BOOKISH: A Penny for Your Thoughts

My friend Emily, an MFA candidate, had some new news. This is unusual. Most of her news is old news. Readings, workshops, manuscript sharing, writing prompts. Been there, done that.

But this time she surprised me. “We’re all submitting to a lit journal,” she said.

“What lit journal?”

“Any one we want. I’m submitting to The Southern Review.”

“The Southern Review?” I rubbed my chin. “Don’t they charge to submit?”

“They all do.”

Well, not all. “What are you sending?” I asked.

“A poem. We’re all sending poems.”

“Everyone?’“

“Everyone.”

This perplexed me. The MFA program Emily, Derek, and the rest attended was a blended program. In other words, the students get an overview of all the genres. Fiction, nonfiction, memoir, etc. But the stated emphasis is fiction. Specifically, novels.

She seemed to read my mind. “I’m no poet. But Dr. Freeman feels it’s good practice.”

“He wants you to submit as practice?”

“Yeah-ah,” she sang. I am often treated by Emily as being something less than smart. She might have said, “Well, duh”.

And I often feel less than smart. But having twenty-three would-be novelists submit their student work seemed nutty. Journals state clearly that they want finished, professional work. I don’t think any of them wants to be “practiced” on.

Then I thought again. Most of the prestige journals charge a submission fee. Three bucks a pop isn’t much, but it adds up. And these journals get thousands upon thousands of submissions. You multiply thousands upon thousands by three, and it doesn’t take long to realize there’s some money being made here.

I told this to Emily. I also told her that fifteen or twenty years ago fees were universally decried. No self-respecting writer, anywhere, would pay to have their work considered.

“You’re showing your age,” she says.

Maybe. Except I wasn’t much older than her. “Don’t you see,” I said. “How crooked this all is?” On top of these little fees, I told her, are the not-so-little fees. A twenty dollar application fee for a contest. Seventy-five for a writing retreat. Heck, writers themselves are getting in on the act. Every time I turn around I find a fellow artist with a dubious history of publication, or none at all, who wants to “coach” me to write better, to pen better openings, better dialog, even better query letters. All for one hundred, two hundred, or five hundred dollars.

Emily is undeterred. “They have to make a living, too.”

Which is like saying the thief has to make a living, too. No they don’t. I even remember, with disgust, one person who coaches others to coach. A sort of hierarchy of literary fleecing, with them at the top.

Ugh.

“I suppose,” Emily says. “You think of MFA programs the same way.”

But Emily is mistaken. At least you get something, an actual degree. What you do with it is up to you.

Richard Donnelly

Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com