writer's summit in Seattle

I went to a conference in the convention center today for the literati of the United States, and I've sort of been to these things before but not in a long time, maybe over a decade, so it brought back a lot of memories, but also introduced me to the literary world as it exists today, and it's younger than me, or older, but there aren't many people my age there and maybe that's because time and history really did pass our generation by, but I'm only 45, and I just published my first book on kindle, so who knows? I really felt like the fates wanted me there because I didn't even hear about the conference until last night, and went on a whim, thinking I'd at least see the conference goers, and maybe strike up a conversation with a stranger, but nothing more than that, and yet I knew it was important that I do this, because I am really trying to reach the world with my art, and part of why I've decided to have an internet presence, and publish in the first place, but I wrote the book 15 years ago, so in some ways it's already dated, or this became clear to me when a speaker on Native American literature said that "native poetry was in its fourth wave,' and though her idea wasn't crystallized, she made it clear that writing right now means that you are writing the first decade into a new century, and historically that realliy does mark a change, and I'd have to agree it does, from an art history perspective because time is measured in centuries. I was sitting on the floor near the door when she said this and a girl was sort of doing breathing exercises next to me, and I realized that though I published my novella only three months ago, I wrote it before the turn of the century in 1998, the last great year according to a friend of mine, and for our measley small generation he may have been right, and that may have been our peak, but the Hipsters have taken over the world, make no bones about it. Their generation is bigger than ours, and they don't even have us to contend with, believe it or not, their only opponents are the Boomers, but they are getting old, and as much as they try to deny it, I'm afraid old age catches up to us all, as my Grandfather said before he died, a World War II hero.

I'm publishing in a Hipster world and I like the new landscape better than the one I was coming up into when I went to Bread Loaf in 1990, that was a boomer parade, and seemed completely inclusive and locked up. Maybe it's the internet and Kindle, or maybe it's just me getting older and feeling better about life, but I like the new model, because it doesn't seem to be as much about a 'Star' now, but the art.... though I don't want you to think I'm too naive, because I know that every generation 'throws a hero at the pop chart," in the words of Paul Simon, and the Hipsters will have their own icons, but the culture of celebrity money that the Boomers perfected is on the wane, because the economy is on the wane, and I think it's affecting people's attitudes towards art, and people are freer about it now. Yes, the creative writing programs literally littered the book fair part of the show, but they didn't seem as omnipotent or influential to me, like their time had come and gone.

I went to a few lectures and walked out of a couple after five minutes, but a valuable five minutes, and the one I liked the most was on writing reviews, and I think this was really getting something hard and difficult to understand about the role of the critic, that I've been feeling lately writing all of these reviews for "Goodreads," and that is the question can good art survive without criticism, or does the criticism literally make the art. It's a confusing question, for sure, and I'd argue that a society full of good art would also be full of good criticism, but the role of the critic is actually very complex, and the focus of the lecture focused on 'bad reviews,' and their place in the literary establishment, but I only saw the second half of the panel, though I wish I said it all. The Boomer editor or Slate was running the lecture, and he was a great wit, from the new older generation, with the World War II veterans gone, but the panel was made up of four critics in their Thirties, I'd guess, but I don't even think late Thirties, making them a good decade younger than me, and born at the tail end of Generation X and Y, the grey zone of the 1980 births. I really felt like all of the women were completely brilliant and had far surpassed anyone I've heard talk about criticism since the likes of Pauline Kael, my all time favorite critic of any genre, and seemed to really understand crticism's role in the greater societal debate of what kind of world do we want if we are afraid of bad criticism, or challenging criticism.

"Some books aren't worth criticizing or sit in this drab middle zone that evokes nothing. Trust me, if we were reading lots of books that were so bad they were good, this job would be a lot easier."

Yes, I thought sitting there, ln rapture, and the whole panel went on like this. I really felt all of my thoughs on criticism and its role in reflecting society and art and making it better, more luminescent, was as crucial as the artist's role, or if not quite that, almost as important, because without a judge there is no jury. They talked about the role of a 'zinger,' and that was just kind of funny, or maybe more illuminating was that it sparked the 'Boomer' editor more than the critics, and I think the Boomers lived in the age of the zinger, and that might be going out. More importantly, he educated me about an essay written in the Fifties called "The Decline of Book Reviewing," by Elizabeth Hardwick, and then made the point that every generation fears this, or something like that, but I want to read the essay. I also got that David Foster Wallace is a kind of God to these people, the writer of "Infinite Jest" and must be to them what Thomas Pynchon was to me, a great challenging inscrutable novelist epitomizing the greatest fiction writer of a generation, a mantle I'm sure I will never wear, and yet I don't hold 'David Foster Wallace,' on a pedastel, or lose myself in debates over whether he should have written a scathing attack on John Updie, that I haven't read, but should since I don't like Updike much myself. I waited in line to introduce myself to one of the editors that was such a joy to hear speak it made me happy to have gotten in free to see her, but I barely got to say anything to her, but something.

The convention center had an incredible kind of Sci-Fi vision that felt like "Logan's Run," or "Rollerblade," or probably a dozen more from the era, but a real expansiveness and depth, with two story high windows looking out to trees, and made me feel like I was in a futuristic movie being there, and felt divined to be there, like the fates had literally chosen me to go, without me knowing it, and yet I knew it before I went. It took me awhile to even figure out I was in there for free, because I was in the book fair part and I thought maybe that was free for everyone, but it wasn't, and I had made it in. A nice young woman gave me a sample of her magazine, and instructions to submit to the journal, and I didn't ask for either of these things, and I felt like she chose me, and in a way I didn't blame her, but she was the only one, and I took it as a sign, and might submit to that magazine. I felt chosen all day, actually, and like I was one small step away from being on the podium reading my book, but a very small step, and that I had to act in the existential world to make it happen but one full of spirits guiding me.