Contests and award programs…
There are little ones and big ones. The former are generally moneymakers for the organizers—the author is either charged an entry fee or pays a “reading fee” (even if reader-judges are volunteers!). The latter generally have some august committee of erudite scholars and narcissistic old women and men who have no idea what good storytelling is. I don’t have much use for either the little or the big.
Sour grapes? No. I haven’t entered any little contest in over ten years, and that was only because it didn’t require an entry fee (A. B. Carolan has turned that short story, “Marcello and Me,” into the YA sci-fi mystery The Secret of the Urns—the short story won some kind of honor I can’t remember and am too lazy to check my records for). They don’t quite represent as much time an author can waste querying literary agents (the latter almost an oxymoron in most cases), or sending short stories and novellas to cliquish ‘zines run by tyrannical editors in most cases. And they don’t quite represent as much money an author can waste paying for a Kirkus review or some fancy promo campaign run by so-called marketing gurus. I don’t recommend the little contests and award programs—they’re a waste of time and money. ‘Nough said about those.
The big ones are worse. In general, you can’t enter them. That august committee of erudite scholars decides who they’ll ask to enter. And sometimes that august committee isn’t so august! Consider the Nobel Prize for Literature. It’s generally meaningless gesture designed to appease the faux literati, and the committee is now suffering through its very own scandal. You can read about that elsewhere, but one consequence is that the prize’s prestige will forever be tarnished at worst, and certainly more meaningless in the future at best. The committee’s makeup has suffered too. It turns out that once you’re elected to that committee, you’re something like a royal Swedish knight and can’t resign—you’re in it for life. This has led to members on both sides of the scandal no longer participating, and the committee no longer having a quorum to proceed with the business of nominating an author for the prize. There will be none this year. I imagine the choice of Bob Dylan didn’t help either (although he’s probably a better poet than any committee member).
We’ve all heard about the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes—the latter’s committee also has its own scandal by giving one to a rapper (I don’t particularly care about that, but why not Bob Marley, Neil Diamond, or some other singer-poet?). Now a more recent award program (contest?) now exists, Katie Paterson’s Future Library Project. Ever hear of it? I’ll confess I had no idea who Katie Paterson is, so I had to google this. The idea is that ye olde august and erudite committee for that project decides every year to invite a famous author to submit a manuscript (MS).
After 100 years, someone will cut down an entire Norwegian forest and publish a book based on those MSs. Let’s ignore the fact that I can almost hear Gaia screaming in pain; it’s just one book, after all, but it will be marketed to the entire world…if there’s anything left of the world in 100 years, including that Norwegian forest. Let’s also ignore the fact that Katie has an in with this committee because she invented the whole thing; she likes Margaret Atwood, an author who insists on changing semantical tradition by declaring sci-fi is speculative fiction (her fiction is chaotic with no sci-fi world building to speak of, so maybe she’s created her own subgenre, whatever you want to call it). So Margaret is the first writer asked to submit an MS—surprise, surprise! (Maybe Katie watches too much Hulu?)
Let’s also ignore Katie and Margaret and instead ask: How can an erudite committee have the audacity to speak for all booklovers in the world? Most prestigious literary contests and awards emphasize the throw-away genre “literary fiction” over genre fiction; many award their prizes to authors unknown to many readers; and many of the committees’ members are stodgy old academics who have no idea about what makes good storytelling.
In all fairness, Margaret Atwood might claim she writes genre fiction. All fiction is speculative, so she loses the semantics battle on that front—her claim is meaningless. And most bookstores probably consider her prose to be literary fiction; I do, because it can’t be categorized. She doesn’t write the kind of book I would label as sci-fi, even counting all that category’s subgenres (unless we allow her to have her own). I don’t know how well known Margaret is either, but I do know she’s no Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, or Robert Heinlein. I guess the Future Library Project is like the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes—the author has to be alive, at least at the time they ask for the MS, which makes sense. Part of the theatrical value of them all is the celebration with all its pomp and circumstance. With all the good books and good authors today, Katie probably has a hard time choosing one famous enough to recommend to that august committee.
Atwood is a stretch, though. I actually liked her Oryx and Crake, much more than her other books, but just one book doesn’t make her the best choice for any of the big prizes. In spite of the general flaws already noted, there’s a pantheistic intensity to that story that keeps the reader asking “Why?” Also, in spite of that question, the book isn’t purely a mystery, thriller, or sci-fi novel, so maybe it is literary fiction after all! Contact the Nobel Prize if you agree. (That’s the prize for literature. Forget about the Peace Prize—that’s apparently already taken, and the Norwegians, not the Swedes, hand it out. Maybe they’ll consult with Katie Paterson.)
As in music, we see a bifurcation between ordinary people’s preferences and what erudite academics think their tastes should be in their disdain for popular culture (OK, there are exceptions, notably Dylan and Lamar). Mozart was a famous composer because the public liked his music; Cervantes and Dickens were famous writers because the public liked their stories—the serialized novel The Old Curiosity Shop had people standing on the docks at NYC shouting to sailors, “Is Little Nell still alive?” That doesn’t mean Mozart or Cervantes or Dickens are super-popular today, but they have staying power.
Will the manuscripts and novels of these contest and award winners chosen by these erudite committees—Booker Man, Nobel, Pulitzer, and the Future Library Project—have staying power? In particular, will Atwood’s story “Into the Woods”? In one hundred years, how many of these names will trip off the tongues of any readers who are left? Maybe the ones at the end of that century. I’d wager there won’t be many, though.
It all seems kind of silly. I guess maybe Katie Paterson thinks differently, whoever she is.
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Want free fiction? I give my short fiction away now. Besides what you find in the blog category “Steve’s Shorts,” I offer free PDFs containing short stories and novellas. You don’t even have to email the request anymore. Use this URL to see the list and download what you want. (You might want to peruse the same list on the webpage “Free Stuff & Contests” because the list on OneDrive just contains file names, some suggestive of contents, others not. Remember, I write in three genres.) Of course, you can still request via email…and subscribe to my email newsletter while you’re at it. Happy reading!
In libris libertas!
