https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/GillianPolack<\/a><\/p>\nThis month my patrons asked me to talk about antisemitism. There\u2019s a short story where I tried (and failed) to find a way of explaining the cultural loss it incurs. There is non-fiction that gives some explanation. There\u2019s some (very personal) advice for writers who come from mainstream culture. It explains the first big step they can take to write about people who come from different backgrounds to themselves. Without this first step, other understanding can be shallow, and so the writing is less than it should be.\u00a0 And, for my top tier of patrons, I talked about what\u2019s happening in the publishing industry. I pointed to the need to support writers in these very, very difficult times. My estimate is that the next three years is going to lose us many favourite writers: support from readers is the biggest factor in many of us staying the distance.<\/p>\n
All this boils down to the appearance of my once-a-policy-wonk self. It\u2019s talking to my historian self. I\u2019m looking at the shape of publishing and its internal dynamics and patterns of change over time\u2026 it\u2019s all a bit too exciting.<\/p>\n
If you want to know more about any of the subjects I talk about on Patreon, I can talk about them here, on Mondays. My patrons get first look, though, so it won\u2019t be instant. And since I\u2019m no longer paid for my insights, writing about the big subjects that tax my brain is a low priority. I’ll still work at understanding everything (we all have our obsessions – I have this one and I have chocolate), but I can’t take it further. Income matters.<\/p>\n
My highest priority right now is writing about my research. (I get paid for it!) This month and next I\u2019m focused on food and foodways and history and genre. A curious side-effect of this research is that I think I finally understand what makes certain writers popular. I can trace the critical aspects of their fiction and have linked them clearly to things of cultural importance in the outside world. This fit with all my earlier work, but it means I understand far, far better what makes a work a best-seller when an equally good work dies in a ditch. (I love my research so very much!)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m gradually working through the physical morass I\u2019ve been in for the last few months. When I\u2019m out of it, I\u2019ll return to interviewing writers. I have so many amazing writers to interview!<\/p>\n
In the meantime \u2013 including next week \u2013 I\u2019ll keep introducing my own work.<\/p>\n
If you want to see me at a conference, I\u2019ll be at the virtual side of Boskone in February.<\/p>\n
And now, if you\u2019ll excuse me, I go to ponder food in fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had very fine intentions this week. I was going to say something Wise. Then I was going to say something Important. Then I was going to move back to my introductions to my own books, and talk about a novel. It\u2019s summer here, however, and the heat has melted my brain. This is why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,16,406,636,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-life","category-essays","category-food","category-life","category-life-experiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2519,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2518\/revisions\/2519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}