The kind of writer you want to be

Young writers are often reluctant to ask for help from established writers they know.

Unpublished and unknown, these young writers can be hesitant to ask a favor from a published writer they’ve taken a writing workshop or class with.  Even if that published writer is admiring of their work.

Ask.

When your ship comes in, you can help the next boatload of young writers.  That’s how you balance the ledger.

Lamentably, though, I’ve seen too many young writers who want you to buy their first small press (expensive) books, to attend the local production of their plays, to go to their poetry readings—and you do, often paying full price, even when it’s a stretch for you.  Even introducing them to their future editors. And so on, all of which you do eagerly, hoping it will help.

Then when they begin to have a career, they forget those lean years when stand-up people supported them when very few others did. And they don’t help others.  They seem to have conveniently lost their memory of those struggling years. And for the help others gave them.

I know such a writer in New Orleans.  I know such a writer in New York.  I know others elsewhere. The way things go with that sort of thing, those writers may just glide through life taking and not giving back and doing just fine.  We all know justice can be fickle and arbitrary.  

The writer in New Orleans—I bought his books faithfully, went to his readings and plays. Plunked down the cash. Then once I asked him to please come to a reading I was hosting for young writers in a local bar. His response? “I’m doing my laundry that night.” I still have the e-mail.

This isn’t limited to young writers. I’ve experienced the same thing with not-young writers, too.

I helped get a New York writer a job that’s taken him abroad and provided him with a steady income for years. I asked him once if he knew of a critic who might review my daughter’s work. Just wanted a name; didn’t want him to make contact. His answer? “I’m not in that world anymore.” He most certainly is, I know for a fact.

Unfortunately, the list goes on. Sometimes, it’s a surprise and a sting to get a “no” from a writer you thought would be more than happy to help. What? Really? Some memories are disarmingly short.

Don’t be one of those writers. It’s a kind of betrayal to the gods who have been so good to you.  Remember how bolstering to your spirit it was to have someone on your side when you were struggling.  To have someone believe in you, often when you didn’t believe in yourself. 

How to be? Be like Molly Peacock. A wonderful poet, memoirist and biographer. She and I were teachers at the same university. I once asked her for a blurb—a comment that is customarily one of praise—for a book I’d written. She’s extremely busy. Nevertheless, she took the time to write one of the most movingly realized blurbs anyone has ever given me—when it meant a great deal to the book’s possible success.

Buy this book by Molly Peacock!!

Fortunately, there are others like her.  Who understand what even a small gesture of recognition and praise can do for a young writer (and for an older writer) much less handing that writer the name of an agent or editor.  My old friend, Charles Salzberg, in New York, is another.  He’s spent a lifetime helping writers. 

Buy this book by Charles Salzberg!!

I know.  I was one. He helped me more than once. He’s still helping others.

That’s the kind of writer you want to be.