Emigrant, MT.Postscript: The day before posting this opinion, I was removed from the discussion group. I am no longer a member. In conversations with the moderator of this group, via private message, I had been assured that I would be able to get this message to the three other members who had helped me. The moderator wanted to read the post beforehand and I provided her with that. Seems like I hit a nerve and she didn’t like what I had to say.
I recently entered a discussion group online and had my ass handed to me. It has turned out to be a wonderful experience. Thank you, Sylvia McKillop Davey for the thumping you gave me over my ignorance of available statistics. Thank you, Ula Elliott for not actually losing your temper over what was mistakenly, and unintentionally, a shallow thing for me to write. Thank you, Lesley Krier Tither, for allowing me to be hoisted by my own petard. Thank you, Michaela Eaton for helping me find the article again so I could discover what I missed.I became a member of a discussion group and entered a discussion about the presumed bias in the publishing industry against women and their literary work. The bastions of the traditional publishing world are, it appeared from the articles discussed, rife with unfair practices. To demonstrate, a woman ran an experiment. She sent query letters to fifty agents about a manuscript she had written, asking for representation. She received, in return, a paltry amount of interest. She then resubmitted her work and queries to these same agents but changed her name to indicate she was a man. She received a great many interested responses; as many as any author could hope for. The conclusion drawn from the article was that women were being treated unfairly. I commented that maybe she wrote like a man, the work resounded like a man’s, and had received an adequate level of interest in her work as an author with a man’s name. What’s the problem? I added. Now I know what I stepped in and it’s up to me to clean up my own shoes.I believe that my apparently shallow comments to this issue came from, in part, my reaction to the presumption that most, if not all, literary agents, and the attending publishers and reviewers, are biased against women and their work. I took great offense at this implied conclusion. My uncle was a literary agent and I have never known a more serious, wise, and humble man in my life. I remember sitting in his office with him once. He picked up a query letter from an author and read it to me. The author had written a book about the wonders of the British Royal Family. My uncle was not impressed and neither was I but behind the veil of his disappointment was something else that resembled pain. He didn’t like the fact that he would have to turn down this author but his job demanded it. He knew, because he had been a literary agent for a long time, that this work was not a marketable property. His judgement declared it regardless that this particular author was a woman. To imply that his judgement was flawed in a way that could be described as biased against women is utterly ridiculous and offensive. And it pained him to turn away from this query letter because he understood very well the creative effort an author must exhibit, the passion required, and the just-plain-hard work. He may have understood then that a bias like this existed and, if this is true, I’m certain he was fully aware of it and detested it. I never knew who his clients were. He kept their privacy sacred. I do know that he made at least one trip to Stockholm as a guest of one of them. His judgement about a piece of writing as far as its merit and marketability could never be questioned. Not in my mind.I am also quite convinced that if he were alive today and read the articles I refer to, visited the discussion as I have, it would pain him even more because of the damage a bias like this was inflicting. My own ignorance of this issue was simply born out of my own experience, or lack thereof, of what is out there. I didn’t sense that women’s writing was underrepresented. I looked at all the books on Goodreads and saw a profusion of books written by women. I know that many authors I enjoy are women and that is part of what I enjoy – a woman’s literary voice. Donna Tartt just won a Pulitzer for her book The Goldfinch. Alice Munro recently received a Nobel Prize for her work. I even recently finished a wonderful novel by Anne Patchett – The Patron Saint of Liars – so I was ignorant of the issue that my discussion group was concerned with. I haven’t found any real evidence of their complaint yet, however. All I’ve found is suspicious facts. Very suspicious facts. Perhaps there won’t be any real evidence of this bias no matter how deeply I dig into it. After all, who in their right mind would openly declare that women and literary work produced by women were inferior? That would be, simply put, STUPID (re: V.S. Napaul’s comments that his work is better than Jane Austen’s) If my friends’ arguments and concerns are real (which I suspect heavily that they are) I understand the pain my uncle would feel over it and in this way I know him even more deeply than I ever did as his nephew. In an industry that is experiencing competition from massive online booksellers, an overwhelming profusion of writers producing work that they wish published, and a turning away by the readers that create all of this industry, I am flummoxed. I cannot understand how a group of focused, educated, supposedly moral people (men and women) who populate the industry of publishing can ignore the facts right in front of them. If they did, wouldn’t they do something about it? Wouldn’t they do everything they could to reinvigorate their business, not following the traditional way of doing things with the hope of surviving, but leading with the certainty of thriving? If the conclusion is true and the publishing industry is biased and trying desperately to hold on to what may have been accepted practice in years gone by, that would be just crazy, right? Crazy or not, I have the clear suspicion that it might be true.I am a recently published author myself. When I wrote my collection of short stories, one of my recurring fears was that my uncle, if I approached him as an agent, would have to turn down the manuscript. If you are under the suspicion that, were he still alive, I would be enjoying some form of entitlement because he was my uncle and a literary agent, you are greatly mistaken. The truth would be exactly the opposite. I chose instead, to self-publish my effort, albeit two years after he passed. I have therefore given up all the possibilities of enjoying what writers believe is still possible: book signings organized by an agent, nice hotel rooms paid for by publishers, and possible notoriety simply from the marketing efforts of a well-oiled industry. In short, fame. Potentially, Rock-Star level fame. The kind enjoyed by J.K. Rowling, or the author of that ludicrous novel 50 Shades of Gray (Both are women, interestingly). I gave up the pursuit of this whether it actually is in the cards for me or not. I do my own marketing. I hired a firm to do the cover art, font stylings of the text, and most of the distribution, everything that a self-published author has access to in this day and age. I did it, both because of what I feared my uncle might be right about, and have to tell me with an agonizing pain in his heart because I was also his nephew, and from my own independent nature (I am not, by experience or temperament, a team player). If women who write, fiction or otherwise, feel they cannot be adequately represented and can give up on what an agent notoriously (and falsely) might promise to them and their careers, they can let their work be read, judged for what it is, and succeed based upon what we all (men and women) truly want to be judged by: The merit of our work.I know my uncle would feel pleasure, not pain, over my efforts to write and my success with it whatever that turns out to be. He encouraged me often to write something, without promising anything, and my only regret is that I will never sit in his office as his nephew again nor will I be able to show him that I actually, finally, wrote something. I will always be immensely grateful for his true kindness at whatever stage of life he found me.G. M. Potter, Emigrant, MT.Postscript: The day before posting this opinion, I was removed from the discussion group. I am no longer a member. In conversations with the moderator of this group, via private message, I had been assured that I would be able to get this message to the three other members who had helped me. The moderator wanted to read the post beforehand and I provided her with that. Seems like I hit a nerve and she didn’t like what I had to say.
August 15, 2015: What is that on my shoe?
I recently entered a discussion group online and had my ass handed to me. It has turned out to be a wonderful experience. Thank you, Sylvia McKillop Davey for the thumping you gave me over my ignorance of available statistics. Thank you, Ula Elliott for not actually losing your temper over what was mistakenly, and unintentionally, a shallow thing for me to write. Thank you, Lesley Krier Tither, for allowing me to be hoisted by my own petard. Thank you, Michaela Eaton for helping me find the article again so I could discover what I missed.I became a member of a discussion group and entered a discussion about the presumed bias in the publishing industry against women and their literary work. The bastions of the traditional publishing world are, it appeared from the articles discussed, rife with unfair practices. To demonstrate, a woman ran an experiment. She sent query letters to fifty agents about a manuscript she had written, asking for representation. She received, in return, a paltry amount of interest. She then resubmitted her work and queries to these same agents but changed her name to indicate she was a man. She received a great many interested responses; as many as any author could hope for. The conclusion drawn from the article was that women were being treated unfairly. I commented that maybe she wrote like a man, the work resounded like a man’s, and had received an adequate level of interest in her work as an author with a man’s name. What’s the problem? I added. Now I know what I stepped in and it’s up to me to clean up my own shoes.I believe that my apparently shallow comments to this issue came from, in part, my reaction to the presumption that most, if not all, literary agents, and the attending publishers and reviewers, are biased against women and their work. I took great offense at this implied conclusion. My uncle was a literary agent and I have never known a more serious, wise, and humble man in my life. I remember sitting in his office with him once. He picked up a query letter from an author and read it to me. The author had written a book about the wonders of the British Royal Family. My uncle was not impressed and neither was I but behind the veil of his disappointment was something else that resembled pain. He didn’t like the fact that he would have to turn down this author but his job demanded it. He knew, because he had been a literary agent for a long time, that this work was not a marketable property. His judgement declared it regardless that this particular author was a woman. To imply that his judgement was flawed in a way that could be described as biased against women is utterly ridiculous and offensive. And it pained him to turn away from this query letter because he understood very well the creative effort an author must exhibit, the passion required, and the just-plain-hard work. He may have understood then that a bias like this existed and, if this is true, I’m certain he was fully aware of it and detested it. I never knew who his clients were. He kept their privacy sacred. I do know that he made at least one trip to Stockholm as a guest of one of them. His judgement about a piece of writing as far as its merit and marketability could never be questioned. Not in my mind.I am also quite convinced that if he were alive today and read the articles I refer to, visited the discussion as I have, it would pain him even more because of the damage a bias like this was inflicting. My own ignorance of this issue was simply born out of my own experience, or lack thereof, of what is out there. I didn’t sense that women’s writing was underrepresented. I looked at all the books on Goodreads and saw a profusion of books written by women. I know that many authors I enjoy are women and that is part of what I enjoy – a woman’s literary voice. Donna Tartt just won a Pulitzer for her book The Goldfinch. Alice Munro recently received a Nobel Prize for her work. I even recently finished a wonderful novel by Anne Patchett – The Patron Saint of Liars – so I was ignorant of the issue that my discussion group was concerned with. I haven’t found any real evidence of their complaint yet, however. All I’ve found is suspicious facts. Very suspicious facts. Perhaps there won’t be any real evidence of this bias no matter how deeply I dig into it. After all, who in their right mind would openly declare that women and literary work produced by women were inferior? That would be, simply put, STUPID (re: V.S. Napaul’s comments that his work is better than Jane Austen’s) If my friends’ arguments and concerns are real (which I suspect heavily that they are) I understand the pain my uncle would feel over it and in this way I know him even more deeply than I ever did as his nephew. In an industry that is experiencing competition from massive online booksellers, an overwhelming profusion of writers producing work that they wish published, and a turning away by the readers that create all of this industry, I am flummoxed. I cannot understand how a group of focused, educated, supposedly moral people (men and women) who populate the industry of publishing can ignore the facts right in front of them. If they did, wouldn’t they do something about it? Wouldn’t they do everything they could to reinvigorate their business, not following the traditional way of doing things with the hope of surviving, but leading with the certainty of thriving? If the conclusion is true and the publishing industry is biased and trying desperately to hold on to what may have been accepted practice in years gone by, that would be just crazy, right? Crazy or not, I have the clear suspicion that it might be true.I am a recently published author myself. When I wrote my collection of short stories, one of my recurring fears was that my uncle, if I approached him as an agent, would have to turn down the manuscript. If you are under the suspicion that, were he still alive, I would be enjoying some form of entitlement because he was my uncle and a literary agent, you are greatly mistaken. The truth would be exactly the opposite. I chose instead, to self-publish my effort, albeit two years after he passed. I have therefore given up all the possibilities of enjoying what writers believe is still possible: book signings organized by an agent, nice hotel rooms paid for by publishers, and possible notoriety simply from the marketing efforts of a well-oiled industry. In short, fame. Potentially, Rock-Star level fame. The kind enjoyed by J.K. Rowling, or the author of that ludicrous novel 50 Shades of Gray (Both are women, interestingly). I gave up the pursuit of this whether it actually is in the cards for me or not. I do my own marketing. I hired a firm to do the cover art, font stylings of the text, and most of the distribution, everything that a self-published author has access to in this day and age. I did it, both because of what I feared my uncle might be right about, and have to tell me with an agonizing pain in his heart because I was also his nephew, and from my own independent nature (I am not, by experience or temperament, a team player). If women who write, fiction or otherwise, feel they cannot be adequately represented and can give up on what an agent notoriously (and falsely) might promise to them and their careers, they can let their work be read, judged for what it is, and succeed based upon what we all (men and women) truly want to be judged by: The merit of our work.I know my uncle would feel pleasure, not pain, over my efforts to write and my success with it whatever that turns out to be. He encouraged me often to write something, without promising anything, and my only regret is that I will never sit in his office as his nephew again nor will I be able to show him that I actually, finally, wrote something. I will always be immensely grateful for his true kindness at whatever stage of life he found me.G. M. Potter, Emigrant, MT.Postscript: The day before posting this opinion, I was removed from the discussion group. I am no longer a member. In conversations with the moderator of this group, via private message, I had been assured that I would be able to get this message to the three other members who had helped me. The moderator wanted to read the post beforehand and I provided her with that. Seems like I hit a nerve and she didn’t like what I had to say.
