THE PRACTICAL WRITER Reviewers & Critics
Kevin Nguyen of GQ.
featuring twenty short stories by young writers. I read every story. If I particularly enjoyed one, I sought out and read a book by the author; if I liked the book and felt it was similar to my style and tone, I pitched that writer’s agent. I sent six pitches and got three requests to see my manuscript: a .500 batting average exponentially greater than my previous rate. That’s how I landed my agent, Susan Golomb, whose up-and-coming client Jonathan Franzen was included in that issue. She loved my work and took me on as a client—and she didn’t care that I don’t have an MFA.
Maybe it’s just because I’d been writing for years and had finally written something worthy of publication (which I did partly by following the advice of some of the people who had rejected my earlier work). Still, the lesson is to think of pitching your book to agents like a micro-targeting advertiser, going after only the agents who have demonstrated a taste in the particular kind of book you’re writing. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.
Embrace that chip on your shoulder.
The Standard Road for Writers is well paved. I often find myself, at conferences or parties, standing in a circle talking with a half dozen writers and realizing, as they talk about a fellowship or summer writing seminar, that I’m the only one who doesn’t teach. This is a weird feeling. These are supposed to be my people, yet I feel like an outsider, someone from a different world than them.
This feeling never goes away, but you can use it to your advantage. I’m a huge sports fan, and I love how even the most successful athletes always remember that one time they were snubbed. In 2000, Tom Brady was famously the 199th draft pick out of college. As a sophomore, Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school varsity team. Neither got over it. Writers need motivation, and I confess that not being part of the academic club adds to my competitive nature. I didn’t choose to be different, but that’s the road I was placed on by financial circumstance, and I’m determined to succeed regardless.
After all, we artists are supposed to do things differently. We are predisposed to choose the road less traveled, to consider the undervalued perspective, to argue the case that others would rather ignore. What does it mean for an art form if its practitioners increasingly come from a certain background? When the paths they’ve taken inevitably merge onto that one well-paved road? What happens when art becomes the last stop on an academic assembly line?
Twelve years after my first book deal, I’m happy to report that no editor has ever asked me if I have an MFA. What matters to publishers is the book you write, not the path you took to get there.