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.