It was the final class of the course. This time, only the women were present. Ocker Accent fella was most definitely not getting his Certificate of Completion (only bestowed to those who had attended at least four out of the six lessons). Funnily enough, Anthropologist Dude wasn’t there. Maybe the memoir-heavy content had scared them off.
As usual, the class was discussing other people’s memoirs. There were copies of our teacher’s memoir for sale, “in case anyone wants to take advantage of the publisher’s price”. Someone had emailed our teacher asking if she could expand on what was considered “good” literary non-fiction, at least in a structural sense. In response, we were given copies of Kerryn Goldsworthy’s The Limit of The World—the piece on caring for a father with dementia had won the Horne Prize last year. Our teacher praised the universality of the piece, then proceeded to spend 20 minutes of the lesson reading an excerpt she liked.
“Why should we care about this?” she asked when she’d finished, a breathless look on her face.
“Everyone’s got a dad,” Dorothy volunteered.
“Dementia in the family is something that either you’ve gone through, is going through, or will go through at some point in your life,” Emma said.
“It’s a social problem. The system has yet to find a way to support it well,” I said flatly.
“The piece was actually really hard to read. I went through something very similar last year,” Agnes confessed, tears welling up in her eyes. She was the only white woman I had semi-taken to in the class. The other week, she had workshopped an essay on her idolisation of avant-garde artist Suckdog/Lisa Carver, which had briefly set off a pre-social media-esque Riot Grrl kinship.
“That said, I was just at Centrelink last week and it is seriously the worst place in the world,” Emma declared.
There was a bit of ensuing chatter about the characters in the piece like we’d just watched a TV show together. For all her emphasis on Vivian Gornick, our teacher never once referred to her criticism of memoir. I’ve grown to distrust Gornick, but this line in The Situation and The Story still sticks:
“Thirty years ago people who thought they had a story to tell sat down to write a novel. Today they sit down to write a memoir. Urgency seems to attach itself to the idea of a tale taken directly from life rather than one fashioned by the imagination out of life.”
Today’s lesson was meant to be a look-in on publishing proposals and how one could pitch an existing manuscript. Our teacher underscored the importance of having an agent, because they do the non-writing work for you. And if you’re able to persuade a publisher that your manuscript is original and fits the current landscape, then it’s more likely that they’ll want to invest in you.
I asked about self-publishing, the DIY ethos being a huge cornerstone of my life. Unfortunately, as with most people from a formal writing background I’d posed the question to, she admitted she didn’t know very much about that world, “except that I expect you’d have to do everything yourself.”
“Sometimes that detracts from the actual work, when you have to think about marketing and all the other nitty-gritty that comes with book publishing. That said, I’m helping a friend launch a self-published children’s book. She’s managed to put it in Readings,” she mused.
She went on about originality, one of capitalism’s building blocks. She had just finished doing media training for a guy who’d written a book called The Best of Dogs.
“Why hasn’t someone done something like this before? It’s the perfect idea for a commercial publisher.” I could feel a few cogs turn, as people privately considered their big break.
With non-fiction proposals, there’s a higher likelihood a publisher would take on an unfinished work based on the pitch alone. If you’re pitching a memoir, it’s normal to refer to yourself in the third-person when describing the book.
“Is there a way of finding out what’s lacking in the market?” Eat, Pray, Love lady asked.
“Of course,” our teacher said. She explained that this usually took plenty of research, including scouring the websites of publishers and literary agents working in your genre, as well as perusing local bookstores.
“Sometimes, agents share tips on what constitutes a good pitch, or do call-outs for niches they think need to be filled.” She named Australian literary agent Virginia Lloyd as a good example.
“Certain things are very zeitgeist-y right now. If you can pin-point what they are, then all the power to you. Nannies are a big topic at the moment,” she advised.
“I just hired a nanny today actually. I got her to sign an NDA,” Emma announced smugly. In one of the first classes, she’d equated her digital nomadism to homelessness, while complaining about her American husband’s immigration woes in the same breath.
Our teacher went on to describe a memoir by someone who had spent ten years as a stripper. Dorothy interjected, sharing a story about someone at her uni who had written a paper analysing the court transcripts of murder cases committed by women who had killed either a friend or an acquaintance.
“Sounds like she should write a book!” our teacher gushed.
I wondered about all the books: talked-about bestsellers, cult classics, op-shop treasures and library rejects. Books occupy such a strange position in our cultural consciousness, at once valuable yet useless. I could buy Sofie Laguna’s The Choke today and place it prominently on my coffee table, then throw it in the bin in a few months.
The class took a break to eat cake. I politely nibbled on a slice of gluten-free banana bread and didn’t speak to anyone. It was evident who had gravitated to whom. Agnes eventually came up to me and hinted at starting a writing group together. I feigned interest and said I wasn’t sure if I had the time. The entire scenario resembled a forced date.
We spoke a little about writing: her showing awe at the fact that I’d been published, me uncomfortably deflecting the conversation back to her. Publication is a low bar! Despite my indifference towards most people in the class, I expressed my interest in her writing and encouraged her to write more. It was a genuine interest—she was the only person in the class who didn’t have an outsize obsession with the “I”.
There wasn’t much time left after the break, so we proceeded to do our writing exercise immediately. This time, we were asked to craft a sample pitch. For much longer than necessary, Emma, Susan and D&D GM bantered loudly among themselves on the merits of “Dear Sir/Madam” as an opening line. I allowed myself to finally feel thankful that this was the last lesson of the course.
When we were finished, some people read out their pitches, most of which were first-person op-eds addressed to outlets like Sunday Life.
“You might have the most fascinating story in the world, but you can’t expect others to be interested based on that alone. You have to put some distance between yourself and the pitch,” our teacher cautioned after hearing those pitches.
There was barely any time left, but there was one more thing our teacher had to impart. On the whiteboard, she quickly outlined some reasons for writer’s block; they included Fear, Logistics, Stamina, and Money. Urging us to think deeply about these factors, she advised us to figure out what was indeed stopping us (if it was), and the steps we could take to fix it.
“Just remember, writing isn’t going to make you any money.”
A pause. Then a smile. “Well, not much money anyway.”
On the way home, I felt a visceral relief wash over me. I was also exhausted, even though I hadn’t done a lot that day. While I did come away with a few useful tidbits, I finally conceded that the course didn’t do as much for me as I’d hoped. It wasn’t as simple as a mere “fuck the Institution”, but more about what formal learning can do to muddy a creative self that’s no longer impressionable. How to straddle the delicate tightrope between self-congratulatory smugness and rejecting what’s ultimately—and yet subjectively—useless?
At home, I debriefed with my partner. As kindred spirits with a deep intellectual connection, we often talk at length about our creative processes and dilemmas, even if I know little about musicianship and he likewise with writing. He was also experiencing a similar schism, having recently joined a band who was more skilful, but were also more concerned with commercial success.
“If I keep jumping through the hoops how much of myself do I have to lose?” he wondered.
We spoke about understanding our respective fields through intense trial-and-error, naïve parroting and that feeling of inexplicable knowing through a lifetime of studying other people’s oeuvres. Taste that forms through a self-built algorithm. When you get inculcated into the formal process, you end up second-guessing everything you think you know, which ironically can become creatively limiting.
This also forged an impasse: as people without apparent technical knowledge, it was difficult to reject anything openly without coming across as a petulant child.
“A lot of people can write music, but it’s not going to be profound unless you’ve worked on the context that brings everything together,” he continued.
I can say the same about writing. Of course, this sort of thing isn’t universal—what’s insightful to one person may not be to someone else. Once these personal mediums are released into a public sphere, they rest on values that revolve around the whims of capital. Even if they purport to be anti-establishment.
“This is the kind of ouroboric discourse I enjoy! Let’s keep going for the hell of it,” I concluded.
(Note: this isn’t the final newsletter, there’ll be an epilogue within the next 2 weeks)
**
This week’s recommendations:
Maya Binyam’s leisurely yet lucid essay on Nike’s symbolism in contemporary culture—“The checkmark is an image, but it is also a stitched thing, one that has been rejected by cops and embraced by CEOs, but is increasingly produced by the people that both of those representatives––of law enforcement, on one hand, and corporate activism on the other––are trying to address, but also often kill.”
This interview with Alison Whittaker on the Feminist Writers’ Festival blog—“Never write as if to prove you’re smart.”
This podcast/conversation between Sheila Heti and Rachel Cusk on memoir—“She just hears and witnesses. She’s like a recording device.”
Omar Sakr’s exquisite essay on poetry as a balm—“I learned from an early age that language could be sacred, and it is from within this scaffolding of divinity that I often find meaning.”
This Twitter thread I started on the idea of an “imagined readership”, which cleared up many niggling doubts. Very thankful to fellow writers who are generous with their wisdom!