Today’s iterations of an illustrious tradition
Whenever the phrase “self-published author” is mentioned, there are several characters that immediately come to mind.
The first is the basement-dwelling man in his early thirties wearing an old Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt. He has greasy hair and glasses and listens to a lot of Rush. He sadly doesn’t understand Tolkien and never says much unless it is to explain the magical workings of the fantasy novel he’s nearly finished.
Another is the girl who wears long skirts that were possibly made from old curtains. As a freshman in college she prayed before an altar dedicated to Sylvia Plath. By her sophomore year she prayed in front of a mirror and in candlelight watched herself becoming another Bronte sister. She writes poetry. Her master’s thesis will be on Virginia Woolf if she makes it that far.
There’s also the old woman from the Baptist Church on some rural route. She’s collected stories from her childhood. Her book is usually called “Quilt Stories” or something like that. The stories are interspersed with jelly and apple pie recipes.
These people exist. They exist in large numbers, actually. But you would do yourself a grave disservice if you consider these characters the epitome of the independently published author.
Consider Walt Whitman. No other writer has captured the absolute spirit of America more completely than Whitman. “Leaves of Grass” (in particular “Song of Myself”) was uncannily prophetic and describes today’s cultural and spiritual zeitgeist in a way that no modern writer has been able to do. But “Leaves of Grass” was considered pornographic and obscene in Whitman’s time. It was so bad that it elicited praise from Oscar Wilde, which certainly sealed its 19th century doom. Not a single publisher in Whitman’s time would touch the work.
So he published it himself. He paid for the printing and distributed as many copies as he could afford. Today, more than 160 years later, “Leaves of Grass” is considered a seminal work of American literature and is the standard against which all other American poetry is now judged.
Self-published writers should not be so easily dismissed.
In 1827, Edgar Allan Poe paid a printer to publish fifty copies of “Tamerlane and Other Poems”. It was a forty-page pamphlet that didn’t even carry Poe’s name. In 2009, a copy of this pamphlet was sold at auction for $662,500.
H. P. Lovecraft, the master writer of the weird and creator of Cthulhu, began his career in one of many early amateur press clubs. He self-published and gave his writing away. Today, with the possible exception of Poe, there is no other writer who has exerted so much influence on the literature of the ghostly, strange, and macabre. If this statement needs verification, ask Stephen King.
There are countless other giants of American literature who published independently after being refused by traditional publishing houses. Those driven to create readily admit to suffering from a mad desire to be heard. Writers suffer from a lack of venue worse than purveyors of any other art form. This suffering is particularly acute today. The modern publishing world is interested in only what will sell, not what matters.
It is not only the high literary world that has struggled to be heard. In the 1920’s and 30’s, science fiction magazines began publishing their readers’ letters, along with their home addresses. This allowed readers to bypass the magazines and write to one another. Someone soon began compiling lists of these addresses. Someone else decided they could put together a magazine of their own, however crudely, and before long the first “fanzine” was born. Eventually nearly every form of low-brow literature had its own dedicated fanzine.
After the birth of rock and roll, fanzines spread to the world of music. Several prominent music journalists had their beginnings here, including names such as Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus. When punk came along, fanzines became what we know today as ‘Zines. They went far beyond mere fandom and emulation and began espousing the punk ethos and underground, DIY mentality for which ‘Zines are now known.
It is this lineage that brings us to the Sixth Annual Chattanooga Zine Fest being held at the Downtown Library on Saturday, May 18. The Zine Fest has become one of the library’s most anticipated and popular events. The 4th Floor will be filled with DIY writers, printers, and illustrators, both locals and many who have traveled from afar to buy, sell, and trade their self-made and self-sustaining work. The library has also organized various speakers and workshops to help teach anyone who, having attended the event, finds themselves inspired to go it alone. This is sure to happen.
The Zine Fest is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free and open to everyone.