the blurbs that never were
Welcome to the Sunday post.
It’s taking me over a month to fill out this author questionnaire. The bulk of it is answered but I want to take my time because I think of things after I’ve already answered something: whether it’s an appropriate keyword for a book, a more accurate description of a book, and the (dreaded) questions around who I know, who might be willing to say something about my work.
The subject of blurbs makes writers go a little bonkers, as you might notice on social media whenever they’re brought up. I myself tend to not read blurbs. As a reader, the blurbs usually, often, mean nothing to me. Recently I was ambivalently reading a book and decided to check out the blurbs when I was about forty pages in, and the blurbs helped me decide to not continue reading the book. I’ve also loved a book, highly recommended it, then looked at the blurbs and someone I disrespect, whose books I won’t read, had written one.
The tyranny of blurbs. The banality of blurbs.
And yet, as writers we’re asked to come up with them.
I’ve written blurbs for others (though I’ve said no to more than I’ve written at this point). And at the same time I continue to feel utterly grateful for anyone who has ever taken the time to blurb my books—endless stream of hearts to each of them.
Separate from blurbs, I have a note on my phone where I keep "feedback to remember”—the blurbs that never were. They won’t be appearing on the back cover or opening pages of my books. Just this week I realized I’d done something unconsciously because I was feeling fear and doubt about my work—a sudden feeling of does this work really matter? So I keep this note to refer to when I receive rejections, when I have doubts about what I’m trying to achieve, when I feel depleted.
The note on my phone doesn’t even have attributions to the people who said what they said; they are my favorite “blurbs” nonetheless, because they were given in a different spirit—they were unasked for and without expectation of being printed anywhere.
Here are some of those blurbs that never were.
"the book is completely original, alchemical and otherworldly. No other title will fit."
“your writing has been so instrumental for me and your books are ones I return to again and again”
“what a fucking relief to read something that doesn't resemble a thousand other pieces shaped by the cookie-cutter that keeps getting passed around...I had that "I'm not alone" feeling reading your piece. What I really wanted to say, though, is that your piece was a very welcome break from the overly curated and all-too-serious self-portraits written by people trying to sound smart and failing because they're not being honest.”
"You're a damn phenom."
"With her bold books, Ortiz defies society to ignore her, to resist her. But we’re becoming more and more aware of her. Her dark blossoming is changing us."
"I found myself turned on at times—questioned and investigated that response—and I realized that I was responding to the ways you made yourself bare and vulnerable to the reader, which allowed me into the strong sexual awakening occurring in the body of a powerful narrator."
“Your creative nonfiction has been a constant companion to me as a teacher and a writer, and Bruja remains one of my most shared/thumbed/beloved class texts.”
"Because the way you speak/write is so fucking incredible and feral and real. Always real. No filter. All blood. All heart. All cunt. All spirit."
Of a writing workshop I facilitated:
“I hope this doesn’t sound fake, but that may have been the single most effective week of writing instruction in my years of workshop!”
A generous and gorgeous introduction at an event, that was far and away my absolute favorite intro anywhere in the last ten years, I loved it so much that I asked the writer to send it to me because I think of it as an alt-biography:
Wendy C. Ortiz is a notetaker, a student and teacher of attention, a punk poet for whom I have deep admiration. Reading her last book Bruja is like the cool kid sharing their journal with you, or like reading Finnegans Wake if Finnegans Wake were interesting, or like reading Sappho's fragments translated by blacklight.
Though the entries are marked by what month in which they were written, I found it hard to think about time when reading this book. I lost track of the month even as I was reading the word. Or, perhaps more appropriately, I wasn't even reading the month, I was just observing it, it just was there. I didn't want to think about time. I don't think I could. Wendy destroyed time.
And there's a science to her work too. A scrutiny. This is a scientific text. Wendy is a scientist. I mean, Bruja has an index of terms appended to it. The reader is invited, urged, to consider the text as though they might a textbook, because this is a textbook. Because by collecting notes on her dreams and sharing them with us, Wendy has written a textbook on consciousness, on personhood, and the matrices through which they interact, refract, are developed, are broken down. Wendy's writing is a study of relationality, of life lived between family, friends, lovers, strangers, the self, and no one at all. Wendy revels in both creation and decreation.
A dreamoir that reminds me that genre is over, that genre never existed, Bruja holds close and calls into question what constitutes both sleep and waking life and demonstrates that the divide between them was really never there. Wendy's work requires no explanation because it has none. Abandon your illusions of mystery. Set yourself aside and observe.
And, of Mommy’s El Camino:
“Thank you, Wendy, for your beautiful newsletter which is a leader and guide to me.”
If you don’t have a document or a note with all the praise and good feedback you’ve received, I hope you start one now. xo