Self-Publishing
“Yes, They’re Real: A Collection of Creative Nonfiction,” now available in paperback, is a uniquely provocative collection of short stories from up-and-coming authors in Northeast Florida. The twelve original works are forever linked by each author’s perspective of what the genre can resemble and their personal vision of the journey that takes place while writing creative nonfiction.
The collection, edited by Fiction Fix author Travis Wildes (FF7) is available in paperback from the Creative Writing League. Below, the CW League shares with us the anthology’s introduction, written by Mark Ari.
Self-publishing is for wusses. It’s the first recourse of the frigthened or impatient, the last retreat of the desperately disappointed. It means you couldn’t find one house, not one no matter how small, with folks who thought enough of your work to want to share it with the world. Or you didn’t bother to look. Plainly, your work sucks.
Self-publishing is for wusses? What a load of crap. None of that matters. Composers want to be heard, painters want to show, and writers want to be read. For the most part, they do. So the question for writers is how best to get their work in front of strangers’ eyes. There are plenty of topnotch scribblers who began their careers with self-published works or who took that route later for one reason or another. I’m not interested in providing a list. Google it if you care. And hold your hand to your heart, because the results will astonish you.
The muscled independents are those authors who put their own labor into the process of design, printing, marketing, distribution, etc. Others pay some company, the so-called “vanity press,” to do all that for them. That’s why we view vanity publishing with such disdain. We imagine the well-to-do and doddering neophyte’s yawn, the passed wind of misanthropic self-regard, and the easy-access of cash slapped onto barrelheads with soft, fat fists.
I don’t like soft, fat fists. But some artists have them. Some artists are chumps, too. Some are assholes or dopes or worse. I don’t ask for the author’s CV before I read a story or essay. Later I might get curious, but mostly I don’t care. All that matters up front is the work. Does it ignite the spark gap to spill its charge and burn deep and long? Does it pluck feathers from a human heart to build white pigeons that come to me with lighted eyes? Does it tear my shirt open?
The works in this collection can do those things.
I know every author here. I’ve joked with them. Banged skulls with them. Hovered over their hunched shoulders to witness shaky paws smoothing the creases of crumpled memory. Laughed until my lungs throbbed. And when they thought I wasn’t watching and scuttled to the corners of the room, signaling to one another with signs they made on the air with their fingers, I ignored it. I know when to look the other way.
Travis got it into his head to publish stories and essays he and others shaped in my workshops. He chose the pieces to include. That’s what editors do. And like a good editor, he inspired his writers to make their manuscripts the best ones they could make, and he nurtured them along in the process. He conceived this book as a vehicle. Then he found the means to construct it and roll it out onto the public road. Editor AND publisher. Not the easy way. No deep pockets here. Just sweat and desire. This is where possibilities begin.
There is terrific work in this collection. Such distinct voices. Such varied approaches to putting thoughts into words. But because these authors have worked shoulder-to-shoulder in the same workshops, they are bound together in a unique way. Better than most they understand the work of art—the story, the essay—as a meeting place, a means of connection, a chink cut into the bone crust between writer and reader to let leak, retina to retina, the light of singular minds.
There’s a lot of love in a book like this. I’m astounded at the depth of it. And it’s a damned good read.
