Cost of Entry: On Class and Writing Communities [TCD]
The Cat Discusses #9
The facilitator of one of my in-person writing groups sits us all down one meeting to share a big announcement. For months, he’s been touting Matt Bell’s book, Refuse to Be Done. Now he’s taken the next step: gotten Matt Bell to agree to come to the bookstore we meet at to host a seminar.
Already, I’m nervous. While it’s true I work in aerospace, I’m still so new to the profession I am barely scraping by. Talks of my money struggle are something I attempt not to go into detail with in the company of friends and family members; for some reason, it makes the wealthier among us greatly uncomfortable to be reminded not everyone has their privilege. Plus, it does nothing but embarass me.
And indeed, when the facilitator tells us the price, I blanch. $100 may seem like a paltry amount to some. For me, it’s an expense I need to carefully weigh. That’s groceries. That’s vet care for my cat. That’s a week’s worth of gas—and this group is well aware how far I travel just to be there, and how some weeks it’s been touch and go on if I can make it, cause can I afford to justify the gas expense?
And yet, no matter how many times I’ve gently pushed back, I am often met with a lack of understanding. When you don’t have to scrap as much, it’s easy to forget how the world can be for those less well-off than you.
Growing up, I was often aware of the teetering economic dance my parents performed. While slightly too young to remember the 08’ Housing Crisis in detail, I do remember the long nights where both parents worked. How we crunched in my brothers’ younger years, when they were constantly outgrowing their clothes. How we often made just a little too much for free lunch programs, but not quite enough to not feel the sting of myself and my siblings needing to be fed. We weren’t dirt poor…but we also were not rich by any stretch of the imagination.
Class and its intricacies have been something I am intimately acquainted with is the point. Especially now that I am living with my spouse and trying every month to make ends meet.
And yet, no more have I felt the pinch of finances and just how stark the class divide can be than in the world of publishing. The issues I aim to highlight aren’t unique to the written word, of course. If you look, you can see aspects of what I want to illustrate in any profession.
I was lucky to go to Worldcon. Mostly in that I was able to use my union’s contract signing bonus to afford the expense, and it was local enough for me to not have to heap travel costs on top. Travel costs that add up very quickly. Were it not held in Seattle this year, I wouldn’t have been able to go at all. And indeed, by the time the event came around, I barely had enough pocket change to make sure I ate every day, resulting in migraines triggered from eating so infrequently. And having friends come from out of town, it was greatly uncomfortable to have to tell them no to over half the outings they suggested, purely because I couldn’t afford them.
Worldcon was a privilege for me is the point, the sort I rarely get to invest in. A privilege not without its criticisms, though. There’s lots that can (and has) been said about the Hugos this year. There’s lots that can (and has) been said about the slough of terrible decisions made in the months leading up to the event.
None of that quite rankles me as much as the inaccessible advice a lot of panelists would give.
For example, I went to a panel on writing groups. One of the first things the group did was go down the line and talk about how they met their groups.
“I went to the Writing Excuses cruise.”
“I sub to so-and-so’s Patreon, who has a discord you can access.”
“I paid to go to a seminar about such-and-such.”
There were no mentions of going to local bookstores (like how I met both my irl groups). There was no mention of options for lower-income people at all. Instead, the biggest commonality among these panelists was how much money inherently had to be spent to see their sort of success at all.
It doesn’t stop there. If you look at a lot of bigger, successful authors nowadays, you start to notice a trend. Many of them hold MFAs. Many of them attended Clarion or other similar writing programs. All of these have merits in their own right, of course…but they are not attainable for lower class people, unless they happen to have a scholarship option and one happens to get in to it. But even then, where does that leave those of us that work full-time or are too disabled to travel? We do not get the same opportunities. Bit by bit, the chasm that is the class divide of writers only continues to grow.
I wish I could say I come into this essay with an easy solution in mind, about as much as I did not feel such intense shame when the topic of finances comes up. Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can say or suggest that will net you success (though it is here I note even those that CAN afford MFAs or Clarion or to go to this-or-that convention will not be guaranteed success, either). Instead, all I have to offer you are much the things I myself have done and have found work for me, in their own small ways.
Make friends. This sounds simple, but it truly is the case. Connect to other writers in your genre, be that online or in person. Join a book club. Hell, do some other sort of social activity that isn’t related to writing at all. All the authors I know have a broad spectrum of professions and talents. One does card readings at a metaphysical store. I work for a major aerospace corporation. The facilitator for my writing group has a background in technical writing and his claim to fame is writing a dictionary. One of my friends volunteers at her local elementary school. Another fosters cats. And on and on and on.
Related, look for writing groups. Check Meetup. Join Discord servers. Seek out bookstores in your area; most of the stores around me have either advertised or hosted their own groups. If nothing else, start your own. Sometimes, you have to take the first step.
Understand this world is built to crush the likes of the lower class. It is by design. However you can, you must find hope despite this reality. As Ursula K Le Guin has been often quoted for saying: