For years, 1455 Literary Arts has supported writers through our magazine, readings, interviews, and community programs. Along the way, one truth has become clear: too many strong voices go unheard—not because the work lacks merit, but because the system isn’t built to hold everyone.

1455 books was created in response to that truth.

I’m grateful to Jenna and the A Mighty Blaze team for creating space for this conversation and for their continued commitment to the literary arts.

If you’re curious about where 1455 books is headed—or believe publishing can be both generous and rigorous—I hope you’ll join us.

Thursday, December 18 at 4 PM ET
Watch A Mighty Blaze live on Facebook, or catch the recording later on YouTube.

About A Mighty Blaze

A Mighty Blaze is a social media community and online initiative that helps authors connect with readers to introduce their new books during the COVID 19 pandemic. New York Times bestselling novelists and co-founders Jenna Blum and Caroline Leavitt created A MIGHTY BLAZE for authors facing canceled book tours and publication challenges to bring authors and readers together daily for digital events including publication day Tuesdays, indie bookstore Wednesdays, celebrity author Thursdays, cocktail party Fridays, social media Saturdays, and giveback brunch Sundays, among other initiatives.

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(Author’s note: another throwback to my tech analyst days, this presentation ties together a bunch of threads, combining insights—then fresh; still relevant—about both the music and book industries. I talk about key findings from a decade-plus analyzing and writing about the myriad ways consumer electronics and all aspects of entertainment were evolving, as well as my personal experience, as a critic, tech writer, and early advocate for independent publishing models and marketing. I revisit this in the event it might be useful or insightful—especially for less experienced writers looking for a brief overview of where we were, where we are, and where we’re probably heading.)

From 2014.

I’m old school enough to remember typewriters. More, I used them. More still, I took a class once that, in hindsight, was perhaps the most important—or at least most practical—one from my high school years. Flash forward through college (word processor), graduate school (a PC I could access only in a computer lab) to my first computer—a miracle with a printer that could produce dot matrix pages in sixty seconds, per page. Eventually I began writing for an online-only magazine, and finally created an obligatory blog. Then e-readers came along and eventually, tablets.

As an avid (if obsessive) reader and music aficionado, I have embraced each stage of progress as it relates to the ways content is made, purchased and utilized. These innovations have inexorably made it easier and more affordable to engage with our world; indeed they have opened up or created entirely new worlds. Throw in the marketing miracles inherent in social media and the people—not the self-appointed or well-connected tastemakers—are now the arbiters of what matters and what is relevant. This is a very good thing.

In Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (still his masterpiece, in my humble opinion, though I retain a soft spot for Bottle Rocket, which I wrote about almost exactly ten years ago), hangdog extraordinaire Herman Blume (still Bill Murray’s best role, in my not-so-humble opinion)—long past lamenting what he’s gotten himself into, teaming up with exasperating wunderkind Max Fischer (still Jason Schwartzman’s best work, which no one can dispute)—assesses their latest scheme with resigned disbelief. “I spent eight million dollars on this,” he says. And Max, illustrating why, for all his foibles, his irrepressible (even delusional) optimism is the queer key to his success, asks, “And is that all you’re willing to spend?”

What does this have to do with writing? Well, not much. Except, you know, everything.

The money, of course, is a metaphor, at least as it applies to writers.

I thought of this epic scene while reading Emily Winter’s wonderful piece in the New York Times “I Got Rejected 101 Times.”

Only 101 times? I thought, sardonically, but in solidarity. And is that all you’re willing to endure?

When it comes to the long game of serious and sustained writing, virtually every essay I’ve ever read by any celebrated author mentions persistence. Talent, yes; hard work, obviously. But the word that comes up over and over is persistence. (More on that, here.) Famous authors frequently talk about peers or students who possess unbelievable ability, but give up, get complacent, can’t handle the rejection. And the proverbial bell tolls for any writer, at any level, who doesn’t merely understand, but embrace the reality of rejection being the one unalterable thing.

To her considerable credit, the point of Winter’s piece is acknowledging not only that rejection is inevitable, but—if accepted and processed with a positive attitude—at times useful. For one thing, it thickens the skin. For another, it’s imperative to keep from doing nothing; even the most haphazard schemes and dreams (once again invoking our friend Max Fischer) are antidotes to apathy. And, as any worthwhile writer understands, it’s not uncommon for initial failure to lead to opportunity, revision, improvement. Et cetera.

Needless to say, I know of what I speak. Oh, I know. I’ve experienced enough rejection that I can actually look back, with nostalgia, at the years when I saved each rejection slip (these were the not-so-great-old-days when writers printed poems and stories, put them in a large envelope with obligatory SASE, drove to the post office, paid to have them mailed to the desired literary magazine, and then waited weeks, or much more often, months, for that SASE to come back…rinse, wash, repeat), so that I might savor them once I eventually, inevitably, became a best-selling author. This was a practice I eventually discontinued, if for no other reason than to avoid being the first hoarder whose house became uninhabitable due to a pitiful topiary of rejection slips.

In 2015, I had the opportunity to write in some detail about a particularly memorable rejection, courtesy of The Quivering Pen, a fantastic site for writers (and readers) curated by David Abrams (himself an excellent reader and writer: check him out, here). That piece, entitled “My First Time,” is revisited below. I’d love to hear from you and your experience with rejection, especially how you’ve used it as motivation. Drop a line or leave a comment!

Let’s talk about the first.

There’s the first story I wrote. (Original story: fifth grade; vaguely plagiarized ones where, looking back and with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, imitation was the sincerest form of flattery: third and fourth grades.)

There’s the first “adult” book I read. (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, fourth grade. Huge mistake. Having seen the movies and read some comic book treatments, I thought I was ready for the real thing. It took me more than halfway through to understand Frankenstein was not, in fact, the monster.)

There’s the first success. (Being asked to compose and recite an original poem for an eighth-grade student assembly.)

There’s the first readership. (A series of features I wrote for my high school newspaper. For a teenager, a printed byline is as close to the big-time as it got, at least in the old-school era before social media and blogs.)

There’s the first publication. (A poem in my college literary magazine.)

There’s the first “important” publication. (A short story in another, better-known literary magazine.)

There’s the first in a series of unfortunate events. (Also known as writing workshops, wherein the cocky writer’s work gets, well, workshopped. Hilarity does not often ensue.)

There’s the first in a longer series of ceaseless rejection. (No comment necessary.)

There’s the first short story I knew would make me famous. (It’s still unpublished.)

There’s the first attempt at a novel. (Also unpublished. Fortunately, for all involved.)

There’s the subsequent, earnest attempt at a first novel. (Still a work-in-progress. Sort of.)

Nothing especially unique or noteworthy, right? All of these events or experiences were stepping stones most, if not all, writers will recognize and relate to. There is an evolution comprised of myriad firsts (and lasts), but what separates all but the most successful and/or lucky authors is what happens after the familiar epiphanies of the apprentice have occurred and it gets to the eventual, inevitable matter of perseverance.

The “first” that was, if not unique, for me the most formative and indelible, involved rejection and resolve.

Let me tell you a story: a famous writer saw a first chapter of this aforementioned novel. Famous writer picks up phone (people still used phones in those days) and tells unknown writer that he loves the material and wants his agent to look at it. Agent receives chapter, loves it too, and asks to see entire manuscript on an exclusive basis. Unknown writer thinks: this is it, the big break, the moment of truth, and other clichés. An entire summer passes, which is unfortunate. It happens to be the same summer unknown writer’s mother—who has been battling cancer for five years—begins to lose her final battle. By the time unknown writer’s mother passes away, the novel, the agent and the famous writer are about the farthest things from his mind. On the day of mother’s funeral, unknown writer makes the ill-advised decision to check his email before leaving the house. He sees the overdue email from agent. Something tells him not to open it, but of course he has to; according to logic and everything right in the world, not to mention the imperative of Cliché, this is the perfect time to see he’s about to be represented and eventually published, and this is the miracle he’ll employ to overcome his grief, and he’ll dedicate this book to his mother, without whom he could never have written it, or written anything.

Naturally, the email is, in fact, a rather terse (but apologetic) rejection.

And this unknown writer, in spite of himself, looks past the computer, looks beyond his disbelief, and looks out to whomever or whatever may be listening (or orchestrating this test of faith) and can’t quite believe hearing the words, in a voice that sounds a lot like his: “Is that all you got?”

No, this is not going to be the final, unkindest cut, the sign that failure is inevitable, the signal that it’s better to move on to other things, the message that it’s not meant to be. I’m not doing this, he thinks, because I want to, or that I hope to prove anything, or become famous (he has put away childish things). I’m doing this, he knows, because he doesn’t know what else he could possibly do with himself. He does it, he finally understands, because there’s nothing else he could imagine himself doing. And that the only failure is to stop. To be afraid, to give up.

It wasn’t the first rejection, obviously, and while it may be the biggest, it wasn’t the last. In addition to death and taxes, writers recognize at some point, however resignedly, that rejection will always be on offer, for free, forever.

And ultimately it mattered only in the sense that it didn’t matter. Or, it mattered a great deal in the sense that it was not enough to dissuade or discourage him from stumbling down a path he made up as he went along; that revealed itself only when he looked back on another piece of writing and thought: Good thing I didn’t stop.

This was the most important first, the first day of the rest of my life.

While it would, of course, been amazing to participate in person, in Ireland, it was my honor to be part of the virtual proceedings for this year’s International Dublin Writers’ Festival. (More about this event and its founder, Laurence O’Bryan, here.)

My conversation revolved around the broad but ever-pertinent topic of technology and writing. Whether we’re talking AI or the available innovations many writers can—and should—be taking advantage of, this intersection between creativity and digital realities is crucial. Of course, I approach these matters from a variety of angles: as a writer with skin (or ink) in the game, as a former tech analyst who spent years comparing and contrasting how different industries were being impacted (helped, hindered, and everything in between) by Tech-with-a-capital-T, and as a non-profit founder whose primary goal is to connect storytellers and use every available tool to create community. I know enough to be painfully aware that I’m no expert, but I also know a thing or two.

I’ll make a quick note, which I’ve done before, to suggest that writers of or near my age (old school Gen X) have a unique perspective: we came up in an almost entirely analog world, then watched it gradually go digital, with everything from word processors to video games, compact discs and DVDs, the internet (duh) and email, blogs and online journals, social media and self-publishing. Point being, whether you care one bit about art or artists (or how artists make art), you are both aware of and necessarily invested in the state of things, culturally, financially, and personally speaking.

Spoiler alert: I’m very bullish on the notion of embracing every possible advantage or tool, because the “bad guys” are already doing so (think everyone from Elon Musk to the anonymous cretins who are spamming or else trying to scam you 24/7). Put simply, one reason I lean into the myriad capabilities of technology is that they do more to assist creatives than impede them. As I’m fond of repeating, as ostensibly uncomplicated as things were back in “the day” (think 20th Century), the ugly fact is, if you couldn’t get past the (largely white male dominated) gatekeeping mechanisms, your excellent writing would not, could not, be published. That alone is reason to celebrate the messy info-overload of digital Everything: at least now the proverbial playing field has been leveled, and most writers have a fighting chance to find an audience. Whether or not you have any appetite to “build your brand” everything we do, circa 2025, is an exercise in PR: unless you’ve cultivated an entirely offline existence (which speaks to certain privileges), you are telling (selling?) your story all day, every day.

Some excerpted clips, below, followed by a link to the complete conversation.

Full conversation with Laurence O’Bryan, via link below.

#PublishingReinvented

#PublishingReinvented 302 - Technology & Writing - A Video Masterclass #IDWF25

This video is one of the online sessions for the International Dublin Writer’s Festival coming September 19th-21st live in Dublin…

Listen now

a year ago · 9 likes · BooksGoSocial

(From 2024)

I was thrilled to participate in an interview with Authority Magazine, back in 2021, to coincide with the release of my first poetry collection The Blackened Blues. Check it out in all its glory here, and the accompanying video here.

Some Things Considered with Sean Murphy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What can writing poetry teach us about ourselves?

Poetry has the possibility of teaching us so many things, and in ways that cut across economic, geographic, and even historical barriers. An exceptional poem can present the lived experience of a life we don’t know or could only imagine, or it can remind us that most human beings are desperate for the same things: love, peace, understanding, justice, compassion, connection, beauty. Poetry works on macro and micro levels: it reveals recurring themes (good, bad, ugly) in human history, and homes in on what makes kings, soldiers, parents, orphans, the working poor and the wealthiest one percent identical: we all, on some level, are seeking meaning in our brief time on this planet. There is a quiet power in the ways poems unite communities.)

I was equally, if not more excited, to participate in another Q&A, this time around my new story collection This Kind of Man, which gave me not only a chance to discuss and describe this project, but also expand (expound?) on the power of storytelling.

It’s a pretty long feature, so I’ll leave some highlights and provide a link to the full conversation, here.

Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?

This Kind of Man seeks to pose a rhetorical question: how much of the anger and miscommunication that prevails in America is the result of an outdated and dysfunctional notion of masculinity? How does not being taught to communicate openly or honestly, or show vulnerability, or cultivate empathy result in an inevitable feeling of alienation, loneliness, and despair? By looking honestly at these questions, we might establish some positive dialogue that could lead to changes our typical political discourse is not facilitating.

Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?

This collection is definitely not thinly veiled autobiography, but most fiction is inspired by true stories, or something the writer has heard or seen. In the case of the story “Winning,” I describe a father-son dynamic that is the exact opposite of my own. My dad is very much an “old school” type, but growing up, he would not tolerate poor sportsmanship, or bullying, and his Boston-Irish sensibility instilled in me an appreciation for the underdog. As such, I not only had a role model of positive masculinity, but can appreciate the ways less savory examples (from our fathers, teachers, coaches) lead to the types of toxicity I depict throughout my book.

What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?

Before I was a writer, I was an avid reader. As someone whose life was profoundly impacted by the arts, I understood, early on, that creativity can provide insight, connections, and the aspiration to transcend our circumstances. Having personally been affected by the poetry, journalism, and fiction I’ve read, I believe writing has the magical power of reminding us that all barriers (cultural, language, historical) are less significant than our shared humanity. Some of the characters in my book represent the kinds of men who likely won’t (or can’t) tell their own stories, but I am convinced their stories need to be told, with curiosity, empathy, and respect.

Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?

Yes! I was at a reading event just last week, and a person approached me after and thanked me for writing a book that would help him talk to his own father. He admitted that he simply could not discuss politics or religion (and how many of us, especially in 2024, can relate to this?) with his dad, but he felt if his father read my book, it would provide an incentive, a sort of delivery device for the kinds of conversations they’ve never been able to have. This is precisely the type of response I hope my book can encourage; if anything I’ve written can help establish connection or prompt a more positive discussion, that’s the best outcome — and something I’d be gratified and humbled to play a small part in facilitating.

Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?

Yes! I not only write, but run a non-profit and direct a college program that focus on the power of storytelling. I believe sharing stories is the most effective way for human beings to feel heard, which leads to respect and compassion. So much of what we’re lacking today comes from a zero-sum game where one person or party has to “win” at all costs, and there’s no room for compromise. I think this carries over to the pathology of late-stage capitalism where we idly watch CEOs make millions (or billions!) while using a fixed system to avoid taxes while hard-working Americans have few exceptions or excuses — this breeds anger and a sense of injustice. I also think, while we’ve made significant strides, we still have a long way to go in terms of making our country a place where one’s sex, race, or status does not preclude them from living their best life. Instead of the backward and embarrassing move to ban books, we should be celebrating the ways art challenges and inspires us.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I seize any opportunity to invoke George Orwell, a writer whose influence has been indescribably positive. In his immortal essay “Why I Write” he states “the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” He is not only correct, but this single sentence illustrates the way he was able to succinctly articulate the deepest truths. I’ve kept this quote in mind throughout my writing life, and it serves as both guide and inspiration for remembering that the purpose of art is to elucidate, to convince, to connect.

(From 2021)

Poetry is growing in popularity and millions of people spanning the globe have a renewed passion for embracing the creativity, beauty, and art of poetry. Poetry has the power to heal and we make sense of the world through the human expression of writing and reading. Are you wondering: What does it take to become a successful poet? What is the best medium and venue to release your poetry? What are some techniques to improve or sharpen your skills? In this interview series about how to write powerful and evocative poetry, we are interviewing people who have a love for poetry and want to share their insights, and we will speak with emerging poets who want to learn more about poetry either to improve their own skills or learn how to read and interpret better. Here, we will also meet rising and successful poets who want to share their work or broaden their audience, as well as poetry and literature instructors.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Murphy.

Sean Murphy has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Memoir Magazine, and others. His chapbook, The Blackened Blues, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and served as writer-in-residence of the Noepe Center at Martha’s Vineyard. He’s Founding Director of 1455 (www.1455litarts.org). To learn more, and read his published short fiction, poetry, and criticism, please visit seanmurphy.net/ and @bullmurph.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to poetry?

The first poet (and writer, really) who made a profound impression on me was Edgar Allan Poe. Some of his celebrated poems seem repetitive and overwrought to older and more experienced readers, but for aspiring writers, they open up the possibilities of using words to express feelings; his exuberance is liberating for young or aspiring poets, and Poe remains an ideal gateway to the great poets who came before and after him.

Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects?

My collection, The Blackened Blues (Finishing Line Press, July 2021), is part of a larger, ongoing project that explores artists and cultural figures who remain far less celebrated than they deserve to be. As it happens, many of them are musicians, hampered in various ways by discrimination, ranging from racism to indifference. This project seeks to capture something essential about their lives, bearing witness while paying homage.

I’m happy to recently learn that my poem “Sonny Rollins’s Bridge” (which appears in The Blackened Blues) was nominated by Burningword Lit Journal for their Best-of-Net awards.

Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. What is your definition of poetry? Can you please share with us what poetry means to you?

Having written, read, and even judged a great deal of poetry (for 1455’s annual Teen Poetry Contest), I’m happy to report that my definition of poetry is ever-expanding. I think all art forms are in a constant state of evolution, and the best poets are at once very familiar with the traditional masters while finding their own styles and voices to push the medium forward. I believe the key to a superior poem is consistent with excellent writing in general, and metaphors in particular: finding ways to describe things in fresh, occasionally revelatory ways. The poetry that moves me helps me understand something or someone on a deeper level; a superior poem stays read, and remains indelibly inside the mind — great writing literally becomes part of you.

What can writing poetry teach us about ourselves?

Poetry has the possibility of teaching us so many things, and in ways that cut across economic, geographic, and even historical barriers. An exceptional poem can present the lived experience of a life we don’t know or could only imagine, or it can remind us that most human beings are desperate for the same things: love, peace, understanding, justice, compassion, connection, beauty. Poetry works on macro and micro levels: it reveals recurring themes (good, bad, ugly) in human history, and homes in on what makes kings, soldiers, parents, orphans, the working poor and the wealthiest one percent identical: we all, on some level, are seeking meaning in our brief time on this planet. There is a quiet power in the ways poems unite communities.

Who are your favorite poets? Is it their style, the content or something else that resonates with you?

My favorite poet is the great Czeslaw Milosz who, for me, is the Platonic ideal of an artist in an increasingly disconnected world. He was an intellectual of the old school and could compose and appreciate poetry as both a writer and teacher. His poetry of witness epitomizes what’s noble about great art: it strives for profundity and beauty, but is rooted in an appreciation — and acknowledgment — of our shared humanity. Having seen some of the atrocity mankind is capable of, his work uses words to elegize, accuse, and above all, remember. He came to deploy an almost godlike wisdom and virtuosity, but he remained humble, relatable, refreshingly human. There are so many others to list, but Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats are ceaseless sources of inspiration, and with delight I’d point people to 1455’s 3rd Annual Summer Fest: our panel “Inspiration Information: Black Women Poets” showcases some of the best and most brilliant contemporary poets, and seeing them read their amazing work is electrifying (that reading, and every other session from the festival, streaming free at 1455’s YouTube page.

If you could ask your favourite poet a question, what would it be?

Everything I’d need to know I can glean from his poems, so if I’d been able to sit down with Czeslaw Milosz I would have enjoyed hearing him talk about his influences and literary heroes, as well as his artistic and spiritual sources of inspiration.

Poetry can be transformational. Is there a particular poem that spoke to you and changed your life or altered a perspective you held in some way? Can you share the story?

A poem that changed (and continues to change) my life is “When I Have Fears” by John Keats.

This particular work resonates with each successive generation because it grapples with the most profound fear any of us will ever experience: the acknowledgment that we will inexorably perish, not knowing what actually awaits us once we’re gone.

If you are a certain age, or a certain type of person (or both) when you first encounter these lines, they lodge themselves somewhere deep and remain there forever. That is the gift the poet gives you; your gift in return is to read and receive the work and by never forgetting it you ensure the artist never dies. John Keats will remain immortal as long as humans are capable of reading words. Had he been aware of this while he struggled with tuberculosis that would take his life at 25, perhaps it might have offered some consolation that money, fame, and even health could never approximate.

Today’s world needs so much healing. Can you help articulate how poetry can help us heal?

Like the best art, poems inspire dialogue: they seek understanding, they inspire solidarity. In a time where we’re seeing a general lack of courage and common sense (by our elected leaders, by our neighbors), poems are at once an indictment and an aspiration to our better angels. As always, we hear our politicians and self-appointed spokespersons eager to opine (but seldom enlighten or console), and as ever, it’s our poets, whom Percy Bysshe Shelley famously declared “unacknowledged legislators of the world,” who best explain and interrogate our lives. Poetry has the magic that technology can’t touch — it connects our ancient culture to our possible futures and is informed by the impulse to communicate, connect, enlighten, and inform.

We’d like to learn more about your poetry and writing. How would you describe yourself as a poet? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style or main message?

That’s a great (if challenging!) question. I will say that, while I’ve written a great deal of fiction, it’s difficult to isolate where certain ideas come from, or what one is hoping to “achieve” other than tell an interesting story. With poetry, my goals are more concrete and deliberate. Much of the non-fiction I’ve written the last two decades has focused on music, books, movies, and politics. I still love writing essays, as it’s a direct way to engage, and it keeps certain intellectual muscles sharp, but in the last five or so years, I’ve channeled these desires to interrogate the intersection of creativity and humanity in a more artistic way. As such, many of the poems from The Blackened Blues utilize my knowledge of and passion for jazz music (and specific musicians) to somehow integrate biography, commentary, and a celebration of their genius. The final poem in the collection (“Henry Chinaski’s Horses”) concludes with the lines below, which I feel simultaneously explore what it means to be an artist in a world that often doesn’t understand or certainly doesn’t encourage art, and how to keep faith (in one’s art; in oneself) no matter how the work is received. Not least, it’s a gesture of solidarity to underdogs, whether artistic or just the human being trying to get by during tough times.

Success is a salve that quenches a cultivated kind of thirst, and what matters, finally, isn’t how you walk through the fire, but the resolve to put your feet forward in the first place, urging all those ideas to sneak up like solved secrets: Reminders that even Long-Shots need somewhere to go.

What do you hope to achieve with your poetry?

So much of my poetry is inspired either by other artists (particularly those who are no longer with us and weren’t particularly appreciated while they were here) or injustice of some sort; if I can, in a creative and inviting way, stimulate some curiosity, or initiate a dialogue, or simply point people toward personal heroes whose art might change their lives for the better, I believe that’s a worthwhile use of my time and talent.

In your opinion and from your experience, what are 3 things everyone can learn from poetry?

This is a fantastic question, and entire books have, understandably, been written hoping to address it. It’s difficult to pick just three things, but it’s also easy to narrow my list down to the ones I feel are most essential.

• First, curiosity: what can we learn from the poet about a person or place or situation we don’t have a personal understanding of or connection to?

• Second, humility: very often poets are writing (for themselves or others) and giving voice to those who can’t account for themselves — because of political oppression, economic or cultural factors, or because they passed before they had an opportunity to complete their work. In a world where we spend so much time in our own heads, worried about our own concerns (trivial or otherwise), it’s always useful to be reminded how many people are struggling just to survive; how many people are working harder than they should while a small percentage of obscenely wealthy people carve out more for themselves.

• And connecting the first two is empathy: if our perceptions are challenged, they’ll often expand; it’s healthy and necessary to question what we’re taught, things we’ve read and heard, and how our lived experience is not universal or even typical compared to how the vast majority of human beings exist; I’d humbly suggest that humanity suffers from a profound lack of empathy, and that accounts for so much needless confusion and suffering. Poetry can’t necessarily remedy these things, but as the great William Carlos Williams wrote: “It is difficult to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack of what is found there.”

Based on your own experience and success, what are the “five things a poet needs to know to create beautiful and evocative poetry?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1. Be original! George Orwell’s writing can never be recommended enough, but his writing about writing is invaluable. One piece of advice I’ve never forgotten involves cliches: if you’re using a description (or especially a metaphor) you’ve already seen, you’re not being original.

2. Be honest. Are you using words, images, or ideas that come from a genuine place, or are you trying to appear profound? The best way to avoid pretension is to come from an honest, authentic place.

3. Be vulnerable. Most of us put up a variety of barriers to protect our feelings, and in an increasingly online world, we curate our personal brands like full-time marketing departments. This is fatal to effective poetry. The work that matters reminds readers that few of our thoughts or feelings (particularly ones involving fear or insecurity) are unique; we all have relatable struggles, and poems that either address these or suggest ways to overcome them will connect with an audience.

4. Be generous. A curious and empathetic poet is a generous poet; it’s impossible to write narrow or self-indulgent work if the poet is fascinated by other people and has a compulsion to connect dots that speak to our shared experiences. The best poets can make two people separated by country or race or sex or even generations understand and appreciate what makes them both human — which is at once humbling and empowering.

5. Be relentless. The more difficult it is for the poet to be satisfied (which involves honesty, originality, vulnerability and even generosity), the more likely they’re pushing themselves to create meaningful work that will stand out from the uninspired stuff that’s easily forgotten. The poet should ask: have I expressed these thoughts as clearly as possible? Have I used images that seem fresh and real? Is this poem too obviously in debt to certain influences? Am I seeking to cultivate or develop my own style? Is this something I will be able to read (to myself, to an audience) a month or year, or a decade from now? Artists with integrity often know when a work is ready to present to the world because they’re unwilling to share it until it feels complete.

If you were to encourage others to write poetry, what would you tell them?

See the answer(s) above, but I’d say the first rule of writing is to write! Write often, write poorly (trust me, it’s inevitable), write with the goal of always improving, and write as though nothing else is as important. If you aren’t writing work that you feel is vital, how can you (how dare you) assume anyone else will be interested? And, we hear this a lot because it happens to be true: read, read, read.

How would you finish these three sentences:

Poetry teaches…us what makes us unique, and also what connects us, as human beings.

Poetry heals by… forcing us to ask questions, understand that there are often many answers to each question, and that by seeing ourselves in others (and vice versa) we’re less likely to be intolerant, or lazy, or unkind. To be a poet, you need to…love words, love the world, love other people, and always remember that you have to love life and yourself.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment , Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂

I’ll cheat and name two!

I’m certain I’m not the first writer to say this, but I’d love to give a shout out to President Obama. I appreciate that he is not only an exceptionally gifted author, but he uses his influence and platform to encourage reading, provide a showcase for worthy artists, and encourage the types of meaningful connections that art can facilitate. I’d love to chat with President Obama for a number of reasons, but I’d especially love to hear more about the artists who have helped him on his path, and what he’s learned as a writer and reader from being the most powerful person on the planet. I also think he might enjoy some of the poems in The Blackened Blues!

I include myself as one of the countless apprentices who declare appreciation of and allegiance to Stephen King. I discovered him at the ideal age (is there a wrong age?) and he was the first writer who made the art of writing at once magical and somehow approachable; the fact that he was alive (as opposed to, say Poe, or some of the other legends I’d encountered) made him a hero to emulate. I owe him the debt of being inspired and awakened, in some way, to the myriad possibilities of the creative life. I’ve continued to watch, amazed, as he perfects his craft, leading by example: he puts in the work, seemingly without pause and always with undiminished passion — and his devotion to the craft is a model for any artist to emulate. I would love to talk with him about the works that changed my life, including some of the stories and scenes I’ll always carry inside me, equal parts touchstones and talismans. I’ve been writing long enough to appreciate there are no short-cuts or secrets to exchange, but I’d still savor a chance to hear him describe what drives him, and what works he has internalized for solace and inspiration.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can see what I do every day at my nonprofit’s website 1455litarts.org (and discover a ton of talented and incredible writers whom we’ve interviewed or profiled); you can read my blog at bullmurph.com, or see a bunch of my fiction, non-fiction, and poetry at seanmurphy.net.

Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.

Thanks to Authority Magazine for this opportunity. More on The Blackened Blues, here.

image courtesy of Alex Gregory, via The New Yorker

Even though I write (for fun, for real and forever), I would still say that music has always been the central element of my existence. Or the elemental center. Writing is a compulsion, a hobby, a skill, a craft, an obsession, a mystery and at times a burden. Music simply is. For just about anyone, all you need is an ear (or two); that is all that’s required for it to work its magic. But, as many people come to realize, if you approach it with your mind, and your heart and, eventually (inevitably) your soul, it is capable of making you aware of other worlds, it can help you achieve the satisfaction material possessions are intended to inspire, it will help you feel the feelings drugs are designed to approximate. Et cetera.

You can’t believe everything you read, but you can always have faith in what you hear; the ears never lie. Not when it comes to music.

In a previous post, I took a deep dive on writers and routines. I’m certain that some writers require silence, while some (probably of recent generations) are so used to music, it’s such an inextricable part of their existence, that it’s probably also inseparable from their writing. For me, silence can be distracting; music is ceaselessly stimulating, always helpful, always necessary.

In the spirit of sharing, creativity, and inspiration, here are some playlists I put together.

JAZZ:

CLASSICAL:

WORLD MUSIC:

ACOUSTIC GUITAR:

UNCLASSIFIABLE:

PROG ROCK:

REGGAE:

(From 2018)

I was happy to come across this excellent essay, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Writing Group” by Kaethe Schwehn (courtesy of the indispensable Lit Hub, a handful of sites that I read daily, without fail).

A firsthand account of her experience at first disdaining, then craving the community she discovered, Schwehn deconstructs, or at least complicates the #2 Myth of writers: that of the solitary genius (the #1 Myth, of course, is that all writers are depressed, or worse, that one needs to suffer—often in spectacularly self-inflicted fashion—in order to produce art; the #3 Myth, incidentally, involves everything everyone wrongly believes about writers, including the wealth we don’t accrue, the way we look when we write, e.g., not the way it’s ever depicted in films, and that one is either born a writer or not—which directly feeds Myth #2).

“I believed in the solitary genius myth, but believing in it had made me sad and lonely and depressed,” Schwehn admits. Of course, the only thing more pitiful—and unnecessary—than the solitary genius myth is the solitary so-so writer myth. In either case, being alone, or at least minimally distracted, is important for productivity, but what about the need for feedback, for camaraderie, for sanity?

Let me stand up and be counted: I do not and have never belonged to any writing groups. I’m certain there are myriad ways my writing (and, sigh, networking) would benefit from regular interaction with fellow writers. However, I’ve been productive, stubborn, and successful (in my modest, quiet, and non-remunerative fashion) enough to plod on, alone and mostly content. So, I’m not one to advocate writing groups, per se. But I endorse them, and have never doubted why they’re so useful for so many people. Like any endeavor, alone or in an ensemble, there seems to be only one immutable rule: you tend to get out what you put in.

Not one to join any group that might have me as a member, I have nevertheless come to understand that going solo is all-advised. Indeed, when it comes to writing—and what happens before, during, and after a writer writes—the more involved, the merrier. For me, this revelation was facilitated by my first experience at a writing residency. I spent two weeks in early 2015 at the Noepe Center for Literary Arts, and it was, in almost every sense of the cliché, a game changer. In addition to being every bit as industrious as I’d hoped, I met fellow scribblers, all of whom I learned from (and laughed with) and more than a handful I count as dear friends, three years later.

This experience was super-sized when I accepted the generous offer to spend 2016 as the writer-in-residence at Noepe. What I experienced, every single day, was transformative.

Yes, validation is essential, and often in short supply. But serious writers (or writers who take their writing as seriously as their lives) need and, more importantly, want feedback: constructive criticism, ideally within an intimate environment wherein they can test-drive their prose and poems in progress, to see if it passes the “reading” test. There’s no quantifiable formula for this, but anyone who has read anything in front of other writers understands what does (or doesn’t) happen. (Hint: applause, cocktail-assisted approbation, and even the author’s own instincts are mostly unreliable. It’s in everyone’s eyes; it’s always in the eyes.)

And let’s not undersell the value of solidarity. What I felt, and heard expressed by visiting residents, was a type of energy, that distinctive vibe typically otherwise available only within academia. For those of us not surrounded by students and faculty on a regular basis (and, interestingly, even for those who are), opportunities to interact and learn from others are to be cherished.

So, what happens, exactly, at a writing residency?

Predictably, people who are intense about an unfettered opportunity to create are diligent and focused. This, above all, is its own reward—and more than justifies the time and money residencies require. As important, writers can dialog, network, and commiserate in ways accessible only in online forums or, at best, one-off workshops. A cynic might suggest a residency becomes a camp for adults, and that’s not half-wrong. But for writers inured to the sacrifice and seclusion involved in the craft, just being around a mutually compulsive clique becomes at once affirmative and addicting.

A thriving literary arts center ideally becomes a destination, a prolific alliance where diverse but likeminded artisans come to create. Efficiency is augmented by expertise and creates an entirely positive ambiance. It sustains itself by never being static: each day new works are being shaped and revised, and the world is rewarded, accordingly. And then, the idea of works in progress aptly describes what’s written, and what’s being lived.

I’ve been immersed in the art world, both as writer and advocate (as well as a teacher, critic, and mostly ardent fan) for the last several decades. I’ve seen a lot of things unfold, in real time, and as such, have opinions.

Everything, of course, is evolving and changing, at speed, all the time. Technology, in the 21st Century, has super-sized and intensified these trends, and more and more, we’ve grown accustomed to all the things we used to understand clearly being in flux. It’s the new normal. Naturally, this applies to media (in general) and the publishing industries (in particular). Only more so.

It’s interesting to read Washington Post books critic—and 1455 Storyteller of the Year, 2022—Ron Charles (on the disappearance of book reviews and outlets that will formally provide them), Bob Lefsetz (on Spotify as hero or villain or both or neither--and what digital streaming says--and does not explain--about the state of the music industry), and this interview with the immortal John Fogerty (via The Guardian, an invaluable, independent source of news you should endorse and support, financially), who has turned 80 (!), talking, again, about his truly unbelievable experiences with irredeemable scumbag Saul Zaentz (he produced some epic cinema, which earns him some aesthetic and karmic credits, but he was still an absolute cretin: note to his people: please sue me).

What these stories, taken together, signify is something I’ve witnessed for these decades: they exemplify, in no particular order, how difficult it is to be a creative and pursue any kind of artistic path, how crucial it is to identify and nurture some type of audience, how we must acknowledge the various arts industries are being at once democratized and corporatized (itself an ostensibly impossible formula that is, as ever, both good and awful for storytellers), while also concluding that the 20th C, for all its myriad shortcomings and the iniquities it perpetuated, was a golden age of sorts (for the more successful authors and musicians, anyway) and that system—and its network of support and promotion—is never, ever coming back.

All of which is to say, it actually was the best of times and worst of times. Put more simply, how is it possible that John Fogerty was one of the most prolific and successful rock stars of the ‘60s and was essentially broke? See: Zaentz, scumbag. And how Fogerty’s debacle is very far from unusual; how it was baked into the system to screw over artists. This was just how business was done in the bad old days. (Not only were countless musicians defrauded in a rigged system, obviously, naturally, inevitably, our black icons in the blues & jazz genres got hit the hardest, to degrees that should inspire a seething hatred that never cools.) It had always been thus and, to a large extent, always would have been. At least until the Internet came along, and the old world order exploded (or imploded, or both). This caused chaos and we’re still sorting through the shock waves (see: Spotify and what it means to be a working musician, or Amazon and how it represents the best thing to ever happen to writers or the worst, or both).

My take? The digital tsunami came, and if we can’t put toothpaste back in the tube, visualize putting an entire ocean back into a baby bottle. Not happening, not possible. So even if debate should rage about the pros and cons, the reality is what it is. Horse-drawn carriages ain’t coming back, neither are word processors or encyclopedias, and certainly, the days of $15.99 compact discs are buried in the land fill (good riddance). And on balance, I welcome the disruption of streaming, self-publishing, and the new hustle that every artist has to master, circa 2025.

Why? Because while these technological and cultural shifts have undeniably removed bulwarks of stability and support, only the elite would argue that the old system wasn’t super inclusive, immoral and, yes, very elitist. If you were good or lucky enough to create a breakthrough title, you might make a very nice living as a novelist or singer/songwriter. But how many thousands (millions?) of great books, albums, articles, and works of art languished in drawers or hard drives because they didn’t connect with the (very insular, very NYC, very white) editors and agents who held the keys to the kingdom? (And only a self-interested elitist would deny that these agents and editors are motivated primarily by the profit motive; it’s understandable—everyone has to pay bills—but to position these old school gatekeepers as benevolent protectors of culture is both hysterical and disingenuous.)

Is it welcome news that nonprofits are losing funding, universities are scrapping programs, established authors have less support and need to learn entirely new skill sets (becoming, if not proficient, at least passingly familiar with things like websites, mail-lists, marketing, and PR)? Not necessarily. But within this horrifying, complicated, unpredictable, exciting vortex exists the possibility of a leveled playing field (the old playing field having been itself leveled by the one-two punch of sociopolitical reality and late-stage capitalism which, you’ll notice, last year’s NYT bestsellers and book chains never decried when they were positioned, comfortably, at the trough).

If we look to Amazon or Spotify, these expanding platforms are unwieldy, almost impossible to navigate, but the possibility of discovery is unprecedented. Speaking personally as a music obsessive, on a weekly basis the (dreaded?) algorithms serve up artists I’ve never heard of (and, safe to say, never would have heard of before streaming services, in part because outside of streaming they would have been impossible to find but also, and sadly, they likely would never have had the possibility of putting their music into the world: just like books had to be literally made and sold, so too did albums and CDs).

Nostalgia is enticing, addictive, irresistible, free. But it is a feeling, and feelings can’t resurrect outdated, irrelevant, in some instances immoral systems. Recognize things can—and should—be better, more equitable, more inclusive, and do something besides whine (subscribe to a Substack, buy an independent musician’s new vinyl—or pay for a digital download—cut a check to a non-profit offering up free content). Ultimately, we should celebrate digital content and print/create on demand: these options are more environmentally friendly (look up what pulp as a verb means and how it epitomizes the incompetence, inefficiency, and iniquity of the old publishing model), and most crucially, they put the power in the hands of the creators, where it should be.

So much goes on behind the scenes before any conversation, or presentation (or classroom lecture, or book, or…you get the picture), it seems worth sharing some of the pre-gaming that occurred before my recent appearance on Lisa Cooper Ellison’s excellent Writing Your Resilience podcast (video of the chat below). Even though we agreed it would be both fun and preferable to have an unscripted conversation, most serious podcasters like to tee up some talking points for prep—or even points of departure for the eventual discussion. Lisa sent me some high level questions, and I spent some time ruminating and jotting down notes. As it happened, much of the subsequent Q&A was indeed off the cuff and “in the moment,” so as a companion piece to the final product, here are my very rough sketches.

You’ve been in the business for decades and watched it evolve, and at times devolve into something that can strip away all hope. What keeps you motivated to stay with it? How has your podcast helped with this?

Whether or not this is provable, I’m more convinced than ever that the work itself, at a certain point, has to be the reward. Why else would anyone put up with the isolation, anxiety, ceaseless rejection, self-doubt, etc.? Because the occasional feelings of achievement or satisfaction scratch an itch that no other feeling can approximate. Obviously, we create so we can connect, and there’s, at least with creatives who take this work seriously, a genuine attempt to engage with an audience, with other artists, to make the equation a plus instead of a minus. But the reality is, even some of our most successful artists, spanning both genres and generations, have struggled to make a living or be reviewed, or appreciated, and so on. That is not to be negative or a buzzkill; it’s the absolute and undeniable reality. What then does it say that so many people, and I think of jazz artists like Charles Mingus or writers like Charles Bukowski, and so many amazing human beings I personally know, continue to do this work when –if you’re looking for fame or fortune—there are so many easier, more reliable ways? Because the work itself is addictive, it can expand the world, but also can enlarge one’s own world.

One of your recent guests, Robert Anthony Siegel, shared this brilliant metaphor: Writing is like water; it always finds a way. How is this playing out in your writing life? What new opportunities have you recently discovered?

I think this gets at the whole yin/yang aspect of writing: serious writers can’t or won’t abide writers block because that’s just an excuse. So you find ways to keep the mind and muscles sharp, even if it’s muscle memory. And I think most of us would agree that some of the best things that have happened is when the subconscious or the process itself serves up things we never would have anticipated; you have to be willing and able to receive those moments for them to be written and preserved (and, ultimately, revised) but to me this speaks to an expression I’ve heard many times, attributed to Picasso: inspiration exists but it has to find you working. For myself I’ve tried to create a life where I’m intentionally open to ideas and possibilities; it’s kind of like making your brain into flypaper: you can catch whatever flies by—so while I once used to be focused on academic work, or poetry, or had to access an entirely different space to write fiction, it’s possible for me to dip in and out; it sounds chaotic and can be a bit much, but if you regard everything as a first draft, it’s an effective way to capture imagination or inspiration when it blesses you. So I’m currently working on a non-fiction project about music, I’m also working on a longer project about storytelling, I keep my Substack active, and I write poems as often as I can!

Your essay “Primer for Helping—and Tolerating—Your Annoying Artsy Friend” was just published in Writer’s Digest. Congratulations! We’ll link to it in the show notes so listeners can read it. Can you offer us a teaser and talk about one way friends and family can support writers?

Absolutely! I think we, as writers, forget how difficult it can be to commit something to paper, or certainly share it when we feel it’s finally ready for public consumption. Now imagine your friends and family, who don’t write, don’t want to write, don’t enjoy any part of it. Asking them to write a review, while seemingly facile for us, can be a huge commitment, filled with anxiety. As such, I dole out my requests judiciously and understand, in advance, if some people simply can’t or won’t leave reviews in a public forum. But they can recommend to friends: word of mouth, even or especially in a social era environment, remains the most effective way of generating enthusiasm. Buying and/or gifting a book is a wonderful way to pay it forward—I think the ultimate goal in a very cramped space is to stand out, if even for a brief time, and have a chance to garner a little attention. The piece is prefaced with a lengthy admonition to writers themselves: making the occasion of the book launch a festival of narcissism may end up having the opposite effect, and turning off not only friends, but folks in the broader communal and literary circles.

Speaking of support, you are a huge proponent of literary citizenship. I’d love to talk about literary citizenship, including how you approach it and what you’re teaching your students.

First, I’d like to acknowledge you in kind. I think the ideal writer is someone for whom little else is more important in the sense that they commit the time and industry to get the work done. But for most writers to survive and remain sane, one way to ameliorate the ceaseless anxiety, the rejection, and the ways we live inside our own minds, is to look outward: being a literary citizen means you at once recognize and embrace that each of us is one tiny star in a huge constellation of fellow strivers, including the millions who have come before us and all those that, hopefully, will follow. As such, while a reflection like this hopefully imbues the necessary humility, it’s not meant to minimize one’s import or presence; rather, it focuses on the fact that together, as creatives, as human beings, we are much bigger and stronger together than apart.

I also believe that for those of us fortunate enough to have had some small measure of success, it behooves us to recognize the many, many people who are probably equally if not more talented and committed who, due to geography or circumstance, were never afforded the opportunities we may take for granted. That allows me to remain genuinely gracious, and it frankly provides real pleasure to help lift up other worthy art. I’m so inspired and consoled by all this great art, it seems the least I can do is celebrate it loudly and often.

As it relates to 1455 and my academic endeavors, I’ve simply tried to cultivate an existence where there’s very little separation between “life” and creativity; I’m constantly striving to make it one unbroken line where every action and moment feeds the next, so there’s a state of humble, open, eager receptivity to all the vibrations around me—both literal and spiritual.

This episode will air in June. Years of teaching and coaching experience have taught me that summer is often a wild card period where writers are either uber-productive or checked out from their writing lives. What does summer hold for you, and how will your writing life change as we enter this season?

The time you don’t spend writing, or creating a reality that will facilitate productivity, is time you likely will regret. Anyone who has well-earned free time should make sure to take care of their physical and mental well-being—but also appreciate the opportunity of having some uninterrupted time to create!

From Writer’s Digest

Author Sean Murphy shares five easy ways how friends of writers (and other artists) can help out their creative friends in their artistic endeavors. (Note: If you’re one of these artsy friends, be sure to share with your friends so they can help you out.)

Don’t worry, this will all be over soon.

First, know that they know that you know (that everyone knows) they are that person. Go easy on them, considering how long they likely fought against it, when every instinct—not to mention most teachers and adults—encouraged them to attempt anything but a life making up things (and possibly getting paid for it—ha!). If they’ve stuck with it, no matter what “success” they’ve had, measured by clicks, dollars, publications, attractive people who want to sleep with them because they’re artists (ha!), understand they have come fully to terms with the fact that it’s not in the expectation or even hope of fame and fortune; it’s because it’s probably the only thing they are good at doing.

Okay, also appreciate that they are probably not the person who pollutes your feed with pics of their kids or pets or asks you to buy girl scout cookies for the annual baseball drive; they dole out their cries for attention as judiciously as possible (except for the ones who have no boundaries and whose appetite for approval has long surpassed any tolerable limits; not only can you ignore them, you should adjust your settings to avoid their needy and narcissistic bellowing).

Also try to understand that, for better or worse (and, for the record, it was mostly worse, especially for women and non-whites), back in the day a writer could mostly focus on writing, and accept how difficult this simple, impossible endeavor was, and if certain works saw the light of day, there was a machinery in place to help publish, promote, and sell them. Today? Writing a publishable book, itself something that might take years even for people who are reallygood at it, is the first in a series of daunting steps, which include having assembled a portfolio of work appearing in reputable outlets, having amassed a significant social media presence, having networked and lined up influencers who will help blurb, promote, and sell your work, and being at once media-friendly and PR-savvy; essentially what in baseball is referred to as a five tool player (so rare and coveted these athletic unicorns usually command multi-million dollar signing bonuses). Then, maybe, you’ll find an agent who thinks this is worth their time, and then, possibly, finding an editor who is willing to try convincing their bosses that this book is worth a minor investment of time and resources. Then, a year or three later, the book sees the light of day — and this is the absolute best-case scenario.

Sound a tad cynical? It isn’t, actually; observations like this are just as useful for fledgling artists as the decidedly non-artistic; it’s an accurate, if stark description of the current literary landscape, and any adjusted adult understood, from the start, that the world not only owes no one a living, but –consider the Melvilles and Van Goghs and Dickinsons– often overlooks the geniuses who have died in poverty and despair only to be taught, later, in school. Put another way, here’s how you know which of your friends are at least attempting to be artists vs. the insufferable posers: despite what appears to be ceaseless rejection they keep after it, and they tend to write (privately) more than they talk about writing (publicly–especially on social media). Spare a thought for these poor souls who understand revising works in progress offers fewer dopamine hits than being super-engaging on Twitter.

Five Easy Pieces: Ways To Help Your Writer Friend

Reviews. They matter, they help, and they are easy. Every time I read about a band from back in the day trying to break through, it involved friends and family making repeated calls to the radio station to request that new song from that newalbum by that new band. It worked, albeit at a super granular level, but the key takeaway is that even in a time when everything was less complicated (you got a book deal, your publisher put it in bookstores, etc.) it still took a village. Consider leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and any/all other outlets as the “request a song” throwback. It can take as little as five seconds (one second per star) or five minutes to craft a few sentences.

Socialize. Yes, we all love to hate social media. But whether it’s a restaurant, a cute dog pic, or your annoying friend’s new book, word of mouth still rules. Helping generate buzz is easy, and one way to think of it is that with an internet flooded with bickering and zero-sum game opinions on everything from presidential candidates to vaccines, putting some TLC into the feed will help restore some balance. Will your link to your author friend’s website move the needle? Maybe not, but it definitely won’t hurt.

Show Up. If your friend is brave / crazy enough to do a public reading, make sure there’s at least one person in the audience. This might qualify as above and beyond (who wants to leave their comfy house to venture out and hear…a reading?), but I promise you, it’s a solid your friend will never, ever forget.

Give ’til it hurts. Buy a copy of the book, obviously. Buy another one, just to hand out to your one friend who reads. Or buy a copy that gets shipped to that friend. Or buy one to keep in the guest bathroom. Buy one as a future stocking stuffer. If you don’t have the dough to spare, don’t sweat it, but if you can shell out a few bucks, that’s the gift that keeps giving. Again, your friend understands all of his or her friends buying a copy or two won’t make or break the release, but if everyone does their part, the difference it makes is appreciable–and appreciated.

Pay it forward. Your friend will undoubtedly send an email (or two–hopefully no more than three) in the weeks leading up to the big publication day. Consider forwarding that email (or go crazy and add your own endorsement before passing along) to your network; cut and paste it and blast it out on the socials; send to friends and family; spread the word and help generate a bit of momentum.

The post From Writer’s Digest: Primer for Helping—and Tolerating—Your Annoying Artsy Friend appeared first on Murphy’s Law.

The first rule of writing is to understand, and eventually embrace the fact that there are no rules.

There are also no short-cuts. (Sorry, posers.)

Writing, like life, is ultimately all about balance. And how well you can maintain it. Or, how well you attempt to maintain it, because it’s a process, a discipline, a way of life.

For instance, one rule might be: never listen to anyone when they talk about writing, because whether it involves style or routines, one size doesn’t fit all, and part of the process is figuring out what works best (and even what works best can depend and might –and should– change depending on what’s going on in that writers’ life at any given moment).

That said, listen to everyone, because anyone who has done the work well (and perhaps those who have done it poorly and are speaking from experience, with a genuine desire to share, which qualifies as a short-cut of sorts, as we can –and should– learn from the wisdom others freely impart) has figured out something that goes beyond time and talent.

Speaking for myself, I can never get enough of writers opining on what makes them tick, describing their own successes and failures, what they recommend, what they admonish us to avoid, etc. Not all writers do this well, and I figure it’s similar to how some of the best athletes are not necessarily the best coaches. This makes sense at a meta level: it’s those that can’t do it who keenly comprehend what is lacking, while those who can do it (that combination of ineffable talent and sheer will) might not be able or necessarily inclined to figure out what it is, exactly, that they’ve managed to figure out.

Generally speaking, avoid anyone who insists you can do it if you listen to (i.e., pay) them, or anyone who treats the creative process like it’s something only certain special souls are called to engage with. It’s true that the ones who make it from dreaming to producing a book are special in the sense that anyone who puts in the time to master a craft is “special,” but anyone willing to put in that time and suffer through the necessary phases of awful to mediocre, the never-ending rejections, the humility to imitate the masters in order to cultivate an original approach (and many other things), has a chance. Art-making is, ultimately, an exclusive club, but everyone, in theory, is invited to the dance.

When it comes to the long game of serious and sustained writing, virtually every essay I’ve ever read by any celebrated author mentions persistence. Talent, yes; hard work, obviously. But the word that comes up over and over is persistence. (More on that, here.) Famous authors frequently talk about peers or students who possess unbelievable ability, but give up, get complacent, can’t handle the rejection. And the proverbial bell tolls for any writer, at any level, who can’t merely understand, but embrace the reality of rejection being the one unalterable thing. I’m unaware of any writer who doesn’t acknowledge not only that rejection is inevitable, but — if accepted and processed with a positive attitude — at times, useful. For one thing, it thickens the skin. For another, it’s not uncommon for initial failure to lead to opportunity, revision, improvement. Et cetera.

Needless to say, I know of what I speak. Oh, I know. I’ve experienced enough rejection that I can actually look back, with nostalgia, at the years when I saved each rejection slip (these were the not-so-great-old-days when writers printed poems and stories, put them in a large envelope with obligatory SASE, drove to the post office, paid to have them mailed to the desired literary magazine, and then waited weeks, or more often months, for that SASE to come back…rinse, wash, repeat), so that I might savor them once I eventually, inevitably, became a best-selling author. This was a practice I eventually discontinued, if for no other reason than to avoid being the first hoarder whose house became uninhabitable due to a pitiful topiary of rejection slips.

There are no short-cuts and few secrets, but one thing virtually every writer (and, likely, all creative artists) learns to master, beyond talent and discipline — and that thing is perseverance.

Winston Churchill famously remarked: “My vices protect me but they would assassinate you.”

And he managed to achieve a thing or two in his time, decadent proclivities be damned. But his boast, equally self-aware and arrogant, invariably invokes the myriad stories of debauchery amongst rock music gods and lesser opportunists, and one thinks: how have more of them not died? Who could keep up that pace, the commitment, the insanity of repetition with guaranteed, diminished returns, etc.?

“It’s better to burn out than fade away,” Neil Young famously—if facetiously—sang. Years before that, he also opined “some get stoned, some get strange, but sooner or later it all gets real.” Put another way, and as sardonically as possible: there’s only one Keith Richards.

But what about, for a change of pace, assessing an artist’s virtues?

Is there anything at once more inspiring and daunting than reading about high-functioning types and the routines they’ve adapted in order to achieve what they did—and do?

Just as it’s the drink, drug, and ability to forsake sleep that separates our vitiated legends from the legion of pretenders and copycats, it’s the habits and compulsions of the best artists that leave one staggered, even intimidated. Similar questions abound: who can do this? How do they do it?

And the answer is: because they can. Because they must.

Like every other writer, I’ve read more than my fair share of books about writing and writers. And, naturally, I can never get enough. There’s something about their combination of insight and solidarity, mixed with object lessons found in even the substandard offerings; nuggets of gold amongst the platitudes and clichés; reminders that each writer must confront a personal gauntlet of unremitting rejection en route to something we might consider success (and that’s just the relative percentage who persevere after a series of setbacks that would make Sir Ernest Shackleton crawl under an iceberg). In the final analysis, these thrice-told tales testify more to perseverance than the black hole of desolation. And, not least, there’s the oddly comforting fact that no two writing careers are identical, yet there are common themes that emerge, crossing generations and languages and the inexplicable trends that reward hacks and doom geniuses to obscurity. Et cetera.

It was, then, with hope and expectation that I cracked open the latest such book, Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, which takes actual habits and routines from famous artists and scientists, as documented in their own words and correspondence. I recommend it without reservation to anyone, and the reader need not be a writer or even have an ounce of creativity to appreciate—and learn from—the mostly positive, if imposing collection of insights.

I’ll say, as someone who has been writing (with varying degrees of succession and consistency) over more than two decades, there’s literally something in every one of these quotes that I can identify with, understand, or seek to emulate. I also know this type of dedication, discipline, and focus is not limited to artists; mastery involves an almost impossible combination of obsession, passion, respect (for the subject; for the self), ambition, and not lastly, balance. As such, I’m certain virtually anyone will find much to savor here.

For all you TL;DR types, there are indeed a handful of traits/themes that recur and it’s not a generalization to say that pretty much every one of these testimonials (with notable exceptions) incorporates some/all of the following guidelines:

• Up early

• Daily walks

• Daily quota of words/pages written (or hours spent)

• Minimal distractions, whenever possible

• Non-existent social life

• Extreme moderation with alcohol (made up for in many cases with coffee and/or cigarettes)

So here we go. And, of course, any comments or recommendations are invited. What books have proved valuable to your own endeavors? Are there other quotes or admonitions from famous (or infamous) folks you find inspiring? And not least, what are some of your personal practices, routines, or obsessions that stimulate a more productive writing life? What has worked for you? What hasn’t?

“Sooner or later, the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.”

–V.S. Pritchett

“Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”

–Franz Kafka

Beethoven’s breakfast was coffee, which he prepared himself with great care—he determined that there should be sixty beans per cup, and he often counted them out one by one for a precise dose.

–Ludwig van Beethoven

“All those I think who have lived as literary men—working daily as literary labourers—will agree with me that three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write. But then, he should have so trained himself that he shall be able to work continuously during those three hours.”

–Anthony Trollope

“The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind…(and) physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.” (He discovered that the sedentary lifestyle caused him to gain weight rapidly…he soon resolved to change his habits completely, moving with his wife to a rural area, quitting smoking, drinking less, and eating a diet of mostly vegetables and fish. He also started running daily. The one drawback to this self-made schedule, Murakami admitted in a 2008 essay, is that it doesn’t allow for much of a social life…but he decided that the indispensable relationship in his life was with his readers. “My readers would welcome whatever lifestyle I chose, as long as I made sure each new work was an improvement over the last. And shouldn’t that be my duty—my top priority—as a novelist?”

–Haruki Murakami

“I am not able to write regularly…but the important thing is that I don’t do anything else. I avoid the social life normally associated with publishing. I don’t go to cocktail parties, I don’t give or go to dinner parties. I need that time in the evening because I can do a tremendous amount of work then. And I can concentrate. When I sit down to write I never brood.”

–Toni Morrison

(Despite boasting otherwise) the great British diarist and biographer often had a terrible time getting out of bed in the morning and frequently fell prey to the “vile habit of wasting the precious morning hours in lazy slumber.”

–James Boswell

Amis said that he writes every weekday, driving himself to an office less than a mile from his London apartment. “Everyone assumes I’m a systematic and nose-to-the-grindstone kind of person…but to me it seems like a part-time job, really, in that writing from eleven to one continuously is a very good day’s work. Then you can read or play tennis or snooker. Two hours. I think most writers would be very happy with two hours of concentrated work.”

–Martin Amis

“To me George was a little sad all the time because he had this compulsion to work,” Ira Gershwin said of his brother. He was dismissive of inspiration, saying that if he waited for the muse he would compose at most three songs a year. It was better to work every day. “Like the pugilist, the songwriter must always keep in training.”

–George Gershwin

Heller wrote Catch-22 in the evenings after work, sitting at the kitchen table in his Manhattan apartment. “I spent two or three hours a night on it for eight years. I gave up once and started watching television with my wife. Television drove me back to Catch-22. I couldn’t imagine what Americans did at night when they weren’t writing novels.”

–Joseph Heller

His contemporaries remember him as having a cheerful disposition, but Liszt obviously had his share of demons. A younger colleague once asked why he didn’t keep a diary. “To live one’s life is hard enough. Why write down all the misery? It would resemble nothing more than the inventory of a torture chamber.”

–Franz Liszt

“I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.”

–Leo Tolstoy

“The seed of a future composition usually reveals itself suddenly, in the most unexpected fashion. If the soil is favourable, that is, if I am in the mood for work, this seed takes root with inconceivable strength and speed, bursts through the soil, puts out roots, leaves, twigs, and finally flowers: I cannot define the creative process except through this metaphor…it would be futile for me to try and express to you in words the boundless bliss of that feeling which envelops you when it begins to take definite forms. You forget everything, you are almost insane, everything inside you trembles and writhes, you scarcely manage to set down sketches, one idea presses upon another.”

–Pytor Ilich Tchaikovsky

When in the throes of a new idea, he pleaded with his wife to let him be free of family obligations; sometimes, in these states, he would work for up to twenty-two hours straight without sleep. (His wife) eventually accepted his relentless focus on his work, but not without some resentment. She wrote to him in 1888, “I wonder do you think of me in the midst of that work of yours of which I am so proud and yet so jealous, for I know it has stolen from me part of my husband’s heart, for where his thoughts and interests lie, there must his heart be.”

–Alexander Graham Bell

When in the grip of creative inspiration, he painted nonstop, “in a dumb fury of work.”

–Vincent van Gogh

Shortly after graduation from college, Franzen married his girlfriend, also an aspiring novelist, and the pair settled down to work in classic starving-artist fashion. They found an apartment outside Boston for $300 a month, stocked up on ten-pound bags of rice and enormous packages of frozen chicken, and allowed themselves to eat out only once a year, on their anniversary…five days a week, the couple wrote for eight hours a day, ate dinner, and then read for four or five more hours. “I was frantically driven,” Franzen said. “I got up after breakfast, sat down at the desk and worked till dark, basically.”

To force himself to concentrate on his 2001 novel, The Corrections, he would seal himself in his Harlem studio with the blinds drawn and the lights off, sitting before the computer keyboard wearing earplugs, earmuffs, and a blindfold. It still took him four years, and thousands of discarded pages, to complete the book. “I was in such a harmful pattern. In a way, it would begin on a Friday, when I would realize what I’d been working on all week was bad…between five and six, I’d get drunk on vodka—shot glasses. Then have dinner, much too late, consumed with a sick sense of failure. I hated myself the entire time.”

–Jonathan Franzen

“I work all the time…I work every day. I work weekends, I work nights…some people looking at that from the outside might use that modern term “workaholic,” or might see this as obsessive or destructive. But it’s not work to me, it’s just what I do, that’s my life. I also spend a lot of time with my family, and I sing, and go to ball games…I don’t have a one-dimensional life. But I basically do work all the time. I don’t watch television. But it’s not work, it’s not work, it’s my life. It’s what I do. It’s what I like to do…you have to have high levels of bodily energy and not everybody has it. I’m not physically strong, but I have very great intellectual energy, I always have…I can literally sit and work all day once I get going, not everybody can do that. It’s not a moral issue. Some people seem to see that as a moral question. It isn’t. It’s a question of body type and temperament and energy levels. I don’t know what makes us what we are.”

–Stephen Jay Gould

“Discipline is an ideal for the self. If you have to discipline yourself to achieve art, you discipline yourself. There’s no one way—there’s too much drivel about this subject. You’re who you are, not Fitzgerald or Thomas Wolfe. You write by sitting down and writing. There’s no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he’s disciplined, doesn’t matter. If he or she is not disciplined, no sympathetic magic will help. The trick is to make time—not steal it—and produce the fiction. If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.”

–Bernard Malamud

Remember: Sooner or later, it all gets real.

I. Connection

Why do we tell stories?

To inform, to inspire, to connect.

The miracle of art is the way it enables us to express things at once inextricable from ourselves and more encompassing than the sum of an individual existence. More, it facilitates an exchange, across language, time, and space. In short, it provides the opportunity for connection.

The methods and meanings of connection are in constant flux, just as art evolves, over time. Back in a different, arguably simpler era, connection occurred in the present tense, in person. Or did it? Another miracle of art is the way it defies death (literal, figurative): so long as human eyes, ears, and hearts are available to receive it, art can align us through centuries. Who hasn’t, on occasion, felt closer to an author or work of art than their closest relatives?

Art has the possibility of teaching us so many things, and in ways that cut across economic, geographic, and even historical barriers. An exceptional poem, song, story, painting, or photograph can present experiences from a life we don’t know or could only imagine, or it can remind us that most human beings are desperate for the same things: love, peace, understanding, justice, compassion, community, beauty.

Creative storytelling is never a static act. Whether intended to unify or disrupt, the reaction, when it’s received, is an antidote to solitude (sometimes even despair)—and instigates progression, on personal or societal levels. The impact of art can be empowering, and a human being has changed, invariably for the better, having been part of the connection.

II. Power

According to Plato, the measure of a man is what he does with power.

George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about what drives human behavior—and with a couple more centuries of history than Plato was privy to—declared: the object of power is power.

Both of these sentiments, wise in ways that cut across sociopolitical, military, religious, and academic concerns, seem especially apt when reflecting on current events. They also remind us that, as it relates to humankind’s worst tendencies, power—which can be defined as leverage, ownership, access, agency, subjugation, or some combination of all these—is invariably the prime, primal impulse.

One might be tempted to observe that we too are animals, and what is nature if not a never-ending battle for supremacy and survival? Well, humans, with our big brains (and libraries of documented atrocities committed by and against our own kind) and evolved hearts, remain the only inhabitants of this world who know might doesn’t make right, yet fabricate or justify reasons why this time it’s different, and violence and collateral damage are, alas, unavoidable. Of course, to our disbelieving eyes, we see events unfolding right now—in the 21^st Century—where a dictator is scarcely attempting to rationalize his barbarity.

What, then, does art tell us at times like this?

Quite a bit, actually—and it always has. Plato the philosophizer and Orwell the author both used storytelling to describe and explain who we are, what we do, and why we do it. Is there any multi-volume narrative that can tell us more about the pernicious tendencies of the powerful than what Percy Bysshe Shelley achieves in only 14 lines with “Ozymandias”? Does any big-name biography explain conflict and what drives it better than Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” (or Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” if you prefer)? No words are necessary for a genius like Goya to indelibly illustrate corruption and brutality—and once you’ve seen his work you never unsee it.

Perhaps that’s the rub: the people who are drawn to art are seldom the ones most in need of its lessons. More: if so many of our worst ambassadors, including psychopaths ranging from Cortés to Hitler to Putin, were able or willing to expose themselves to the intellectual and spiritual riches our best storytelling imparts, we might have answers to questions that shouldn’t need asking.

III. Diversity & Beauty

Beauty, it’s said, is in the eye of the beholder, which is at once a succinct and satisfactory definition of how we receive and respond to art. What’s worth celebrating, and why, is the impulse of criticism, and while it’s up to the writer to make a compelling case for the work in question, it’s the work itself that must survive time and trends.

But it’s not so simple, and never has been. Even ostensibly objective tastemakers are susceptible to the prevailing sentiments of their political and cultural milieus. Or, as the philosopher David Hume famously observed, “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

Our contemporary notions of beauty have evolved and expanded, accordingly. Only more so, as the democratization of content—across all mediums—ensures we are seeing faces, places, and points of view that may have seemed exotic or else were silenced altogether, less than a quarter-century ago. This is all to the good, although we have the predictable (and ever-cynical) braying from the usual suspects. The white robes have, in some cases, changed to red hats, and the purveyors of “tradition” are extremely scripted and exorbitantly remunerated. Basically, same as it always was, except supersized and, against all probability, dumber and more backward than ever.

And even though our contemporary appreciation of what constitutes beauty, both literally and figuratively, is broader and more encompassing, it also complicates—as it should—our collective assessment of what we used to agree was great, in ostensibly simpler times. Here’s the thing: even if corrupted forces (mostly white and male) faced less resistance establishing things like curriculum and control of the narrative (via the literary canon and the WASP-y perspective that shaped entertainment, for starters), it’s important to note that our best art has always pushed back against the conventions and mores that sustain conformity and monotony.

The Great Gatsby, for instance, suffused with insufferable one percenters as it is, remains a peerless annihilation of unfettered capitalism (and the types of people it produces); Moby Dick—as many too intimidated to read it are unaware—is filled with a multi-racial cast that makes a winning case for autonomy and Democracy with a capital D. Of course, authors such as Hurston and Hughes, Ellison and Baldwin, Morrison and Harjo, and many, many others, have been revealing the fault lines behind the color line, illustrating that our world is better, smarter, and more humane when we listen to the lower frequencies.

Today we are, arguably, able to receive insight and wisdom, with less interference and fewer gatekeepers, even as the internet also ensures we must be vigilant about the ways disinformation and actual “fake news” is easily disseminated. How to keep up with the ceaseless churn of content? We can’t, and on balance this is a very good problem to have. Better, always, to revise and edit an unreadable work-in-progress as opposed to having received opinion doled out in small doses by the few and powerful.

*These are excerpts from 1455’s publication Movable Type; to view the archives and explore all previous issues, go here.

(Author’s note: I spent considerable time in the so-called corporate world as a technology analyst; I was able to watch—and comment on—some huge changes, as they happened. As a reminder for those too young (or too old) to easily recall: TVs used to be heavy and small, car audio was awful, and expensive, headphones were disposable, GPS was revolutionary for a few years (as was social media), cameras (analog before being briefly supplanted by digital) required film that cost time and money to develop (and it was still considered near miraculous), and audio went, for a while, from the most important thing (think ‘70s and ‘80s) to an afterthought—and we’ve still not caught up to the good old days. The point being: even in the last couple decades, so much about the technology sector (think: the things we used to purchase at Best Buy when we used to do such things) changed and was remade.

Literary publishing, on the other hand, has been remarkably consistent and predictable for centuries. The model for how people creating books got paid has had ups, downs, and everything in between but, as I’ll explore in subsequent posts, the model we knew since more or less forever, has changed and is never coming back. We can—and should—learn and predict a great deal about the literary publishing industry by considering how the audio sector mutated, became unrecognizable, and, in some ways, has actually improved.

This piece was written more than 15 years ago (!!), and while it’s outdated and often amusing, there are lessons and trends worth noting.)

End of an Era

Anyone not remember the iconic image above?

The famous Maxell ad, now more than twenty-five years old, is not merely—and obviously—from another century, it’s a remnant of a world where analog ruled, and audio was king. A world that was ostensibly less complicated, when we used to watch movies in theaters, or courtesy of paid channels on tiny CRT screens.

Flash forward two decades and the combination of digital content, including downloads and portable devices along with the ascendency of all-things video, made audio more of an afterthought. To put it mildly, this notion would have been inconceivable during the 1980’s.

Less than ten years into our new millennium the prospects for the audio category seemed dire. Even a significant economic recession failed to halt the proliferation of flat panel displays. Suddenly, it seemed, no screen size was too big and, conversely, no audio component could be small enough. Practically overnight, any consumer could conceivably store their entire sonic library into a device they carried in their front pocket. It was revolutionary in every way, but these advancements often came at the expense of a previously impregnable home audio sector.

The question, however rhetorical, was whether MP3 players and earbuds comprised a whole new standard in how we listened to music. The narrative was apparent in the numbers: CD sales were down, and component sales also suffered. Content was ubiquitous but (increasingly) free, and sound quality, often spotty at best, seemed a peripheral concern. The notion of whether the audiophile—the guy from the Maxell ad—was a relic from the past seemed settled: that dude was a dinosaur, a symbol of the bad old days a new generation would never feel especially nostalgic about.

Requiem for the Audiophile

If you are a certain age, you can easily envision the person. Perhaps you were that person: the one who not only had to own the latest and most advanced high-end equipment, but also proselytized about the components, compelled to convert friends and acquaintances. Perfection carried a price tag; the naysayers might be able to listen to the sounds, but they weren’t really hearing them, etc.

As difficult as it likely is for younger consumers to appreciate or even conceive, the playing field for home audio remained relatively uncomplicated for the better part of a century. After record players were challenged by cassette decks (the less said about 8-Tracks the better) which in turn were supplanted by CD players, it remained a two-channel environment, all powered by a receiver and a set of speakers.

This landscape changed gradually but the eventual paradigm shift—made inevitable by the Internet—was radical and, today, seems permanent. The electrical storm of digital files and the advent of MP3 players made the consumption of audio content not unlike personal computing: a 24/7, multi-location proposition. People were able to take their music with them wherever they roamed; gradually a concept that seemed exceptional became compulsory.

The Day the Music Died

Back in 2011 Jon Bon Jovi accused Steve Jobs (in Britain’s Sunday Times) of being “personally responsible for killing the music business.”

Unlike his rock and roll compatriots from Metallica, who infamously went on an anti-Napster crusade in 2000, or underground prog-rock avatar Steven Wilson, who loathes digital files on purely aesthetic principles, Bon Jovi was lamenting the halcyon days of vinyl. (He may not have been aware that LP and turntable sales had experienced a resurgence in recent years.) This notion—that the digitization of music has indelibly impacted the medium for the worse—is neither a new nor particularly original proposition. In successive decades it was initially cassettes, then compact discs that, according to self-appointed experts, were certain to devastate the integrity of organic sounds. Peripherally, industry honchos fretted that the ability to record (and later, burn) content would have a deleterious impact on sales. These concerns proved unfounded, to put it mildly.

“Independent of overall industry sales—of which you could point to the disaggregation of the album into individually available songs as having a bigger direct impact than being digital—more music is consumed today than ever before,” according to Jason Herskowitz, co-founder at Tomahawk. “We’ve now moved into an era of the disaggregation of streams, where artists offer different content across promotional platforms like Official.fm and SoundCloud, video platforms like YouTube, and subscription services like Spotify and Deezer. Tomahawk provides fans a single interface into all of their own unique available music sources—along with programming, curation and translation layers across the top of them all.”

Take My Content, Please!

In reality few did, or should have, shed tears for the ways digital files altered the music scene. In fact, downloadable content liberated artists and helped audiences procure more content for less money. This brave new model defied initial fears and expectations and enabled savvy artists to accrue potentially greater profits. Online exposure benefits artists, and if this concept was once controversial, it is now conclusive. True, the mechanisms for “stealing” music remain rampant. On the other hand, artists receive invaluable—and heretofore inconceivable—exposure by presenting samples of their work online or at social networking sites. For every pirated album, there are dozens (or thousands, and possibly millions) of eyes and ears that might stumble upon a band’s work on YouTube or Rhapsody.

“Technology has drastically altered the landscape for musicians in the production and distribution of their music. In the past it required hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment in studio time and the shipping and stocking of plastic discs all around the world,” Herskowitz says. “Now it only requires a computer, an Internet connection and some spare time.”

Technology and innovation have undoubtedly bestowed unique blessings on musicians. Without the marketing incentives inherent in digital content musicians could not create, distribute and control their intellectual property. (This process used to entail considerable investment and kept bands beholden to record labels that did not always have their best interests in mind.)

In sum, we have heard—and likely always will hear—alarmist rhetoric about how some new development signals the death knell for so-called business as usual. Follow the money: anytime new solutions threaten to change the world as we know it, this is invariably a positive development for consumers.

The Democratization of Content

It is not necessary, in the final analysis, to debate whether Steve Jobs killed or saved music. The inescapable fact is that he did as much as any single entity to change how we listen to music. The pay-as-you-go model of iTunes did more to empower—and enrich—musicians as anything the most well-meaning purists could have managed or imagined. The trajectory from the Wild West chaos of Napster to the more structured system of iTunes took a while to sort itself out, but finally certain mechanisms were set in place. The subsequent popularity of streaming services, like Rhapsody and Pandora, represent another positive advance for consumer, artist and industry. 2012 signals the first year that consumers will spend more money on digital music than CDs and other physical formats (source: Strategy Analytics). The appeal of subscription-based services delivers a diverse quantity of music in an organized and regulated format.

From Napster to MySpace, everything about music – from creation to marketing to distribution – has come almost full circle, albeit in a way that fully embraces the technological advances digitized content enabled. Perhaps the most vivid way to comprehend what is happening in the music space is to consider what has already happened in the print sector.

Not all that long ago blogs were dismissed (often by the very folks now finding themselves caught up in cutbacks at shrinking newspapers) but have developed into a viable – and profitable– alternative to traditional media. The same principle applies to readers of newspapers and magazines: if content can be found online for free, who is going to pay for it? (The reason this content is even available online is because once the balance of power in terms of readership transferred, the mainstream outlets followed the advertising dollars.) Today, writers with popular blogs are making the type of money from advertisers that newspapers and magazines once took for granted. E-readers (and tablets), obviously, represent an entirely new frontier in terms of how we engage with “old school” media. Claiming any one individual is responsible for destroying, or salvaging, the music industry is not unlike suggesting the Internet devastated printed publishing. Certainly, a narrow and short-sighted case could be made, but the reality is that the Internet and all manner of digital content has vastly expanded the options and possibilities.

(Re)Defining the High-End Audio Experience

For practical purposes, the authentic high-end audio tag applied to products that sold for thousands, not hundreds of dollars. As such, it seems safe to suggest that the market for this obsession has typically catered to a wealthier, if passionate minority. The good news is, as we observe time and again, ceaseless innovations in CE result in optimal quality at lower prices.

In a roundabout way, the same device that initially stole audio’s thunder may become a vital battleground for future sales. Even as digital displays get bigger and better (with price points dropping correspondingly) and we eagerly anticipate the advances 4K should deliver, at a certain point sound quality will once again become a coveted feature of the “full” home experience.

“Now is the time for CE manufacturers to make great audio the selling point,” opines Paul Geller, SVP at Grooveshark. “I wish my wonderful new display with a 60Hz refresh rate had better speakers. I like 60Hz, but I needed to get a soundbar!”

Soundbars, initially embraced as a cost-efficient alternative to more expensive, and bulky, surround-sound systems, are now genuine solutions in themselves. Still affordable, there are also a variety of more robust models with higher price points and improved performance. Soundbars offer a less complicated, virtually wireless solution and CEA expects sales to increase year-over-year through 2016.

Another excellent example of technology meeting (or creating) consumer demand is the advent of high-performance receivers that integrate connectivity. We may not be able to wrest the MP3 player or smartphone from a would-be-customer’s hand, but there is now a best-of-both-worlds scenario: a receiver that allows us to “plug and play” at home. Certainly, the image of anyone listening to digital files through home speakers is anathema to the old-school audiophile, but those consumers were never part of the equation in the first place. These home audio products specialize in being multi-functional, and the implementation of MP3 capability, along with Ethernet and HDMI integration enables a greatly enhanced in-home listening experience. Between improved amplifiers, soundbars and these more robust receiver capabilities, the previously dubious proposition of better audio in the home is now not only feasible, but affordable.

A Case Study: Headphones

If we do not already do so, we will someday regard premium headphones as the category that provided a gateway to higher quality audio—and a salvation of sorts for the entire industry. Anyone who has been paying attention understands that headphones sales are not expected to slacken anytime soon. It is instructive to consider that ten or even five years ago the suggestion that headphones, much less designer headphones, could be profitable with price points in the hundreds of dollars would be dismissed as outlandish. And yet, at least in hindsight, it not only makes sense, it seems inexorable.

People have increasingly plugged into their devices during their commutes, in their cubicles, while they exercise or relax on the couch. There was, quite simply, a market demand for ways to bolster these experiences and headphones met—even exceeded—this desire. It remains remarkable (even if it now feels predictable) that devices being given away for free on airplanes could be transfigured into high(er) end audio solutions as well as fashion accessories.

In fact, the cultural cachet of premium headphones represents a marketing goldmine. It is, for example, all but impossible to see professional athletes entering a stadium without their ever-present headsets. The authoritative case study here, of course, involves the earth-shaking success of Andre “Dr. Dre” Young’s collaboration with Monster Cable. The brand Beats by Dr. Dre became arguably the most successful and high-profile celebrity-endorsed (and, in this case, created) product of the 21^st Century.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Dr. Dre should be as flattered as he is wealthy: other headphone brands have hastily been formed, and existing manufacturers have sought luminaries to associate themselves with. Now we have Soul by Ludacris, The House of Marley and Lady Gaga, just to name three of the better-known entities competing for share in a seller’s market.

The phenomenal sales can certainly be attributed in part to a very American attraction to icon-driven product placement: seeing athletes and rock stars wearing (not to mention designing or endorsing) headphones anyone can purchase serves as an irresistible enticement. But aside from the social and cultural implications, these products have been advertised, ingeniously, as superior solutions. Not long ago, high-end headphones were catered to audiophiles or frequent travelers in search of the best noise-cancellation options. Dr. Dre’s promise to deliver the type of sound quality producers hear in the studio proved to be marketing catnip. The products were hip, but they also allegedly supplied the type of sound quality never attainable in the past. We now see manufacturers like Skullcandy forging a lifestyle connection catering to the skateboarding and sporting community, which is 180 degrees apart from the old Bose target audience.

Bonus content, with video.

In my capacity as an industry analyst at the Consumer Technology Association, I’ve followed the developments of this changing landscape –what I refer to as the democratization of content– with keen professional as well as personal interest.

As part of the podcast series The Intersection of Innovation & Culture, this conversation was entitled Streaming Services: Savior or Disruption?

I was joined by tech industry veteran Jason Herskowitz, and we talked about these trends, with a focus on streamed services and whether or not they are saviors or disruptors of the music industry (spoiler alert: it’s a bit of both, but mostly the former, according to us).

Some key takeaways include the one indisputable fact that streaming services and innovation have permanently changed the music industry. As such, we tried to provide some historical perspective in order to better understand the present –and suggest what the future may hold. Some other takeaways include:

• Recording and selling music doesn’t require studio time and a fleet of trucks and trains anymore. A laptop and Internet connection does the job much cheaper and easier.

• What has happened to the music industry is similar to the innovations we have seen in traditional news and publishing. Bloggers and independent authors can find audiences and compete with big established players.

• Social media makes everyone a Program Director.

William Faulkner famously wrote The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

He wasn’t talking about writing books, or publishing them, but he could have been; he may as well have been. And he knew a thing or two about Lost Causes (see above). All of which is to say, many of the things that complicate the “literary industry” have not changed; many of the things are new. Some things are actually easier; some things are infinitely more difficult. Same as it ever was. All of which is to further say: I first wrote this piece in 2015. When I think about how much has changed (and I was writing, then, about how much had changed) it fills me with…awe, wonder, and hope (yes hope). Things are always difficult. If you’re a creative, more so. If you’re a creative hoping to not only publish, but have your work find in audience in 2025, well….

More on where we are, right now, in a future post; for today, let’s go back to the future.

Part One: Past is Prologue

In my role as an industry analyst for the tech industry I’ve followed the developments of our shifting cultural landscape with keen professional as well as personal interest. In particular, I’ve noted the ways the book publishing industry is, in many regards, mirroring what’s happened (and what’s still unfolding) in the music industry. The hot topic du jour is whether streamed services are saviors or disruptors as they relate to the evolution of music in particular and content in general. In my opinion, they are a bit of both, but practically every innovation in each industry has been. Furthermore, I suspect history will look more favorably on these services than we might imagine today.

During the last decade advancements that, I maintain, benefit artists and consumers, have all revolved around the democratization of content. What does that mean? In brief, it no longer requires archaic and expensive technologies and processes to make and acquire works of art.

As difficult as it might be for younger consumers to appreciate, the home audio business remained relatively uncomplicated for the better part of a century. The book publishing industry operated according to a fairly specific—and consistent—model for hundreds of years. Naturally the Internet came and changed everything. In the bad old days, gatekeepers held sway, overseeing the acquisition, creation and dissemination of content. These days, artists have the ability, and resulting channels, to create, distribute and promote their work.

I am old school enough to remember typewriters. More, I used them. More still, I took a class once that, in hindsight, was perhaps the most important—or at least most practical—one from my high school years. Flash forward through college (word processor), graduate school (a PC I could access only in a computer lab) to my first computer—a miracle with a printer that could produce dot matrix pages in sixty seconds, per page. Eventually I began writing for an online-only magazine, and finally created an obligatory blog. Then e-readers came along and eventually, tablets.

As an avid (if obsessive) reader and music aficionado, I have embraced each stage of progress as it relates to the ways content is made, purchased and utilized. These innovations have inexorably made it easier and more affordable to engage with our world; indeed they have opened up or created entirely new worlds. Throw in the marketing miracles inherent in social media and the people—not the self-appointed or well-connected tastemakers—are now equal, arguably more important arbiters of what matters and what is relevant. This is a very good thing.

In my capacity as a music critic, I used to receive the occasional (now, more frequent) request from musicians, asking me to consider their work. Initially, they would offer to send a self-produced CD; these days they’ll lead me to their website, where sample files are accessible. Of course, stories like this are becoming the new normal: despite what myopic naysayers stuck in the past insist, there is more incredible art being made today than most of us could hope to keep up with. As usual, the only ones lamenting these developments are the same sorts who always resist or stifle progress. These are the same folks who benefited, unfairly, from the rigged rules of the antiquated, imbalanced system.

In 2013 I made the decision, like so many musicians and, more recently writers, to go the independent route. Along the way, I’ve collected more rejection letters than I could count, but I’ve also seen the 20^th century SOP steadily disappear as an unhappy memory. Today, just about anyone can publish a book, and a lot of people are trying. Does this potentially flood the market with inferior product? Certainly. Does it also ensure that more writers (and musicians, and movie makers) have the opportunity to be heard and discovered? Without doubt.

The good news: with sufficient ability, awareness and time, anyone can publish without paying for it or surviving the scrutiny of hit-seeking middlemen. The bad news: as liberating as this new DIY ethos is, the onus is now entirely on the artist. As such, I necessarily became acquainted with the nuts and bolts of creating a book, taking an idea all the way from legal pad to Amazon. Suffice it to say, this demands a proficiency at production, distribution and marketing.

The bottom line? This process represents the very essence of innovation, in actual practice. If you want it done, do it yourself. If you want it done well, understand and learn all the things you do not know. In halcyon times, writing a book was itself the hard part, and pretty much the only thing an author controlled. Too many authors had to hope that their publisher could generate sufficient interest, garner reviews, set up a book tour, etc. If that didn’t happen, there were few options other than luck or a miraculous endorsement from Oprah.

Today, even taking the independent route will cost you money (unless you happen to be a book designer, website builder and professional editor). On the other hand, it cost you money back in the day, as well: those advances given to authors were typically contingent upon future sales and the cost of assembly; editing and distribution were factored in on the front-end. I worked with the appropriate people, and worked on my game-plan with every spare second I could afford. Without a publisher or promoter I secured my own blurbs and booked my own reading events. No one to answer to but myself: equal parts miracle and mountain to climb. It’s beyond what I could have imagined, and just the way I would have imagined it, in some implausible future.

That future is real and it is now; in fact, milestones being made this moment will already be surpassed tomorrow. In the past I celebrated certain advancements from the sidelines, in solidarity. As I watch, and experience, the empowering mechanisms of innovation create previously unimaginable opportunities, I understand it’s now also the story of my life.

Part Two: Follow the Money

Earlier this year, NPR featured a podcast roundtable wherein four authors tackled the question: Is Amazon The Reader’s Friend? Generally speaking, the debate has been framed in terms of how Amazon is disrupting traditional publishing practices. Technologically speaking, disruption is often the result of innovation and consumers benefit because products or services are streamlined, reimagined or otherwise improved. Predictably, there’s been no shortage of stories portraying Amazon as Evil incarnate, but not nearly enough pondering the ways Amazon has radically disrupted — for the better — the landscape for both writers and readers.

This has triggered a great deal of confusion and, in my opinion, intentional obfuscation and ill-will surrounding the all-or-nothing proposition of Amazon as friend or foe. The simple solution is that instead of fearing this dichotomy; we can and should embrace it. Amazon, it seems, is now being blamed for everything from the disappearance of bookstores to the proliferation of inferior product. No less a literary genius (and one-time progressive thinker) than Ursula K. Le Guin has entered the fray, recently opining that “every book purchase made from Amazon is a vote for a culture without content and without contentment.”

Wow. Hyperbole and hysteria aside, Le Guin is scarcely the only renowned author suddenly perplexed by the ostensible threat presented by the same site she curiously has not removed her books from. This kind of hypocrisy certainly complicates the issue, and reminds us that, as always, to find an answer one must follow the money. As such, and put plainly as possible, Amazon is most definitely the reader’s friend. Perhaps more importantly, Amazon has emerged as possibly the best friend for writers in the history of book publishing.

To expand on a point made in my previous post, I believe it’s important to assess the spurious notion that too many choices and too much product is conceivably a bad thing. Has the advent of self-publishing, abetted by eBooks in general and Amazon in particular, simply inundated the market with shoddy merchandise? Even if we concede that the answer is yes, it’s a question best addressed with another question: Who cares? Besides, it’s the question itself that’s deliberately disingenuous, posed by traditional industry gatekeepers and elitists, in full concern troll mode.

The implication that this democratization of content unleashes an unreadable tsunami upon an innocent and unsuspecting populace is to deny that American culture has forever had a surfeit of drivel polluting the airwaves, movie theatres and, yes, bookstores. Thus, the only people truly apprehensive about the ascension of self-publishing are the ones accustomed to owning the lion’s share of control — and profits. Consider how insulting it is for anyone to claim that you don’t know what type of books (or music) you’re likely to enjoy and willing to discover. Or, does anyone wish to return to the rigged-game era when CDs with one hit song cost twenty bucks or hardcovers cost whatever the big publishing houses (that took the majority of the spoils, incidentally) deemed appropriate?

Follow the money…

Even the folks insisting that the transparent (ha) and equitable (ha!) old model of how books were acquired, produced and sold are avoiding the inconvenient fact that traditional publishing was on life support long before Amazon introduced the Kindle. Harry Bingham, guest-blogging on Jane Friedman’s invaluable site, has a take on the contemporary state of affairs that’s at once enlightening and unnerving. He describes some of the obvious, inevitable reasons authors, like himself, are making the conscious decision to leave their publishers to go the independent route.

Follow the money? Well, yes, but that’s only part of the story.

As any writer (or reader, for that matter) knows, book reviews are disappearing as quickly as the magazines and newspapers they were once printed in. At the same time, advances and any measure of marketing or promotional support are increasingly archaic notions, even for established authors. As such, since publishers and traditional media have offered little to fill this void, we should celebrate the rise of bloggers and autonomous websites that help curate and recommend content. Even, perhaps especially old school fans of books and the so-called good old days ought to revel in the breadth of options available for encountering first-rate writing. These alternatives are saving literature, not imperilling it. In the meantime, the traditional paradigm can putter along, serving whomever it chooses (and whomever chooses it); all of these possibilities constitute, at worst, a win/win.

Speaking of money, we should also acknowledge that for perfectly understandable reasons, the bandwagon effect has always been a prevailing force in American pop culture (zombies and vampires, anyone?). What would you rather trust in 2015: ten — or twenty, or two hundred — positive and articulate customer reviews at Amazon, or a pre-packaged product vetted and greenlighted by clueless businessmen in a boardroom? For all their complaints, the big publishers are making more money than ever; it’s often the authors who are getting short-shrift. And anyone inside or outside the business insisting that Traditional Publishing puts integrity before earnings and has the future of Literature-with-a-capital-L foremost in their hearts and minds need look only at the New York Times bestseller list.

Once again, the book publishing arena is simply mirroring what’s already happened in the music industry. Or, for that matter, lessons learned in the motion picture industry during the early ‘70s: with a paltry budget and outsiders behind the scenes, Easy Rider went on to become the third-highest grossing film of 1969. This aesthetic — and financial — milestone instigated a genuine transformation, granting legitimacy to the rise of independent filmmaking that dominated the next decade. Not for nothing were some of the most acclaimed movies in American history made throughout the ‘70s. The key takeaway being that the studio bosses didn’t suddenly decide fresh new voices were needed and could benefit from big studio backing. Only once it appeared money could be made did they, however cynically or shrewdly, get on board with this decidedly unconventional approach. Artists and audiences won.

And so, aside from the environmentally-friendly opportunities POD provides (how many forests has digital ink already preserved?), if just one worthy writer gets discovered — who may otherwise have languished in the slush pile — does it not obviate the sound and fury of all this hand wringing? Plus, putting faith in the literary community promises a candor and integrity sorely lacking from the inside-the-industry clique: if readers don’t like a book, they’re unlikely to recommend it. More, they’ll never even know about it in the first place. If a lousy self-published book falls into the electronic void, does it make any sound? No. This, then, is precisely why the first rule of writing always applies: no matter how or with whom you choose to publish, it’s ultimately in the author’s best interest to put forth their best product. Neither short-cut nor salvation, Amazon merely presents possibilities previously unavailable, or imaginable.

The best news is also the bottom line: people in it for the wrong reasons (vanity, the illusion of fame and fortune, etc.) will invariably find this new model easy, yet unfeasible; people in it for the long haul have no guarantees and the road is as long and grueling as it’s ever been. But here’s the catch, and the reason to rejoice: mechanisms now exist wherein any artist can cultivate an audience through the most and honest and organic means known to mankind: good old fashioned word of mouth. Amazon, and the community it sustains, allows anyone to have a voice, and those voices will be creating and encouraging literature for the foreseeable future.

*This post originally appeared in The Independent Publishing Magazine 8/13/15.

Also: RIP to the great Ursula Le Guin, whom I celebrated after her passing, here.

Image courtesy of The New Yorker

(Author’s note: This piece was originally written in 11/23, and is, depressingly, scarcely in need of edits, but we have substantially more data —most of it awful— testifying that things in the various creative industries are challenging as ever. To be cont’d.)

November 14, 1851

Quick, literary folks: why is this date important?

Hint: Call Me Ishmael.

Yes, on this day 174 years ago, Herman Melville wrote not only the great American novel, but one of the enduring classics of world literature. I won’t bore you with yet another tribute to this particular obsession of mine, but if you’ve not read my previous thoughts regarding Moby Dick (its import, its legacy, its staying power, etc.), start here, and if you like poetry, you may appreciate this, too.

For purposes of today’s post, my interest is not necessarily in the text itself, but the circumstances of its creation, reception, and the deleterious effects on Melville’s writing career–and life. From the link, above, courtesy of History.com:

“Melville’s sixth book, Moby-Dick, was first published in October 1851 in London, in three volumes titled The Whale, and then in the U.S. a month later. Melville had promised his publisher an adventure story similar to his popular earlier works, but instead, Moby-Dick was a tragic epic, influenced in part by Melville’s friend and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, neighbor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose novels include The Scarlet Letter.

After Moby-Dick‘s disappointing reception, Melville continued to produce novels, short stories (Bartleby) and poetry, but writing wasn’t paying the bills. In 1865, he returned to New York to work as a customs inspector—a job he held for 20 years.

Melville died in 1891, largely forgotten by the literary world. By the 1920s, scholars had rediscovered his work, particularly Moby-Dick, which would eventually become a staple of high school reading lists across the United States.”

What’s particularly infuriating is not that the masses didn’t instantly recognize the book as a masterpiece, or even that his own publishers failed to appreciate or promote it properly, but that they were looking for a less ambitious, less literary, more commercial work. Sound familiar?

This ugly, undeniable reality is never far from any writer’s mind, but reading, once more, about poor Melville, hit differently, and harder, as I’d just read a magnificent feature on the, well, magnificent Martin Scorsese in GQ. The entire piece can hardly be more enthusiastically recommended, but there were some insights that, even for an experienced and cynical I mean realistic arts advocate, gave me pause — and made me want to holler.

A few highlights I mean lowlights include:

One fascinating contradiction of Scorsese’s career is despite his success—critically and, more recently, commercially—he has never been a natural fit in Hollywood’s traditional studio system, and spent many of his younger decades in search of money and support to make what he wanted to make. Even his many successes, in those years, could feel like failures. “They told me one time, I think it was about Casino, where they said, ‘We made 60 million’—this is a paraphrase quote: ‘We made $60 million on that film or something like that in profit. We’re interested in making $360.’

(This, remember, is the dude who made –among too many other winners to count– Taxi Driver (’76), Raging Bull (’80), and Goodfellas (’90), three movies that, this piece rhetorically and provocatively asks, could be considered the best of each decade; that he still had to answer to any studio, for any reason, is at once offensive and laughable. Which calls to mind the fact that Francis Ford Coppola, who made three of the films that could rival Taxi Driver for best-of-decade (Godfather I & 2 and The Conversation), had to cough up $30M of his own doughto make Apocalypse Now, commonly regarded as one of the best movies of all time.)

And then there’s this series of revelations, worth quoting in full (get ready to Windex your monitor after reading):

More recently, in this century, Scorsese has struggled with the expectations of an industry that has never quite wanted what he’s wanted out of filmmaking—struggles that at times led him as close as he has ever come to quitting the business. 2002’s Gangs of New York, a longtime passion project of Scorsese’s, was in part poisoned by its producer, Harvey Weinstein, with whom Scorsese wrestled over the length and the budget of the film. “I realized that I couldn’t work if I had to make films that way ever again,” Scorsese said. “If that was the only way that I was able to be allowed to make films, then I’d have to stop. Because the results weren’t satisfying. It was at times extremely difficult, and I wouldn’t survive it. I’d be dead. And so I decided it was over, really.”

Then came 2004’s The Aviator, to which Leonardo DiCaprio was attached, and to which Scorsese found himself drawn—“the obsession of it is something that I could really understand.” But who, alongside Warner Bros., was a distributor of that film? Weinstein’s Miramax. “And I was against that; there was a meeting, and I was forced into that position,” Scorsese said. “I’d already been, uh, made pregnant, as they said. And there’s no way you’re getting out of it. But the shoot went well, the editing went well until the last couple of weeks of editing. And they came in and did some things that I felt were extremely mean.” (Warner Bros. and Miramax cut off funding for the film, he says; Scorsese ultimately finished it with $500,000 from his own pocket.)

Once again, Scorsese said, it got to the point where “I just said, ‘I’m no longer making films.’?” And yet within a few years, he’d talked himself into 2006’s The Departed, with DiCaprio again—another story Scorsese found himself wanting to tell and once again ultimately regretted trying to make when Warner Bros. purportedly asked if one of the two leads in the film, played by DiCaprio and Matt Damon, could live. (Spoiler alert: They do not.) “What they wanted was a franchise. It wasn’t about a moral issue of a person living or dying.” It was about having a character that could survive for another film. Scorsese remembers a test screening where everyone—the audience, the filmmakers—walked out ecstatic. “And then the studio guys walked out and they were very sad, because they just didn’t want that movie. They wanted the franchise. Which means: I can’t work here anymore.”

You read that kind of shit and remember that the studio bozos had the bright idea of (almost) insisting Back to the Future be renamed Space Man from Pluto. This potential debacle was deftly handled by none other than Steven Spielberg (full story courtesy of ScreenRant):

While director Robert Zemeckis and writer/producer Bob Gale didn’t want to reject Sheinberg’s suggestions outright, they were unsure how to respond – disliking his approach but fearing the producer’s wrath. In an interview with Shortlist, Gale said that Steven Spielberg himself eventually intervened, sending Sheinberg a letter in response, craftily constructed to embarrass him into submission. The letter read: “Hi Sid, thanks for your most humorous memo, we all got a big laugh out of it, keep ’em coming.” Spielberg’s message had its desired effect, leaving Sheinberg too embarrassed to admit that his concerns were real, and the production forged ahead under its original title.

Here’s the coup de grâce, courtesy of Marty (bolded for full infuriating effect):

What do you think changed with the industry that a filmmaker as talented and dedicated as you just can’t make the films that they want?

“Well, the industry is over,” Scorsese said. “In other words, the industry that I was part of, we’re talking almost, what, 50 years ago? It’s like saying to somebody in 1970 who made silent films, what do you think’s happened?” But, of course, Scorsese has theories. Studios, he said, are not “interested any longer in supporting individual voices that express their personal feelings or their personal thoughts and personal ideas and feelings on a big budget. And what’s happened now is that they’ve pigeonholed it to what they call indies.”

That is an epitaph that applies equally to films, books, and music. Streaming has found new audiences, and has made the wrong people much richer. Books are, arguably, selling more than ever, but the ostensible gatekeepers of culture aren’t above yet another project for some reality TV star. The music industry seems increasingly like something that was a 20th Century anomaly, where –without the necessity of patrons or sponsors– a songwriter could make a reasonable living simply from creating and performing.

The “tough week to contemplate the past/present/future state of the arts” became a triptych upon reading this most timely, enlightening, and depressing piece by Kate Dwyer in Esquire, entitled “Has It Ever Been Harder to Make a Living As An Author?”

A handful of passages stood out (but anyone who doesn’t know, or thinks they know, how grim the prospects of combining writing and revenue, should absorb the essay in its entirety):

A few years ago, a literary agent told me that “writing books is not a career,” which didn’t quite compute in the moment. Of course writing books is a career! I thought. What this agent meant was: writing books is not the kind of career that’s also a job. Without any other revenue streams, it’s highly unlikely that someone could make ends meet or support a family by writing novels. Most novelists have day jobs, and the majority of those who don’t are either independently wealthy or juggling a handful of projects at once, often in different mediums like film, journalism, and audio.

These days, it seems the only way for a full-time novelist to ensure financial stability and a comfortable life is to write a Big Book—a reality that’s almost entirely outside their control.

Today’s Big Books are gigantic. The sales impact of an Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Good Morning America, or Jenna Bush Hager book club selection ranges from the thousands to the hundreds of thousands. Sometimes, the impact approaches the millions when audio, ebooks, and paperbacks are taken into account.(During the 2022 Penguin Random House vs. Department of Justice trial, it became public knowledge that 4% of books earn 60% of profits.) Still, although overall book sales ticked up in 2020—and are still sky-high—the increased costs of printing, shipping, and paper are crushing publishers. So, while there’s a massive public appetite for books, many imprints are operating at a deficit.

This returns us to today’s business climate, where most titles, according to Sinykin, sell less than 5,000 copies. “Depending on who’s doing the counting, only somewhere between 2% and 12% of books, as of today, sell 5,000 copies,” he said.

So…where does this leave us, in late 2023?

The reality, as these three interconnected threads remind us, is that it’s always been a difficult and uncertain road, and artists getting paid is a dilemma that no app or hack (or highly-paid PR consultant) will easily resolve. Still, there’s considerable real estate to navigate in between getting the creative work done (this used to be a career in itself) and resigning to the fickle and unfair market forces. There are heroes amongst us who know where the proverbial bodies are buried, and can offer invaluable (and affordable!) guidance as you try to figure out ways forward. I happily seize every opportunity to praise my friend Jane Friedman, and I not only thank her for writing The Business of Being a Writer (for what it taught me, and for being the go-to resource whenever an aspiring writer asks me for advice). Jane has been dropping knowledge and serving as every writer’s MVP for years, and it’s with both pleasure and disbelief that I acknowledge this conversation, which you can see below, was recorded almost a decade ago! (You can see us talking about all kinds of literary things via the 14:55 Interview, here.)

Another friend & resource for writers is Courtney Maum who, in addition to being a fantastic author and literary citizen, happened to write my other go-to recommendation, Before and After the Book Deal. We had a chance to talk shop during the 2021 Virginia Festival of the Book. (Here’s Courtney and me, talking about her extraordinary memoir The Year of the Horses.)

To be continued, obviously, and for now I’ll close with some thoughts from my Director’s Note in 1455’s Movable Type annual State of the Art issue.

Technology and the times we live in ensure that art is changing and evolving; if it doesn’t, it—and the people who make it—will be outdated and irrelevant. This has always been the case.

No artist today, even a privileged one handed every opportunity, can avoid multitasking; hustle is the new normal.

I continue to find comfort in the fact that, despite increased competition for some sliver of space in our info-overload creative landscape, necessary and otherwise marginalized voices have a fighting chance of being heard. (That said, I still shudder with disdain recalling the veteran literary agent, during a panel I recently moderated, blithely insisting that good writing gets recognized, and artists need only concentrate on doing the work. This attitude reeks of entitlement and arrogance: it was misguided decades ago; to hear it in the 21^st Century only proves there’s a great deal of work still to be done.)

Still true: writing skills will facilitate any number of career paths. This does not mean you will get paid to write, but the ability to communicate effectively remains a superpower in corporate America.

And I’ll leave you with yet another friend and literary goddess, the one and only Jenna Blum (who, in addition to being a NYT best-selling author and co-founder of A Mighty Blaze, is also a heroine for the lit world). From this year’s State of the Art issue, we talked about WRITERS GETTING PAID. (She was also the Keynote Speaker for last year’s 1455 StoryFest; check out our conversation here.)

*These remarks were delivered at the ACM SIGDOC Conference (“Emerging Technologies, Ongoing Challenges” 10/21/24) which I was honored to participate in; find out more about this organization and their mission here.

So, I’m at once an obvious but perhaps unusual voice to weigh in on this topic, as I’ve been deeply involved in the artistic world as well as the corporate one—but developing and utilizing an ability to communicate effectively has, for better or worse, been the through line of my life’s work to this point. All of which is to say, I think deeply, if not obsessively about the tension between communication and community, promoting awareness and inclusion while also maintaining guardrails and sensible policies to protect. Indeed, wars have been fought over this, and depending on what you read or believe, a very sophisticated and expensive war is being waged right now.

As a writer, educator, and advocate, I’ve studied the idea of story and how it works, and I’m convinced that narrative—how we perfect and share it—is the connecting tissue of all human endeavors, from art and entertainment to business and politics. We are all trying to sell something or build a brand or persuade others to join our cause or celebrate our achievements, or recoil at injustice or motivate the alienated, etc.

Here’s the bad news, and it’s not a new phenomenon: the cultural battle of the 21^st C is not necessarily between good and evil; it’s between chaos and silence. This is why we have to choose sides. This is why we can’t to let super-affluent cynics with the least to lose lull us into a state of impotent rage or, worse, apathy. Because aside from the ceaseless class warfare they will instigate, their ultimate ambition is to render the literate and sentient amongst us fed up and indifferent. Without awareness, and with no resistance, they can more easily continue their unchecked assault on our collective well-being.

One thing I’m convinced of, from my years as a tech analyst—where I wrote often about the intersection of innovation and culture—and inside academia and as an artist and arts advocate, is that technology is always with us; my non-profit, 1455, is named after the year Gutenberg’s printing press started producing books at scale, arguably the signal cultural and artistic achievement of the last millennium; for the first time, the act of communicating via the written word was liberated, permanently, from the controlling hands of the clergy and the elite; Gutenberg provided the impetus for libraries and a free press, the performance of plays, and the act of translation; it’s been a non-stop series of improvements and occasional controversies ever since.

It’s undeniable that, on balance, the internet and its myriad applications, from email to search engines, has democratized content, enabling those with less resources to have their voices heard, chances for the marginalized to avoid erasure. Indeed, as a tech analyst at the Consumer Technology Association, I wrote an extended white paper in 2008 predicting that Twitter would revolutionize the dissemination of information; free market fans had long maintained that INFORMATION WANTED TO BE FREE (a very complicated notion that always needs to be unpacked and demystified—as always, and short version: to see where enthusiastic proselytizers are coming from, follow the money) but Twitter and the ascendency of social media seemed to strike a meaningful blow against autocrats and censorship: even in countries without a functioning press, citizens could commit journalism, in real time, and have it shared, freely and immediately, around the globe.

This remains true, and it’s still worth celebrating….but it’s complicated. What optimists like myself didn’t account for –and I’ll defend us by saying it’s not that we were mistaken so much as we were insufficiently skeptical—is that agents of evil could utilize and manipulate these tools as effectively, and easily, as good faith actors. As such, we have curated content, CEOs suppressing info, “alternative facts” and fake news. AI is already raising the stakes considerably: a person used to literally remain in their home office and receive only the news they wished to hear; now a person can roam the world wide net and still remain almost entirely in an incubated cocoon, and where the societal mechanisms of shame used to keep certain cretins in their own basements, racists and actual Nazis can now find solidarity, and organize accordingly. This is where we need sensible oversight and consensus to remove constraints but encourage expression (The alternatives are censorship or media being controlled by the few and powerful—both of which are intolerable in a democracy).

I’ve talked about tech, and I anticipate one question would be: how do I reconcile my mission to celebrate and explore storytelling in light of the fact that every other article one reads mentions AI and the myriad ways this technology will imperil art, if not civilization. My hot take? Relax. Computers and their ever-advanced algorithms can reproduce and even mimic, but they lack (at least) two things separating creativity from counterfeit: originality and soul. It seems worth suggesting that, among many other things, art—and any kind of worthwhile communication, written, drawn, or filmed—is antithetical to short cuts. That’s the crux, and generally speaking, is true of any achievement: there are no “hacks” to become a proficient musician, painter, or athlete; even granting that appraisals of art are subjective there’s an assumed authority (on the part of both creator and critic) that imparts, if not authority, credibility. One danger I’m constantly aware of is the ever-increasing proliferation of charlatans who traffic in false hope: the same rules always apply: if the path to mastery was simple enough to explain in a book, everyone could do it, everyone would do it. Hard work, alas, is everything, and there’s no way around it, but as every successful person knows, what you gain and learn from such diligence justifies the labor, even—perhaps especially—if you can’t count your success in monetary terms. The formula, it seems to me, remains finding joy in the work, meaning in the journey—the way you live is the story of your life and in this sense, everyone is a storyteller.

So: Where does this leave us, as writers, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, creatives?

Of course, all forms of expression need to be as inclusive, accessible, and encouraged as possible. In using the maxim “create the world you want to live in” I founded 1455 with the broad goal of celebrating storytelling, but also building community, and micro communities, via expression—which includesallstorytellers, but also those who enjoy stories. If we include artists and audiences, we’re leaving no one behind. I publish Movable Type, an e-zine that features poems, stories, essays, and artwork, I’ve put on festivals that convene panelists and experts from a variety of communities, and I do what I can, with my resources and wallet, to showcase under-represented voices. In an attempt to meaningfully engage with the younger generations that will one day lead us, I accepted the offer to collaborate with Shenandoah University, and I now direct their Center for Story (indeed, we just had our inaugural story festival yesterday that featured historians, journalists, poets, economists, and professors). In short, I’ve spent the majority of my life creating and sharing my own work, but I’ve found a similarly urgent sense of purpose in promoting the work of others, and doing whatever I can to give voice to the very people our world desperately needs to hear more from.

Everything is changing, but not much has changed: the winners do write history and the good guys don’t always win. As ever, more authentic voices will be the antidote to impersonal technologies and the people using them to disempower those without access. All of which is to say, the need for personal narrative is as imperative and empowering as ever, and the ability to share these stories has never been more accessible, more possible. Not for nothing, there’s a direct correlation between our society’s increasingly dire empathy gap and the ceaseless deprecation of Humanities degrees. The best work we can do, whatever our job titles are, is helping provide space for storytellers to connect, sharing resources to assist and inspire creativity anywhere, and everywhere. Our jobs, as human beings with increasingly urgent table stakes, is finding ways to engage in positive dialogue and opportunities to enrich, by all means necessary.