On the Finances of Being a Writer

When I was twenty and graduated from college, the most difficult thing for me to figure out was, how do people make a living and still have a creative life, an activist life, a life of integrity? Very few people talked about how to do that. Lots of people talked about living creative lives and activist lives and lives with integrity, but I did not get explicit information about how to do this economically. I had to figure it out largely by myself. To do this, I asked a lot of question, often questions that people considered rude and inappropriate. One of my commitments is to make the economic lives of writers and artists more visible.

To that end, I have a few links that make the finances of the writing life more transparent.

First, there is a great online magazine called Scratch that engaged in exactly the same project. The subtitle of Scratch is writing+money+life. It is a great collections of issues that make these questions of how to be a writer and how to support oneself more visible and begin to provide answers. In particular, check out this interview with Cheryl Strayed. And this conversation with Ellen Willis is also excellent.

The second source is Cecilia Tan and her publishing company, Circlet Press. This post from Tan at Livejournal is worth checking out. Also follow her on Twitter to read more about how she structures her life to give her space to write, to publish other writers, and to be vibrantly engaged in creative pursuits.

So those resources are a few that I have found useful lately. Do send along others. I am happy to share them! Meanwhile, let’s do everything we can to make more visible how to have meaningful and economically viable creative lives as writers.

Filed under: lesbian, lesbian studies, progressive activism, teaching Tagged: economics, material conditions of writers, publishing, writing life