Anybody else have any questions?
Anything popping up?
Yes.
I had a question about the notion of avatar,
and the notion of creating an online personality relating
to what you do with publishing.
Because it's something that I've seen some folks
in my extended writerly community doing, trying
to create their own blog, and almost
their own brand of what they write about, and who they are,
and then the way that contributes to when they have
an actual book come out, people know who they are, and care,
and want to get it.
So I'm just curious if you could speak
to that in terms of creating an online personality
and how that relates to publishing?
I guess I'll talk--
I find that idea of people creating online personalities
in order to get book deals kind of sickening.
Well, not kind of, I mean, sickening.
I mean, I'm not opposed to the idea
of trying to diversify, and try a different personality
out online.
I mean, my Twitter feed is my wrestling version of myself.
But I mean, almost always the people that sort of
like have an online presence and get a book deal,
they publish-- they get the one book, which is usually
selections from their blog or whatever,
and then they kind of disappear.
I can't think of very many people
that are exceptions to that.
To me, I mean, the work is the thing
that's the most interesting.
I mean, it's got to be about the work that you're doing.
And admittedly, some people, like Mark Lane, or something
like that, have these sort of outsized,
kind of like insane personalities
that they bring to the table, like that is the performance.
I mean, that's really a performance on the page
that we see, and it's this extension of this
really, literally larger than life, huge kind of avatar
of themselves.
I mean, I suppose that, which is to say,
if one's sort of interests are primarily
in performance, that seems like a useful direction to go into.
But it's never seemed very fruitful
for writers to try to adopt these personalities just
for the sake of raising their profile.
To me, that doesn't seem like a very good use of one's time
or talents.
But at the same time--
I mean, the thing is, if you publish a book where people
don't know anything about you, they will automatically
mythologize you.
You have an avatar.
I mean, we can't not, as readers, we always--
like I read Joel Brouwer's book of poems, his most recent one,
and immediately I'm like, wow, how autobiographical are these?
And then he's like, well there's some trouble in my marriage
in one of the poems.
I'm like, how interesting.
Even though I know as a poet, there's plausible deniability,
there should be nothing in that, I want to, as a reader,
I need to, I need to build this sense of this person.
Which isn't a person at all, it's a myth.
I mean, I need to build the myth.
And authors-- I mean, there's no such thing as the author.
I mean, there's the writer, and then there's
the reader, and then this idea of--
I mean, it really is an avatar, this idea of the author
comes out of PR reviewers, the writer, him
or herself, performances.
Everyone knows the epic story of writer X
who did this crazy thing and this one reading,
and will either never be invited back or be deified thereafter.
So I mean, we love the stories that go around these.
So I mean, it's impossible not to do this.
And I don't mean to suggest that as writers we
shouldn't want to have some control over what face
we put ourselves forward.
But if that's the thing, that at least, as a writer,
doesn't interest me.
It's really interesting because that's exact opposite
of what I was talking about.
Like I wasn't talking about people
creating artificial personalities
in order to get book deals.
I think it's partly because I've come out
of a role with a lot of activism, sort
of underground things going on.
And I see a lot of people in my community
who create blogs that are incredibly sincere,
but because of what they've been able to publish online,
and the way that people all across the country
are able to get to know them through that writing,
then if they come to town and perform,
or if they actually manage to get a book out,
there's this whole network of people across the US
who are already excited about them in a way
that, I feel like, 10 or 15 years ago
wouldn't be happening.
That you had to get the book out first then,
you had to read at a bookstore, so I
feel like there are these ways that people build
not only pre-built audiences, but also sort of really build
community around what they have to say, particularly when it's
not being said somewhere else.
It's kind of ground up, not from the top down.
I mean, that's stuff is fantastic.
And I admit, I mean, the internet
creates that sort of interlocking communities
that makes that possible.
I think you're absolutely right, that
would be very difficult to do 10 or 15 years ago.
And I'm happy to sort of see it.
That speaks to this idea of the public being us,
that we are sort of always kind of in conversation
and connection.
So yeah, I mean, that's great when it works out that way,
when it really is a sort of like a function of their work
in the world, and what they're doing socially, and not
kind of purely a performance.
Although I recognize that there's the line between those
is blurry sometimes for some of us.