To Publish or Not to Publish

Have you ever really thought about the question?

Oct 02, 2024

Hi, readers of the intangibles! I’m essayist Allison Kirkland, and this publication is here to make the writing life more transparent, collaborative and community-oriented for writers of creative nonfiction and memoir. Thanks for being here!

Announcements:

Keeka May, who took classes from me at the Durham County Library, has a winning essay in the RCWMS essay contest, and you can read it here. Congratulations, Keeka!
A section of my essay “Loving the Alien” debuted on the Under the Gum Tree instagram and you can watch it here. You can still support this essential literary magazine by purchasing the summer 2024 issue where this essay is featured. Thanks so much to those of you who have already purchased and read the summer issue. You’re supporting the literary ecosystem at large, and ensuring that more stories get written and shared.
I am launching a brand new writing workshop group in January 2025 that will meet monthly in person (in Durham NC) and is open to women and nonbinary writers of creative nonfiction and memoir. Stay tuned!
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A typical Thursday morning scene at our communal workshop table

The Thursday Writing group that I facilitate had been meeting for almost a year, and that Thursday morning all 7 of us were sitting at our long communal table, as we did every month at the same time for workshop. My Substack essay On Patience, about submitting work for publication, had just landed in everyone's inbox, though I didn't expect that we'd talk about it.

"I just want to let you know that I really related to your patience essay," one of the writers said during our morning check in. "I’ve been having a similar experience. Before joining this workshop I sent my memoir out to a whole list of agents and got very few replies. All of that rejection does start to wear on you."

“Publishing is a different beast than writing” I said. “Yes, you can learn all the craft in the world, but if you want to publish you also have to familiarize yourself with the publishing landscape. That’s a whole separate job."

"I can't wait until I can start querying agents," said another writer, during their time for check-in. "I know it's going to be a big job but I just really want to get my work out there."

"I want to publish this essay I've been working on," said another. "I've sent it out to a few places so far, but no takers. I'd love some help if anyone has suggestions for places my essay could find a home."

It was the next writer's turn to check in. We all turned toward them as they said: "I love being in this group and I don't plan to leave anytime soon but I am not planning to publish at all.”

It was like a record scratched. All heads turned toward this writer. Suddenly you could hear a pin drop.

This writer is refreshingly matter-of-fact. This writer says what they mean and means what they say. So when they said this, I believed them. But I had questions.

"Really?" I asked. “That surprises me. You've been putting so much work into your writing." They are working on a hybrid memoir manuscript about generational trauma and epigenetics, and since I knew they’d previously been published in The Sun Magazine Reader’s Write section I’d made the assumption that they’d want to publish this work in some form or another.

"I'm really not interested in publishing this work," they repeated. "I love the experience of working on my manuscript in community with others. I am getting so much out of that process. I am learning about myself. And I know my writing is improving. But I don't ever intend to publish any of it, and I didn't join this workshop to become a published writer."

This was something I needed to hear.

I’ve built my workshops to serve writers who want to see real progress in their writing practice. These workshops cost money. These workshops take time; time that these writers could be spending on other things. I had made the assumption that everyone in the room, giving up time and money, showing up month after month, digging deep and navigating discomfort, was here to publish. But we’d been working together for almost a year and I hadn’t actually asked any of them if that was true.

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When this conversation happened I was fully aware that writing came with its own benefits apart from publication but I was in the midst of allocating several hours a month to the publishing process and all that it entailed: getting to know Submittable (the submission platform that many literary magazines use to accept and sift through submissions), reading literary magazines widely to make note of their style and tone, tinkering with my drafts and writing cover letters. But — and this is embarrassing to admit — I hadn't really thought about why. Not in any real way.

I was working toward publication because that's what writers do. Because I'd paid for a graduate degree in creative writing. Because it was the obvious next step. Because I wanted this to be my career and when something is your career you try to reach all of the benchmarks that tell people in the world that this is your career. Because when I told people I was a writer they'd ask "have you published?" Because I wasn't going to work this hard at something this difficult if I wasn't going to have anything tangible to show for it.

But this writer in my class told us that they weren’t planning to publish with such enviable certainty and self possession that right there in that classroom I started to doubt myself.

What was I really doing all of this for? Did I really want to publish or was I just doing what I’d been told to do by teachers and professors and my MFA program and the writing community that I was so desperate to be a part of? What really mattered to me, when it came right down to it? (This, by the way, is part of why I love facilitating writing workshops. Because I learn from the other writers who are present.)

So I’ll tell you what I tell my workshop students now when they tell me they want to publish their work. I ask them to spend time asking themselves why. This answer may shift and change over time, but it’s essential that you ask the question. (This, by the way, is part of why the work of writing — or any creative art form — can be so transformative. It asks you to know yourself better, every step of the way, even when you’re staring into great unknowns and uncertainties.)

There are a lot of reasons to write a book or an essay or a poem or a screenplay or a novel or a memoir. A lot of those reasons have nothing to do with publishing.

I know my own reasons for writing.

What about you?

the intangibles

To Publish or Not to Publish

Have you ever *really* thought about the question?

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Have you ever really thought about the question?