Nathan Whitlock -- novelist, critic (Quill and Quire) repost

Nathan Whitlock, author of the upcoming novel "A Week of This" and review editor at Quill and Quire: 1. CBT: Large Canadian publishing houses are now mimicking large American publishing houses by adopting a "no unsolicited manuscripts" policy. In other words, a writer must have an agent to have an editor at a large Canadian house even consider a book proposal. Is this fair or even rational, given that Canada has a disproportionately small number of literary agents? (We only have roughly a dozen individuals or agencies that a writer would find desirable to work with, compared to the hundreds the U.S. possesses. On top of this, a no unsoliciteds policy is not an inevitable result of 21st Century corporate impatience; both France and Britain have large houses that will at least consider unsoliciteds.) In short, are large Canadian publishers walling themselves off, and making it effectively impossible for lesser-known writers to gain even the most fleeting access to them? 

NW: Yes and no. The reality is that most big houses, despite official policy, often have some low-ranking employee or intern giving the slush-pile a once over. The other reality is that, as many people have pointed out, most slush is just that: thick, brown, mush that just clogs everything up. There is also the reality that, in Canada, it is very nearly impossible to not get published if you have any talent at all. Granted, you may be doing it for nothing or next to nothing, and you may end up publishing with a press that prints 500 copies of your book and lets them all sit in un-opened boxes in the publisher's mom's garage, but you can still get published, and with that published book comes a certain amount of automatic recognition (in some circles) that an ambitious author can build on. It all sounds grasping and tawdry, but that's how it happens, usually. With a published book, you have a better chance at nabbing freelance writing gigs, where you can get the attention of magazine and newspaper editors, who may be able to recommend you to more reputable (not necessarily larger) presses for your next book. So yes, big presses cut themselves off from raw talent by not checking the slush pile often enough, but raw talent can get published elsewhere, and a lot of what passes for raw talent is merely raw, as in sewage. 

2. CBT: In this interview series, R. M. Vaughan has commented that Canada needs a strengthened tradition of publishing genre fiction; by implication, our culture generally -- high and low (I think it would be fair to say Vaughan is self-consciously a high-brow writer) -- would benefit. Judy Stoffman, on the other hand, has argued that Canadians simply don't go for genre fiction. Who do you agree with more? 

NW: Canadians DO go for genre fiction -- they just keep getting told they don't. If you look at the actual bestseller listings from BookNet Canada any week of the year, you'll find that most of it is genre fiction, broadly defined. There is a surprising amount of Canadian literary fiction on those lists, which is great, but even there, the fiction that sells a lot often does so for reasons other than a mass appreciation for fine language. Plus, I tend to argue that middlebrow literary fiction is itself a kind of genre, with the same cliches and expectations and hungry (and often less discerning) readership. And that's fine, as long as it doesn't get confused with real literature, as it does in just about every weekend book section in the country. 

3. CBT: A lot of American literary magazines have a forceful online presence: they offer complete short stories to be read, they allow for online submissions. Canadian lit magazines (with a few exceptions, such as The Danforth Review) don't. A survey of the online presence of Canadian lit mags shows that they do not have much (or any) of their content online, and do not allow email submissions. They seem, to put it bluntly, behind the times. Should Canadian literary magazines be more pro-active in taking advantage of the internet? And given that a strong internet presence requires more labour, should they get Canada Council funding specifically for this? 

NW: Yes, and yes. With the accompanying proviso that free and online does not necessarily mean sloppy. That stuff needs to be edited and editorially considered, too, if it wants to be taken seriously. Otherwise, why do it? This doesn't just mean eliminate typos, but also eliminate sloppy thinking and work that is just a sloppy imitation of what you could find more professionally done elsewhere. Some online magazines recognize this part, and consequently offer things only they can. 

4. CBT: Should Canadian movie makers/TV producers work in much closer concert with novelists? Would all forms of fictional narrative benefit if there were this kind of integration between media? 

NW: Possibly. Novelists would get more money, which, speaking as one who will soon join their ranks, would be nice. I would say, though, that one problem these movie maker/author collaborations have had when they do occur, is that the movie makers, not all that well-read in CanLit, often approach some "big names" -- authors who get a lot of press and who are published by big publishers and who produce fat, impressive-looking novels that contain the barest of stories being smothered by a lot of dull, literary fat. We have a number of highly regarded mystery authors, for example, as well as horror writers, who could probably come up with a better movie -- or at least better dialogue -- than someone writing about lonely spinsters and symbolically oversignificant caches of letters found in symbolically oversignificant attics. Not saying that all the movies made should be mysteries, thrillers, and horrors (not that that would be a bad thing), but that a genre writer might have a better sense of plotting and pace than someone more concerned with limning the ineffable. (I should say here that I very rarely read genre fiction, and then only when paid to, so I'm not going all Stephen King here -- I just think that, as a medium, film is more conducive to the adaptation genre work than more literary work. Which is why The Godfather and The Exorcist and Seven will last longer than any Merchant-Ivory film. Even Apocalypse Now is as much a noir thriller as it is Heart of Darkness.) 

5. CBT: Do we, like the U.S., over-rely on MFA programs as "farm teams" for writers? The MFA model leaves a lot to be desired: instead of uniformly focussing on fostering talent, the classes are on occasion hot-houses of favouritism, cliquishness and brown-nosing. And the MFA model has no real tradition to justify its contemporary prevalence: from the 19th to mid-20th Century, during the height of the literary novel's popularity, the idea that one could "become" a writer by going to a university and taking courses in it would have been considered not only laughable but pathetic and wrong-headed. Does the MFA model need a revolution? Yes, emerging writers need mentorship, and yes, working writers need a day job. But is the current model lending MFA programs too much power in terms of determining who eventually gets published, and are there other, alternative systems you can think of? 

NW: This question could be called "leading the witness." MFA programs are the alternative system, as far as I'm concerned. I think their importance is overstated, though they are at least partly responsible for the cult of competence that has CanLit in its grip at the moment. Real writers will do what they do, inside or outside of that system. 

6. CBT: Thinking of movies: do we need a strengthened screen quota -- that is, a law obligating theatres to show Canadian content x number of days every year ... "x" being more than they do now? 

NW: I think we need better movies, at least. How that comes about, I have absolutely no idea. I have often tried to get a screenwriter friend of mine to explain the complexities of Telefilm funding, and it always ends up sounding like some satirical sub-Kakfka bit by George Saunderson or a skit by Stephen Frye and Hugh Laurie, with every stage of conception subject to new rules, new funding.

7. CBT: Implicit in many of the posts at your lit-blog "tk" is the idea that criticism matters; that honest, tough-minded criticism is necessary to keep a nation's literature from sinking into mediocrity. First, is this a fair description of your thinking on the issue? And is there currently a lack of sufficient good-quality criticism in Canada?

NW: Yes. And yes. 

8. CBT: You recently took Yann Martel to task over his over-the-top rhetorical style in an article he wrote for the Globe about his current campaign to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the hopes of lobbying the government to increase funding for the Canada Council. Agreeing that Martel's writing style was conspicuously overblown ("Repent! Repent!" etc.), is it not nevertheless the case that he's fighting a good cause and should be cut a bit of slack? Or is this an overly Canadian response, and, given some of Martel's more questionable assertions ("Truly I say to you, there are only two sets of tools with which the rich soil of life can be worked: the religious and the artistic"), is it not healthy that writers are occasionally sharp with each other? 

NW: Inasmuch as Martel is not doing any harm -- or any good -- I am happy to let him send Harper's office another Penguin Classic every couple of weeks. I hope some underpaid intern there is having a good read, or at least selling them in the Byward Market for cash. I don't see any problem with writers being sharp with each other. Stephen Henighan, to his everlasting credit, has said some very sharp -- in both senses of the word -- things about his CanLit peers. He has also said some ridiculous things, and has had some sharp things said back because of it. That is as it should be, and it makes the whole enterprise more fun, more exciting, and more of interest to people who love books but hate the earnest, trembling, passive culture that seems to come along with books. (In case it needs to be said, I can't stand Stephen Harper, but his reading habits are the last thing I'm worried about. My worry is that he has read TOO much -- Machiavelli, Sun-Tzu, Kissinger - while many of his opponents seem to not understand the first thing about politics or strategy or the country they are seeking to lead.)

10. CBT: Martel's strategy for influencing Stephen Harper is to mail a book to the Prime Minister's Office every two weeks in the hopes the PMO will eventually relent and grant him a meeting. However, when one goes to the site Martel has built to promote his campaign, one notices a curious thing: although the whole point of Martel's project (apart from promoting "stillness") is to assist Canadian writing, there is very little actual CanCon at his site. That is, none of the the novels he's chosen so far (with the exception of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept") are by Canadians. And none of them -- not one -- is set in Canada. Similarly, Rick Groen, in a recent piece in the Globe entitled "Books Still Win" (July 13) waxes enthusiastic about the "life" that the literary novel still possesses and then primarily uses ... American and British examples. What's going on here? Canadian culture has had a long history of de facto or subtle colonization. But are we now at the stage where we are colonizing *ourselves*? That, in effect, we are not even aware of when we undercut our own own culture?

NW: Possibly. But then again, you can find "stillness" anywhere, can't you? I think that question requires an answer closer to the length of a book, to be honest. 11. CBT: Canadian culture has traditionally excelled at documentaries and news programming. Yet in recent years, journalists such as a personal favourite of yours, Mark Steyn, have been given platforms in national media. Steyn, to put it simply, is a joke. His writing evinces emotional imbalance (for example, his post-Virginia Tech Massacre ruminations on the Marc Lepine Massacre at L'ecole Polytechnique), and he is a light-weight in terms of his understanding of contemporary history (such as his version of what drove Margaret Thatcher to re-take the Falklands). Yet apart from the fact that he has settled in the U.S. (you recently linked to a perceptive article by James Wolcott in which Wolcott referred to Steyn as a "self-hating" Canadian), he seems to be determined to make his voice heard within Canada.... in other words, the bar of journalistic quality in the country will be lowered that much further. Returning to the question of criticism's role in maintaining a culture's equilibrium and health, are we at a point where we are just not serious enough about who is allowed in print in this country? Antidotes to fundamentally amateurish thinkers like Steyn such as FRANK have been relegated to user-unfriendly pay-per-use internet sites, where their influence is diminished. The CBC has stopped doing biting political satire a la Max Ferguson. And, with a few exceptions, bloggers in Canada apparently just don't care. Could we learn a thing or two from the sharp-tongued commentators of British and U.S. culture and increase the degree of cutting, intelligent comment in our country? 

NW: There certainly are a lot of dimwits in Canadian media, but that's a whole other interview. The few Canadian political blogs I have peeked at seem like pale imitations of the big American ones like Eschaton or Daily Kos. In fact, a lot of them use the same language and catch phrases as Eschaton's Atrios, about the same (American) issues. I would love to see more cutting, intelligent comment in this country. It's why, as bad as it can get, I love reading FRANK. The Canadian culture industry seems unable to admit how pathetic we are in so many ways. I would argue (as does Atwood in Survival, in a way), that admitting to that patheticness (pathetictude?) could be something to build on, culturally. A lot of Maritime writers have done it, Mordecai Richler did it, the Trailer Park Boys did it, why can't the rest of us? 

12. CBT: When discussing the hegemony of American culture over Canadian, Canadians repeatedly declare that beyond a certain point this is inevitable, and it is so for economic reasons. And while allowing that economic power is a massive factor in all aspects of life, is there not something else at work in the Canadian psyche? Is there not an argument for saying that Canadians (and perhaps here rabid types like Steyn have a point) just don't try as hard as they could? Consider the example of the lit-blogosphere. Here the argument that American culture reigns supreme because of economic advantage breaks down: blogging is free. Yet the Canadian lit-blogging scene is a pale shadow of its American counterpart. Moreover, speaking anecdotally, on average I tend to find the U.S. bloggers somewhat friendlier and more open to exchanging links, etc. Canadian bloggers (and please keep in mind that there are always exceptions) seem more prone to passivity. Evidence of this is the degree to which Canadian lit-blogs do not link to each other as much as they might in their blog-rolls or posts. As suggested above, do we need to do more to create our own literary and/or political culture on the internet? 

NW: Yes. (Though I will admit I have no links on my own blog, for a lot of semi-professional but possibly trivial reasons. Maybe I should.) The problem is that such a thing does not occur because we theoretically decide "this must be created" -- it happens because, as I said above, something is getting done in sufficient quantity and numbers that can't be found elsewhere. The political and literary culture on the net is not starving due to a lack of links, but because there's not enough good writing/commentary being done. What needs to be followed is a kind of cultural business model (and I admit I don't do this): find a niche, and pursue it relentlessly. A guy who works on comic books has created a massive archive, with commentary, of the complete evolution of Marvel and DC comic book logos - someone I work with showed me this. I don't even like comic books, but I was impressed. It's the kind of thing that would make a great coffee table book someday. That site probably gets more visitors in one day than all the Canadian lit sites (like mine) who link to this or that eyebrow-raising story about James Frey in the Guardian or wherever. That niche is covered, that audience is getting served. It's why my own site has ever less literary content on it and more and more cheap gags -- five minutes at the Quillblog (which I also blog for) or Bookninja or Goodreports or the Literary Saloon and you're covered, Guardian link-wise. BIO: Nathan Whitlock is the review editor of Quill & Quire, Canada's publishing magazine. His reviews, non-fiction, and fiction have appeared in the Toronto Star, Maisonneuve, Geist, The Globe and Mail, Toro, Saturday Night, and elsewhere. He was the winner of the inaugural Emerging Artist in Creative Writing Award and the Short Prose for Developing Writers Award, as well as runner-up for the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award. His first novel, A Week of This, will be published in Spring 2008 by ECW Press.

STILLS WITHOUT SCRIPTS

Notables Dangeureux

Mark Kaplan on the un-ironic dangers of irony:

I read that one philosopher-blogger declared that everything he says is a joke. A declaration which would itself be a fairly predictable self-cancelling philosophical joke, no sooner made than evaporating in a question mark. Regardless, the remark reminded me of the empty, faux-ludic nihilism of contemporary ‘irony’ – serving no purpose, devoid of critical or satirical intent, endlessly putting its own speech in quotation marks and the world in brackets. Sometimes it poses as a Deconstructive provisionality, a radicalism so subtle & subjunctive as to leave things exactly as they were before; other times it is a paralysed mockery, its suspicion of seriousness, commitment or Causes merely the alibi of political compliance and withdrawal.


Steve Augustine on On Chesil Beach, middlebrow chivalry, and the dangers of premature beatification of the author:

McEwan’s schematic stacks the deck with the force of stereotypes so entrenched they feel like empirical laws of a natural science. Making the upper class female love-object in this novel superior in almost every way may feel like an expression of the author’s (unconscious? Self-hating?) class prejudice, but it’s also the de rigeur chivalry of the post-feminist celebrity, as it would be difficult to imagine a writer with McEwan’s following getting away with making any of the males in his couples more intelligent than their invariably attractive wives or lovers. Hewing obediently to this unspoken stricture is a minor failure of nerve that doesn’t, on its own, threaten the integrity of the work. But as McEwan ages and his stature grows and he devolves towards the artistic cul-de-sac of Elder Statesmanship, other strictures … other obediences to the sensibilities of his auditors … undermine his mastery. A certain squeamishness sets in.


Nathan Whitlock on the dangers of excessive artistic conservatism:

I'm not sure the world has gone so conservative – culturally, morally, and economically, things can get fairly frontier-town out there, and that's not such a good thing – but it's true that Canadian publishing seems to represent a virtual (and occasionally literal) de-linking of a huge chunk of society from the rest the rest of the world, a perpetual High Tea held on a floating barge that's slowly taking on water. I've watched a lot of people in books – writers, editors, publicists, booksellers, myself – voluntarily and somewhat subconsciously adopt a kind of narrowed cultural vision in order to survive/thrive in the business.

Jon Evans -- novelist, journalist

Jon Evans -- novelist (INVISIBLE ARMIES, BLOOD PRICE, etc.), journalist ("Apocalypse Soon")

Note: In order to put this interview in context, reading Evans' article "Apocalypse Soon" is recommended.

1. In a piece you wrote entitled "Apocalypse Soon" that recently appeared in The Walrus, you argue that print culture -- the publishing industry as it has traditionally been aligned -- is about the be hit by a meteor. And that meteor is digital culture. But these arguments have been floating around for several years. How soon is soon? And what factors can you identify that would bring about these changes in a way conducive to good writing and expanded opportunities for serious authors?

--

Well - that's actually not quite my argument. Culture is important, but secondary. The actual meteor will be a good, reasonably priced, widely available e-book reader that eliminates paper's most important advantage. The Sony Reader I mention in the article is a step in the right direction, but certainly not the answer. It's hard to predict hardware developments (other than Moore's Law) but there is a whole lot of research into various forms of electronic ink going on, so I'll stick my neck out and say we'll see something like that in less than five years.

Culture - well, there are already a whole lot of free books available online, and I think it's reasonable to assume they'll come pre-installed on these readers; we already have the culture of online file-sharing; we increasingly have the culture of people using their Palm Pilots, iPhones, Nokia E90s, etc., as major information intake devices. Once the hardware is available, I think a small but significant portion of the reading population will take to it immediately, and then their numbers will steadily grow.

Note, though, that the "iTome" won't conquer as fast as the iPod. I suspect hardly anyone over forty will adopt it. Paper will remain a significant, albeit shrinking, segment of the book market for a long time.

As for "conducive to good writing and expanded opportunities for serious authors" - I'm not at all sure these changes will be conducive to those things. Basically this is a question of economics: will there be more money in literature? And if so, will it be spread among more authors? (Allowing more to write full-time, which would presumably be conducive to good writing, and would also draw more talent into the field, thus expanding opportunities.)

This will only happen if a) more people read, and/or b) more money goes to authors, while c) we don't wind up with everyone reading the same fifty or hundred big-name authors, while everyone else scrabbles for scraps. I think c) is actually very unlikely, but I have no idea about a) or b).

2. In the same article, you argue the file sharing that is already changing the way music companies must model their business will have a revolutionary impact on publishing as well, once text-readers like the Sony Reader became common.

The resulting change, you continue, will lead to online distribution (including, as in the music industry, pirate distribution) of e-books. This will be likely to lead to two possible scenarios: one in which authors are not paid any more, and will have to rely on the generosity of patrons and other outside sources of income in order to survive financially, or one in which they are paid directly for their work.

It is probably safe to say that for many emerging writers, frustrated by the endless carousel of not having one's work read without an agent, and not getting an agent without an impressive publishing history, the prospect of "e-publishing" holds a certain appeal. But there are a lot of impediments to doing even this -- or at least, doing it well. For example one needs a bit of capital to build a really attractive website, manage the e-business, and generally avoid stumbling into too many of the pitfalls of DIY culture.

Do you also foresee a model in which businesses to help set up e-publishers also evolve? (I"m thinking of something more publishing-specific than the Yahoo start-yer-own-biz site). Or will we end up with an e-publishing culture in which corporate behemoths still dominate simply because they can pour more money into slick homepages, PR staff to focus on "viral" publicity, etc.?

--

The Internet already makes self-publishing a theoretically viable concern: go to lulu.com, sign up for free, upload a PDF of your latest opus, and sell print-on-demand hardcovers for $25, of which about $10 is pure author profit. It's every writer's dream!

Except of course it isn't. Because nobody has ever heard of the vast majority of lulu.com authors. Because most people still shop for books in bookstores. And most importantly, because everyone knows that Real Writers - ie those worth reading - are published by Real Publishers. And for the most part, this is entirely true.

It's less true in the online world, thanks to the increasing number of Real Writers publishing online - but still, even if/when distribution is no longer an issue, books that are professionally edited, copy-edited, and marketed, and receive the imprimatur of quality from an established arbiter, will retain an enormous advantage over amateur work, and rightfully so.

The thing is, there's no longer necessarily any reason for these things to be done by a single corporate behemoth. A large part of the barrier to entry to publishing has always been printing and distribution. If/when those are no longer necessary/relevant, an author could quite easily hire his/her own editor, copyeditor, and publicist, and bypass publishers entirely. (Many authors - not me - already hire their own publicists.)

Now, traditional publishers will still have major advantages. They have a stranglehold on bookstores, and even if paper shrinks to, say, 40% of the market, that's 40% authors won't want to ignore, which is an incentive to sign with a publisher. And publishers provide that imprimatur of basic quality. (Yes, there are a lot of bad books out there, but there are far, far more unspeakably awful unpublished ones.)

On the other hand, authors can make enormously more money self-publishing. (Because they don't pay for a publisher's overhead and failures). So I can envision a future in which occasional amateur digital hits come out of left field with no publisher; big-name authors maintain their own digital rights and sell their own digital copies (and/or hope pirate readers are willing to donate a buck or two); and traditional publishers get squeezed at both ends.

3. Stanislaw Lem once wrote a novel set in the distant future after a bacteriological epidemic has destroyed a substance hazily remembered as "papyr". As a result, this future society has lost virtually all records, all history, all knowledge. Compared to "papyr", "dijital" seems even more susceptible to massive losses of data because of some unforeseen catastrophe. Isn't one argument in favour of print culture over digital the former's relative permanence?

--

Well, technically yes, but first of all, nowhere do I argue that paper is going to entirely vanish, and second, even if this becomes a problem, it's a solvable one. Books could be archived in the same way that seeds for all the world's plants are being stored in vaults in Norway and other places. I suppose you get long-term durability for free with paper, and you have to put a little effort into it in a purely digital world, but it's only a little effort.

4. In many respects, the computer screen is not so much a "page"; it is a "flat-screen TV". In other words, computer technology allows a creative individual to use video and audio as well as text when creating narrative.

Continuing with the dinosaurs-and-evolution metaphor, do you see the e-book as being the final form of the online book? Or will it morph into something more multi-media?.

--

I think you want to ask a cognitive scientist, not me, but:

I suspect there will exist many, many multi-media works a la Griffin & Sabine, or graphic novels/comic books/manga - but text & video? Eh. I think in general, people respond to text in a fundamentally different way than they do to video (see also McLuhan) and context switching between the two will just be too annoying to be successful. Digital comic books, absolutely; digital movies, obviously; and video games will continue to grow and evolve (and that's a whole separate fascinating subject); but digital video intermingled with long sequences of text? My gut feeling is that will never be much more than a curiosity.

5. In "Apocalypse Soon" you also argue that in order to avoid an avalanche of self-published dreck, this new digital publishing paradigm must emphasize quality. But of all the qualitative adjectives that can be applied to literary creation, "quality" must be one of the most open to wildly different interpretation; after all, there is some very good work online that is "self-published", and some of the allegedly literary work being printed by major publishers these days is not conspicuously ground-breaking or even, on occasion, well-written.

How will "quality" be judged in a digital literary culture? Do you think newspapers will begin reviewing online writing? Do you think other lit-bloggers will do this review work? Who will assess "quality"?

--

Eh. That "quality" bit was more of an aside than a central part of the argument, to be honest, and it's only there 'cause the editor talked me out of removing it, a decision I now kind of regret.

Newspapers as we know them will probably not begin reviewing online writing regularly, mostly because they will be too busy dying. (They're already cutting down significantly on pages devoted to books.)

What is "quality"? Er. That's a deep philosophical question. I'm just this writer, you know?

I suppose it can be approximated by some mix of a) widespread readership; b) being approved and championed by The Authorities, whoever they are (English profs? professional literary critics? The big-name bloggerati?); c) influence on other writers (and other mediums); and d) whether or not the work lasts and is read by future generations. No one of those is good enough, and probably no two, but three or four serve a pretty good marker of Quality.

Online publishing/distribution isn't much likely to change that.

6. You also emphasize that one reason you want to take advantage of digital culture now is because very few authors (outside the SF examples you mention, such as Cory Doctorow) are currently doing it, and you would like to gain a little publicity by being one of the first in. However, you are currently stymied by your publisher's insistence that you not give your writing away for free online.

Are you planning to re-negotiate any publishing contracts you have? Will you insist that future publishing contracts you sign allow you to post digital manuscripts? And what is your agent's feelings about this issue?

--

I tried to renegotiate those contracts (by getting permission to publish online.) I failed.

My agent backed me 100% through all this.

I'll probably try to maintain digital rights in future contracts - but honestly, I don't think it much matters. I think this year was the right time, and DARK PLACES the right book, to publish online. Some other book a year or two from now will be the wrong book at the wrong time, which is one reason I'm annoyed at my publishers for failing to share my vision.

I'm actually serializing a weird but good little book called Beasts of New York online right now, in its stead, which I can do because I didn't sell it.

7. Canadian culture does not have a particularly high (or even visible) profile on the world stage. And the reason typically given for this is we are a country with a small population. Yet Canadian culture also tends to be subsumed within English-speaking Canada; certain cultural industries are constantly struggling to gain/retain an audience. (Example, when was the last time you saw a Canadian movie -- not one shot in Canada, but set in Canada?) This predicament is well-recognized by cultural commentators in English Canada, and, again, there is a ready explanation: the massive, ongoing influence of American culture.

But isn't this explanation now part of the problem? Doesn't it instill a sense of fatalism, and prevent Canadians from developing workable strategies that might strengthen our culture? In short, doesn't the "America usually wins" mantra become a self-fulfilling prophecy? After all, small population size and proximity to more powerful cultures do not spell cultural marginalization for other countries: South Korea, where I now live, has a population and economy approximately the same size as Canada's (49 million to our 35 million, and 11th largest economy compared to our 8th). Yet it has a tremendously vibrant and successful culture.

What is your own take on this issue? Any examples from your own experience? Or do you see the Canadian cultural status quo as just fine?

--

Well, there was BON COP BAD COP. But in general your point is well taken.

I think the biggest difference is that very little of South Korea's talent goes to Hollywood. I can easily rattle off dozens of Canadians who have been very successful in America's entertainment industry, and I'm sure you can too. There are still a lot of very talented people in Canada; but America is where the money is, and ergo it's where all the big hits are produced. South Korea is sheltered by its language barrier.

America's indirect influence might be even more important. It's such a huge pool of wealth that almost anything made in Canada is also made to be attractive to Americans as well - and such is the perception of America in Canada that this often means dumbing it down, making it more broad and more bland. The British make sharp, dry, well-written films and television (as well as a whole lot of crap) for a British audience, and American success is merely a potential bonus; in Canada, artists and entertainers (and I absolutely include myself in this indictment) almost always have one eye on the pot of gold across the border, and this subtly influences what we create.

8. In this interview series, R. M. Vaughan has commented about Canadian letters:

"A while back a writer friend of mine signed with a new agent. Out of curiousity, I went to the agency's website - every single one of the dozen or so agents had warnings underneath their interest lists: no science fiction, no mysteries, no horror, no thrillers, no fantasy books. In other words, nothing that might actually sell. We need to get over the tired prejudice against popular fiction in this country." [Feb. 20, 2007]

While Judy Stoffman has commented:

"All kinds of genre lit have been tried and none of it sold as well in Canada as, say, Margaret Atwood. It could be that Canadian readers are more serious than U.S. book buyers." [Feb. 13, 2007]

Who do you agree with more?

--

I take incredulous issue with Ms. Stoffman's statement that genre lit doesn't sell well in Canada - just look at the bestseller lists! - but I think R.M. Vaughan statement is more interesting. Major Canadian publishers certainly do publish genre fiction (I'm living proof) but it wouldn't surprise me if it's true that few to no Canadian agents represent such fiction. I think it's more socially acceptable to be passionate about genre fiction in America, and to some extent the UK, than it is in Canada; and that there is such a thing as a "literary establishment" subculture that is often dismissive of such fiction.

But who cares? Genre fiction sells very well, and if no Canadian agents represent it, then Canadian writers of such fiction should simply seek representation in America and/or the UK. They'll be better off anyway. Canada is a sufficiently small market that writers who actually want to make a living off their work almost invariably have to succeed in foreign markets as well. A major-market agent makes that success a lot more likely.

9. Should Canadian movie makers/TV producers work in much closer concert with novelists? Would all forms of fictional narrative benefit if there were this kind of integration between media?

--

My short answer is "no."

I write (thus far unproduced) screenplays as well as novels, so I can tell you with at least a little authority, they're very different animals. Some novels do lend themselves to being filmed, but the majority do not.

Like the abovementioned William Gibson, I too get "annoyed by people who seem to assume that feature films are the ultimate stage of novelistic creation, thereby relegating the book to the status of dull gray chrysalis."

10. A lot of American literary magazines have a forceful online presence: they offer complete short stories to be read, they allow for online submissions. Canadian lit magazines (with a few exceptions, such as The Danforth Review) don't. A survey of the online presence of Canadian lit mags shows that they do not have much (or any) of their content online, and do not allow email submissions. They seem, to put it bluntly, behind the times. Should Canadian literary magazines be more proactive in taking advantage of the internet? And given that a strong internet presence requires more labour, should they get Canada Council funding specifically for this? Or is this possible solution overly reliant on arts body funding?

--

Yes, they're behind the times and should catch up (although I suspect their forbiddance of email submissions is for fear of being swamped, which is probably a reasonable fear.)

As to whether the government should pay for it - this is a political issue I'm disinclined to get into.

11. When discussing the hegemony of American culture over Canadian, Canadians repeatedly declare that beyond a certain point this is inevitable, and it is so for economic reasons. And while allowing that economic power is a massive factor in all aspects of life, is there not something else at work in the Canadian psyche? Is there not an argument for saying that Canadians just don't try as hard as they could?

Consider again the example of the lit-blogosphere. Here the argument that American culture reigns supreme because of economic advantage breaks down: blogging is free. Yet the Canadian lit-blogging scene is a pale shadow of its American counterpart. Moreover, speaking anecdotally, on average I tend to find the U.S. bloggers somewhat friendlier and more open to exchanging links, and so on. Canadian bloggers (and please keep in mind that there are always exceptions) seem more prone to passivity. Evidence of this is the degree to which Canadian lit-blogs do not link to each other as much as they might in their blog-rolls or posts.

As suggested above, do we, as a national culture, need to do more to create our own literary and/or political culture on the internet?

I think part of our natural culture is that we're slightly more aloof than Americans, and I'm fine with that.

I think another part is obsessive navel-gazing about what it means to be Canadian and whether we should be trying harder to be less American, and, to be honest - sorry - this just seems like collective insecurity to me, and tends to make me roll my eyes and change the subject.

I actually think Canada is doing just fine, and Canada's online culture equally so.

Bio: Jon Evans is a novelist, journalist and techie who has lived a conspicuously peripatetic life, even by contemporary standards. Born in Canada and currently living in Montreal, he is in fact, as they say, "Montreal-based".

Apart from his books, his work has appeared in Wired, The Globe and Mail, and The Walrus. And he is serializing online his "children's book for adults" BEASTS OF NEW YORK.

STILLS WITHOUT SCRIPTS

Rolf Maurer -- publisher, New Star Books

Rolf Maurer of New Star Books:


1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?

The people who tell us that literature is in trouble are probably the same people telling us that there are too many books. These are the same people who, whatever era they happen to live in, long for the "death of literature".

I've noticed a funny thing. For the last five-plus years now, we've been hearing about how the trade book industry is in the doldrums, negligible growth, mediocre-to-poor profitability, "death of literature", people have stopped reading, blah blah blah. Then I have lunch with my printer. To hear him talk, things have never been better: new bindery lines, new plants, best year ever, etc. Where are all these books going? Probably where they've always gone, except not through traditional trade channels, which is what the doom-and-gloomsters are going by. What's in trouble is the traditional book trade way of doing things. As near as I can tell, people are eating up books as much as they ever have.


2. And what is literature, anyway? Should the traditional novel be considered the prime example of it?

The definition seems to be: anything that you read in a book or a fat magazine, that is meant to entertain/pass the time, scare, annoy, puzzle, thrill, or have practically any not-strictly-for-educational-purposes application, and which will probably end up being read by only by a tiny fraction of the population. The novel has been the prime example of it, absolutely: the novel form was invented to meet the needs of mass commercial literature. Contrary to what the blow-hards tell us, it does not correspond to any essential human quality, and narrative is not a naturally occurring substance.


3. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.

Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?

For the most part bowling trophies for writing have always been marketing moves, made by people who are troubled that literature isn't compulsory in society and needs to be promoted, like milk, or sexual abstinence. It's nice to win one, but it doesn't mean every citizen is suddenly going to rush out and buy the book --- the obligatory congratulatory ads, &c., easily overwhelms the profit margin from the sales burst --- and looking at any old lists of prize winners and runners-up can be embarrassing. The cheque the writer gets is the best part. If we really cared this much about writers and what they do, surely there would be better ways of helping them pay their bills than the literary prize lottery.


4. Literary publishing has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?

Nothing's changed there. Publishing has always been run as a business, and this has been especially true since some time after the beginning of the 20th century, when the real costs of publishing declined to a point where gentleman-millionaires could run a small literary press out of their trust allowance. A money-losing business often, but a business.

People make the mistake of thinking that, because publishing in general is unprofitable, the people who are running the companies must be monkeys. It's likely that as print became cheaper and the cost of publishing came down, that is to say entry barriers to the publishing business were lowered, at the same time that considerable social prestige continued to be attached to books, meant a crowded and highly competitive industry. That's the reason publishing profits have declined.

The changes we're seeing in book publishing today are part of the same phenomenon we first saw in the 1960s, when companies that normally made fighter-jet guidance systems starting buying venerable publishing houses. Big business isn't monolithic. Until the present era the book trade was dominated by manufacturers: people whose business it was to make book-shaped widgets. And their interest in finance was more or less limited to the question of how much of it they needed to get their hands on paper, ink, presses, and talent.

Along came the finance sector: the only things these guys ever make is money. Baby formula, land mines: it's all the same to them. They were attracted to book publishing because of the *low* profit margins: they made the sector vulnerable. Whatever meagre profits the industry generated, it would flow to the banks, in the form of interest. And so we saw the consolidation of the big end of publishing in the 1970s and 1980s --- without there being any decrease in the number of new publishers --- and the rise of the bookstore chains, and the Ingram stranglehold.

And still, there's no letup in the number of new presses, and new writers, and new forms of literature.


5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?

The best writers often, but not reliably or predictably, end up --- or pass mid-career --- with the biggest publishers, but they almost never come from there.


6. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?

The distribution/retail marketing squeeze is part of the manufacturing--finance shift within the book industry that I was talking about just now. I presume that for the big boys, the centralization of book production, distribution and retail is bringing about some sort of "efficiencies", which probably means nothing more than the ability to externalize costs and squeeze out a little more profit. For the rest of us --- smaller publishers, smaller booksellers --- everything is mysteriously *less* efficient, particularly when you measure it in terms of $$. That's because the system isn't organized around the needs of publishers, writers, booksellers: it's organized around the needs of the finance sector. And it sure ain't working for the Happy Few who wander into bookstores --- to get back to something else I was just going on about, the book trade's statistical droop. Bookselling, the way it's set up at the moment, isn't doing a very good job of letting readers know what's really being written and published these days. It's making literature seem duller and dumber than it is.


7. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?

Once you look at publishing primarily as a way of extracting the maximum amount of profit out of a capital investment, agents are as inevitable and necessary as lawyers, accountants, MBAs, and writers.


8. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?

To state your question another way: Is it a good thing that almost any smallish group in society can fire up a publishing company, or is this a bad thing?


9. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?

Depends on what you mean by "book". It's possible that another form will supersede the codex, the way that the codex superseded scrolls and tablets. I'm not convinced that a few ounces of plastic wrapped around a board coated with micro-thin, biodegradable circuitry, running a software program written by some American video gamer who thinks 7-Up is a vegetable because it comes in green cans, is a good bet to render the book form obsolete, no matter how good the screen displays ever get. Nevertheless, those folks will keep on trying to get rid of books.


10. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?

Like everybody else, we're all trying to figure this thing out --- what it means to us as humans, as publishers, as readers. So far it's had less direct impact on what I do as a publisher than I was lead to believe. We still do the same thing here, albeit we do a lot of things, all in-between-the-writing-and-the-reading, differently and sometimes more cumbersomely.


11. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?

I don't accept that there's a decline in sales of literary fiction. Maybe the problem is with the definition of "literary fiction". Could it be that the readers' definition of this is different from that of the libraries and English Departments? They are after all institutions, and as such it's their job to lag behind on these things. Publishers aren't always much quicker on the uptake.


12. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?

A few things. Our book on Wreck Beach is about to come out; I'm excited about that, not just because it's got some nudity and is therefore likely to sell, but because I get to put a little bit of the world that I care about out there. Also, an amazing book of concrete poems by Donato Mancini, a mad scientist. And a big book, a mega-project by our standards, that's coming out next year, about Frank Zappa's music.


bio: Failed journalist Rolf Maurer is now a ridiculous publisher. He has worked at New Star Books since 1981, and been the proprietor since 1990.

STILLS WITHOUT SCRIPTS

Matthew Firth -- Black Bile Press

Matthew Firth, author (Suburban Pornography, etc), publisher (Black Bile Press), and editor (Front and Centre):

1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?

I think it’s an exaggeration. Too much dithering by those who don’t have enough to do in their daily lives, so they create anxiety over the state of literature. But, then, seriously, who cares if literature is in trouble when the planet is in trouble, when millions worldwide are in trouble, when kids everywhere are in trouble, etc. Relatively speaking, whether literature is in trouble or not is a sickeningly bourgeois notion.


2. And what is literature, anyway? Should the traditional novel be considered the prime example of it?

I’m not sure. Anything that’s written down might be literature. Travel brochures are often called travel literature. Someone hands you a pamphlet on the street and says, “You wanna to read some literature?” So maybe it is just about anything, including the novel.


3. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.

Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?

Yes, literary prizes of all sorts – big and small – size doesn’t matter, the small ones are just as insidious as the big ones – should be resisted, both by readers and writers. They are bullshit through and through. Writers competing for prizes and awards is ridiculous and pathetic. Readers who covet only prize-winning books are lazy and are following the crowd without bothering to think about how they’re spending their $20 or whatever. Yes, prizes bad.


4. Literary publishing has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?

Not sure. I'm uncomfortable with the notion this is a recent thing. Art has always had a whorish aspect to it. Our hyper-commercial world just makes this more obvious. But artists and writers have been selling themselves for centuries, so, in that sense, why stop now?


5. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?

No, it’s not a good policy. It’s counterintuitive – how do you find new voices if you only read agented fiction when to be agented means you’ve been at it a while and are no longer new and likely have published a book or two already? Makes no sense. Yes, good writing will be squeezed out. But that’ll happen anyway. Writers should stop crying over such things and just work a little harder at what they’re doing, rather than blaming the fucking system or some such.


6. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience? Or are the major houses introducing an overly corporate, overly aggressive mentality to the book trade?

It’s not this simple. This makes it all sound so controlled and manipulated and evil. Leave that to governments.


7. Returning to the question of agents -- are they too powerful? If so, in what ways? Or are they a largely beneficial and necessary element of contemporary publishing?

Don't know. I don't have an agent. I've had three books published by three different presses.


8. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?

Too many of a certain kind, how about that? Too many that publish really boring, mewling middle class books. Not enough with any balls to what they're doing.


9. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?

Again, over-rated. The book in its current form is a beautifully effective high technology. I mean a real, paper and glue book – it's very high technology. It's high tech because it works so well. You can read it on the shitter, in bed, on the bus, in the coffee shop on your lunch hour and it takes no energy apart from what your mind churns. It's very difficult to improve upon. I don’t think it can be improved upon. E-books and the like are a ploy to sell more shit to people who have too much shit to begin with and too much money to spend on useless shit.


10. Putting aside the hype, does the Internet provide a real opportunity to publishers? If so, how?

Yeah, it makes the world smaller, more accessible. So folks in other parts of the earth can find you in a few seconds. You can make quicker connections. But the competition to maintain those connections is fiercer. You have to have some savvy to stay visible online.


11. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?

If so-called venerable institutions are going to save literature, start planning the funeral procession now. I have next to no use for English Departments. Libraries are of more value, are more egalitarian, smell more like how people really smell. That sort of thing.


12. What projects are you working on now that you are excited about?

Writing new short stories. But I work slowly. I have to fit it in. I have a regular Joe day job, two kids, wife, commitments, etc. Writing is my vice and my indulgence. Suburban Pornography has been out for a year now. I’m still pushing it when I can. But a new book is a ways off yet. I’m still doing Front&Centre and all my Black Bile Press stuff, which always excites me. Working on the micro press scale is a lot of fun, very gratifying. The writers are more down to earth, and appreciative and giving and don't have that snotty sense of entitlement that so many bigger time writers have.


Bio: Matthew Firth lives in Ottawa. His latest publication is Suburban Pornography.

links.

"Like a chain of hyper-haikus from the sinisterly dumb future": new fictions from Steve Augustine.

Conversational Reading's Reading the World.

The Big Ugly does the big body.