Diminishing Readership
Finally, in the current issue of Poets & Writers, someone takes a stab at telling the truth. Joseph Bednarik, marketing director of Copper Canyon Press, pulls a few maxims from a 2004 NEA report about the state of reading and Gabriel Zaid's book, So Many Books: Reading and PUblishing in an Age of Abundance. The list reads like a blueprint of my own often recurring thoughts—edited below:
1. Production of creative writing exceeds demand.
2. MFA programs proliferate while literary reading steadily declines.
3. Publishers need financial help to get literary titles out there because sales don't support production.
4. Publishers can easily get thousands of manuscripts (with reading fees) if they sponsor a book contest.
He goes on to talk about what is wrong with this picture which is something on my mind as I try to diligently pursue the writing life. How there's a whole self-created, self-perpetuating industry pumping more writers and poets into a system and more and more writing for which there is next to no literary readership. He is appalled that many writrers currently enrolled in these abundant MFA programs don't read. As if it's enough as a writer to simply write. Bednarik's suggestion? Writers have to read, read, read. A lot.
A bloated "writership" for a dying readership. Great. Just when I settle into acceptance of the fact that I am a writer and have been dedicating my time, energy, days to it. How to rise above the discouragement? How to show up at the page and simple write?
