Saturday 2/4/23
Want to know something amazing? Texas Review Press isn't a good press, right? It's at Sam Houston State University. I should never have been there when I did Between Cloud and Horizon with them. Great book. Never had a chance with them. You can still buy it. But you wouldn't have known about it because that's a place where books go to die. Mine will live again. It will come out with someone else later on when the time is right, or in some new format, whatever is best, and when it can have an actual chance, and when it will be seen, bought en masse, and loved.
That was ten years ago that book came out with Texas Review Press. The situation was what it was back then, too. It got worse as I got more successful. It's always been that way.
They have an editor in chief now named J. Bruce Fuller. He hasn't done anything in his career of any note. So this is a press of mine. Okay? I'm just trying to thorough. That's why I'm reiterating that last point. I offered this guy J. Bruce Fuller Cheer Pack. Twice. He never even bothered to respond. Again, this is not a good press. This is an author who did a book with the press. J. Bruce Fuller is a man whose greatest hit in this life, as a writer, is having his work in McNeese Review, whatever that is. You haven't heard of it. I haven't even heard of it and this is what I do every waking hour of my life.
Cheer Pack is the book with the stories from the VQR, Commentary, Harper's, all of that. There is no one who approaches Texas Review Press who has their work in any venues approaching that level, because if you have a book with stories from those venues, no matter how much your book sucks, a major press is putting it out. Or Graywolf, which battles it out with FSG for the most boring press on earth, but one gets the idea.
I need to be careful here in citing these magazines, because unlike any other writer who has been in those them, I can tell you it's all bullshit. It doesn't mean anything. What you see in Harper's, when it's by someone else, isn't in Harper's because anyone at Harper's thought it was any good. That has nothing to do with it. It's all about other things. It meant something with me, because an entire industry wanted to make sure I didn't get in anywhere and has long worked to sabotage me and halt my advancement. So I didn't just get in. I got in with thousands of people trying to hold me back. So that meant something. Because no one else could have done that in that situation. No one could do any of what I continue to do in this situation.
But to a guy like this? For him to be in a place like that? Unfathomable. So, envy. Again, this is one of my presses. I offered this guy Cheer Pack, which is crazy. But that's the situation because of the bigotry. And this loser, this envious loser, this petty, sad, bigot, got himself off by not responding to me. And someone who did a book with the press at that. It's how a guy like this tries to even things out. In that moment, he determines that he has power over someone who is everything he is not.
What do you think about this information? That's pretty bad, right? I've had no dealings with this man in my life. I've done nothing to him. I simply offered him a book at a completely different level than what they publish, from a writer at a completely different level, with a career at a completely different level. For free. Because Texas Review Press doesn't even pay you a penny. Then they don't do anything to sell the book after it comes out, not that any are in any stores. No one even knows their books exist. How would you? There's no marketing. There's nothing.
Think about all of that. If you read this Many Moments More journal of mine, what are you thinking about the information that's getting shared here? Recently, I've shown a very few things over the past few days. I've shown a fraction of what has happened or been germane over those last few days. I've left out far more than I've put up, and what I've left out is all as bad. Think about that, too. It's a bad world, right? Many people are total dicks in all walks of life. But you've never heard anything like what goes on here constantly, have you? This is all there is. This is the industry at every level of the industry. This is how all of these people are. This is how it works.
Why would I say anything about a publisher of mine? Why wouldn't I, at this point? How long do you take the discrimination? Forever? How long do you let someone shit down your throat?
As I said earlier--and I've left more than enough hints for people, in addition to the outright statements--my loyalty is to my work. Nothing and no one else. There is nothing that protects you if you are fucking with my work, and that includes discriminating against me as I try to get where I am going with that unique, matchless work. Nothing protects you. You could be my brother and it would not protect you. The totality of my loyalty is to my work.
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