Literary Clusterfucks 2013

yeah ... I remember that period in state history. Dark times. It was the real heyday of the conservative sponsored ballot measures which came out of Prop 13/Howard Jarvis taxpayers assoc. which resulted in reduced funding to cities and counties for education and other social services. As in, these weren't elected officials deciding this, these were things the people voted to do. A lot of it had to do with crimes against children (e.g. the Polly Klaas case). (yes, they were white children) And the media (mostly TV) really pushed the issue into the spotlight and created drama around it. So, that history, for me, is something that gives issues like this Poetry Magazine one, awkward overtones and associations.

Oh yeah, and speaking of rehabilitation and prisons, that was the same era where "we" (voters of CA) recalled state judges who refused to sentence people to death. The anti-Rose Bird campaign

If Poetry magazine is not platforming poems that endorse, excuse or exonerate this prof's crimes, and they fully disclose his identity and reason for being imprisoned, then they have done as much as is necessary and responsible, imo.

― Compromise isn't a principle, it's a method (Aimless), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 1:20 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is the bio that is printed with his poem (except they didn't asterisk the name):

K*** N***** is the author of the poetry collection Saint X (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2012) and the story collection Paradise Road (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007). He lives and writes in Arizona.

i'm also thinking about marilyn manson. his allure was "darkness" and violence against women was a common motif in his work. people justified it because it was "just art"... but now we learn that he really was an abusive and sadistic person with many victims...

the Strauss book came out twenty-three years ago

Marilyn Manson was obviously a cunt and a fuckwit and a talentless chancer from the get-go, anyone surprised by anything emerging about him is truly stupid.

really enjoyed her piece on being a cable installer a while back but yikes

Lauren Hough, author of Leaving Isn't The Hardest Thing, goes on an extended Twitter rant against "fucking nerds" for giving her book 4 and 4.5 star reviews. pic.twitter.com/v5S6HRWCYc

— Bad Writing Takes 🖊️ (@BadWritingTakes) April 16, 2021

(also people who swear in every sentence are so exhausting)

The only thing worse than ratings on Goodreads is people who care a lot about their ratings on Goodreads

Meanwhile it seems Philip Roth's biographer is a creep or worse

Re Hough, by the way, one of my pet peeves is writers who say "y'all" on Twitter though I recognize that in some small set of cases it may actually not be an affectation and that's why I hesitate to publicly denounce the practice

xp I'm tempted to say "birds of a feather..."

yeah the roth biographer thing is bad

oddly enough it also tangentially involves literary clusterfuck veteran ed champion

ew

It takes a clusterfucker

by the way, one of my pet peeves is writers who say "y'all" on Twitter though I recognize that in some small set of cases it may actually not be an affectation and that's why I hesitate to publicly denounce the practice

it's actually a pretty gentle way of being inclusive re trans and non-binary people that find the idiom "you guys" to be problematic. Some people use it because of regional dialect, some people use it to "sound like they're keepin it real," and others use it to try and be sensitive to gendered language standards that privilege the masculine

What's a non-US version though?

All'a yeez maybe

i assume eephus meant the people who unnecessarily sprinkle it in, like ‘y’all, i just got back from the gym, and . . .’

oh as in non-Americans are using this? ... huh. ... I can see in the case of say, a British person who has never lived in the US, that saying "y'all" could be cringe

it's a bit blood sausage in'it?

It makes me cringe when I hear other Canadians use it tbh.

Idk don't want to be sanctimonious about this stuff. I just want to try to be as unintentionally dickish as possible, like checking my use of "Dude" as a generic term, because many people see it as being gendered.

Isn't this partly generational too? Zoomers' uses of 'dude' and 'guy' appear to be more gender-neutral on average. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

one of the positive aspects of the glasgow dialect is the plural "yous". would be helpful if standard english had an equivalent

I grew up in Illinois where "you guys" was the standard; moved to Georgia in high school where I tried to adopt "y'all" as a solution to the genderedness of "you guys"; later moved back to Chicago and reverted because all the women I worked with said "you guys."

Now I live in Montreal and mostly feel confused. Saying "you all" feels laboured to me, I'm not fond of "folks" (and find "folx" perplexing, plus it's only textual). Basically I wish "y'all" wasn't perceived as cringe, because I think I could switch back to it but I certainly don't have a southern accent.

i saw somebody use "nonbinary gentlefolk" recently and honestly i'm still angry

love to use "y'all"

Since I know you're originally from the US, I wouldn't cringe if I heard you say 'y'all'.

xp

What's a non-US version though?

Imo we need to bring back 'thou'. Problem solved.

Merci, pom !

The Goodreads 5 star scale is tough, if a book is not so bad it gets set aside without being finished that’s an automatic 3+, but 5 should be reserved for truly special works. So 80% of the books I rate (via Kindle prompt) get 4 stars.

Punitive 1-star review-swarms are pretty shitty - the book is currently at 1.81 (and even if it was just the cable installer story and 300 blank pages it's better than that).

Anyway here's the Blake Bailey story

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/21/publisher-halts-philip-roth-book-amid-sexual-abuse-claims-against-biographer

I had never heard of this person so I googled and her book is about being a cult survivor apparently - the bad writing takes thread is funny in a o_0 way but idk kind of a bummer (and goodreads sucks)

I was actually also checking if she was a YA author, partly because the writers who have the unhinged self-important tantrums that end up itt always seem to be for some reason but also because of her “the joke will be on these assholes when they have to read my book in school” thing which delusions of grandeur aside suggests she thinks the reviewers are all children

I mean that's what makes it a good burn!

Read one way, maybe, but the self clowning corncob nature of the rest of the meltdown kinda suggests more that she just wanted to express “my book will be taught in schools, I’ll show everybody” but didn’t think through what she was actually saying tbh

yeah pretty certain 'they' is referring to a different group of people than 'these assholes'

authors angry at getting 4 star reviews seems part of the same disease that makes legions of stans swoop down on reviewers for giving their faves' new album a 7.5 or 8.0

I had never heard of this person so I googled and her book is about being a cult survivor apparently

This was the detail that stuck with me, and how there doesn’t seem to be any consideration (on Twitter anyway) that this trauma could affect, say, how someone behaves when their work of several years becomes public. God help anyone who is, say, bipolar and has a Twitter account when that happens.

Any author or public figure who gives a shit about such things is a fool, imo. One of the best Goodreads reviews of one of my own works was accompanied by three stars. Who the fuck cares? It's a funneling site for Amazon.

This was the detail that stuck with me, and how there doesn’t seem to be any consideration (on Twitter anyway) that this trauma could affect, say, how someone behaves when their work of several years becomes public. God help anyone who is, say, bipolar and has a Twitter account when that happens.

I think it's clear by now that social media has a detrimental effect on everyone's mental health, but when the inciting incident is "scornful anger at people for posting enthusiastic positive reviews of your work" I think it's kinda on the author to have the self-knowledge to hand the promotion keys to an assistant.

Roughly how many assistants do you think this first-time author has - like, to the nearest ten

Well apparently she has someone she pays to block ppl for her

As an East Coaster, I would like to see "youse" achieve the social acceptability of "y'all."

"yo knuckleheads" is preferred in enlightened settings

I knew a Scouse guy who'd say "alright, bollocks?" by way of collective greeting, clusterfuck solved

I doubt Hough has a legion of assistants, but one would hope there is an editor of publicist in her life that might help steer off Twitter for a few days, especially when she doubled down in some rather unfortunate ways.

I love Goodreads for recommending stuff based on the books I've read, found so much I'd otherwise have never heard of

As an East Coaster, I would like to see "youse" achieve the social acceptability of "y'all."

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:23 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Why stop there? Just go with "yinz"!

one would hope there is an editor of publicist in her life that might help steer off Twitter for a few days

Judging by the amount she (and other writers) tweet each day, it seems twitter has replaced alcohol as the author's vice

(ha, just noticed my post could have used an editor)

Roughly how many assistants do you think this first-time author has - like, to the nearest ten.

If having a social media presence is important to her success, she can afford to pay someone for it. If it isn't, then she can just keep her account private. This idea that people HAVE to be on every social media platform is enabling imo.