Forum / more free useless advice

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    strannikov
    Jul 05, 09:14pm

    (Free advice need not be utterly useless, however.)

    Writers give and get advice (good, poor, and indifferent) often enough, but this has the merit of coming from a literary agent:
    http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/07/05/monica-mccall-john-d-spooner

    Her comment about spending a year on a tramp steamer is doubtless unsettling for many, but it reminds us that literature and life distinguish themselves from each other, no matter our efforts to strew pages with the reassembled smeared guts of life or lives. (It also reminds us, more to Ms McCall's point, that a year aboard a tramp steamer is no equivalent to a 2-3 year MFA program.)

    Her citation of the occupational hazard(s) of drink provides sufficient historical continuity (plus one fine idea of what fifty-two weeks aboard a tramp steamer can yield or, for that matter, what a 2-3 year MFA program can yield).

    This piece suggested to me that useful literary agents might be becoming as numerous as independent bookstores.

  • Frankie Saxx
    Jul 05, 09:29pm

    Do they even still have tramp steamers?

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    strannikov
    Jul 05, 10:34pm

    I imagine their equivalents or successors yet ride the waves. Probably not as daring as a Viking longboat or a Polynesian outrigger, though.

  • Frankie Saxx
    Jul 05, 10:43pm

    I heartily enjoyed Kon-Tiki at a young and impressionable age. Alas, water where I cannot see the bottom gives me the creeps. My overactive imagination sees things with tentacles and sharp teeth.

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