Success without support
Deesha Philyaw’s ‘Secret Lives of Church Ladies’ is the best publishing story of the year, but who else is going unrecognized?
There is no better publishing story this year than what has happened with Deesha Philyaw’s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.”
Published by West Virginia University Press, the collection of short stories has gone on to become a National Book Award finalist as well as the winner of the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award, a 2021 L.A. Times Books Prize and the 2020 Story Prize. The book is being adapted into a series by HBO to be produced by the actress Tessa Thompson.
If you are wondering what the odds are of a university press book winning three major awards, being a finalist for a fourth, and going to a series on a premium network, please know that this is the only example.
It is tempting to see this as a story of a persistent artist, honing her craft over a two-decade period until her work is finally, justifiably recognized — and it is that — but a recent essay by Philyaw herself tells a more complicated story.
Writing at Bloomberg CityLab, Philyaw writes about the difficulty of trying to pursue her life as a writer in the city of Pittsburgh, a place that was, in reality, not just indifferent, but fundamentally hostile to her goals. Philyaw observes, “I don’t owe my writing success to any city programs or policies designed with my success in mind because there aren’t any. I don’t owe my success to the local philanthropic community that favors whiteled organizations and rewards individual artists with crumbs.”
Please know, this is not bitterness on Philyaw’s part. It is simply clear-eyed evaluation. The success of a local artist should be a point of pride for a city, but Philyaw, having achieved success that allows her a certain amount of economic flexibility, has decided to leave.
What plagues Pittsburgh is not unique to Pittsburgh. Chicago has a vibrant grassroots literary community that champions Black and Brown writers, but there is much work to do in terms of institutional support, not to mention the structural economic inequalities that persist in the city, making it hard for artists to do their work. Breakthroughs like Philyaw’s should not seem like a miracle.
We should admire Philyaw’s persistence, but we also must recognize that many other excellent artists have been left behind. Philyaw’s journey could’ve been derailed permanently at any point along the way. As readers, we should count ourselves fortunate that she was able to stay on course.
But consider how much we’re missing that we don’t even know about, because we’ve made the journey to recognition so difficult and punishing. Also consider what level of success Philyaw has had to achieve to make her life as a writer sustainable.
On Twitter, Philyaw asked where she should move if she wanted a place more welcoming to a working Black woman artist. Chicago garners a few mentions from its boosters, which brought a smile to my face, but it is well behind such places as New Orleans, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Perhaps I am biased, but Chicago should be leading the pack. It has a rich literary history for Black artists — Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry — and provides more than enough fodder for a writer working today.
A city that can support a “middle class” of diverse artists is a stronger, more vibrant place where more people will want to live. As we emerge from the disruption of the pandemic, this is the vision we need for a better, sustainable future.