Can I just thank you again for your active, pubic and private, tenacious praise and appreciation for my work? Over years! It's a truly beautiful thing.
It's important and true -- I don't think of myself as a loser, either. My life is full of amazing pleasures and possibilities and potential diligently and gorgeously explored. And great rewards and praise. My friend Elizabeth heard in Paris that I looked smashing in my dress at the Lammies! It's just that, in this case, my book, which I love very fiercely and have fought to bring into this world in a bunch of ways, didn't win. Venus of Chalk lost.
I'm not sure what differences winning might have brought, but one thing would have been greater visibility. People who like books tend to respond warmly to my books once they read them, but most people, even in the queer publishing world, have never heard of them or dismiss what they hear based on various stereotypes. Winning the Lammy might move them to take a second look or actually pick up the book. Concretely, the book would be listed on the Lambda site as a winner, it would be mentioned prominently in their press release (especially in this category), and I could quickly convey that this is an excellent book with a market of people interested in it by mentioning that I won the award.
And, then, there's the emotional stuff. It's an honor. It's an appreciation. It's a marker that says, keep going, keep fighting, it's not easy, but people, at least the literary queers, love and value what you do. Keep doing it. Truth is, my brother called me from Amarillo in his car (it's where I was born, and he said he'd been looking for historical plaques in my honor, but hadn't spotted one yet) -- he was in the course of driving his new paintings to a show at a gallery in San Antonio -- he told me that after big successes of that time he'd actually predict a huge emotional crash. Because, as much as I think I wanted it and as much as it really would help me continue to do my work, those kinds of honors are so articificial and just can't even begin to compare to the satisfactions of actually doing the work. And, oh, thank God, there, in the writing, this silly distinctions, ranking and winning and losing, all of that stuff truly are irrelevant, and, in fact, have to be set aside (or else grappled with in a deep and/or entertaining way) in order for the real risky, adventurous, beautiful work to go on.
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Date: 2005-06-08 02:26 pm (UTC)It's important and true -- I don't think of myself as a loser, either. My life is full of amazing pleasures and possibilities and potential diligently and gorgeously explored. And great rewards and praise. My friend Elizabeth heard in Paris that I looked smashing in my dress at the Lammies! It's just that, in this case, my book, which I love very fiercely and have fought to bring into this world in a bunch of ways, didn't win. Venus of Chalk lost.
I'm not sure what differences winning might have brought, but one thing would have been greater visibility. People who like books tend to respond warmly to my books once they read them, but most people, even in the queer publishing world, have never heard of them or dismiss what they hear based on various stereotypes. Winning the Lammy might move them to take a second look or actually pick up the book. Concretely, the book would be listed on the Lambda site as a winner, it would be mentioned prominently in their press release (especially in this category), and I could quickly convey that this is an excellent book with a market of people interested in it by mentioning that I won the award.
And, then, there's the emotional stuff. It's an honor. It's an appreciation. It's a marker that says, keep going, keep fighting, it's not easy, but people, at least the literary queers, love and value what you do. Keep doing it. Truth is, my brother called me from Amarillo in his car (it's where I was born, and he said he'd been looking for historical plaques in my honor, but hadn't spotted one yet) -- he was in the course of driving his new paintings to a show at a gallery in San Antonio -- he told me that after big successes of that time he'd actually predict a huge emotional crash. Because, as much as I think I wanted it and as much as it really would help me continue to do my work, those kinds of honors are so articificial and just can't even begin to compare to the satisfactions of actually doing the work. And, oh, thank God, there, in the writing, this silly distinctions, ranking and winning and losing, all of that stuff truly are irrelevant, and, in fact, have to be set aside (or else grappled with in a deep and/or entertaining way) in order for the real risky, adventurous, beautiful work to go on.