Girls and Goals

I asked a classroom of adult women writers what their writing goals were. They all said, more or less, "I'd like to publish a book one day."

"Great," I said. "Why do you want to publish? To make money? For fame? To leave a mark on the world?"

"Just for my own personal satisfaction," was the response, and everyone nodded. "Just to know that someone else, one publisher, thought my writing was good."

"Just one book?" I needled them. "No plans for another? Or for a series?"

They said, "I can't envision my next project until I'm finished with the current one." "Just one book would make me happy." "I've spent years writing my book, and don't plan on writing more." "I'm just starting out."

"But still, you could dream big,"I pleaded. "Just picture yourself--"

Then I realized their ambitions were modest and their dreams very small because they were women.

This was a job for SuperAdjunct.

I said, "No male writer would ever say what you just said. Men dream big, think big, and go after what they want. Even the crummiest male writer foresees himself writing tons of books, shaking hands in New York, and raking in money. It starts with dreaming big."

And we're going to practice doing just that and shedding our quiet modesty, a virtue not appreciated in the publishing business.

Litmags Don't Live Here Anymore

The library here used to carry a score of literary journals. Today on my lunch hour I found only five. Where did they go? I hadn’t time to ask a librarian because I had to go buy an envelope. But thereby I found out where the journals went. They’re sold single-copy in the bookstore: Boulevard, New Letters, Tin House, Pleiades, Southern Poetry Review – about 10 titles in all.

The library chucked its subscriptions because it knows no one reads these things, except maybe for Poetry and Creative Nonfiction, and those just as bellwethers. Last time I read through the latest issues of literary journals at the library – noting on index cards their names and contents, and what percentage was fiction, what percentage nonfiction, etc. (so I can discuss them in classes) -- in THREE litmags I found poems about Persephone. Whoa. To be fair, about 10 to 20 percent of the published material took my breath. But on the same round I noted two essays, in separate journals, beginning with the words “My father,” and acres of bad fiction – full of neon signs, breasts, tragic foreigners, and petty quarrels.

Some journals make impressive publishing credits if you want to rub shoulders with laureates and academics – who won’t actually read what you published. So beyond impressing each other with our publication credits, what are these journals for? I had never seriously questioned their value. Do they serve as some sort of – standard? For us? Me? Time for self-examination. And figuring out that if they're not important anymore, what is?