Is It Fair To Ask Writers To Be ‘Good Literary Citizens’?
<p>Until recently, I thought I was a pretty good literary citizen.</p>
<p>It’s true that I’m not the book world’s answer to Jimmy Stewart in <em>Mr. Smith</em> <em>Goes to Washington</em>. I’ve never gone to Congress to rail against the stranglehold Colleen Hoover has on bestseller lists or the $80 million a year James Patterson is said to make while the rest of us earn peanuts.</p>
<p>But I try to do my part. I vote for other authors’ books with my credit cards at indie bookstores. I’ve been elected vice president of a national book critics organization. I’ve given speeches at writers’ conferences to promote my political causes, such as: Write in plain English, and never say “eschew” — except ironically — when you can say “avoid.”</p>
<p>But lately I’ve learned that I’m a slacker compared with what an alarming number of editors and publishers expect.</p>
<p>In the past decade or so, the phrase “a good literary citizen” has been cropping up in articles about what writers are supposed to be. It’s become a publishing cliché when — that’s right — writers are supposed to <em>avoid</em> clichés.</p>
<p>Trite or not, the words “good literary citizen” sound harmless, even admirable. Editors and publishers seem to be asking you to be a 21st-century Thomas Jefferson wearing — in my case — a black Gap T-shirt and gray Vuori sweatpants instead of a powdered wig. Nobody wants to be publishing’s Benedict Arnold, a traitor to the cause of literature.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/the-pub/is-it-fair-to-ask-writers-to-be-good-literary-citizens-e260804d9015"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>