Betsy Lerner

Me, Myself and I

Posted on July 28, 2009 by betsylerner

A NYT article over the weekend talked about Frank McCourt and a host of memoirs in the mid-eighties that were part of a trend that has yet to abate. In the list of memoirs were two books I had edited when I worked at Houghton Mifflin: Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face and Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation. Both were acquired modestly and each had a small first print run. Both books had a brilliant jacket and inside were stories about self image, depression, and the search for love. As an editor you feel defined by the books you work on: these two said it all for me. As luck would have it, each had a devoted publicist and, while this is a romantic way to say it, publishing magic was made. And a fact of which I am impossibly proud, both books are still in print these many years later. One more thing: My daughter’s new school gave out a summer reading list of books the kids could choose from. Lucy’s book was on it. That’s all.

Filed under: Authors | 5 Comments »

Thank God It’s Monday

Posted on July 27, 2009 by betsylerner

A post over the weekend about the demise of literary fiction stirred up some fantastic debate. Thanks to everyone who weighed in.

In a June 29 New Yorker, there’s an article about a recently discovered trove of Edith Wharton letters that she wrote to her governess, the one person who encouraged her writing, truly a lifeline in a censorious home.

The closing quote speaks, I think, to our debate: “I don’t believe there is any greater blessing than that of being pierced through & through by the splendour and sweetness of words…I wouldn’t take a kingdom for it.”

Of course, that might be weighed against the blessing of being pierced through & through by Gabriel Byrne or Jon Hamm.

Filed under: Authors, Writing | 6 Comments »

No I Would Not Give You False Hope on This Strange and Mournful Day

Posted on July 25, 2009 by betsylerner

A lot of painful conversations lately about literary fiction and its demise.

Was it ever any different?

When I was an assistant at Simon and Schuster 25 years ago, there was exactly one literary fiction editor. And his position was rumored to be precarious as a result of focusing exclusively on the literary stuff. (In fact, he was let go a year later.) Of course, this was especially true at a house like S&S where monster political and celebrity books ruled. I can still recall an anxious conversation between a senior editor and a publicist because they couldn’t remember if Jackie Collins preferred white roses or red.

I understood at that tender age that to focus entirely on fiction was to jeopardize my hope of becoming an editor. It’s a tough racket: writing, publishing, and selling books. Or as the great sub-rights director of S&S once explained when I couldn’t fathom the math of a profit and loss statement, “Toots,” she said, “It’s a nickel and dime business.”

Are things worse now? Sure. Internet, Kindle, My Face, a million more distractions. The economy, unemployment, the dow jones. Might just be the perfect storm ready to sink the great publishing ship Titanic. What does this mean to any committed writer in a publishing climate that resembles the parlor game musical chairs? Nothing. I would not give you false hope, but we need you more than ever.

Filed under: Agent, Publishing, Writers | 20 Comments »

FAQ: When Will I Be Loved

Posted on July 23, 2009 by betsylerner

I received this letter in my askbetsy box: Dear Ms. Lerner, I’m a writer and blogger, and I’m doing my best to promote my work, get an agent, and move to the next level. Can you tell me why it’s so hard to market and sell a literary novel these days, especially for a nobody like me? I think that writer’s today needs fan’s of their work, people who will fight for them no matter what, but how do you get that to happen?

I’ve had several conversations on my blog about this very issue, if you’d like to check it out. But for someone who has been writing for ten years, building an audience, shaping his work, getting footholds in the literary ezine market… what advice, besides “don’t give up” or “you just have to get lucky” would you give a writer trying to break in for the first time, in this economic climate. Go to graduate school in Iowa, sell a kidney to get into Yaddo, pay a huge fee to go to Breadloaf?

In other words, who do you have to blow around here?

Dear Writer: You’re tired of hearing “don’t give up.” Okay, try this: give up. Walk away. Get out while you’re young cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run. Did I say run? Run like the wind.

I could tell you all the economic reasons why it’s so hard to publish literary fiction. I could tell you about a novel I sent to 32 publishers and couldn’t sell and truly believe it to be the best work of fiction I’ve had the good fortune to work on. That and a token. It’s not hard, it’s nigh impossible. Ask any local bookseller what people are buying, if they’re buying.

Your anguish, frustration, and pain are very real to me. Much of an agent’s work is picking up the pieces (it’s often just as shattering to be published, but that’s a little like telling a single person who wants to get married what a bummer being married can be). But, you know, ten years isn’t really that long. You have to practice the piano longer than that to get to Carnegie Hall.

Is it all about fancy conferences and connections? No, not really. Mostly no. It’s more about luck if you ask me. And since you’re asking, you create your luck. And you’re doing that with your blog, the zine world, etc. Another writer, sitting under a rock, would marvel at your literary life. Everything you’re doing is right.

You may feel that the light is permanently yellow, but it will change. It always does.

Filed under: Rejection, The End of the World as We Know It, Writers | 6 Comments »

There Are Two Kinds of People In This World

Posted on July 22, 2009 by betsylerner

Had lunch with two great friends, also agents. After a lot of industry gossip, commiseration about the business being really slow (July is the new August), comparing and contrasting notes on editors, the conversation finally turned to something I could get my brain around: who we would rather sleep with, Jon Hamm from Madmen or Gabriel Byrne from In Treatment? Just for one night.

If you’ve ever even toyed with the idea of leaving a comment, please weigh in now:

Filed under: Agent, Editor, Rejection | 11 Comments »

Electra

Posted on July 21, 2009 by betsylerner

Front seat to a conversation at Lincoln Center between Sidney Lumet and his daughter Jenny, the author of one of my favorite movies of last year, “Rachel Getting Married.” I don’t think I have to list Lumet’s movies but just a few: “12 Angry Men”, “Dog Day Afternoon”,”Network”, “Serpico”, etc.

My dad always wanted me to go into his business. The problem was that it was the lumber business. Though I can’t imagine it’s easy being the daughter of a living legend. Of course, Lumet the father did allow as to how he didn’t help Jenny at all with her movie apart from giving it to Jonathan [Demme].

She told the story behind the famous dishwasher scene in “Rachel Getting Married.” She was about eight years old when Bob Fosse visited their East Hampton house, at least I think it was the Hamptons. Anyway, he came over, very elegant in his black cashmere slacks, t, and sweater loosely tied around his shoulders. Taking a long drag off a cigarette, he said to Sidney, “You know, if you load the Zabar’s container on the top you’ll get 20% more dishes in there.” Apparently, it escalated from there. “Bob was very competitive,” Sidney weighed in, loading methods no laughing matter, then or now.

I loved hearing him talk about working with actors (Hepburn, Fonda, Brando), about his love of digital cameras, about lenses and technical matters. Or when he picked at his scalp, readjusted his glasses and said, “You’re constantly telling a story,” or, on actors, “It’s easy to disguise what you are, but you can’t hide it,” or, in giving it back to critics in general, and Pauline Kael in particular, “You want the artistic experience without the artistic risk.”

I miss my dad.

Filed under: Film | 2 Comments »

Ashes, Ashes

Posted on July 20, 2009 by betsylerner

I know I wrote about Frank McCourt in The Forest for the Trees, using him, among others, as an example of a late bloomer. My books are still packed away, or I’d dig it up. The salient point: McCourt was published for the first time at the age of 66. You see some of these geezers at writing conferences and it’s hard not to think: game over. McCourt changed all that. But there was something in his NYT obit that touched me even more.

“On the side, Mr. McCourt made fitful stabs at writing. He contributed articles on Ireland to The Village Voice, kept notebooks. But at the Lion’s Head in Greenwich Village, where he became friends with Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin, he felt like an interloper, he said. They were writers. He was just a teacher.”

And then, “An early attempt, when he was studying at NYU, had fizzled out, but three decades later, he said, he had worked through his awkward self-conscious James Joyce phase and had gotten beyond the crippling anger that darkened his memories.”

Finally, the obit explains how, in what he thought was a note to himself, he found his voice, “That was it. It carried me through to the end of the book.”

It’s all there. The pervasive imposter/interloper complex most writers feel (many well into years of having been published). What is that about? Does a musician feel like a fraud if he hasn’t recorded? An artist if he hasn’t had a retrospective a MOMA? What is it about writing?There’s a great Mona Van Duyn poem (again packed away) about taking a vision test for a driver’s license, and the mortification she feels when asked her occupation.

Then there are the fits and starts and thirty year “hiatus” from writing. Oh, yeah, and the crippling anger. I can’t relate.

And last, finding your voice. Like what? An old friend? Like the true self? Like a gift you never expected and probably don’t deserve.

Raise a pint to Mr. McCourt. Four million hardcover copies, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle. Well, not too shabby for an old geezer.

Filed under: Authors, Writing | 6 Comments »

FAQ: Don’t You Want Me Baby

Posted on July 17, 2009 by betsylerner

Anonymous writes:

What’s the protocol when an agent makes an offer of representation and there are other agents interested in the book, too (i.e., agents who have requested fulls)? Is it kosher to ask the offering agent–after expressing genuine delight and great interest–for a short period of time to notify other interested agents before giving an answer? How do agents really feel about this–are they accepting of the competition, or resentful of being made to wait?

Dear Hot One:

It would be good to know if you told the agents in your query letter that you were sending your work out on multiple submission. Then they would certainly understand. But even if you didn’t, you’re fine. That’s the beauty of being in demand. It isn’t every day you get to be in the driver’s seat, just remember to take it slow and be courteous.

You ask if the first agent will feel resentful. The agent may be miffed. He did read the novel and get back to you first. He has gushed to you and wants to represent you. No one likes to find out he’s not the only guy in a tux with a corsage standing outside your door. But it’s not a race. Being first says a great deal about an agent’s enthusiasm, but how the agent behaves upon hearing that you have it out with others will tell you even more about that person. If he or she is gracious, that’s a good sign. He wants what’s best for you. If he puts enormous pressure on you, well, I wouldn’t like that. But this happens all the time, and my philosophy is: clients should have their choice (if they are fortunate enough to have a choice), and they will likely pick the agent who is right for them.

Anyway, here’s what I would do:

Tell the interested agent that it’s out with others and you want to talk with all interested parties before making a decision. There are some agents who will only consider work if they have it exclusively. I think this is bullshit. But obviously if that is the case they will tell you and you will have to decide. Most of us understand that most writers are approaching multiple agents.
Tell the other agents that you have interest and could they get back to you in a week or two.
Have conversations with all interested parties, better yet come to NYC and meet them if at all possible.
Don’t drag it out – agents don’t mind waiting, but nobody likes to be jerked around.

Anyway, Anonymous, don’t forget to write and tell us how you make out. Way cool.

Filed under: Agent, FAQ | 3 Comments »

Whenever I Feel Afraid

Posted on July 16, 2009 by betsylerner

I’m relieved not to face another cafeteria meal, not the food so much as the reminder of myself in seventh grade when the planetary system of our junior high lunch room shifted in ways often imperceptible and sometimes like a meteor storm leaving so much debris in its wake. All that self-consciousness then, and even now, at this advanced age. Excuse me, is that seat taken? Hi, is anyone sitting there?

Tin House is an excellent conference with worshops, lectures, and readings in a stunning outdoor amphitheater overlooking a pond where ducks and geese squabble. Cocktails every night on a beautiful quad, and from what I hear there’s even a decent amount of hooking up. In the faculty dorm, drinking, poker, and other manly arts.

I spoke with a few writers around the edges of the conference who reminded me of myself when I first attended workshops as a student: a little awkward, nervous, excited. They had all taken that first brave step, announced in some important way to themselves that they were writers. They were here.

One young man told me he was working on a memoir. “What happened to you?” I asked. He laughed and coughed on the drag of the cigarette he was taking. “What happened to me?” he repeated. “Yeah,” I persisted, “what happened that you have to write about.” The young man snubbed out his cigarette, “Okay,” he said, “If you put it that way, I’ll tell you.”

And then he told me one of the saddest stories I have ever heard.

Filed under: Writers, Writing | 7 Comments »

Drive-by Shootings

Posted on July 15, 2009 by betsylerner

For each day that I’ve been here, at the Tin House Writers Conference, I meet with nine conference attendees for a ten minute agent consult from 4:30-6:00. I never did speed dating (I was more interested in long drawn-out painful dating), but it must be a little like that, you’ve got this tiny window to make an impression. Boom!

Some writers are like the little bird in the children’s book, “Are You My Mother?” In the story, a mother bird goes off to look for food. The infant bird awakens and falls out of the nest. He wanders the countryside asking all manner of animal, cow, horse, dog, etc., “are you my mother.” Of course the book has a happy ending, but it always broke my heart, maternal longing being what it is.

Others come somewhat shattered from a rough workshop session. Others come with questions written down on index cards. Index cards! Some of the writers are all over the place and you feel the ten minutes ticking down as they race to get everything in. With some, I dig a little, curious about their project, their day jobs and lives. With others, I begin to wonder why I was born.

Last night, I broke through a shyness wall and hung out with the big game, the published authors. Drank.

Filed under: Authors, Writers | 6 Comments »

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