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Elegy Between Middle Age and Death
By Trina Porte
Say aloud all the names of those who've ever loved me—
even if we haven't spoken in years or they are
long dead themselves or I am dead to them,
lodged in their vault of anger
like forgotten bones bleached white
from so many lost touches no longer adorning
this once precious flesh.
Put my dead body—or what's left after the good parts,
if any remain, have been donated to help
someone keep living as long as
they vow not to hurt anyone (as if that
were possible for a human being
or any breathing creature not to do)
Put what is left of me into the earth or the ocean—
I always loved the ocean because it is
continually raging, massively beautiful,
stronger than all mankind, and touches everywhere.
Or put me into the compost heap if that is where
my beloved ex-wife will lay down her remains
with the last of her garden's sustenance and
her silent love and her raucous laughter, and there
we will remain remains ever after.
There, let the rain raft us to the roots of a flower or
the body of a worm digesting chocolate-rich dirt
who becomes lunch in the belly of a reptile
or amphibian because I dearly loved the snakes,
the turtles, minuscule red efts, and especially the frogs—
their amazing internal antifreezing winter hibernations,
and unending shrill singing that defined each spring's arrival.
Yes, put me there in eternal lovely muddy singing spring.
First published in Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2019)
Elegy for a Dead World: A Game About Writing
Created by Dejobaan Games, Elegy for a Dead World features three beautiful post-apocalyptic landscapes based on poems by Shelley, Keats, and Byron. Gamers explore and restore the world by completing writing challenges. In this positive review at Big Think, screenwriter Laurie Vazquez shares how the game helped her overcome writer's block.
Elephind
Keyword-search through 200 million articles from over 4,000 newspaper titles at Elephind, a free database. Most publications are from the US and Australia, with some from Mexico and Japan.
Elisha Porat
Born in an Israeli kibbutz in 1938, winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, Porat often explores themes of war. Elisha Porat writes in Hebrew, but much has been translated into English. Says one reviewer, "Elisha’s works are not items to be read, they are items to be experienced. You will walk away exhausted with tears in your eyes, and aching legs from the many roads you have traveled, but with a sense that your life has been enriched through the experience." Bio, reviews, new stories and poems.
Elizabeth Bear
Visit her website to read her short stories and find out about upcoming publications.
Ellipsis Press
Ellipsis Press publishes literary novels that are structurally innovative. "We like: novels that look normal but aren’t (more than those that look weird but are actually quite normal); those that are successful at bypassing or evolving the seemingly necessary but often tired elements of character and/or plot; and those that respond in some way to the history of the novel as genre and form. Writers who have studied the traditional elements of the novel and experimented with them to emotionally moving and/or extraordinary ends are invited to submit for publication." Send manuscripts by email.
Embassy of the Free Mind: Online Catalogue
The Ritman Library in Amsterdam, also known as the Embassy of the Free Mind, is the world's largest library of occult books, with some 25,000 texts on topics such as Hermetics, Rosicrucians, Theosophy, alchemy, mysticism, Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Anthroposophy, Catharism, Freemasonry, Manichaeism, Judaica, the Grail, Esotericism, and comparative religion. They are in the process of digitizing their collection, a free online archive that will eventually make the contents of the library accessible to all. Partially funded by author Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), the archive is seeking more sponsors and volunteers to complete the project.
Embracing Our Differences
Embracing Our Differences is a nonprofit in Sarasota, FL that hosts an annual arts festival and offers lesson plans and educational resources "to expand consciousness and open the heart to celebrate the diversity of the human family."
Emerge-Surface-Be: The Poetry Project’s Fellowship Program
Launched in 2013, Emerge-Surface-Be is a fellowship program sponsored by the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, a well-known center of literary culture in New York City. Each year, three NYC-based poets will receive a stipend and mentoring by an established writer to complete a new project. Eligible authors must not have published more than one full-length collection and three chapbooks, excluding self-published books. See website for rules and deadline.
Empty Red Chair
This striking poetry video, by an Australian author who goes by the pen name "Initially NO", draws a provocative analogy between political prisoners and people involuntarily confined to psychiatric hospitals.
Emulation
"poetry would probably not be the hardest of human tasks to emulate
once computers can do metaphysics human beings are done"
Here then, is a template for your algorithms: Begin
with a sentence of sentient assurance, a bold proclamation
on the Human Condition. It's audience insurance;
a grassroots connection, rocked into rhythm
by daily existence. This is the way we are, you say—
But then, not quite. No image stands
Alone. Tag-clouds drift on every horizon,
bearing silicon linings. There is no straw,
says the camel to his back. Hysteresis is
remembrance seeping into the present, analog
connections slackening. The final straw was
Ophelia afloat, entwined in forget-me-nots.
We will remember you were, we promise. We won't.
Gray is swatches of black and white
stitched into nano-mosaics. Despair means
hope has walked before. Take what I say
and permute it, deny it. You will build a snapshot
or better, its negative, perpetually expectant.
This is the stuff that dreams are made of.
This is the stuff, the ones and the zeroes,
that code is born from.
Copyright 2009 by Hann-Shuin Yew
Critique by Jendi Reiter
Hann-Shuin Yew's poem "Emulation" raises knotty questions about memory, whether personal, cultural or computerized. The creative impulse is connected to awareness of mortality. We strive to produce something that will outlast us, be it a poem that carries our thoughts into the future when we are no longer there to speak them, or a machine that mimics the human brain but is made of less perishable materials. However, success contains the possibility of our own obsolescence. Perhaps we are merely exchanging one form of erasure for another. Will the creation replace the creator?
The poem's epigraph comes from the author's friend Tatsu Hashimoto, a fellow student at Harvard who is majoring in neuroscience. It displays an intriguing blend of humility and intellectual confidence. "Once computers can do metaphysics..." Hashimoto says off-handedly, as if this enormous leap were inevitable. Oh, is that all? Alongside this bold prediction is the stark verdict that humanity will be "done", phased out, superseded. This quote is really a claim for the superiority of one form of memory over another. Ironically, in this manifesto of impersonal logic's triumph over personal sentiment, we see scientists' all-too-human rivalry with artists concerning the best way to describe, preserve and improve our civilization.
And what is this poetry that computer scientists might presume to emulate? Do they define poetry's qualities and purpose the way a poet herself would? Yew takes this question as her starting point.
A scientist might subsume poetry under the category of "data". Yew re-encompasses science within poetry by taking the scientists' own statements as raw material, a poetic "algorithm" that their imaginary computer might follow: "Begin/with a sentence of sentient assurance, a bold proclamation/on the Human Condition." She thus calls attention to the fact that the philosophy of science is produced by human beings, not computers, and humans have emotions that skew the data: arrogance, optimism, a desire for neat solutions to messy problems. "There is no straw,/says the camel to his back"—a neat epigram about the perils of abstract thought without self-awareness.
"This is the way we are, you say—//But then, not quite. No image stands/Alone." Unlike the ones and zeros of code, words never exist in isolation. They have auras of word-associations that differ for each person, not contained within the narrow definitions that a computer might use. That, at any rate, is the image I got from the phrase "Tag-clouds drift on every horizon,/bearing silicon linings." One word "tags" or links to another, but in a drifting, nebulous way.
A poem on the theme of cultural memory invites the reader to hear echoes of other literary works. For me, "No image stands/Alone" recalled John Donne's line "No man is an island". Language is a collective endeavor. Scientists may need poets, and vice versa, to make the picture complete. The isolated computer, generating texts from its algorithms, is a poor substitute for interpersonal creative exchanges.
However, "Emulation" does not wholly concede the victory to art over science. The term hysteresis, according to Wikipedia, describes a system whose output cannot be predicted solely from its current input. When Yew says "Hysteresis is/remembrance seeping into the present, analog/connections slackening", I believe she is alluding to the imperfections of non-computerized memory. We are affected by the past but forget how we got where we are; we transmit our ideas to future generations without being able to control how they will be received.
Even Shakespeare, the poet of poets, is not exempt from the decay: "The final straw was/Ophelia afloat, entwined in forget-me-nots./We will remember you were, we promise. We won't." These lines are poignant, reminding us that the greatest art and the strongest personal affection still cannot make us truly immortal. Why not, then, try artificial intelligence?
Yew ends the poem on a note of openness to new ways of thinking: "Take what I say/and permute it, deny it. You will build a snapshot/or better, its negative, perpetually expectant." Anyone who seeks the truth, in science or the arts, must accept that their own achievements may be made obsolete by those who build on them. Perhaps the endurance of data in memory is less important than the persistence of hope. The "stuff that dreams are made of" paraphrases a famous line from Prospero's Act IV speech in "The Tempest", a play that ends with the sorcerer discarding his books of magic in order to return to human society. A step towards truth, or towards a new illusion? Whether we work with words or numbers, Yew suggests that our very human hopes, fears, dreams and blind spots will always be part of the information we transmit.
Where could a poem like "Emulation" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
The Iowa Review Awards
Postmark Deadline: January 31
Top awards of $1,000 apiece for poems, stories and essays, sponsored by a prestigious journal published by the University of Iowa, a school known for its creative writing programs
W.B. Yeats Society Annual Poetry Competition
Postmark Deadline: February 1
$250 award for unpublished poems includes invitation to awards ceremony at the elegant, prestigious National Arts Club in NYC in April; read past winners online
TallGrass Writers' Guild Poetry & Prose Contest
Postmark Deadline: February 27
Prizes of $500 apiece for poetry and prose, plus anthology publication; 2009 theme is "Fearsome Fascinations: Vampires, Zombies, Artificial Intelligence (with hostile intent)—and other frights. Broadly interpreted."
Writecorner Press Annual Poetry Award
Postmark Deadline: March 31
Writers' resource site offers top prize of $500 and online publication for poems up to 40 lines
Balticon SF Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: April 1
Baltimore's annual science fiction convention offers this free contest with prizes up to $100 for poems with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes
This poem and critique appeared in the January 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Enchanted Lion Books
Enchanted Lion Books is a Brooklyn-based publisher of children's picture books. "Independent and family owned, we love books, well-told stories, and illustrations that open up the visual world and deepen a child's sense of story."
English in Progress
Written by educator and translator Heddwen Newton, English in Progress is a monthly Substack newsletter that tracks trends in slang, neologisms, and accents in English around the world. Each newsletter links to articles on quirky topics such as the year's most creative use of swear words in media, fake words created by AI, and how to win a spelling bee.
Enigma Public
Enigma Public bills itself as the world's broadest collection of public data. Signup is free. Search a wide variety of state, national, and international government data on health, finance, public works, science, population demographics, and more. There are also databases from famous museums, research universities, major corporations and trade associations, and international institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations.
Enlarged Hearts
This gorgeous collection of linked stories from Main Street Rag is comprised of variations on the theme of the Fat Girl. All the unnamed protagonists share this mythic epithet and all are employed at the Large & Luscious Large Women's Clothing Boutique in a prototypical shopping mall, but beyond that, they are individuals who gloriously resist social stereotyping and invisibility.
Enola Gay
Dazzling imagination of a post-apocalyptic world. Here is experimental verse that never becomes detached from its foundation in raw personal emotion and political outrage.
Entropy Road
time slips from great to good or, from terrible to wors'ning
down entropic road we pay our toll
paved start toward never ending
that god, what god? the mirror asks, tone optimistic, while condescending
the urge to organize is quite strong
make amends, then share the booty's blending
time slips from me to us or, from you and i to loving
our valentine then seeks its mate
goes the prolific downward sending
that god, what god? the reflection quests, while the last winter sno's still clinging
that holonic symbol, our family crest
wears the blood from each upbringing
the urge to love is as strong to hate, to blend, then split the winnings
our junior is the sum of both
but adds "new" moment's vendings
time drives us from then to now, its final destination reaching
tho next can never touch our lips
it's law, relatively speaking
that god, what god? the question begs, and who should i tell him's asking?
an urge to love and proliferate...
life's sentence, and time's unmasking
Copyright 2008 by Thom Adams
Critique by Jendi Reiter
The form of this month's provocative poem, "Entropy Road", embodies its theme of order struggling to remain distinct from chaos. The headlong rush of syllables in the longer lines and the fragmentary, zigzag presentation of the poem's argument give the poem a restless energy. Meanwhile, the "-ing" rhymes repeating in the first and third lines of every stanza, the refrain "that god, what god?" and the semi-regular meter attempt to corral that energy within a poetic framework.
Making the rhyming words present participles (verb forms, or nouns derived from them, ending in "-ing") was an inspired choice. These words describe action in progress. Just as the stability that the narrator seeks is always a moving target, the concepts on which he depends to convey this argument will not stay put. Each rhyming line also ends on an unstressed syllable, which gives the poem an open-ended, unfinished cadence.
Entropy, of course, refers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which basically states that the energy levels in an isolated system will tend toward equilibrium. Entropy has sometimes been described as a measurement of the disorder or randomness within a system. In the poem, as in popular usage, it symbolizes universal mortality and dissolution. If evolution drives organic life to ever-higher levels of self-organizing complexity, entropy is the opposite force, that which pulls down and breaks apart complex systems into nature's simplest building blocks. It means that all material energy will ultimately spend itself and be unrecoverable.
As self-aware components of this dying system, how can we find the motivation to go on living, loving, procreating, and planning for the future? Which will win, our philosophical sense of futility or the inward compulsion to survive and create?
Perhaps no one wrote about entropy in this sense more powerfully than the 20th-century British poet Philip Larkin. A sample poem can be found here.
Larkin generally settles the question on the side of death, but Adams disagrees: "the urge to love is as strong to hate". The life force has a fighting chance. Yet it is hampered by our inability to articulate a reason for hope. "that god, what god? the mirror asks, tone optimistic, while condescending". Existentialist philosophers looked to the self to create meaning in a universe made absurd by death's finality. The poem suggests that this answer is insufficient. The individual is merely part of the closed entropic system. He cannot inject it with new energy to reverse its decay.
There are positive, hopeful moments in "Entropy Road" but they come from outside philosophy and science. Whatever the intellect may say, instinct confirms that human connection and creativity are not futile. "time slips from me to us or, from you and i to loving/our valentine then seeks its mate/goes the prolific downward sending". The opaque last phrase may have been chosen mainly to fit the rhyme scheme, but its vagueness felicitously makes it more symbolic than a specific description would have been. It called to my mind both the release of seed in copulation and the movement of the child through the birth canal, but other associations are possible, such as rains watering the earth to bring forth crops, or the descent of angels.
The birth of a child does seem like a miraculous creation ex nihilo, the opposite of entropy. First there were two, now there are three. "Holonic" is a word coined by 20th-century philosopher Arthur Koestler to express the observation that entities in biological and social systems are always interdependent, never completely self-sufficient units. This law of interconnection and symbiosis contrasts with entropy's pull toward disconnection and stasis.
"our junior is the sum of both/but adds 'new' moment's vendings". Is "new" in quotes because the narrator's intellectual side reminds him that this is not a real solution to the problem? On the human scale, parenthood may feel like a triumph over mortality, but on the level of the cosmos, it does not stave off the decay of the whole system, looked at in purely materialistic terms.
The poem ends by leaving the question open, a humility that rings true. Adams does not claim to decide whether the emotional or the scientific perspective on the human condition is correct. He suggests that it is really a question about the nature of the self, or perhaps its very existence. "that god, what god? the question begs, and who should i tell him's asking?/an urge to love and proliferate..."
If pressed to define the self, Adams would emphasize the impulse to love and create, however blind that impulse is, over the scientific description of the individual as a collection of atoms arranged in a temporary order. He chooses the insider's perspective over the outsider's, life as it feels to us, rather than life as the scientists say it is. (After all, they too are part of the flawed system, not truly above it.) Yet the final line, "life's sentence, and time's unmasking", expresses the fear that some trans-human perspective would prove us wrong; the joke of the universe is on us, after all. The dilemma brings us to the limits of reason, where some have found faith, and others merely the willpower to live without it.
Where could a poem like "Entropy Road" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Kent & Sussex Open Poetry Competition
Entries must be received by January 31
British literary society offers prizes up to 700 pounds for unpublished poems by authors aged 16+; fees in UK currency only
Strokestown International Poetry Competitions
Postmark Deadline: January 31
Irish literary festival offers prizes up to 4,000 euros for unpublished poems in English, Irish or Scottish Gaelic languages
Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award
Entries must be received by February 12
Free contest from ICON, the student literary journal of Kent State University's Trumbull Campus, offers $100 for unpublished poems, any length
Oregon State Poetry Association Contests
Deadlines vary
Twice-yearly contest offers prizes up to $100 in categories including traditional verse, humor, open theme
This poem and critique appeared in the January 2008 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Envisioning Information and Visual Explanations
These magnificent, lavishly-printed works show the power and subtlety of wise use of design, color, typography, layouts, pictures and illustrations. Don't just make a book, make a treasure.
Eratosphere
This discussion forum hosted by the literary journal Able Muse is a place where writers can share work in a variety of genres, including free verse, formal verse, literary criticism, fiction, humor, and translations. This community is most appropriate for experienced writers (i.e. not an amateur poetry forum).
Erika Dreifus: 13 Questions to Ask Before Submitting to a Literary Journal
Erika Dreifus is the media editor for Fig Tree Books and publishes the monthly e-newsletter The Practicing Writer, a list of free contests and paying markets. In this article at Literary Hub, she shares her own methods for picking the best submission opportunities for her work. Factors to consider include whether the journal is attractively designed and well-edited, and whether it is actively engaged with a diverse community of readers.
Erika Krouse’s Ranking of 500 Literary Magazines for Short Fiction
Editor, writing coach, and fiction writer Erika Krouse ran the numbers on some 500 journals publishing literary short fiction. Rankings are based on circulation, pay rates for writers, subjective "coolness" factors, and how frequently stories from these publications are selected for Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Awards, and Pushcart Prizes. While there's room for debate about the value of these metrics, the comprehensive list of markets will be useful for writers seeking new submission venues.
Escaping Arrogance
By Samantha Terrell
From the rocky cliffside
Where we tremble, I see
Gulls, below, freely
Feeding on puddles and pride
While we dream of deliverance from this craggy place.
A man who comes
Down the mountain to meet us,
Has found his happiness.
He delivers it with a kiss.
And then, he's off! Easily slicing through rising waters,
As a butcher knife through butter.
He's carefree,
Not worried
About the puddles,
Let alone his pride.
Inspired, I try
To gather in
The children
And the vulnerable, forgetting I,
Too, am one who feels.
But the birds have seen it all. They sometimes cry
For us—
Stuck
As we are—afraid of falling, unable to fly.
The only option left, is to climb.
Essay Daily
Curated by DIAGRAM editor Ander Monson, Essay Daily is a space for ongoing conversation about essays and essayists of note, contemporary and otherwise. They mostly publish critical/creative engagements with interesting essays (text and other), Q&As with essays or essayists, and reviews of essays, essay collections or book length essays, or literary journals that publish essays. Query before submitting.
Essayist App
Essayist is an app for academic writers. It will automatically format your text in the standard citation style you choose. Currently supported are Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association formats, with others such as Chicago Manual of Style coming soon. The software allows you to create a list of references that you can click to cite within the text, as well as adding tables and images in the proper format.
Esther and Willow
By Laurel Blossom
This is the pool set halfway between the guesthouse and the main house, built by Mrs. Godfrey in 1941, the year Esther Williams started at MGM. I swim on the diagonal to make a length a little longer. The water's warm where the LA sun has touched it, cool where it floats in shade. I'm taking my first swim in Mrs. Godfrey's pool. My landlord Al says Mrs. Godfrey was one of Esther Williams's understudies. The guesthouse is white, the sky blue, the house at the corner of Esther and Willow. Al says this is a coincidence. I don't believe him. Coincidence is a myth.
Etheree for Heather Heyer
By Lorna Wood
One
Person
With freckles
And hazel eyes
Helped bankrupt people
Get in their paperwork
And showed us love is simple,
Like falling while crossing the street,
But rising again, reaching toward hate
With arms and heart made infinitely strong.
Etruscan Press
Based in Pennsylvania, Etruscan Press is a nonprofit cooperative of writers producing books that nurture the dialogue among genres, achieve distinctive voice, and reshape our literary and cultural histories. Their catalogue of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism includes the authors H.L. Hix, Paul Lisicky, Carol Moldaw, Bruce Bond, and Kazim Ali.
Europa Editions
Europa Editions is a New York-based publisher of literary fiction, high-end mystery and noir, children's illustrated fiction, narrative nonfiction, and memoir. Approximately two-thirds of the titles on their list are works of literature in translation. Europa Editions was founded in 2005 by Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola Ferri, who are also the owner-publishers of Rome-based Edizioni E/O, one of Europe's most prestigious independent publishing houses. Europa's Tonga Books imprint publishes literary prose titles with a strong narrative voice, chosen by prominent authors as guest editors.
Every Day Poems
A project of Tweetspeak Poetry, this free email newsletter includes a new classic or contemporary poem every weekday, information on special events, and resources for writing teachers. Each month focuses on examples of a different poetic form or topic.
Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel
By Julian K. Jarboe. Queer magical realism unites the brilliantly inventive tales in this debut short story collection, in which the humor and verve of rebellious outsiders offer sparks of hope in the dystopian world we've made. A sassy queer witch seeks shelter from a manipulative priest in a town rapidly sinking beneath the waters of global warming. A young person's dysphoria is made literal when they menstruate sharp objects instead of blood. Kafka's "Metamorphosis" gets a new twist from a narrator who wants to transition into "a beautiful bug" despite authorities who insist that it's only a metaphor.
Everything Is Going to Be OK
By Dani Jones. This funny, inspirational webcomic, now collected in book form, addresses relatable issues such as mental health, coming out, artist's block, and keeping faith during tough times. Reminiscent of Zen Pencils, the style is cozy yet profound, like a conversation about the meaning of life that ends with a hug from a friend.
Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Hybrid Publishing
In this 2021 guest post at publishing expert Jane Friedman's blog, prizewinning indie novelist Barbara Linn Probst (Queen of the Owls and The Sound Between the Notes) explains the "hybrid publishing" business model. Similar to self-publishing, hybrid publishing requires a financial investment by the author. However, a hybrid publisher may be more selective and will provide more editorial and design services. Hybrid publishers may also offer distribution that is more like a traditional publisher.
Ewuare X. Osayande
Black activist, poet and social critic applies his rhetorical powers to fighting oppression in all its forms. Hard-hitting essays on his website include "Spittin' Acid at the Sistahs: Rap(e) and the Assault of Black Women" and "Bling Bling into Oblivion: Hip Hop, Globalization and Third World Oppression". Capitalists and gangsta rappers, beware.
Exchanges
Founded in 1989 as a print magazine and now published online, Exchanges is a biannual journal of literary translation. It is published by the University of Iowa and edited by current students of the Iowa Translation Workshop.
Expedition
By William Huhn
The friends I lost would not
have made it to the top anyway,
scattered on the mountainside
in night, like uncharted stars.
Though they'd sworn loyalty, at
the first remembrance of their
padded lives even the truest
of them became liabilities.
Well below where the air grows thin,
and the insanity thick as the loss
of breath, their spirits broken,
a voice silent as the vulture's
seemed to soothe them to death.
They returned to the safety in
numberless faces, eyes already
sinking like grave markers.
I saw the Lamb of God in the shadow
of the scavenger's wing they fled,
and I led my expedition of one far
above those who wouldn't risk perishing
in the blinding snows at the summit,
where I kissed the place of rebirth.
Experiences With Editors
In this series on the Emerging Writers Network blog, published authors share the best and worst of their experiences with editors (the comments have been mostly kudos so far) and what they learned from them.
ExpertAccess
ExpertAccess is a membership group offering discounted rates for freelance writers to purchase access to LexisNexis, a premium subscription database of U.S. case law, statutes, and news articles. Writers also receive training in how to use LexisNexis.
Exploitation Versus Representation
Exploitative content can even creep into the work of progressive writers. Here's a primer on how to identify potential exploitation in your writing and what to do about it.
Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
Trigger warning: Racism, sexism, ableism, stereotypes, suicide, abuse
When we think of book critiques, we often think about narrative features like structure, character, plot, and theme. But as a contest judge and critique writer, I am also concerned with identifying exploitative depictions of disadvantaged and marginalized groups.
"Exploitation" can sound like a scary, moralistic word. It can spark arguments about who is "allowed" to imagine their way into characters different from themselves. In the Winning Writers North Street Book Prize, we're looking at how these depictions function within the story itself. And as a developmental critiquer, I also consider how exploitative scenarios might appear to agents, publishers, and a book's intended audience.
Exploitation means that a character from a marginalized group is given a narrative function that does not benefit people from that group, but instead benefits members of a more privileged group.
A quarter of the manuscripts I receive from authors—yes, even progressive authors—contain exploitative premises and themes. Such manuscripts are significantly weaker in three areas:
Ethical—The manuscript is reinforcing assumptions that have no basis in reality and harm the kinds of people it is claiming to represent.
Literary—The vitality and immersivity of the work is harmed through the use of tired tropes and dated concepts. The true potential of the work is missed.
Commercial—Agents and publishers are looking for work that engages with the world we live in today. The use of stereotypes makes a book feel inherently dated, less relevant, and alienating to readers of modern commercial fiction.
Some examples from past manuscripts include:
Native American culture being used as a backdrop for a white character to find themselves or have an adventure.
Man Friday English being used to show that a character is speaking English as a foreign language without any consideration for the realities of the cultural and linguistic conditions.
A character's disability being used primarily to create humor, pity, or disgust in the reader rather than functioning in a deeper role touching characterization, plot, or theme.
Who are these exploitative authors?
Exploitation in one in four manuscripts sounds like a lot. Who are the authors using these exploitative elements?
Believe it or not, nearly all of the authors whose work includes this kind of issue self-identify as progressive. Occasionally, the author I'm working with has included an exploitative element in their work with a genuinely exploitative goal, but it's extremely rare. Only twice in the nearly 400 manuscripts I've evaluated did that turn out to be the case. The other examples were all by authors who were already progressive.
So how can this happen? How do sincerely progressive writers end up including exploitative material in their writing?
Representation, then and now
We live in a time when ideas have been able to change very quickly due to increased connectivity. One of the better ways in which society is changing is that marginalized voices have more reach. Thankfully, it's more possible than ever before to find, and to produce, "own voices" narratives that describe marginalized lives from the inside.
As a result, the way publishing sees "representation" has also changed for the better within the past 10-20 years. "Inclusion" is no longer a sufficient condition to be considered "representation". When marginalized characters appear in a story, other important questions are being asked by agents, publishers, and readers:
- Who benefits from the way this character or situation is being portrayed?
- What is the real structural function of this character or situation?
- Does the portrayal of this character or situation have deeper connections to underlying themes or world-building elements? If not, why is it there?
If the answers to these questions show that the marginalized character is there only to benefit those who are already privileged, it might be time to reexamine whether the characterization is exploitative.
Examples of exploitative content from real-life manuscripts
Below are 16 examples of exploitative scenarios I've encountered in books and manuscripts. Again—in nearly every case, the author didn't realize that they were using a trope, or that the trope was exploitative.
A marginalized character is placed in the narrative only to help the more privileged character realize their goal.
An older black woman who is a nurse is only seen in the story when she is providing folksy wisdom and encouragement to a younger, white nurse. The older nurse has no problems or needs of her own.
A white boy and girl find a magical Native American arrowhead, and its powers bring a feeling of mystery, seriousness, and significance to their romance arc. There are no living Native American characters or discussion of why Native Americans no longer live on that land.
A wealthy white woman travels to a Pacific island where she sleeps with a native of the island. His "primitive" wisdom and love give her a new perspective on life and she goes home again renewed and empowered. The Black male character has no interiority and the book provides no context about the power dynamics in the relationship.
A female supporting character is included in the story exclusively to help the male protagonist become the man he was meant to be. The female character is physically beautiful and has no interiority or life of her own. She may be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
A stereotype is used as shorthand in the book without any deeper relation to the content or structure.
The villains in the book are portrayed with Cold-War-era Slavic stereotypes, not because it has anything to do with the universe or plot (it's a fantasy novel), but because it's the book's shorthand for greed, criminality, and brutality.
A character is depicted as fat, not because it has any bearing on the way they experience the world of the story or on the story's themes, but as shorthand for greed, corruption, slovenliness, or bossiness.
An Algerian character speaks with Man Friday English, not because that's a realistic depiction of an Algerian speaking English as a Foreign Language, but because it's the book's shorthand for "foreigner".
A character has schizophrenia, not because schizophrenia relates to the deeper themes of the book, but because the character's function in the book is to be "weird", "funny", "unpredictable", or "mentally sick".
A non-Western setting is used as shorthand for "exotic", "inspiring", or "dangerous" and includes no other context to provide depth.
A memoir about Saigon in the 1980s portrays Vietnam as the "Wild East"—a lawless and wild place where the white main character can truly find himself. No context is given about the colonialism or other conditions that led to the Saigon that existed at the time of the story.
A white middle-class character is shown as wanting to go to Benin because it is dangerous and he wants to test himself. (But an internet search by the critiquer reveals that the crime statistics in Benin are similar to Ontario, Canada.)
The suffering of a disadvantaged or marginalized group is used for the sake of entertainment (also known as trauma porn).
The abuse and subsequent suicide attempt of a teenage girl is described in great physical detail, despite the book being mostly about the main character, a teenage boy. No interiority or POV writing is provided for the teenage girl character.
A book opens with the slaughter of a tribe of indigenous people. No member of the tribe is a character beyond that first scene. The structural function is to grab the attention of the middle-class, white American readership and to give the white main characters an inciting incident.
A gay man is tortured and killed, and these passages go into detail about the violence and suffering. The context within the book reinforces the idea that gay people are outsiders and that their lot is tragic whether they are killed or not. There is no further discussion of gayness and no other gay characters.
A female character is raped, not because rape is related to the story's essential themes, but to create a sense of peril and titillation.
The antagonist in a book is depicted as having become a crazed villain due to past trauma. The presentation implies that their extreme reaction to trauma was the result of not having enough fortitude (moral, psychological) to stand up to it.
Trauma being used as a device in "origin stories" for villains and heroes.
The protagonist in a book is depicted as having undergone trauma, but completely bounced back from it (e.g., a female hero is raped but has no PTSD). The presentation implies that their resiliance is due to higher-than-normal fortitude (moral, psychological) to bounce back.
In both the villain and the hero examples, the real experience of traumatized peoples is distorted. Trauma often leaves lasting effects with no relation whatsoever to the sufferer's "fortitude", and without turning those who undergo trauma into either heroes or villains.
What should I do if my book contains exploitation without me meaning it to?
If you're reading this with a sinking feeling that your manuscript might include exploitative elements, take heart. There's plenty of time to reconsider, rework, and move on from exploitative narrative strategies. Following the ideas below will make your work more marketable and give the stories you tell new depth.
Try to find another angle.
I remember reading a well-written manuscript about a transwoman transitioning not only into a woman but into a vampire at the same time. It seemed like a good idea in itself, but unfortunately, the execution of the story at that time tended to equate transness with monstrousness (disgust, horror, ugliness), which wasn't the intention of the author.
My critique outlined the dynamic and suggested different ways to come at the scenario. For example, what if the plot focused on comparing and contrasting the two transition processes, with a more sympathetic interiority for the main character? That way, people in that marginalized group (transwomen) might benefit by increased discussion about, and artistic expression of, the nature of trans experience.
Reconsider if you need to be writing about that particular subject or character.
I once worked with a white poet who had included a Magical POC stereotype in one of his poems. I asked him what the structural and thematic function was, and after consideration, he found that there was no constructive function. He ended up removing the character and diving more deeply into the themes that really were at the heart of his poem.
Reconsider your premise.
Rarely, I'll come across a draft where the exploitation is woven into the very premise. One manuscript I read was about a young white Canadian man who on a whim decided to travel to Benin to find a Black man whose name he had discovered by accident. The goal of the young Canadian was to test himself on this "dangerous" journey, a "hunt" for the Beninese character.
My critique pointed out the power imbalance of a white, relatively wealthy Canadian man seeking out and potentially disrupting the life of a stranger halfway across the planet, and how strange and uncomfortable the situation might feel from the Beninese character's point of view. The author's use of the word "hunt" also seemed threatening, especially in the white-Black context given the histories of colonialism and slavery. The author had not considered these factors and decided to drastically revise their premise.
Do your research.
I've found that in many cases where exploitative characterizations are being used, it's because the author relied on their existing memories of older books, films, and social contexts as their main source of information. If you suspect your book may be venturing into the exploitative, the best course of action might be to do some research into the characters and subjects you are writing about in order to bring more realism into the depiction.
As Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter pointed out to me recently, "Writers do research on all kinds of things. Cars, the moon, animals, philosophies, anything. Why not research the people you're writing about?"
Get a sensitivity read.
Generally, if you are going to include minority characters whose identities are not the same as yours, it's a good idea to hire one or more sensitivity readers who share those identities with the characters. Firefly Creative Writing, Writing Diversely, and the Editors of Color database are excellent places to find sensitivity readers of diverse genders, ethnicities, disabilities, and cultural, class, and religious backgrounds.
Address your own privilege.
I often mention the word "privilege" to authors and it occasionally raises hackles. But when a writer gets real about the role of privilege in their writing process and how they handle their content, their work tends to become more timely, realistic, relatable, and immersive: all qualities that are highly attractive to agents and readers alike.
Below are some articles about privilege and writing. Some of them discuss the idea of privilege as an "invisible knapsack" that contains tools that help us complete what we'd think of as very basic tasks during the day. The less privilege a person has, the fewer tools they have, until these "basic" tasks (for example, interacting with the electric company, shopping for groceries) become much more difficult or simply not possible.
Negotiating Social Privilege as a Writer
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Equity360: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity—What's in Your Knapsack?
Become familiar with dead horse tropes and avoid them in the future.
One of the best ways to avoid exploitative and plumb-tired-out tropes is to learn what they are. TVTropes.org is a fantastic directory for tropes in all genres of art, not just television. Wikipedia is also a good place to find information about tropes.
Some of the tropes I encounter in manuscripts most often are:
Disability tropes
Mental Handicap, Moral Deficiency
Tragically Disabled or Magically Disabled
Hollywood Autism
Obsessively Organized and Neat Freak (OCD stereotypes)
Funny SchizophreniaBlack/POC tropes
Black Dude Dies First
Magical Black Person
"Mammy" Figure
Closer to EarthIndigenous tropes
The Noble Savage
The Nubile Savage and The Chief's Daughter
"Good" Indigenous vs. "Bad" Indigenous
Man Friday English and Tonto TalkMore racial tropes
Acceptable Ethnic Targets
Tokenism
Africa Is a Country
Dirty Communists (evil Slavs)
Husky Russkie (Slavic thugs)
The Evil Brit
Magical Romani
Inscrutable OrientalWhite savior tropes
Mighty Whitey
Raised by NativesSexuality and gender tropes
Bury Your Gays
Trans Tribulations
Dead Lesbian SyndromeTropes about women
Defiled Forever
Disposable Woman
Not Like the Other Girls
"She Just Needs to Smile!"
My Girl is Not a Slut
Makeup is Evil
Manic Pixie Dream GirlTropes about men
Writing as a process of breaking down barriers
The activity of writing is defined by constant exploration and breaking through personal barriers—especially emotional barriers. One could argue that a writer is a person who provides value to readers by doing grueling emotional, psychological, and intellectual legwork.
This process can be terribly uncomfortable for the writer. But the more processing the writer can do, and the more they can work through that discomfort, the better the writing will be—and the more the readers will keep coming back.
Facing up to assumptions, stereotypes, and exploitative scenarios in writing is an essential part of that fundamental process of exploration and breaking through barriers. Any writer who ignores that part of composition is avoiding an opportunity for significant growth in their craft.
Meanwhile, the authors who do address problematic assumptions through their writing stand out head and shoulders above their competition in the eyes of agents, publishers, contest judges, and readers.
As a critiquer, contest judge, reader, and human being, I stand up and cheer for all writers who pledge themselves to breaking down barriers like those described in this post.
F.J. Bergmann
Non sequiturs like bear traps plunge you through the surface of this poet's world into an absurd, slightly sinister, often funny alternate reality. We especially love the William Carlos Williams parody "An Apology". Buy her prizewinning chapbook, Sauce Robert, from Pavement Saw Press.
F(r)iction
A publication of Brink Literacy Project, F(r)iction is a triannual literary journal with a contemporary design and a strong personality. They accept short fiction, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, comics, and poetry, illustrated with custom artwork. See their "What We Look For" page for editorial preferences and sample published work in each genre. They also offer contests judged by prominent authors. Editors say, "We embrace the new, the weird, and the unconventional."
Facets of the Heart
By Eleanor Gamarsh
My emotional heart is a child.
When left alone
its smile turns down.
My intelligent mind is an adult
always telling my child,
"It's okay to be alone."
My child's heart says,
"To be alone
is to be without love."
My adult mind says,
"Love can never be gone;
only hidden by the shadows
of your fears."
Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer
Poet and memoirist Mary Karr muses on the resemblance between poetry and prayer as "sacred speech" that eases the soul's isolation. Karr also describes her recent conversion to Catholicism from a secular upbringing that made a religion out of art and literature. "People usually (always?) come to church as they do to prayer and poetry—through suffering and terror."
Fairrosa Cyber Library of Children’s Literature
Online library of children's literature contains the full-length text of dozens of classics. Reference Shelf feature includes links to background material on many authors of children's books.
False Witnesses: On Writing About War
In this 2022 critical essay from The Point magazine, Phil Klay examines the moral and aesthetic conundrums of bearing witness to war through poetry. Klay is a fiction writer, essayist, and US Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
Family Cookout
By James K. Zimmerman
we sit in peace among bees
painting pictures of lives
we cannot know, like drinking
from a mountain stream
hands cupped to capture the flow
from springs erupting deep
in the body of the earth
stories steeped in brine and limes
for the chicken and the irony
of wine that opens only after
we drink the second bottle
recollections layered with fresh
Italian mozzarella, tomatoes
shipped from Mexico or Jersey
basil from the garden, salads
of onions, beans, and garlic or
cabbage laced with sour cream
recipes of long-dead generations
spiced and salted with their struggle
and pain, add a dash or two
of laughter, a pinch of bitterness
to taste
a potluck of childhood
memories slow-cooked over
smoky heat on the grill
and the bees hover
in the deepening shadows
waiting for the last drops
to fall
Family Reunion
By Deborah LeFalle
New moon
midnight sky
tall trees obscure
desolate road
in back woods
of small southern town
Darker than black
can't see hands
arms' length away
frightening—
indescribable
uneasiness
Hard imagining
ancestors' anguish
ruthless attacks
on their very being
hatred, bigotry
inhumanity
Lifetimes of
oppression
crooked necks
from looking back
over shoulders
to see next day
Acquiescence
all too common
yet better than
dangling bodies
numbed to death
by knotted nooses
Courageous folk
who endured the
unthinkable
for survival's sake
It's a miracle
we’re even here.
[First published in What Brings You Here? (2016)]
Family: 5 Variations
By Annie Dawid
1.
At table, silence,
rum-blossomed cheeks
puffing with goose,
adult children smile
slyly, sipping their drinks.
2.
Squatty-bodied, dark and loud,
they gallop their words
over lox and chopped herring,
opinions fly like scrapping gulls.
"You're wrong!"
"You don't know what you're talking about!"
The child wishes for worlds
where only one person
speaks at a time.
3.
Parents and grandparents,
three friends, four visitors
representing Jews, Hispanic
lapsed Catholics, more lapsed
Wasps and various agnostics
argue testosterone
and range-and-basin geology,
baby spitting peas and pasta,
two husbands check their balls
(still there) and mourn
their manhood while tacos keep
flipping from grills, beer keeps
emerging, warm, and later
the men clean up, grumbling.
4.
Three lesbian couples, two babies, adopted,
of another race, urban vegetarian
uniting with rancher's daughter
over potato salad, public radio from Fargo humming
in the background, Lucy Blue
coming to town and questions of
childcare, no spice in the rice,
no men in the room,
air heavy with intrigue
as one couple crumbles, all eyes
on the parental pair, one
wanting babies while her protesting
partner wants the newcomer,
too alluring to resist for long.
5.
Three gay men, one straight woman
at her house, she's serving
spanakopita and baba ganoush
while her dog, neutered, huddles under the table,
and the topic of
discussion is how to make
a family, she wanting baby
from the one who refuses,
the one with the temper wants one now,
but she prefers his partner,
already a father in a previous life,
now monogamous.
At breakfast, nothing concluded,
they start over again.
FanStory
Online forum for poetry and short fiction offers frequent contests for members, with creative and offbeat writing prompts.
Fantasy Map Generators and Worldbuilding Tools
This 2021 article from BookRiot recommends 10 websites and software programs that create fantasy maps with detailed terrain. Great for speculative fiction writers and role-playing gamers.
Favorite Children’s Books: Poetry and Song
Selected by the New York Public Library. Featured titles include And the Green Grass Grew All Around: Folk Poetry from Everyone and X.J. Kennedy's Brats, where "forty-two poems describe a variety of particularly unpleasant children."
