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My Fiction Detox Diet: Or Where to Find the Real Meat in Writing

by | October 18, 2016 | | 2 Comments

by Donna George Storey

This month’s column was inspired by another author interview I read thanks to the recommendation of Erotica for the Big Brain’s Terrance Aldon Shaw. TAS pointed me to “Back to School? How to get your novel published,” an interview with Jonathan Kemp (author of London Triptych, a novel about the lives of three gay hustlers in three different time periods) from Gasholder: The cultural guide to King’s Cross and beyond. The interview touched on some issues I’ve been thinking about as I continue writing and researching my historical erotic novel, in particular the meaning of “success” as a writer.

First, let’s get the title of the article out of the way. The interview with Kemp doesn’t really reveal new secrets on how to get your novel published, but rather advocates the values I think most of us here at ERWA follow in our writing: write a lot, be patient, stay true to your project, and do it for love not money. (For the record, if you are writing for the money and love doing that, that’s cool with me!) So clearly the interviewer or an editor decided to make the article more clickable with a classic “what’s in it for me?” hook for the wannabe writer-reader.

However, rather than get-rich-quick tips to finding a superagent, readers will find observations from Kemp’s experience teaching creative writing such as this:

Q: Do students think they’ll wind up famous?

A: There’s a lot of starry eyed-ness around creative writing; and yet what always drove me to it was the opposite. Jean Genet said, “the only two things a poet needs are anonymity and poverty”: there’s that sense in which the true spirit of literature is being compromised by capitalism, and the need to be rich and famous is driving the desire to write a book, rather than the need to express the human soul or psyche.

I myself am also nostalgic for the days that probably-never-were when literary writers did it for love alone and disdained profit or acclaim. From what I’ve read, even Genet dined out on his outcast celebrity on occasion. However, as writers we know that the hard work of storytelling does require some ego and expectation of reward to overcome all the obstacles inherent in the creative process. Writing for the market does not necessarily mean you’ve compromised your values, although it can. I’ve written dozens of stories for themed anthologies, which I’ve definitely shaped for a certain market, but tell myself I always put something true in my stories, something I want to say beyond the glory of a byline. Still I won’t deny that at an earlier phase of my writing life, the validation of publication was an important goal.

Perhaps it’s the lot of the fairly oft-published writer, but I don’t have stars in my eyes about authorship anymore. Publication, even by a “prestigious” press, isn’t enough. Writers have to earn my admiration. Frankly, these days I tend to avoid fiction, especially the ubiquitous bestsellers with “girl” in the title that invariably deal with murder, addiction, sexual abuse and other titillating violence that seems to be the surefire path to fame and riches. Good writing always makes me want to sit right down and start writing myself, but the predictability and sensationalism of these novels just makes me feel stupid, if I can even make it through the book (I often end up skimming). “Beautiful” writing doesn’t do it either. I need to feel my reading experience enriched my life and didn’t just show off how clever the author was. All too often, the mainstream fiction of today does not satisfy me.

Fortunately, I’ve found a steady source of nourishment in a different genre of writing: specialized nonfiction. I suspect that few of these authors have made millions. Still I regularly finish these books with a deep sense of gratitude for the love, care, and amazing amount of time and research these authors have put into their work.

I’m immensely grateful to Brian J. Cudahy for his books on public transportation in the New York Area (Under the Sidewalks of New York: The Story of the Greatest Subway System in the World and How We Got to Coney Island: The Development of Mass Transportation in Brooklyn and Kings County). His painstaking research and obvious love of subways and trains has recreated an important part of city life of one hundred years ago for me. Kathy Peiss’ Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture traces the history of cosmetics, once considered the lying trick of prostitutes but now seen as a way to express your “true self.” And Aine Collier’s The Humble Little Condom penetrates the silence around birth control, which is not only useful to get a sense of how a couple might control fertility in 1900, but puts the current controversy about this issue in perspective. These books have made me think about the world in new ways. I wish more fiction did the same. (In all fairness, some does, but not nearly enough).

Excellent and engaging writers that they are, these nonfiction authors are clearly privileging history and information over the effort of showing their brilliance as superior creative geniuses. I find this dedication to teaching us more about the human experience far more inspiring than the self-conscious pursuit of canonization as a literary genius. These authors rarely, if ever, make the cover of Time magazine a la “Jonathan Franzen: Great American Novelist.” But for me, they have enriched and entertained and brought the past to life, magicians all. I’d like to thank them and the dozens of authors I’ve already consulted about life a hundred years ago for their labors of love. I appreciate what you’ve done more than words can say.

Write on!

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman and a collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

Better than Famous (Or “Just Say No” to Celebrity Culture)

by | October 18, 2014 | | 3 Comments

by Donna George Storey

This month my study of stardom comes to its long-awaited conclusion. I’ve argued that celebrity culture is the media age’s expression of a deep-seated human need to create mythical figures in our mundane lives, modern-day gods and goddesses who are in the end visions of our idealized selves. Indeed fame is more about the needs of the fan than any inherent superiority of the famous—if we all can become famous for fifteen minutes, then it’s fame itself that matters more than anything else, even truth.

Accordingly, although I’ve enjoyed throwing around names like Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton (and tipping my hat to Nancy Reagan) for comic effect, I do believe the most significant aspect of celebrity culture is its function as a mirror of our society’s yearnings, fears, and values. The dramas of the famous are our hidden hang-ups and fantasies projected on the screen for all to see. And while few readers of the ERWA blog probably invest much interest in the latest doings of Angelina Jolie, I believe that the illusions of fame impact every creative artist to some degree.

Even if you yourself have never dreamed of mobs of fans winding around city blocks, waiting for you to sign their treasured copy of your novel, perhaps you’ve dealt with the annoying responses at parties when you mention you write. “Are you published? I haven’t heard of you. Has your novel been optioned for HBO?”

Too many people confuse celebrity with quality. If you aren’t famous, you aren’t good. “Success” must be measured by spots on the bestseller list, Pulitzer Prizes, major motion picture adaptations. Or perhaps your party acquaintance is satisfied with a more modest appearance in Best American Erotica. Yet we’re still playing by the rules of fame. I for one was slow to figure this out. When I first started writing, I longed for the validation of publication, then of winning a place in the best-of’s. My circle of acquaintances would ask, “How’s your writing going?” and slowly but surely I had progress to report. Ten stories in a year. Fifteen the next. A novel.

It was never enough. “What’s next?” they’d ask. “Do you have an agent yet?”

I no longer give a list of the year’s accomplishments when someone asks me how my writing is going. Because I’ve realized at long last that those measures of success are an effort to find satisfaction in others’ opinions of me. That is what fame is—the opinion of others. Sometimes it is based on a good reason. Often it is just their distorted projection with no relation to who you are or what you’ve actually done. Frankly, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve accomplished in my writing. I don’t need to prove anything to myself anymore. That is indeed enough.

Thus the most important way to say no to the insidious influence of celebrity culture even in the lower ranks of writers: Never lose sight of the pleasure and aliveness of your creative process which can never, ever be properly valued by another person. If you write, you succeed.

Not unrelated to this point is the relatively passive role fame assigns us, whether fan or celebrity. Sure, a fan can be quite active in terms of chasing down the object of her worship or collecting memorabilia or the latest gossip. But the decision about who matters is made by the vagaries of the “star-making machinery” (to quote Joni Mitchell). Is there any other rational reason why Kim Kardashian is a household name?

The other day I was reading Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, and I came across an inspiring antidote to this passivity in her essay, “Woolf’s Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable.” Solnit describes her attempt to find or make a language to describe the things in our lives that can’t be quantified or categorized, an effort that lies at the heart of the revolt against capitalism and consumerism (the engines of modern fame). In short, Solnit urges us to become producers rather than consumers of meaning.

I like that because producing meaning is what writers do everytime they create a story. So of course, the best way to do this is to keep writing. At the same time, whenever we encounter assumptions about success, fame, and what constitutes “good” writing, we can interrogate those assumptions, agree or disagree, and better still make up our own new measures of value. In other words, we move from letting the market and celebrity culture define creative success to, at least sometimes, defining worth for ourselves.

It takes a lot more energy to think rather than let someone else make the decisions for us, but it’s the easiest way to become the star of our own universe.

Thanks for bearing with me through Justin Bieber and Dolly Parton. Keep writing and shine on!

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman and a collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

Common Appetites: Erotica, Desire, and Celebrity Culture

by | September 18, 2014 | | 2 Comments

By Donna George Storey

As I’ve continued my musings about celebrity culture over the last several months, I’ve noticed that a number of the comments I’ve received explicitly or implicitly question the relevance of celebrity culture to erotica writers. After all, with very few exceptions (E.L. James certainly, Zane maybe) erotica writers are not celebrated millionaires. We aren’t ushered to the best tables in chic restaurants, our clothes are not critiqued by Us magazine. For this let us all be grateful.

However, I think erotica and the fascination with celebrity do have some important elements in common in that they both satisfy a psychic need for a great many people. As I mentioned in my first column on this topic, I’ve always been mystified by why so many people would write to an actor who played a doctor on television for advice on their medical problems. And even people who are not that misguided seem to believe that these complete strangers are worth our time and attention to even the slightest degree.

Because of course, Angelina Jolie could not matter in any significant way to the majority of us beyond a few hours’ entertainment. And yet, judging by measure of the attention and resources devoted to reporting on her life, she clearly does matter.

Why?

Well, first I would argue that it is not Angelina or Dolly Parton any real person who matters, it is what she represents to us: a beautiful, glamorous (or powerful, invincible in the case of most male celebrities) being as the object of adoring attention. The celebrity is an idealized self, worshipped simply for existing in such desirable perfection. For that matter, Marcus Welby is the kind, caring, infallible doctor we all wish we had to care for us–and probably don’t.

In my study of celebrity, several authors made the point that in the past people became famous because of something they did to affect history on a grand scale—Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabeth I, Napoleon, Madame Curie. But today the majority of celebrities are famous because they’re good at performing, especially pretending to be someone else on the screen. Not to dismiss the immense difficulty of being a good actor, but what this means is that we are admiring a fantasy, a fiction.

Again a part of me has long been bemused by the seductive falsehood of fame—that a fan can be in any way intimate with a “person” who is made up by PR. But I’ve finally come around to see that we want and need this idealized figure with its soul-satisfying life trajectory of an individual’s struggle to achieve notice then mass acclaim and love followed by a stint in drug rehab then a comeback or two. Celebrity culture thrives because so many people crave the fantasy of intimacy with this chosen creature, of knowing them through images and words. Knowing them—and even more speaking to or getting an autograph from them—gives us a moment in the spotlight by association.

Erotica may be hidden away in nightstand drawers, but it also relies for its power on a fictional intimacy created on the page. Compelling erotica makes us feel we know the characters, that we are with them in their most ecstatic moments. The arousal they feel is mirrored in our own bodies, their pleasure sizzles straight to our own erogenous zones. The encounter is of necessity idealized or at least streamlined in some way—there’s no quicker way to lose the magic than a blow-by-blow description. The story, too, follows a satisfying arc from attraction to consummation. I know there are exceptions, but most erotica does offer at least a spotlight on a secret sexual realm.

Again there are exceptions but most erotica offers us idealized sex, with satisfaction mutually achieved. Sex with no awkwardness, mess or disappointment. Sex as we wish it could be, technically and emotionally.

And while writers here might not need to worry about being mobbed for autographs at restaurants, I’m sure many of us have received a few fan emails from admirers who seek a connection with the creator of a fantasy that touched them. A connection of words and ideas only—although now and then a reader tries to push the boundary further to a personal level (always rebuffed politely and cheerfully in my own case). One might argue that these readers are merely grasping at phantoms, but beneath the “lies” I believe there is something real: a mutual desire in both creator and audience to transcend of the repression and limitations of ordinary life, to be seen as magical and beautiful and loved.

To borrow an insight from a friend of Michael David Gross (author of Starstruck: When a Fan Gets Close to Fame), this reaching out to celebrity represents an internal need, yearning to be seen and appreciated and known for the special person we hope we are.

Next month I’ll conclude my discussion of celebrity with some thoughts on combatting toxic assumptions about success.

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman and a collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

Let Dolly Parton Tell Your Mother You’re Gay: Celebrity and the Ideal World

by | August 18, 2014 | | 7 Comments

by Donna George Storey

My inquiry into the allure of celebrity continues this month, but first I want to remind my readers that I do not give a rat’s ass about Justin Bieber’s latest bad-boy escapade or Kim Kardashian’s butt. Nonetheless, I am oddly fascinated by the reason why so many other people do seem to care. And while it may seem that most of us humble erotica writers need never worry about becoming the objects of celebrity worship, our society’s attitude toward fame and success does have an impact on every creative artist who seeks an audience. Like it or not, we create in the shadow of fame.

Because celebrity worship is never really about Justin or Kim. They are interchangeable, infinitely replaceable. Fame, like most erotica, is about an ideal self in an ideal world.

When I’m interested in a topic, the first thing I do is read lots of books about it. There are plenty of books about fame, from breathless biographies and memoirs to get-out-the-dictionary theoretical treatises. Fortunately I found a book that was a little of both called Starstruck: When a Fan Gets Close to Fame by Michael Joseph Gross. Gross grew up in a farming community in the Midwest, a closeted gay youth who reached out to a wider world by writing to 5000 celebrities requesting their autographs. In that more innocent time–when autograph seekers weren’t the aggressive operators they are now, bent on the profits of resale—4000 of these movie stars and world leaders obliged the earnest young boy’s request.

Gross is a journalist now, with press-pass access to celebrities. Predictably his attitude has become more critical and self-aware. The best parts of the book are about his own relationship to fame:

“I know that stars and fans all live in the same three dimensions, but I still imagine there’s a velvet-roped realm of existence that’s more vivid than the everyday place where I live.  I know that a meaningful life grows from well-chosen commitments, well cared for; and yet, I can’t help but wonder if maybe celebrity offers a shortcut.”

Although I’m throwing around outlandish names like Paris Hilton and Dolly Parton, there’s a parallel fantasy world for writers. I know I certainly harbor a few ridiculous fantasies about someday maybe, just maybe, “making it” as an author which would mean… wow, what exactly? A high-powered agent who returns calls immediately, a huge sale and marketing budget for my books, sold-out readings (yes, I’d be the type of author people would buy tickets to hear read, right?), movie deals, Immortality.

Gross interviews a number of celebrities and numerous fans for this book, but a particularly poignant voice comes from Chad Evans, a fan of Debra Messing, who was in one play as a child, but hopes to go to Hollywood, get head shots taken and go out to auditions. Evans believes he deserves stardom because he has interesting things to say and people should hear him. I assume he doesn’t feel he has that in his own life.

Yes, we can laugh at his naivete about what is really involved in “making it,” but after I was finished shaking my head at poor Chad’s foolishness (one play as a child?), I realized that the core of my own fantasy—to have a responsive agent—is not so different. I, too, feel fame as a state where the chosen people are treated with respect and dignity, where they are listened to and loved just for being themselves. Don’t we all deserve that?

Fame, or rather our ideal of it, is rather like an extended coddled childhood. Indeed I’ve always felt that the endearing “beauty” required of movie stars is a sort of shortcut for the glow we see when we look at someone we truly love. We also know it is all too easy for a beloved celebrity to fall from grace when they act like spoiled brats, even if we enjoy the voyeurism of a train wreck all the more. Yet celebrity wouldn’t work its magic if most of us didn’t feel on some level that it must be better on the other side of the velvet rope.

One of the more mind-twisting aspects of this wish for us writers is that we then assume that the people on the other side are different and better, that they can do things we cannot.

Now we get to Dolly Parton. When Gross had the opportunity to do an interview with her, he was very excited. This is because Dolly’s song “I Am Ready” about a woman facing death inspired Gross to tell his mother he was gay. His mother had Alzheimer’s and didn’t really understand, but it made Gross feel as if he’d done something important. He very much wanted to share this story with Parton when they met.

But then he got to thinking—was it professional? Would Dolly secretly roll her eyes at the imposition? A friend urged him to do it so he could have more time with her and “get something out of it,” our culture’s best reason for every act. Gross had resolved to do so, but alas, Parton postponed the interview. He was deeply disappointed and angered. Again, why? Another friend provided solace by suggesting he look within. Why was it important to tell Parton her song made such a difference in his life? How did he hope she would respond?

He then understood “fandom’s most essential misconception:  a fan’s intimate relationship with an entertainer’s work is an intimate relationship with the person who made that work.” And it is not. The great significance of “I Am Ready” to his life had nothing to do with Dolly Parton. The courage to tell his mother this important truth was his accomplishment.

“We like to imagine a world where Madonna’s happiness is more complete than ours, where Dolly Parton could someday be our friend… These are falsehoods and evasions, and they articulate a vital need.  We work in an economy where everyone, it seems, is finally a cog.  All too often, daily life makes us feel insignificant.  But our culture is still haunted by the notion that a man was God; we have an ineradicable longing to believe that individuals are unimpeachably significant.  Fandom helps give hope to that longing—and at the same time reveals its sadness and absurdity.”

This is not to say I will never daydream about having an agent who returns my calls, but the appeal of celebrity culture—the idea that someone out there has transcended the humiliations of ordinary life to become a king or queen on earth–certainly makes a lot more sense. And so does the wisdom of listening to our fantasies and yearnings for the deeper insights they give into what we need. As erotica writers, we are particularly close to the healing magic of honoring desire.

Dream on!

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman and a collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

What’s “Good” about Paris Hilton? (Fame and Fortune, part 2)

by | July 18, 2014 | | 5 Comments

by Donna George Storey

Celebrity culture and the often unexamined assumptions that slither into our brains because of it are not good for writers, whether aspiring, veteran or even genuinely famous. I firmly believe this. And yet, as I sat down to write this month’s continuing meditation on fame and the writer’s imagination, I felt drawn to talk about what’s actually “good” about the role of the famous in our ordinary lives. There is clearly something deeply appealing about glamorous, rich, but most of all “seen,” people we don’t know. Weird Al’s new song, “Lame Claim to Fame” is a hilarious illustration of the strange enchantment of even the most tenuous connection to these magical beings.

It’s easy enough to claim immunity, but none of us are, really. (Even academics have their “stars” with endowed chairs and faculty positions reserved for spouses.) There is something rooted in us, our ancient hierarchical programming perhaps, that compels us to seek an aristocracy of some kind. Yet the celebrity aristocracy occupies a much different place in our lives than the kings and dukes of earlier times. Our stars are exposed to us in endless “intimate” images and details of their private lives, some controlled by their managers, some not. We can easily pretend we “know” them and have a stake in their stories as well as the right to judge them. In that sense, stars unite the national and even global community (at the level, say, of Michael Jackson or Michael Jordan). They make the world a village.

The combination of intimacy and distance is important. We can enjoy the dramas of the British Royal Family as entertainment; if our tax money were at stake, it might not be quite so fun. (Overheard on a train to York back in 1989–an English woman commented drily to a fellow countryman, “The Duchess of York is pregnant again. Of course, we’ll have to pay for it.”) We can smile or roll our eyes at the endless cycles of celebrity life—innocent young star rises, corrupted young star falls victim to drugs and engages in drunken criminal acts, older, repentant star graduates from rehab and makes a come-back—without enduring the actual pain and disruption of addiction or an eclipsed career.

The familiarity of celebrity touches us writers in more mundane ways. I try to resist, but I am still swayed when a book gets a positive blurb from a writer whose name I recognize. At the very least, I admire the author’s luck in getting that plum endorsement. Such a blurb feels like a positive recommendation from a friend, an opinion I can trust, saving me the trouble of deciding for myself where I should direct my time and attention.

Except, of course, it is none of these things.

That’s because celebrity is above all a fiction. Overnight successes, models who “eat lots of fruits and vegetables and work out with a personal trainer” but never diet harmfully, fairytale weddings, bestselling writers who find contentment relaxing on their estates by the pool while they idly type out their latest ticket to immortality. None of this is real, and if ever it is, it doesn’t satisfy for long.

Celebrities are our dukes and duchesses, our heroes, our villains, our inspirations and cautionary tales. They allow us to watch drama at a remove, both in space and relevance to our lives, but they remain images, never full human beings. In the electronic media age, we need an ever-renewing visual “face” for the myths, symbols and fantasies our minds feed on. Celebrities themselves are most keenly aware that their personhood is subsumed in an image others project upon them. Some, in various ways, benefit from this position (money, professional power, invitations to the right parties). Fortunately for the scandal sheets, just as many lose their way in the hall of mirrors. Finally, I get to you, Paris Hilton!

Yet, ultimately, celebrity culture is about us, the ordinary folk, not the bodies in designer clothes parading on the red carpet. Without the mediocre masses, who would need the velvet rope, the security guard and bouncers? In next month’s installment, I’ll explore the deeper needs that are masked by the yearning for fame. Until then, stay cool!

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman and a new collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

So Why Aren’t You Famous?

by | June 18, 2014 | | 10 Comments

by Donna George Storey

I’ve been meaning the write a column about our culture’s obsession with celebrity for some time, as I believe this inescapable aspect of American life affects even humble erotica writers. However, the subject always seemed too huge and I was never sure where to begin. I finally realized that I can extend the discussion of fantasy and celebrity over several installments, which leaves me the leisure to begin with an explanation my own relationship with celebrity culture.

On the face of it, I’ve always been more bemused than enthralled with celebrity worship. I first remember seeing its dangers at around age 9 or 10, when I heard that TV viewers used to write to Robert Young, the actor who played Marcus Welby, M.D. on television, asking for medical advice. How could people be so stupid as to confuse an actor with a real doctor? Yet not long after Ronald Reagan was elected president, followed by Arnold Schwarzenegger winning the California governorship in a recall election. Again I wondered how so many people seemed to believe an actor’s heroic triumphs on the screen could translate into real-life competence where there was no script, no studio pressuring for a happy ending.

I’ve never made it a priority to know which celebrities are trending or who’s the hottest new leading man or lady—in fact I’m rather proud of my ignorance. As a democrat and an iconoclast, I don’t really see why someone deserves special treatment just because they starred in a movie or TV show. Celebrities usually seem to attain their place through good looks or “lucky” parentage. (My loss of innocence as to the value of literary celebrity was a slower process, but certain recent blockbusters proved the final blow to my belief in the publishing industry as a meritocracy.)

Yet, as much as I might want to ignore celebrity culture, it isn’t ignoring me, in particular in my writing life. I first experienced this personally when I put together a book proposal about my mother’s death from the diabetes drug, Rezulin. In retrospect, the effort was as good a way to deal with grief as any, but I learned that it would be quite the uphill battle to get such a memoir published even if the safety of pharmaceutical drugs is an issue critical to everyone. Nobodies do manage to find publishers, and sometimes their books sell, but bookstore research showed that celebrities had cornered the market on personal tragedy memoirs–Brooke Shields is the voice for postpartum depression, pundit Morton Kondracke had enough recognition to publish a book on his wife’s Parkinson’s disease. Granted I surely could have worked harder to get my story published as a book, but I followed the advice of the standard agent’s nonfiction rejection and wrote an article instead.

But the secretly corrosive effect of celebrity culture really hit home when I published my first (and thus far only) novel, Amorous Woman. I’d always wondered if I had it in me to write a novel, and with a little help from my friends and numerous cases of Snapple, I managed to finish a book I felt told my truth about my experiences in Japan. Many people were very appreciative and supportive, but plenty more hit me with “Is it on the bestseller list? When will it be a movie?”—all reminders that I was not a “real” writer because it only counts if your writing makes you rich and famous.

This was more an annoyance than a dark crisis, but I do remember feeling miffed that all the effort and life-research I put into writing the book didn’t seem to count if it didn’t become a national sensation like, gee, about .001% of books published. I distinctly remember thinking how ridiculous it would be if you had to be a celebrity to matter at all. No food, no water, no basic human dignity allowed to anyone who didn’t at least have a small part in an HBO drama. In a sense, that’s what we do to writers when we assume only the rich and famous are worthy of consideration.

Maybe there are some writers who are so well-grounded that they are immune to our society’s definition of success: riches, fame, invitations to the best parties, and most important of all, having an agent who returns phone calls. I’m more than halfway to being that writer, but I still find that the assumptions of a celebrity-worshipping culture distort my sense of what to write, in particular, the value of writing to the market. I’ll talk more about this in next month’s installment, but for now I invite you to think about the ways you embrace (me: a guilty purchase of a magazine with an article on darling little Prince George) or resist (me: reading academic deconstructions of fame in the mass media age, which actually do help bring sanity).

As spinners of fantasy ourselves, the fantasy of celebrity is a relevant issue to our work and our imaginations. I look forward to discussing it with ERWA blog readers in the months to come.

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman and a collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

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