I was excited at the prospect of being in a
room full of people who love words as much as I do. I looked forward to
learning from the experience of others and sharing my own as a hybrid
(indie/traditional) writer.
We were assigned a table and stayed with
the same eight to ten people for the two days, and while I got to learn about
the people at my table, I didn’t meet any other writers. Looking at the
participants list, there didn’t seem to be many writers. And while there were
many (many, many, many) small literary
publishers present, there was only one big publishing house represented. Where
was Harlequin? Simon and Schuster? Penguin? And what of the smaller genre
publishers like ChiZine?
Where were the organizations like SF Canada and Crime Writers of Canada?
Where were the organizations like SF Canada and Crime Writers of Canada?
Literary short fiction publishers abounded
but there were no publishers of short genre fiction, like On Spec Magazine. And
we have wonderful, well-published science fiction and mystery writers in this country—Robert
Sawyer, Giles Blunt, Louise Penny, Guy Gavriel Kay—were they invited but didn’t
come? Were they not invited?
I would have been interested in hearing
what some of those folks had to say. I did hear the opinions of a number of
writers and small publishers in the plenary sessions and at the microphones at
the end of each session.
As it turns out, nobody was all that
interested in my experience as an indie writer. In Canada, it seems,
indie publishing may be the wave of the future but right now it’s still rather gauche.
I may be generalizing unfairly, but it
seemed to me that there was a whiff of elitism in the room. I lost track of the
number of times people spoke about the value of literary fiction and poetry
(both of which I like just fine, thank you) in enriching the Canadian
discourse. I actually considered going up to the microphone myself and making a
point about the value of genre fiction in enriching pocketbooks as well, but I ran out
of nerve. Besides, nobody actually said anything negative about genre fiction
or indie publishing. It was more subtle than that. It was interrupting me when
I brought up a point about indie publishing or corrected a misconception, and deflecting
the discussion back to literary fiction and poetry. They were willing to be
polite but really didn’t think what I wrote and published was important.
After a while, I felt like the poor cousin
invited to the mansion for Christmas dinner: nice, until you realize you’re a
charity case.
Am I being overly sensitive? Is this a
chip-on-the-shoulder type of thing? If so, maybe I should just build a bridge
and get over it. I am, however, interested in learning if other people experience
this type of bias. Is it different in the U.S.?
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