Tuesday 4/16/24
This journal is and does a lot of things. One thing it does is make a case against bad, incompetent, often very stupid, discriminatory people in publishing for whom the whole of life comes down to one central question: Are you one of us? This is the primary criteria for the decisions they make. For whose work is included, who gets the book deal, who gets backed and supported, who wins the awards, who gets the never-sincerely-meant, dithyrambic reviews, who gets the coverage, etc. There is no good writing in this system. It's all about these other things.
When you make a case, there's a process. I look at everything I do with these people as one would make a legal case. A case has parts to it, steps, sequences. There's an unfolding. Exhibit A is connected with Exhibit B, and so forth.
So let's start the process of documenting how a venue called Narrative works.
Narrative is an online literary journal co-edited by Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian. It's a clip joint. They charge $26 to submit a story, while publishing the usual people of the system who, of course, pay nothing.
That's the scam--that's how they make the money. They don't make it because of the product. The writing is awful. It's always awful at these places. They make the money by scamming writers. They mostly publish the people of the system, and they let some of the people who pay the money into the magazine, for one reason: So that other people can think if they keep paying $26, they could be in there, too.
Think of how sick that is.
And it's not like any of those people are any worse at writer than the accepted people of the system. These are the worst writers on earth. You can't write worse than these people. If you've never written in your life and you come from work and say four genuine things on a piece of paper about your day, you will write better than this MFA-machined nothingness.
People--as in the kind of writers who don't go into Narrative automatically because of what they represent in the system to a system person--don't stand up to any of this. They're weak people. They're not fighters. They want to be in this incestuous group. They're so desperate for fake approval. They allow themselves to be fleeced. The truth is, those who call themselves writers, be they the favored system people or the wannabe system people, are almost always awful at writing, write very little, and are cowards who go along with any exploitation in the chance that they will find favor, or more of it, with the people of the system who are the worst people there are in the world. Petty, passive aggressive, bitter, tiny people.
So now we build the case against Carol Edgarian. Below is a letter I wrote her on December 16 of last year, which was ignored. I was left with the only option of writing this letter after many years of attempted dealings with Narrative. But I was not like those people. And I don't suck at writing. I'm not one of them in any way.
I had offered her, some months before, "The Installation," and then "Big Bob and Little Bob." This was done more from a legal perspective than anything. I had a clock on this. As I said, this went on for years--fifteen years, to be precise. The time had come where I had to do what I obviously didn't wish to do. Something I'd put off for a long time, in the hope that I wouldn't have to do it.
Obviously I knew what I was dealing with, how everything works for an evil person like this. I was being done dirty. Carol Edgarian knew she was doing me dirty. She knew the difference in quality between my work and what she was running. She knew my track record. She knew there was no way I should be on bent knee ponying up $30 to be form rejected by Narrative because of the things I just said; that this person is that much better, that they've done what they do constantly. But again: This is a pathetic, envious person in Carol Edgarian who makes every determination a matter of "Are you one of us?"
That is how the true bigot operates. That's the definition of bigotry.
This kind of bigot wants to look to the right, to the left, and below them. If the person in question stands above, there is no way they're letting them pass if they can get away with not doing so. And the higher above that other person is, the deeper the seething hate, envy, and discriminatory impulses--and discriminatory obsession--that one faces with a Carol Edgarian.
Here's the letter, which contains more information:
Dear Carol,
How are you? This is mostly for legal purposes, but I'm taking one last good faith pass here with a story whose quality is axiomatic.
For many years I would essentially beg you to respond to my work, which I never should have had to do. The work is excellent. The attached story, "Big Bob and Little Bob" is outstanding by any measure, as was another you were recently offered in "The Installation." My publication track record is historically unique. And I've never done anything to you.
I know, of course, why this has gone as it's gone, and I've spoken to many people about you. Those who have dealt directly with you. I've seen how you act towards them. I've seen correspondence. I know how you operate.
I have a popular blog that thousands of people see each day, which documents cronyism, discrimination, incompetence, theft, and bigotry, in publishing. Perhaps you're familiar with it. If not, you might wish to take a look.
What happens is, a person is featured on that blog and their practices and motives are revealed for what the are. This quickly moves up Google. It does not go away. I do not go away. And one's first entry on this journal is but their debut in those pages; for the evidence is stacked high and it is meted in additional entries out over time.
(In the early days of having approached Narrative with a story, I received an email on behalf of Tom Jenks--an underling wrote it, which was amusing--trying to get significant outlays of money from me in exchange for him tutoring me in writing. I had been in virtually every major magazine and journal in this country and in England at the time, as someone entirely on his own, outside of the incestuous circles of publishing, against the greatest of odds. Suffice it to say, I have quite the Narrative dossier here.)
This has never been about my work. It's not about not having the right kind of story. I have every kind. And the idea of me paying you $30--when we both know, of course, how so much of this works with other people--is absurd.
I've been generous in what I've offered you for what would be little remuneration in comparison to the value inherent in these stories. I offered you a story that ran in Harper's. I could go on and on. (And I see that you published yourself recently--kudos on that.)
What I also do on this blog is put my work back to back with the work that ran in its stead, as well as a full accounting for why that work ran. Those comparisons prove withering. And so do the displayed facts. The blog is not an ideal place to be.
At this point in my life and career, Narrative doesn't change anything for me financially or reputationally. I have 500 new stories that are available--and they're all at the level of "Bob" and "The Installation," and are each wholly different from each --so I'm working with a surplus, one might say, but this is about a principle at this point.
I am not going to sit back and allow myself to be discriminated against. And there is no objective third party in the world who is going to believe, "Well, he just didn't have what it takes," or think I should have been paying you to read--and, of course, form reject, because I'm not in your circles--my work.
Not a penny, let alone thirty bucks. I have all kinds of information from people you've published many times over who've never given you a plugged nickel.
I've taken this, and taken this, and taken this, for years, with a patience that would give a saint pause. That's going to end now, one way or the other. This is an amazing story. It's more than an amazing story. There's nothing like it. I'm offering it to you. Again, in good faith.
We can move forward, and you may run various works of mine in the future, or I can just do what I need to do, which I've been loath to do, because I'm not a confrontational person, but I refuse to be treated as you have treated me, for the reasons you've treated me this way.
There isn't another writer out there doing what I do, and not with that range. You might be tempted to issue a facile excuse, but it would be just that, it would fool no one, and it would certainly not fool me, and it would hold up to no scrutiny and evidence.
This letter is also part of a legal record now. I know what I know. I only deal in facts and truths. This isn't the type of letter I enjoy writing. It's among the last things I wish to do, and I'm sorry that it's come to this, but it never should have.
The attached is not merely some story or narrative. It's a life experience. And there isn't anyone else in this world who could have written it.
Thank you for the time.
That's a pretty nice letter, right? Even after all of the years of the blatant discrimination, that's how the guy who has work that is infinitely better than what you publish is talking to you.
As for that work being infinitely better: You think we're going to be doing some prose offs with Narrative? Of course we are. How do you think that's going to look? How do those always look? Motorollah! Or you could ask J. Robert Lennon if he's looking forward to his next prose off bout on here.
And yes, she did publish herself. How rote do you think that fiction is? Or do you think it was likely amazing?
I like how the mere asking of these questions has become like a punchline, because the work by these people is always, without exception, terrible. Want a sample from what Carol Edgarian wrote that she published for herself at Narrative?
Here you go:
I always thought of my city as a woman. But the house, it turned out, was a woman too. When the quake hit, she groaned. Her timbers strained to hold on to their pins, the pins snapping. And the rocks beneath the house? They had voices too. And if I ever wondered how long it would take for the world to end, I know: forty-five seconds.
An unearthly stillness preceded and followed the shaking. It’s what we did and didn’t do in the stillness that determined the rest of our days.
I lost two mothers that year. The first was Rose. I can’t say where she was born or where her kin came from. The fact is, I don’t know what mix of blood flows through me. I suspect there’s some Persian, possibly Armenian. I understand there may be some Northern African and Spanish in the mix too, and a good pour of French. Spanish by way of Mexico. None of this Rose would confirm or deny. “We’re mutts,” she said, and left it at that.
Replacement-level writing by a replacement-level writer. Anyone could do that.
Back to my letter of December 16.
Imagine if you got a letter like that? Or the one like that was received by David Remnick in autumn 2021. If any of its contents were false, what would you do? You'd go back at that person, right?
But what would you do if it was all true, and you knew it was all true, and you were busted and a coward who realized you had no shot of taking this other person on, that they were not on your level and you were slime to boot?
You'd do nothing and you'd hope that nothing came of it, which is to say, you'd hope that you got away with being you and doing what you do on account of how low and little you are because that's how it had gone in the past.
Have a guess what this most definitely isn't?
That's right: The past.
We are here in the present, and there is some not so awesome stuff coming up for people like this in the future. You're not getting away with it. How bad this goes for you as we move forward is in part up to you. I'm not going to forget, roll over, relent. You have a problem. A public problem.
Know what the title of that email to Carol Edgarian was?
"Accountability."
