Yesterday an email from an agent who remarked on my "seriously wonderful credentials" and noted that my memoir - in which I leave a promising career in journalism to move behind the Iron Curtain, where I marry my Polish girlfriend and witness the rise of Solidarity and the imposition of martial law - didn't sound "compelling" to her.
I suppose I need a gripping addiction or fascinating disorder.
Reading about agents and their interests, I’m struck (OK, depressed) by how many are looking for books that start discussions or alter perceptions or tackle issues. Phrases you used to find only in academia – like “intersectional feminism” – frequently pop up.
And I wonder: Are these the sorts of books Americans really want to read? Or are they the books publishers think we want – or perhaps ought – to read? Are there any agents interested simply in what most readers want: an interesting story told in an entertaining fashion?
In 2013 I wrote an essay titled “A Moving Experience” – about the emotional aspects of travel – that was published by a now-defunct online magazine.
Last week I received an email from a structural house mover in Seattle who had discovered the essay on my website. He said he had found “my insights enriching” and expressed a desire to contribute to my blog with an article entitled “the moving checklist for organizing the entire move.”
Yesterday I received an email from a publisher apologizing for the delay in acknowledging receipt of my manuscript (which was sent unsolicited) and assuring me that it would be read in due course. The publisher, of course, is Canadian.
In Sunday’s New York Times Book Review Helene Stapinski wrote: “In the hierarchy of literary respect, fiction is king, followed by historical narrative and, dead last, the lowly memoir.”
She was wrong on two counts: Poetry resides at the top and travel writing, unfairly, languishes at the bottom.
Yesterday I read a piece by a writer talking about how difficult writing is these days. It was a mildly interesting essay, but not nearly as eloquent as silence would have been.