Notes from an unpaid hobbyist, unless getting paid once counts - Rowena House

 

According to The Guardian’s report on last week’s welcome by the Royal Society of Literature of its 2024 cohort of fellows, RSL president Bernadine Evaristo said she was inspired to talk about readers, “for whom most authors, one assumes, are writing – and the importance of nurturing and engaging with them in the literature ecosystem.”

So far, so good. Then...

“Without readers, writing would be an unpaid hobby...”

Seeing red yet?

“They [readers] are our supporters, interpreters, the customers without whom there would, in fact, be no publishing industry.”

So writing, according to her argument, is a hobby unless the product of that process is bought by customers of the publishing industry.

Way to go, Ms Evaristo.

I haven’t time to analyse this properly, nor can I find her full speech which might put these comments into context. Perhaps The Guardian was being mischievous.

If not, it is shocking to me that the RSL president should sound exactly like an inner critic who belittles our creative selves and disparages our work unless and until we get paid for it.

I mean, how much money makes us professional writers rather than hobbyists? Three figures, four, five, six? Must our books pay for our mortgages as well as our groceries? Is art for art’s sake a thing of the past, and the publishing industry the very habitat within which the “literature ecosystem” exists?

This month, again – you’ll never guess – I’m grumpy about writing. My rhino hide is thin, time is scarce, and the fulfilment of turning thoughts into words elusive. Hopefully, next month things will be mending.

Meanwhile, well done all the 2024 RSL fellows. May you inspire both readers and writers.