The CBC has announced that next year’s Canada Reads authors
will be sent on a mall tour, part of a strategy to reach a younger demographic.
Sporting bikinis and Lucite heels (regardless of gender), the writers will walk
a food court catwalk and then stand next to voting boxes where mall patrons can
pick their favourites. Shoppers not wanting to take a break between Dynamite
and H&M, can text in their preferences. The writer with the most number of
votes and facebook friends wins.
In her excoriating article in The Globe and Mail, Kathryn
Kuitenbrouwer discussed much of what made this year’s Canada Reads so abysmal.
The competition, however, is only a symptom of the fact that cultural criticism
is no longer considered sexy enough in its own right. Instead it needs to be
tarted up with reality-TV-style competitions and propped up by social media
campaigns. Beyond the tackiness, it’s dangerous. By conflating the ideas of
criticism and celebrity, we’re recasting what it means to be a writer.
Back in 2010, Russell Smith exhorted authors to
unplug and get writing. He claimed that books succeed on their own merits. Keep
your head down, keep writing and let the accolades take care of themselves.
We’re two years on and there’s a spot on the Giller long-list for the title
that got the most online votes.
***
Do you have a book coming out? Do you want to? The first
piece of advice you’ll be given is to develop a web presence. With reviews and
criticism disappearing in traditional venues, publishers need their authors to
flog books by whatever means available. Social media is cheap, requires no
supervision and when someone does it well, it can sell books. But those
successes are as few and far between as Mary Kay ladies driving pink Cadillacs.
Social media was not designed for considered commentary. It
succeeds by disseminating the business of ordinary lives in ways previously
reserved for celebrities. Our names show up in “newsfeeds”; we get tagged in
photos; our friends are tallied. We toss out the crumbs of our daily lives,
convinced there is a waiting crowd ready to receive them as pearls.
It’s also a fast medium—Twitter, Facebook and blogs are
built for snappy, superficial updates. There’s no time for the contemplation
that went into a Richler column, and certainly none of the pay.
What happens to the craft when writers need to be more
concerned with selling themselves than with honing their art? Few writers can
survive without day jobs; many also have families. There are only so many hours
in a day and the hours spent feeding blogs, Twitter and Facebook often come at
the expense of writing, reading, and observing.
Before In the Field came
out, I took the advice; got a webpage up, started a blog. I’ve written one
post. Partly it’s because any free time goes to writing, but partly it’s
because I’m more comfortable nosing into other people’s business than
displaying my own. It’s why I write fiction. After logging more than a quarter
million hours with myself, I’m quite happy to step into someone else’s
shoes.
There’s also the issue of experience. At 32, with only one
book out, I’m reminded of my grandmother’s reaction to the couple that sold the
rights to a livestream of their mutual deflowering. “What’s exciting about two
virgins having sex?”
I worry that with increased reliance on social media, and
more call for sensation to sell books, we’re cutting out a key writing
demographic—introverts. If you’re not a great publicist, if you don’t like the
spotlight, does that mean you don’t get to be a writer?
***
So where does that leave us? In fact, I take my answer from
social media’s literary success. Sites like Canadian Bookshelf (or the now
defunct Book Ninja), online writing hubs like Joyland, the multitude of
author-driven review sites, Sarah Selecky’s Twitter feed writing prompts, or
placesforwriters’ aggregation of calls for submission are all examples of ways
technology can serve the arts community. I wish I’d spent less time over the
past six months worrying about establishing an online reputation and more time
contributing to my in-the-flesh community.
We need to accept that, infuriating as it is, we’re never
going to get those spaces for criticism back in traditional media. And if we’re
going to infect non-readers with a love of literature, it’s not going to be
from masquerading as pseudo-celebrities or voting other writers off the island.
It’s going to be from being community-builders. From hosting and attending live
readings. From smart, hip initiatives like the Poetry Vending machines and
Project Bookmark. It’s going to be from talking to people (yes, even the ones
who liked Twilight) about books.
Every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment