Annie, thank you so much for this link to the interview with Gina Berriault...it is amazing...she knew what it was to be poor...and her description of the relationship between reader and author is wonderful and true.
Annie, thank you so much for this link to the interview with Gina Berriault...it is amazing...she knew what it was to be poor...and her description of the relationship between reader and author is wonderful and true.
but after reading that interview (I am sure there are other essays and interviews), I can’t help wondering: would she be allowed to be published today? and if her lack of being mainstream (as the interviewer asserts, she should be even better appreciated) is…sort of…intentional?
…the publishing industry went from championing to silencing voices outside establishments…
I don't think her lack of being mainstream was intentional. She taught herself how to write creatively and that was a very tough go. In that regard, she was an "outsider artist" but she did eventually get lots of recognition. In the maritime world, someone who starts on deck in the lowliest job and works their way up to be captain/master mariner is said to have "come up through the haws'pipe." A hawser being the heavy line that ships are tied up with. In effect, they've clawed their way up through an narrow and sometimes nasty path to a post of respect. I think Gina definitely came up through the haws'pipe in the literary world. Robert Stone was like that. His collection of stories "Bear and his Daughter" is excellent. I believe he spent many years as a smuggler in the Caribbean.
As far as the publishing goes, I don't think they necessarily silence voices outside the establishment...I just think they're not willing to take the risks anymore that they used to take.
Annie, thank you so much for this link to the interview with Gina Berriault...it is amazing...she knew what it was to be poor...and her description of the relationship between reader and author is wonderful and true.
I have, as others have, ordered her collection…
but after reading that interview (I am sure there are other essays and interviews), I can’t help wondering: would she be allowed to be published today? and if her lack of being mainstream (as the interviewer asserts, she should be even better appreciated) is…sort of…intentional?
…the publishing industry went from championing to silencing voices outside establishments…
I don't think her lack of being mainstream was intentional. She taught herself how to write creatively and that was a very tough go. In that regard, she was an "outsider artist" but she did eventually get lots of recognition. In the maritime world, someone who starts on deck in the lowliest job and works their way up to be captain/master mariner is said to have "come up through the haws'pipe." A hawser being the heavy line that ships are tied up with. In effect, they've clawed their way up through an narrow and sometimes nasty path to a post of respect. I think Gina definitely came up through the haws'pipe in the literary world. Robert Stone was like that. His collection of stories "Bear and his Daughter" is excellent. I believe he spent many years as a smuggler in the Caribbean.
As far as the publishing goes, I don't think they necessarily silence voices outside the establishment...I just think they're not willing to take the risks anymore that they used to take.