November 16th, 2018

Indignities

This is a post about indignities I have suffered in my life as a professional writer. I have been keeping this post going for a while, adding to it occasionally, then going back and deleting or mitigating stuff, forever adding to the header apology to the tune of I KNOW I’m privileged, ok? I know I’m lucky to have my work even considered worth reading by anyone at all, to have my voice heard in any space, and that there are so many who don’t get that opportunity. To complain, as a writer, about being treated rudely, about being occasionally silenced or ignored, when I am so often treated with generosity and listened to thoughtfully, is that just whiny jerkdom?

Yes. But if I acknowledge that I am sometimes whiny, can the world also acknowledge that people shouldn’t be rude to me, or waste my time, or aggressively push me to work for no money? I’m going to say all of the above is true, and until the world pays up on its side of the bargain, I’m very very very occasionally going to whine.

1) Once I wrote a piece for a journal that then emailed to ask me for my SIN so they could send payment. I know very well that there is no reason anyone needs a SIN to pay me but to keep the piece I called to give it. When I called the number it turned out to be some dude’s cell # and he was surprised to hear from me. I told him my SIN, which I assume he wrote on his hand. A few months later I got an email accusing me of having not provided my SIN–the email didn’t even entertain the notion that the publication could have lost it. This time I just emailed it because I didn’t want to talk to that guy again. All told it was a year before I got paid. The amount? $25.

2) Several times I’ve been on festival panels or included in other events with authors I was really excited to meet. I had read their books and genuinely admired them. Some of these folks have been extremely gracious and lovely and generous but some of them have shut me down COLD. The impression I have gotten was that they were saving all their energy for their fans in the audience, but I thought it was funny that it never occurred to them that they could have fans among their fellow authors too. I also thought it might be nice to be gracious to be even people who aren’t your fans.

3) There was a period where I was earning freelance money above the threshold for charging GST (this was before HST) so I had a business number and a separate tax account and had to charge GST on all my freelance work–this is the law. One journal told me they “didn’t have budget” for taxes and simply didn’t pay it. Many other journals seemed baffled that GST even existed for creative work–I guess not a lot of creative writers earn above the threshold (most of my freelance income came from other areas)–but only one flat-out refused to pay it. Imagine trying that in a store! I had to pay it out of my own pocket, of course.

4) I once showed up for an in-person interview when I was travelling on a tight schedule for readings. When I got into the journalist’s office, he announced, “I didn’t read your book, but I wanted to give you a chance at the coverage anyway.” Basically, he was giving me the opportunity to talk awkwardly about my work with no questions while a stranger stared me. Lucky duck.

5) More than once, someone has agreed on my behalf that I’ll do readings or to do guest writing or similar things without telling me until a few days before. These things never involved payment, of course, and I couldn’t get out of them without embarrassing all involved. I did them. I was very tired.

6) A friend of an acquaintance once asked me to blurb his book because he already had some male blurbers and needed a woman to balance them out. He told me he hadn’t read my work but his friend told him it was good. I passed.

7) Someone once took the time to write me an email about how bad my book was based solely on the text on the Amazon buy page. The email was longer than said text. A good friend had to talk me out of writing back to tell him how stupid this was.

8) A literary festival I was invited to read at once couldn’t (or wouldn’t, I now wonder) order my books for their on-site bookstore. They told me I could bring books to the festival and the bookstore would sell them on consignment, but when I got there it was clear that the bookstore staff was not set up to keep consignment money separate–if they sold any of my books, they were going to keep the money or it was going to be a giant mess. To make a reasonable stack in the display took 5-6 books–so more than $100, a lot of money to me then (ok, and now) so I chose to just keep the books in my backpack and if anyone wanted one they could buy them directly from me. One woman did ask me, after my event, where she could by my book. I started to take one out of my bag for her and she *backed away*. This one is a sort of 2-for-1 indignity.

9) I once contributed work to anthology for free because I was told the anthology was being sold for charity. Later I got an email announcing the launch party that said explicitly that those contributors on that email couldn’t come, because the venue was small and other more fabulous contributors like x, y, and z were coming, and we could see what a bind they were in! I did not dispute that x, y, and z were much more fabulous than I, but was aware that there are a) bigger venues and b) nicer ways to word that email.

10) So many times, someone has come to one of my readings (often very late–I can see you!) and then, in the Q&A, asked a question about their own self as if the event had not taken place.

11) When I was teaching creative writing in high schools, my students refused to learn my name and always addressed me as “Miss.” I told them they were welcome to call me Ms. Rosenblum or Rebecca, I told them I didn’t identify by my marital status, I told them it’s disrespectful to call someone a name they don’t identify by–no dice. Even the good students that seemed to like me–Miss. It made me feel like a scullery maid.

12) Every time someone who has ever promised to pay me by x date and then when I enquired at x + 2 weeks why I hadn’t been paid, acted like I was being kind of grabby or like it was weird that just because they said that date, that I would have counted on it as a fact??

13) The several times I’ve mentioned to a male writer I just met that I liked his work. They engaged immediately, asked follow-up questions, and seemed very friendly. As soon as I had run out of praise and thought to move on to another topic of literary conversation, the fellows saw someone over my shoulder they had to talk to asap. I’ve learned–don’t lead with flattery, even if it’s true. See if the writer can act like a person first. Also sorry: it’s not all dudes, but it’s always dudes.

14) The time I got left at the train station going to a festival, the time I got locked out of an event space, and especially the time the event space double-booked AND THE ORGANIZERS MADE US GO AHEAD ANYWAY.

15) Solicited submissions rejected by form letter or silence. Obvs, I’m not expecting an automatic yes, but if we’re colleagues enough that you can hit me up personally for work, you can also reject it personally.

16) Doing a commissioned piece AND all the editorial work before being told a person I didn’t even know was involved in the process had rejected it. When I tried to end the relationship on a cordial note despite some decidedly uncordial feelings, I of course received silence. Grr.

17) The time I was shortlisted for a prize and told a) I could not come to the prize announcement because there wasn’t enough room and b) only the winner would be notified–they didn’t even want to email me a second time to tell me who won if it wasn’t me. I found out who won by googling it, eventually.

18) Once an editor got in touch to ask me if I would be interviewed for a journal. When I agreed, he said an interviewer would be in touch. What I got was a note saying in order to make this a “collaborative” process, I should come with some questions and then answer them.

19) All the times the stage for readers has been to high to step onto wearing a skirt.

20) The time there was a chocolate fountain at a formal event for writers. Nope. That was mean.

November 14th, 2008

Toronto is so nice

I have ever been aware of this. The first time I apartment-hunted here, strangers on the streetcar practically collapsed trying to talk me out of living in what they thought were bad neighbourhoods (this story ends with me and my friends in a police stations with several cops trying not to snicker as they cross things off my list). It’s not *exactly* been smooth sailing ever since, but certainly enough random acts of umbrella-sharing, lost-item-finding, and smile-giving have followed my progress here that I hold the whole town in high esteem.

Nevertheless, it is particularly nice when friends come from afar and the city shows itself off to best effect. And not just the museums and galleries, the zoo (oh, the gorillas, oh the leopard babies!!) and the restaurants. TTC, York Region Transit, shop clerks and strangers in the street, dogs on the street–A+ Toronto. Of course, it does help that the friends who visited are pretty amazing, also. A+ Winnipeg, also.

Anyway, so I’ve been gallivanting all week, which is the reason why that blog-everyday-in-November challenge that I was sort of unofficially doing is now no more. Oh well, we’ll pick up where we left off.

The next writerly reading I’m doing is in Windsor, so perhaps I will find a new city to love. I’ve never been to Windsor, but I hear it is far away, so I’m not sure how many Rose-coloured readers can make it. If you can, or just are curious, it’s here:

Thursday, November 27th
Mark Anthony Jarman, Heather Birrell, Russell Smith, Rebecca Rosenblum at a Salon des Refuses event
Art Gallery of Windsor / 401 Riverside Dr. W.
7:00 pm

And since this entry is already pretty random, one more thing: Journey Prize Stories 20 is out now, and looks gorgeous. I haven’t read any of the stories yet except for the already-beloved “Some Light Down” by S. Kennedy Sobol, but if that’s the standard set here, this is a must-read.

It’s not what you say
RR

August 29th, 2008

Narrative Dream

I am, in general, against talking about dreams (you always get that sentence when someone is about to talk about his or her dreams). Most dreams that I’ve heard narrated are very boring, and mine certainly are. They are actually often textbook anxiety dreams, about forgetting I registered for a Spanish class until I am forced to take the exam. And I’m not wearing a shirt. Blah blah blah.

About once a year, I have a cool dream, in a narrative format–a tv show, a movie, once a magazine article (the whole dream was text), or else just a series of events that *could* form a narrative, if I wrote them up properly. Often I *do* write these dreams into stories, though honestly, it never really works out. So I thought I’d spare myself the disappointment, and just sketch out the dream here. Feel free to quit reading now.

So I found myself in need of a place to live (though much less discomfitted by this than I would’ve been in real life) and took a room in the house of a middle-aged couple who had two teenaged daughters. The ethnicity of the couple kept shifting between white and Chinese, but the daughters were both adopted Chinese orphans. Them being teenagers would put their adoption somewhat before it was easy to get babies from China, I believe, but my dreams have never been long on historical accuracy.

The man of the house was the butcher at a No Frills, and the woman’s job was unclear, but she was somehow heavily involved in political activism. I seemed to be going through a tough time in my life, not only because I was homeless but for other reasons that weren’t really mentioned in the story (this dream is so obviously a short story). Anyway, I was out of the house a lot, but when I was home I mainly hung around with the guy, who was short and heavily muscled and *smoked* (what year did I dream?)

He really liked his job and enjoyed telling me about the ins and outs of butchering for mass sales (I don’t actually think that goes on at No Frills). The store was, oddly, owned by Mel Gibson, who was apparently an all right guy. The daughters were fascinated by him, and their father would bring home candy wrappers that Mel had discarded, which enthralled them, though I think they also might have been selling them (on eBay?) The wrappers were made out of silk, delicately embroidered with Chinese characters in blue thread.

For a while, something kept me very busy and I wasn’t interacting with the family much, and then I realized that the girls and the wife didn’t seem to be there at all. I asked the man, and he said the girls had gone to summer camp, and the wife was just busy. We were sitting around late at night in the living room, him sitting on the couch and smoking, me lounging on the floor. It was very comfortable, but somewhat forlorn. He confided to me that his wife was a lesbian, but it had been necessary for her to have a husband in order to adopt the two girls from China (that’s not correct, actually, is it?) and she had felt it important politically that she take them. The marriage was ok, more or less, she just had her focus mainly political activities. It was not clear to me whether this was a euphemism for affairs, and I wondered if it was to him.

The man related this to me more or less easily, considering the emotional import of what he was saying. I was sad for him, but he didn’t seem to register his marriage of convenience one way or another. He loved the daughters, and seemed to have a good deal of respect for his wife. We sat in silence for a while in the living room, and then I woke up.

I was wide awake in bed
RR

July 20th, 2008

Addendum

Reviewing is tough! Such is the restrictive nature of the form that yesterday’s review did not even include what I felt was the best bit of my film-going experience: what happened in the women’s bathroom after the show.

It was very crowded and noisy with the post-*Get Smart*, post-theatre-size soda crowd. Above the hubbub, though, I could hear teenaged voices yelling,
“Mira, are you here?”
“Yeah, I’m at the sinks!”
“Are you here?”
“I’m here.”
“If you’re here, I’m gonna come out.”
“Come out!”
“I’m gonna come out.”
If you are not a frequenter of women’s bathrooms in multiplexes, I should point that this is not abnormal aural wallpaper–I barely registered it. I did happen to notice the reunion of Mira with her companion exiting her stall–they turned out, unsurprisingly, to be pretty 17ish girls in shorts and elaborate ponytails. More surprisingly, their greeting to each other was not exchange of whispers and lipgloss, but whispers followed by shrieking and bouncing up and down in a tight embrace.

By this point I was registering the interaction rather accutely, and possibly doing a rather over-thorough job of washing my hands. As I turned, dripping, in search of hand towels, the girls approached me through the crowd (possibly because I was staring at them like a movie screen) and asked me for a tampon, which I gave them. I really feel I gave it to them both, they were such an intimate unit, though I’m sure they weren’t going share.

I don’t know, I was a little pleased to be involved in such a happy ending to a drama I’ll never really know, though I can sort of guess. I don’t really need more information, I don’t think. How much do I adore fluffy goofy teenagers? And how much do I want them not to be pregnant? *So much, both!*

Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard
RR

March 11th, 2008

Scene 2

Two gents walk into the grocery store. They are wearing extremely nice suits, long overcoats flapping open. One is gangly and 6’3″-ish, one is about 5’8″, but both are strikingly attractive in that so-clean-as-to-look-wet, just-shaved-in-the-parking-lot way. They are somewhere in the low end of the twenties.

A lot of time is spent selecting baskets, which they swing Mary-Had-a-Little-Lamb style every time I encounter them in the aisles. I hear them talking loudly about how much they like spareribs and which kinds are best, but they don’t seem to know what they are looking for or to be putting much in their baskets. I see the tall one bounce off a display of cakes, basket swinging, overcoat flopping.

Rarely have such ingenuously heterosexual males been spotted shopping for supplies together. They walk so far apart they block a whole aisle, which they apologize for and attempt to cluster up, but it doesn’t work. Their shoulders are too wide, they talk to loudly, where will they swing the baskets? They wind up with about four items scrupulously divided and rattling around in the bottoms.

What can have brought about this state of affairs? Outword Bound corporate training program? Brothers evicted from parental home? Some sort of double-date doomed to ptomaine poisoning?

I lose them in frozen foods and go to check out. I am at register by myself in the otherwise crowded checkout area when the tall one passes by, basket swinging, probably dinging his canned crescent rolls. He walks towards my line, stops. He sees it is the shortest line, but he doesn’t join it. He stares nervously, watching me hand over my credit card. Is he checking me out? I *am* wearing cool tights. But nevermind, he’s at the *very* low end of the twenties. Pocket creditcard and receipt, gather bags.

As I retreat from the cashier, I sense tallboy advancing. He leans over the conveyor belt and speaks quietly and urgently to the cashier. As I leave the store, I hear over the PA system: “If there is a ‘Drew’ in the store, could he please report to the customer service desk? That’s DREW, please report to…”

RR

February 14th, 2008

Love Like

I started writing a post about Platonic ideals a couple days ago, but what with the weight of saying something intelligent and all the varying demands on my time these days (do not leave kitchen floor covered in crumbs; pay your bills; go to work; write fiction; eat; do not ignore your friends) I’m not sure when that will be done. So, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d do a little easy post, on niceness.

Today, I had a magnificent customer service experience. I had bought a defective product and was sad (and nauseated; it was a defective food product*) so I looked up the customer service number on the brand website and called. The woman on the phone was tensely, nervously helpful–she wanted my first name so that she could “better address” me, and she promised to “address” all my concerns before she even knew what they were.

You can sort of guess why someone in a role like that would sound like you just kicked her dog. I mean, “customer service hot-line” reads “complaint line” to pretty much everyone, and since the number isn’t on the packaging and you have to look it up on the web, you have to be pretty plaintive to call that number. I’ve had jobs along those lines, and it was terribly terribly unfun. I’m sure there are circumstances where it is necessary to yell in order to be treated with respect, but this sort of scenario is rarely one of them. Some people just call to yell.

I, however, only wanted a refund on my snack item. When, in response to the customer server’s tense politeness, I was politely tense back (I get nervous calling strangers), her manner loosened markedly. And when she realized that I had a legit complaint (“I, oh, ew, I *assure* you that that is *highly* unusual”) things went along swimmingly. It was easy for me to arrange a refund, and pleasant. Nice.

Nice, a highly underrated quality. One of my better ones, I like to think, and the reason working in service did not destroy me utterly. It’s so *easy* to be civil to strangers, because they’ll be gone soon and won’t want anything from you again. It’s the people who are around all the time who are going to make demands, who are going to be hard to put up with.

I am not feeling *terribly* hostile towards V-Day this year, but romantic love already gets a *lot* of attention in our society. I don’t know that it needs this particular day. And I don’t think customer service reps are any less worthy of a day than secretaries and nurses, both of whom have Days, and significantly more so than, say, bosses.

People feel free to be rude to store clerks and phone reps because there are no repercussions–it’s a five minute relationship and the outcome is unlikely to improve if you turn on the charm. But the *interaction* will. That’s the thing–I’m not necessarily advocating politeness for it’s own sake here, though if that’s the only argument that will work on you, take it. It’s that you end up with the exact same groceries whether you smile at the clerk and say, “Thanks, have a nice day,” or keep your iPod in and don’t make eye-contact. But there’s no hope for a return smile or friendly comment if you do the latter, and who needs fewer of those things? On my best days I try not to squander any interaction–the bus driver is never going to change my life, but if I say thank you as I get off, he or she will usually call some variant of, “You’re welcome, have a good day!” which are words you just can’t hear too often.

The customer service rep on the phone asked me if there were any further problems she could help me with, and I told her that my only problem had been that I’d spent the money and had no snack item, and now that she was sending me the refund, I could buy a new snack. I thanked her. She thanked me. This all took about three minutes, and was lovely.

I imagine lots of people are going to be do fun Valentinesy things tomorrow, and me too, but one thing that might be nice is to be nice to *everyone* tomorrow, not just the ones we love best.

I’m backed out on the car
RR

December 13th, 2007

Little Big World

Occasionally I de-pod in transit, put down my reading and tune into the world around me. Usually that world consists of cellphone conversations between my fellow TTCers and people who aren’t in the world around me.What can you do, ours is a “virtual” culture. Still, it never fails to amaze me how freely people will discourse cellularly, at much higher volumes than they’d ever have a conversation in person. I’ve heard people talk about what they’ve stolen, about fistfights at work, abortions, alcoholism, violent relationships, and trips to the food bank. I guess when people raise their voices talking about this stuff, they aren’t really thinking about privacy; they have bigger problems. Joy can wait until they disembark, I guess, since I rarely overhear the job acceptances, happy birthdays, just-called-to-say-I-love-yous.

The other morning, I found myself eavesdropping on the fellow behind me, though I could not understand him. He was talking on his cellphone in Hindi at 8 in the morning, but with such intensity that I felt I was following the rise and fall of the covnersation . Though there was heated emotion in his voice, he was speaking in long, reasoned-sounding sentences, and I couldn’t tell if it was a business or personal conversation. Then, appropos of what I don’t know, he said a sentence in English: “It’s not a routine, I call you every day because I *want* to talk to you.” Almost a thesis statement really, outlining almost everything else that had been spoken and would be so far.

He went back into Hindi after that, but I felt that understood the rest of the conversation perfectly, even before he gave another couple subject-lines in English a few minutes later. When he got off the bus, he passed my seat and I of course turned to see what he looked like–a college student with an enormous backback, sneakers tied by their laces hooked onto it. He was still talking, somewhat miserably. I don’t think he was convincing whoever it was on the other end.

The man next to me visibly craned his neck to see the speaker’s face. I smiled at my fellow voyeur and he somewhat awkwardly looked down into his lap, confused at my attention maybe, or startled at being caught out. Me, I felt sad for us all, but strangely happy to be a part of this bizarrely connected world.

He came to inspection / before me in sections
RR