about not being able to grab the attention of any publishers or agents for my literary fiction I troll the net for bitchy comments about the Canlit establishment. I find this quite comforting.
I know the correct response for the rejected writer is supposed to be "gee, that's the way it goes," or "I'll just have to try harder next time" or "time to become best friends with Margaret Atwood, because God knows, if you don't know a great writer personally you couldn't possibly be one." But the simple fact of the matter is that the finest fiction and the best crafted query packages must come to nothing if they are sent to some unimaginative bourgeois twerp who spends most of his waking hours hunting down the latest celebrity to publish. No, I am a complete failure at glad-handling and networking and all that shit. As the saying goes, "I don't dance, I just sing." I spend my time writing, and yes, I DO look down at writers who spend more time studying self-promotion than literature. If it comes to that, I've written query letters that could not possibly have been better unless I could literally read the minds of those I was sending them to.
Let me recommend, therefor, an article by Darryl Whetter called "Canada's an Urban Nation. Why is Our Literature Still Down on the Farm?" No, it's not about query letters, it just shows disrespect towards the Canlit establishment, and that's all to the good.
You really have to wonder whether the grand panjandrums who decide what gets published in this country have a clue.
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