Pay It Forward

When you start out in an industry, any industry, you have a lot of things working against you. A lot of roadblocks, or obstacles to overcome, depending on your point of view. One of the most looming and glaring is the lack of contacts.  Every piece of advice for job seekers includes the instruction, admonishment, whatever, to networknetworkNETWORK your little butt off because you're never going to get anywhere without knowing people. 

And it's true. It's tough to hear, and tough to implement, but true. 

When you're just starting out, and don't know anyone, and have to suddenly make lots of contacts, it's scary. Terrifying, for some. Fear puts on the brakes, gets in the way. Fear of rejection, fear of no response, even fear of being a mild annoyance in some Very Important Person's day. 

"Why would the thrice-published Senior Executive Vice-President Experienced Person who knows everyone else in the industry be willing to talk to lil' ol' me, even for a twenty-minute informational interview?"

But here's the thing: most of them will. A lot of them are happy to help newbies. Everyone was a newbie once, no matter how unlikely that may seem.

I learned that two ways. The first, from Ramit Sethi, who writes a blog called I Will Teach You to Be Rich.  His posts convinced me to go try talking to people I admire. And when I did, I found that every single person I've reached out to to date has responded to me. Most have taken the time to have a conversation with me. At worst, I learn something new, and at best, I have a new business contact who gives me a job.

People are nice. 

I'm nice, too. (Hopefully, most of the time.) So when I got an email from a woman older than I was asking how I got started in literary translation, I didn't demur and shy away. I didn't cite my lack of expertise and beg off. Because even though I've only published one book, I have published a book. The "getting started" part of my career is over; I've hit the growth and expansion phase.  We exchanged messages and ended up having a lovely conversation.

And then a colleague of mine sent along a woman who was looking to get into French translation. I gave her my small mountain of info. (Maybe it's a large molehill. Not sure on that.)

Then I signed up for the mentoring program through my alma mater's alumni office. Now, I get about one email per month with recent or almost-grads who are curious about translation, literary or not. There's always the caveat that I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I help however I can. And it feels awesome.

It's a source of pride to be able to help guide new translators down a helpful path, one that takes some shortcuts to the most effective methods of finding your footing. 

And then, at the same time, there are lots of contacts and mentors who have done the same for me. I still look up to them. I still ask them questions. And I try to check in with all of them every little while, because I am making strides in my career, and they deserve to know that and be thanked. (Christmas cards are a great way to do this.)

This turned sappy. Eventually, it'll all just become a huge circling cycle of paying it forward. 

Which, I think, is the way it should be. 

The Threat to Publishing Internships

Two unpaid interns sued Fox. And won.

Yep, it's true. As this Washington Post article describes:

"a federal judge in New York ruled this week that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated minimum wage and overtime laws by not paying interns who worked on production of the 2010 movie 'Black Swan.'"

Now of course, this ruling could get overturned by a higher court. Don't think for an instant that Fox won't appeal the ruling.

But for the moment, let's discuss another facet of the ruling; namely, the current legal test for employers to determine if their interns can go unpaid (from The Atlantic, emphasis mine:)

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern; 
3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship;
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

On first glance, these criteria seem entirely reasonable. But then we have internships with publishers. If employers are required to gain no advantages from the interns' work, then would interns be allowed to use and hone their writing skills in such a position? Because in a good publishing internship...

• an editorial intern learns to write cover copy, reader's reports, and sales blurbs
• a marketing intern learns to write pitches
• a development intern learns to write grant proposals, for the non-profits

And what about other creative internships? Journalism, graphic design, anything with creating copy or images. It's all fine and well to have interns practice creating such things, but it just makes more sense to let them practice on real projects. Higher stakes, more realistic working environment, and undoubtedly better guidance, as their work reflects directly on their boss. 

Unpaid internships are unquestionably abused by some employers, but the line between useful and exploitative is a bit murky. By these criteria, the only unpaid internship I ever worked would have been illegal. Except it was not only the best job I ever had, but it gave me an invaluable wealth of experience and connections for the publishing industry. You can't get that in many places. 

Granted, the only reason that internship at The New Press was unpaid was because I worked it after the economy crashed, when they almost had to shutter their entire press. But they didn't. They still hired interns, gave them a travel stipend, and fed them lunch once a week for a seminar. And they were committed to starting to pay interns again as soon as possible.

As it happens, they've delivered. If you're looking for a publishing internship in NYC, go apply here. 

Flying High

Once upon a time, I discovered how to estimate a plane's altitude during a flight by looking up, not down.

Looking down is easy. There are plenty of clues to help you along the way. Cars scurrying ant-like down the road. Patchwork-quilt fields and forests. Brilliant city sprawls. Snow-capped mountains, foam-capped waves. Puffy clouds all in a row, and a higher layer of wispy mist.

Looking up is awe-inspiring. A whole new world, as they say. The sky is not just forever a uniform bright blue. Planes flying high over the water, crossing oceans, jumping between continents, they're flying really high. Into new layers of the atmosphere. And when you've climbed high enough, through enough layers, the remaining atmosphere is thinner. Not so much stuff between us and the nothingness of space anymore. The sky becomes darker. And if you look closely enough, you can see space.

It can be just as heart-stopping to see into space from our atmosphere, that thin layer protecting us all, as it is for astronauts who see into that thin layer from space.  Gives you a whole new worldview.

And so, that's why I always choose window seats when flying. The end. 

 (Also, P.S, that's why I translate. One of the reasons, at least. Whole new worldview, and sharing it with as many people as possible.)

Secrets of a Literary Translator, Volume I

You get to read and write all day.​

​Workdays can be spent in pajamas, or in your garden. Or both.

You can spend hours in a bookstore and leave with lots of new books. It's research. It might even be tax-deductible. Have your cake and eat it, too, and then have more!​

Interesting people who have written interesting books are willing to meet you. They may even want to meet you.​

Same goes for interesting people who have been written about in interesting books. Even better.​

​Spending time in your adopted language's country is also considered research. Travel is encouraged, if not required.

There isn't enough time in the world to read everything you want to. But you have a good reason to try.​

Bad News is Better than No News

There's something really wrong with bad translation practices when they start getting picked up by international news. In English, from The Telegraph.​ In French, from Le Nouvel Obs. These are the terrible conditions that translators for the major European languages had to endure and agree to in order to translate Dan Brown's latest work, Inferno. From February 15 to April 5, they worked 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, in an underground bunker, with limited Internet access, no way to take notes on their work, and no copy of the final product they delivered at the end.

All in the name of making sure that no spoilers were leaked.

This is madness, I tell you. But this isn't the first time such conditions have been imposed on translators. Another high-profile example came with JK Rowling's work, both the later Harry Potter books and her new one, The Casual Vacancy. ​In all these cases (and, sadly, many more), translators are forced to work too quickly and under too many limitations for, generally, too little money.

Now, all of these situations are horrible, and there is an understandable outcry over the armed guards outside the Italian bunker for the Brown novel, or the sub-minimum-wage pay for translating Rowling. But it is doing some good, one tiny sliver of a silver lining in a darkened, thundering sky. It sparks all of this bad press, which raises awareness and attention about the hundreds and thousands of other terrible contracts that get dumped on translators of every ilk.

So often, people (especially Americans -- we're more guilty than most about this) assume that translation is easy, quick, cheap, something any bilingual person can do. Would you pay your translator the same hourly rate that you pay your lawyer?​ Or your accountant? No?

Well, those who don't are committing the same sin as sticking translators in a bunker without any outside contact, the same sin as depriving translators of a several-hundred-page text until three weeks (THREE WEEKS!)​ before their deadline. Translators, whether literary or any other breed, are artists and masters who have honed their craft through hours and days and years of classes, practice, and research. So while these terrible news stories are still terrible, they do serve to bring some of our plight into the limelight. They serve to remind the reading public about how much work goes into translation, and how terrible it is to deprive translators of humane working conditions or a living wage.

But fortunately, it isn't all bad news. Good presses exist: Open Letter, Archipelago, White Pine. Translator and author Lydia Davis just won the Man Booker International fiction prize. Edith Grossman is still writing and fighting for us. All in all, we're doing pretty well, I figure.​

Asymptote Contest Announcement

This is exciting! Asymptote​ is one of the greats in literary translation, a journal of wonderfulness. And they've announced a contest for emerging translators here. Want more details? Here you go, straight from their Facebook page:

Would you like to be published alongside translations by Lawrence Venuti, Lydia Davis, and Susan Bernofsky? Would you like your work seen and judged by Eliot Weinberger and Howard Goldblatt? Most importantly, is there an untranslated or little-translated writer that you are desperately, maddeningly determined to bring to the attention of the English-speaking world?

Then submit to "Close Approximations," Asymptote's first ever translation contest! Thanks to your generous support of our IndieGogo campaign, we can make it worth your while: the winner of each category will receive 1,000 USD, as well as the opportunity to publish with Asymptote.

They've given a great lead time, too -- submissions aren't due until September 1. So, get thee writing!​

On a related note...Asymptote​'s announcement is also a wonderful example of how to act after a big fundraiser. Their successful Indiegogo campaign closed at the end of April. And not even one month later, they're already following through on their promises in a big, public way. Kudos, my friends.

The 5 Stages of Reading a Poorly-Written Book

Denial

There's no way this book could be that bad. One of my best friends, a great reader who also happens to be an indie bookseller, recommended it to me. Maybe I'm just really tired and thick-skulled right now. I'm sure it'll get better in the next chapter. 

Anger

Seriously?? Am I really reading this?! These characters are so flat I can't picture them in my head, little details are being introduced for no reason, the exposition is too dramatic for what follows, the sentences are simple enough a fourth-grader could understand everything, even the explicit and highly inelegant sex, and oh my God now there's Internet dating. I can't read this. You can't make me! 

Bargaining

If I can just finish the next five pages, the writing will get better. This cliche has already been used twice, so the next time will be the last. Maybe if I skim ahead to part three, I'll skip all the stuff that's putting me to sleep.

Depression

Why? Why does this book exist? It's 11pm on a Friday night and I'm curled up alone in my bed reading a book I don't like. What have I done with my life?  What has this author done with her life? Oh no...she's from the town next to my hometown. Its reputation is now ruined. And I can't do anything about that. How did this author even get published? *sobs*

Acceptance

Option #1: Yep. Screw this. The book is actually just that bad. Bye-bye. See ya. It is gingerly placed back on a shelf, never to be touched again. At least not before the next yard sale/book swap/donation.

Option #2: Yep. Just a bad book. Oh well. I'm already two-thirds of the way through. May as well finish it. 

Why Art Museums Exist

Yes, other artists in varying stages of budding can sketch there. All the more power to them.​

But art museums really exist because the visceral power of art cannot be fully transmitted through photographs and copies of the original. There's a whole other argument about why such power is important to our lives, but I'll leave that for another time.

Suffice to say, I went to the Musée d'Orsay over the weekend, simply because I was in Paris. It's my favorite museum in the world, so I go when I can. They had a new temporary exhibit on the fifth floor: the private collection of ​Marlene and Spencer Hays, American art collectors with a love for 19th- and early 20th-century French paintings. Most of them are back on their home soil for the first time since being sold at auction. It was a glorious discovery of new-to-me (and new-to-the-public) works, by both known and relatively unknown artists. Matisse and Caillebotte rub shoulders with Fernand Pelez, Jean-Louis Forain, and other people I'd never heard of before.

​One painting that especially caught my eye was Odilon Redon's "Vase de fleurs et profil." Or it might be more accurate to say that the rich and brilliant colors drew my gaze like a tractor beam, holding it there for many minutes. The backdrop was a wash of sunshine, light as particle and wave and paint all at once. I've been in love with Monet's waterlily paintings for a while, because of the thickly-painted brushstrokes, but this was on a whole other level.

Then, there was the vase itself. It wasn't so much a vase in the normal sense as a sphere-shaped cradle of flowers itself, springing more delicious flowers out from its womb. It's a big jumbled pile of flowers that, instead of giving a feeling of confusion, feels like the lushest nature bursting free of its silly little mosaic-tiled container.​

And then, finally, the aforementioned "profil," the hint of a woman off to the right. But not a ghostly hint, a memory, like so many other lightly-sketched faces in paintings. She was a light whisper of a woman, a glowing entity in herself, like a muse or a tree-spirit. Dryad? Naiad? I can never remember.​

At any rate, a new rule was instated at Orsay, about two years ago, ​that forbids any photographing of anything. Period. Let's gloss over for a moment why I'm so irked by that, and instead just note that I respected this rule. I did not take a picture of Redon's painting, no matter how much I had fallen in love with it. It also wasn't one of the main works in the exhibit, so there wasn't a postcard that I could buy to remind myself of its glory.

And thus, when I got home, I rushed online to find an image of the painting that had captured my attention and praise. I found this:

​(image found here)

This is nothing. This is a shadow. A dull, two-dimensional shadow of the actual painting. This inspires nothing in me. It's pretty. It's nice​. That's all that can be said. I wouldn't give something like this a second thought. Oh look, what a cute butterfly, maybe. That's it.

Of course, this is not to say that any picture I could have taken with a camera would have done the work justice, either. But that's exactly my point. Such a visceral, immediate reaction can only come when faced with the work itself, in person. And for most people, for everyone in the world who can't afford that kind of prized art, museums are the one chance they have to experience such awe and wonder, such a coup de foudre, falling in crazy love at first sight.

My dear Musée d'Orsay, I do begrudge you your recent decision to forbid any photographs of the works within your walls. But thank you all the same for existing, for giving the works an opportunity to sear their images into our brains and memories. Images cannot do them justice, anyway.

In Praise of Youth

Yes, I'm technically part of this demographic, at least when it comes to professional spheres. But I'm not so much tooting my own horn here, as staring awestruck and my brilliant, whip-smart, talented, super-accomplished peers. Who also happen to be my colleagues.

There are the people who have doctoral degrees. The ones who know five languages and are working on their sixth and seventh. The ones who know everyone, the ones who have lived everywhere.​ All of these people are still in their twenties.

There's the girl who runs a well-known review and cultural institution, and is now starting her own publishing house.​

There's the girl who's already been published five times over, volunteers for two journals, and works for a publishing house on the side.​

There's the guy who is well-established in a literary agency in New York City, and still manages to get his own brilliant work published.​

People sometimes tell me how much I impress them. How wonderful my enthusiasm is. How doggedly I seem to work. How much they love my fresh ideas. I'll accept the compliments, of course, and I thank them profusely for expressing their opinions. But there are so many people I know who do so much more.​

But don't think that this is to get down on myself. On the contrary! I think it's fascinating and fantastic how much energy we can all infuse into the world. To overgeneralize a bit: if young people can create so many new and wonderful things to enrich the world, and if young people can use their natural vibrancy to inspire everyone else to do more interesting things with their lives, then everyone benefits, and the world is a better place for it.

Now, to remember this lesson when my own hair starts turning gray...​

The Joys of Being Still

​I feel like this post should begin with a disclaimer. Namely, that I have no official training in or experience with meditation. Neither do I really know anything about Zen Buddhism. It's not quite enough just to read A Tale for the Time Being, no matter how wonderful a book it is.

Still, I have to believe that choosing to be still for a while is a natural ability of human beings, if only we remember that we have it. A self-imposed exile from Internet connectedness in the guise of a weekend vacation back to a tiny, remote, French village in the middle of the mountains turns out to be an ideal way to fall back into the stillness that should be a habit.​

​The first night is an internal struggle. Checking email every 20 minutes has become an actual habit, a distraction from work, a distraction from life, a way to keep busy in a non-meaningful way. And the habit pulls and tugs at first, and there is a distinct uneasiness that you should​ be doing something​, something that keeps your head busier than sitting around among the crickets and slumbering bumblebees. But eventually, there's a book on your nightstand that you've been meaning to read for three weeks, if only you had the time. And now you do.

I was reminded of my childhood over the weekend. Because when I was growing up, I would devour books. Hundreds of pages each day. Staying up until all hours of the night, or waking up early to read an entire book before anyone else woke up. Getting in trouble for reading under my desk at school, and then not getting in trouble anymore because I also managed to be a very good student.​ And then college hit and there were so many books to read and analyze for class that I stopped reading for pleasure. I've started realizing that I haven't truly gotten back into that habit. Well, not a habit, really...more like a compulsive need. And it was such a pleasure to submerge myself in a whole book in two days.

And then there was the walk along the river, to a place that I'm sure is known by others, given the narrow, slightly overgrown path that leads there, but which has always been devoid of other humans in my presence. Mosquitoes, frogs with red eyes, sheep, the echo of horses, yes. But no other humans. And it is there, next to the pounding of a waterfall, underneath a seemingly unmoving sun that reflects halos off of the clouds, that I write. It is the beginning of a new short story. The idea came unbidden, without me seeking it, which has not happened in a long time.

I've often read that writers are always writing, that their brains never stop thinking about their stories or creating new ones. And I think that's true to a certain extent. But if you stuff your brain full of too much stuff, whether it's email or online forums or planning lunches or controlling unruly children or filling out invoices, then the stories and characters don't have room to roll around and develop on their own. Without the stillness, inspiration doesn't have anywhere to appear. If you don't remember to breathe, the body clenches up tight, constricting the free flow of ideas.

Granted, though, there's the issue of balance and practicality. Rare is the person who can successfully unplug for months at a time, whose life is arranged around a lack of communication. Which is fine. It's just good to remember how to be still sometimes. Joann Sfar writes ​best in hotel bathrooms, according to the most recent issue of LiRE​, because it's devoid of distractions.

Small French waterfall, hotel bathroom...same diff, right?​