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ARC's avatar

Art has always been unfair. It's never been about merit or elevating the avant garde as you point out yourself. So nothing has changed. The battle has always been against entrenched interest because rich people see art as a way to make money. What yall are failing to admit is the market is liberal in the fiction world, the readers are liberal, so why would a publisher put out a book that isn't gonna make them money from their readers. Plus, honestly if a lot of yall were in the traditional media, you would see it's a humiliation routine that doesn't even treat the people it lets inside well. A lot of people with the big five get screwed. As far as writers going rogue, we also need diversity in thought even in that moment. The rogue writers all sound the same, have the same pet peeves, and get sensitive AF when someone who has their same grievances but different takes, engage them in good faith. So the rogue writers gonna have to toughen up and build a wide coalition if yall actually wanna change something.

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Alex Valentine's avatar

Great post and says what's needed to be said for at least 25 years now. I remember the change in the late 90's, the cold freeze descending. Fuck MFA writing. I hated it then, hate it now. You could always tell when a book was not backed by a soul with a large sense of life but instead with a large number of college credits. I left the 'creative writing' program at the U of Az specifically because I could see it mediocritize writing in my classes. It was better, as a writer, to go out and get the grit of the world in my teeth.

This is also one of the big reasons men don't read anymore. Literature is no longer of strong spirit. I would love to see this change.

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