Against The Clock at The National Post
“In our hyper-consumptive culture we value volume, the word prolific a complimentary ideal attached to a bursting bio. We fetishize endless bibliographies — books are misguidedly rushed out, memoirs announced in the weeks after death, star writers pulling together a haphazard manuscript because of an award or scandal-induced media moment. Long-awaited is a term littering press releases. Books have expiry dates and writers not consistently publishing eventually get ignored, the equivalent of literary death. Some of this has to do with the realities of marketing in a crippled industry, but more of it has to do with a cultural value of more being more, writers internalizing the demand because its so commonly equated to success. Add that to the fact that in the digital age, you’re only as good as your last link, and that restless itch to get something out pounds at one’s fragile patience relentlessly. At what point did we stop taking our time and start denigrating the process?”
Read the entire essay here.
Posted: March 9th, 2012 under New Published Work, The National Post.
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