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Part of the problem, from my perspective, is that what constitutes a "major author" is now, more than ever, defined by those very MFA writers, especially at the literary journals that they overwhelmingly control.
Yes and No, Geoff, in part you´re putting the horse behind the cart. Most serious writers today have MFAs. That is why they dominate the literary journals.On the other hand, there is so much experimentation out there as the MFAers are trying so desperately for originality to separate themselves from the herd that they neglect what they are writing about.
I do believe the more serious danger is the emphasis on academia in the writing world which tracks authors into a middle class lifestyle early on. There is too much financial security in the business and the wannabes are not forced to go out and have "real life" experiences such as Steinbeck did. He worked at schlock jobs while he wrote. Even Faulkner was the postmaster of Oxford while he was writing and worked as a night watchman when writing "AS I LAY DYING". This loss of working class experiences will tell in the future of the craft as our writers get farther away from blue collar culture.
Lots of good points Geoffrey. Add in turf wars within academia--creative writing, study of literature, language arts and staffs for professional and literary journals.
Geoffrey, you seem to assume that blue-collar culture is the proper topic of stories. Or are you asserting that the middle class do not have "real life" experiences?
Right, so I finally found time to read the Sanford piece. It's not exactly the vehicle I would have chosen to represent my stance on short shorts--it's regrettably poorly written and clumsily reasoned. The main thing it taught me was that I won't be sending my work to storySouth--Sanford uses his brain like a hammer, and I don't want my fiction underneath it.Having said that, I find that the general outlines of his portrait of contemporary short shorts accords with my experience of them.
No, A.J. I assume that blue-collar culture is A proper topic of stories. No, I am not asserting that the middle class does not have "real life" experiences.And I do assert as middle class is singular, you have to use "does". If I am not correct, please let me know.
What I am saying is that by not throwing the writers to the wolves in their formative years, and their having to make a wage instead of a salary, does diminish the amount of literature centered around the under classes. I am pointing this out as a disadvantage of tracking so many future writers early in the professional fields with job security, and higher financial renumeration. As to whether I am advocating "throwing them to the wolves", I steadfastly say no. Let it be as it is, but remember that there is something inherently wrong in the system if we end up skewing life experiences away from blue collar culture.
I would strongly advise a wannabe writer to put off the professional positions and do what James Michener and others did, gaddabout around the world with semi professional or crafts jobs and extend your experiences beyond that of the white collar and professional. (Michener is not the best example as I don`t have a very high opinion of his writing style, but if I recall correctly, he was a radio man for transport and freighter ships, making his way around the world several times and experiencing different cultures).
And I do assert as middle class is singular, you have to use "does". If I am not correct, please let me know. This is, in fact, a matter of whether you follow American or British usage. So let's not be stooping to grammar spats.
I agree that broad experience is desirable. But the fact is, most MFA-track writers I know are not earning a salary. Most of them work at various crappy jobs.
And we have to watch our assumptions. I know academics who have worked as bricklayers.
Thanks for informing me of yet another difference between the true English language of GB and its bastard offshoot. No spat here.It`s good to know that there are academics who have worked as bricklayers. I, myself, have had a multi-varied blue/white collar background as well and presently work in academia. I am always reticent about talking about those experiences as I have assumed that the vast majority of my peers never got their hands dirty, or if they did, not for long.
So tell me your list of dirty handwork and I will tell you mine.
I'm not an academic, nor do I have an MFA. I was an armoured crewman.The thing is, most of the MFA types I know don't move into the middle class. In fact, there's a wide disconnect between the places where the writers live and write about, and the experience of most of the audience. Even a good chunk of the blue-collar workforce now make more than the MFA-track writer, at well-paid union jobs, and live in the suburbs. "Blue-collar" isn't always so blue-collar anymore. My next-door neighbour is an industrial electrician; the guy across the street is a financial planner.
So this is my objection to your idea that the MFA is divorcing writers from the experience of hard knocks: the MFA doesn't actually bring in that kind of income.
We`re talking apples and oranges. Your talking income, I am talking lifestyle of the blue collar underclass, the ones living in the tenement buildings built in 1911 in Philadelphia`s inner city, watches football whenever he can, high school education, has never eaten sushi but loves his meatball grinders, six pack, Polish American Club, watching Big Time Wrestling via WWF, Steven Segal and ROCKY, hangs with the guys he went to high school 25 years ago, I don`t want to continue to stereotype, but I am trying to draw a picture. the guys I knew had parts of each of those, so this is but a composite sketch.Or even a notch down in the socio-cultural milieu,the part time laborer living in a dilapadated rooming house, drinking harder liquor and indulging in harder drugs, etc. etc.
By the way, a financial planner is not blue collar. The guy probably has an advanced degree in either finance, business or economics.
Uh, that's my point. The financial planner lives across the street from the industrial electrician, which goes to show how the blue-collar stereotype doesn't correspond to the reality of people who work blue collar jobs.I know several writers who are very much in touch with that "blue-collar" world. It's not as alien as you imagine. This notion that MFA-toting writers are working in "professional positions" doesn't match the reality I see around me.
The industrial electrician has a degree in electrical engineering. He is no house electrician who took only shop courses in h.s.But I take your point. Good. But you still haven`t gotten my point. Steinbeck went and picked grapes. That`s quite different than living in the burbs in a $350,000 home.
John Steinbeck was, I'm sorry to tell you, a middle-class kid from a middle-class family, whose mother was a school teacher. He did farm labour when he was young just as so many kids do menial jobs when they're young. He grew up in a nice, middle-class neighbourhood of Salinas.You still haven't got my point, Geoffrey, which is that the real world doesn't correspond to your imaginings. When I talk about my next-door neighbour, the electrician, I'm not making it up. You are, because you've never met him.
And I am telling you that it is highly unusual that a financial advisor would be living next to an electrician. An electrician makes 40-60,000 a year. A financial advisor makes ten times that.
And as for Steinbeck,he experienced poverty for the ten years prior to the success of Tortilla Flat. He was doing crap jobs until 1935.
I only had time to skim the conersation. I personaly have never set foot in a high school. Yet my GED score were well above average in literature, science, and math. I am currently a trash man. Some of these highly educated people happen to ring up my coffee in the morning. The different types of people you guys are reffering to (Blue Collar, White collar) are all bullshit. We all get home and pop open a beer, put on a game, etc.. Why can't people just be people. Yeah there is different types of people but they do vary in each walk of life. I am blue collar but I also work with some yuppies. Maybe I am wrong who knows.for flash fction check this site out
http://karenwojcikberner.blogspot.com/
flash fiction is by no means a money maker but it is funn
More yuppies drink wine and hardliquor than blue collar.But that is besides the point.
People are just people, but they have different lifestyles, different life concerns. Those are reflected in the stories of their lives.
I plan on reading quite a few short story collections this year. I've just finished "Stranger Things Happen" by Kelly Link, which includes one of the stories we read here, "The Specialist's Hat". Her writing tends towards the surreal, sometimes creepy and other times funny.Others on my list are Smoke and Mirrors by Gaiman, Birds of America by Lorrie Moore and Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving.
Looks like a good list, but I wouldn`t put any of them on mine. I`ve got a copy of THE JUNGLE by Sinclair Lewis that I will trudge through. I`ve tried reading JACOB AND HIS BROTHERS but had to put it down several times with insufficient interest. Other than that, I will not be reading ss s all that much unless I can get my hands on Chekhov or DeMaupassant. No one current pushes my button at the moment.
I have two collections by Kelly Link I plan on reading this year on android app Aldiko. I have a few on my shelf that I plan on finishing or starting this year such as Julio Cortazar's Blow up and Other Stories, Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, John Connolly's Nocturnes, Charles Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness. There are many others on my wishlist, to name a 'few', Girl With Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace, Pixel Juice by Jeff Noon, The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories by Horacio Quiroga, Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives by David M. Eagleman, The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits:Stories by Emma Donoghue, The Shell Collector: Stories by Anthoney Doerr. Currently reading Benjamin Rosenbaum's Ant King and Other Stories.
Hi, Geoffrey. Do you have your Sinclairs mixed up? Elmer Gantry ring a bell. I just read The Jungle recently (recently to me is within the last two years) hadn't read it before, just had found so many references to it that I felt 'un- well-read.' Have to get your emotions in gear to read it. Have been busy, but would like to get back in the discussions. I was disappointed in Grisham's 'Ford County' - such hype. My husband read it first and after I read the first two stories I asked him if they were all about men and trucks. I didn't read them all, but I had the feeling that the ones I read were each too long for the story told and that he was trying to be a male Flannery O'Connor.
I've been reading 'One Story' (subscription) '5X5' (subscription) and literary journal short stories and although some of the One Story stories are very well written, most of the recent stuff I find is so 'down.' Any of you subscribe to 'The Sun?' Good stuff there.
Thanks, Chris. Yes it`s Upton Sinclair. I have seen the sum over the years and it always looked interesting, but never read one. They do pay well.
Hi Chris, I too subscribe to One Story but am a few issues behind. Until recently I was reading a number of journals, from One Story to PrairieFire, Prole, The Cincinnati Review and others. Lately I've been reading novels (Currently Russel Banks's Affliction).Sarah, Let me know what you think of Quiroga. I have difficulty in separating the man from his writing. No matter how much darkness he tried to fit into his writing, it's impossible for someone to compete in fiction with a life so peppered with tragedy.
I've been re-reading Salinger. Also Amy Bloom.
Zybahn wrote: "Hi Chris, I too subscribe to One Story but am a few issues behind. Until recently I was reading a number of journals, from One Story to PrairieFire, Prole, The Cincinnati Review and others. Lately ..."Hi, Zybahn. What happened to our feisty group? The last One Story was pretty good. I've been disappointed sometimes because for long stories, they stop too soon and the characters are frequently dull. Have you tried 5X5? Once a month flash fiction. I always read Short and Short-short Stories where ever I can find them.
What`s the link to 5X5 Chris. I am looking for ss whenever I can find them also.
Hi Geoffrey, 5X5litmag.org -- themed, 500 words or less, poetry and flash and I think Photography -- little bitty thing? Lots of young writers.
I just finished reading Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." One of the best books I've ever read! I'm in awe. Probably this is off-topic of late because it has nothing to do with flash fiction, but a bunch of these stories appeared as stand-alone shorts in magazines, so I think this pertains to short fiction. And I need to scream my pleasure and reverence for this kind of writing.
Chris wrote: "Hi, Zybahn. What happened to our feisty group?... Have you tried 5X5? Once a month flash fiction."I haven't been feeling too feisty, just a tad overwhelmed. I haven't tried 5X5; I'm not terribly fond of flash fiction but might give it a go.
I've recently ordered Exile, Riddle Fence and a new British publication, The Fiction Desk. I'll keep you posted.
I've just read a collection of short stories, on ebook called "with love" Its an anthology put together by indie authors supporting MSF and their work in Japan and other places around the world.
I am currently reading Suspended Heart by Heather Fowler. I am new to magical realism but several of the stories have stayed with me for days.
What was the question again? Short stories? I am reading two collections, "Airships" by Barry Hannah, and "A Good Man is Hard To Find" Flannery O'Connor. Seems like I should have read them both years ago but I didn't. I guess I got to them as soon as I could.
I've finished Birds of America by Lorrie Moore. Very impressive character studies, mostly about people who are just getting by with their lot in life. I'll read more from her.
Lorrie Moore is good.Just reread "Alpine Slide" from Rebecca Curtis's Twenty Grand; it rewarded a second read.
Also reread Salvatore Scibona's "The Kid" (I think that's the right title) from a New Yorker from last year--also rewarded a reread.
"Modulation" by Richard Power. I found it in a Pushcart Prize book and later discovered it's also in the 2009 Best American. I do believe this is one of the best stories I've read in a long time. Totally involving. But I kept wanting to stop reading it and share it. Originally in Conjunctions.
Short Story lovers
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That issue has been resolved for several centuries. Simply can`t be counted, immaterial and material don`t mix. So there`s no pyrotechnics on that discussion.
I believe Sanford has just overstated his case and that is what I find so very objectionable. I have no idea if the current crop of literary giants have MFAs or not. I believe Lupta has but I am not sure. So does Junot I believe. Correct me if I am wrong. And I do agree that there is no reason why a MFAer shouldn`t be a major author any more than an autodidact.