The Hungry Artist

Early on in my MFA years, I spent quite a bit of energy, resources, and time searching for writing contests, hoping against all hope that I would win and finally get the affirmation that I desperately sought–affirmation of my right to call myself a writer. Contest fees aside, I agree with the the writer’s critique of literary prizes at Overland, even though he focuses on the Australian literary scene:

The same principles apply to the industry of literary prize seeking and giving. The writer does recognize a few advantages of literary prizes, such as increased sales and prestige, but there is no guarantee, and when it does happen, it only happens to a very small number. The list of what literary prizes are bad at is longer, and I quote:

“But prizes are also very bad at many important things, such as:

• encouraging substantive criticism, analysis, or discussion of books;
• engaging with or providing a sense of literary history;
• generating useful, defensible, or coherent literary traditions.”

Indeed, I know that when I see the winner of a literary prize, I don’t often think about what makes a book a “winner”: “prizes often present a mark of quality that ‘compels us to entertain the idea that this novel’s distinction should be regarded universally to be true.”

Can a book ever be objectively, universally “good”?

I especially appreciate this next point: “How many historically ‘great’ works of fiction were recognised as such upon publication or even shortly after? The answer, as we know, is very few; many ‘great’ novels – like Moby Dick – are effectively rediscovered decades after their original publication. Contemporaries are very bad at judging what books are likely to stand the test of time, and even prizes like the Nobel Prize in literature are as famous for the living writers who didn’t win (James Joyce! Virginia Woolf! Leo Tolstoy! Clarice Lispector!) as those who did.”

I can add many more to this list of ‘losers’: Jorge Luis Borges, Murakami…

Let’s also not forget another bad/stupid thing about writing contests, and that’s the fees; most if not all require some kind of a fee to enter their contests. This requirement automatically bars individuals who are hard up from being considered.

I used to spend a lot of time as a fledgling writer searching for validation of myself as a writer, whether through just sending my work out for acceptance or publication, acquiring an agent, and most of all, entering contests. I actually did win a small poetry press contest over ten years ago, but then they ended up folding before they could publish my chapbook as the reward. My creative nonfiction thesis, which turned into my first book, was longlisted for the Steel Toe Book Prize in 2021. Of course, it felt good to get some recognition, hey look at me, I made it (or rather my book did) to the long list of possible-winners. But when it comes to recognition, it cuts both ways. I also paid to get a review of my second book, Giving Up the Ghost, from Kirkus Reviews, but when the review turned out to be lukewarm, very brief and disappointing, I obviously declined using it to promote my book and there down the drain went 500 bucks. I’m still embarrassed thinking about how I forked out that much, confident that the reviewer would at least like my book. In thinking upon the state of the literary scene, I’ve decided that instead of seeking external validation when it comes to my writing and art, to continue to do what I’ve always done, and that is seeing the process of creation as a vehicle for learning and growing, and just Being.