Some years ago, a big deal publisher type rejected a client’s project I had sent over. Unlike many who email rejections, she called. She prefaced her rejection with the following caveat, “I want to be gentle with you.” The minute I heard that, I knew she was going to rip me a new one. Or worse, that she deemed me fragile in some way and felt I needed to be handled with kid gloves. The whole exchange rankled and, obviously, I’ve never forgotten it. Now, I’m reading the extraordinary letters between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. One letter from Lowell to Bishop reminded me of the gentle publisher and her “favor” of kindness: “Don’t see how you could think Wilbur flattered by Randall’s review; what makes it hurt is R’s leaning over backwards to be friendly — caressed by a tiger.”

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My writers are worried and rightly so. Many publishing heads rolled last week and more to come. Cries of the sky falling, the Titanic plunging, the print world coming to an end. To quiet ourselves we say, it’s cyclical. As a bi-polar person, I know from cyclical. And this, well, this isn’t cyclical. It’s a steady decline that’s been going on for years. But I’m a glass half empty type. That said, if there’s one benefit of being a pessimist, it’s that you expect bad news. Still, I’m not packing it in and here’s why: Enough people still love books, real books, not necessarily authored by felines or Miley Cyrus. And the thing is, the people who love books really love them and are loyal to them. A few chairs have been harshly yanked in publishing’s game of musical chairs. Shelf space for the finest books has diminished as well, and, as we have seen, some of the finest bookstores themselves have disappeared. All the more reason to write your heart out.

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