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61-584: Ander Monson (born April 9, 1975) is an American novelist , poet , and nonfiction writer. He was raised in Houghton, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula . His mother's death when he was seven years old is reflected in the themes of his later fiction. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois . He went on to earn an MA from Iowa State University and an MFA from

122-483: A New York Times editorial challenging Misplaced Pages's categorization of American female novelists within a distinct category , which precipitated a significant amount of press coverage describing that Misplaced Pages's approach to categorization as sexism. For her, the public representation of women novelists within another category marginalizes and defines women novelists like herself outside of a field of "American novelists" dominated by men. However, other commentators, discussing

183-510: A Novelist", highlight such moral and ethical justifications for their approach to both writing novels and criticizing them. When defining her description of the role of the modernist novelist in the essay " Modern Fiction ", Virginia Woolf argues for a representation of life not interested in the exhaustive specific details represented in realism in favor of representing a "myriad of impressions" created in experience life. Her definition made in this essay, and developed in others, helped define

244-662: A Panda-Leopard , at the age of 15, which brought him considerable critical attention. Similarly, Barbara Newhall Follett 's The House Without Windows , was accepted and published in 1927 when she was 13 by the Knopf publishing house and earned critical acclaim from the New York Times , the Saturday Review , and H. L. Mencken . Occasionally, these works will achieve popular success as well. For example, though Christopher Paolini 's Eragon (published at age 15)

305-486: A Scottish identity that the upper-class British society could embrace. In American fiction, the concept of American literary regionalism ensures that many genres of novel associated with particular regions often define the reception of the novelists. For example, in writing Western novels , Zane Grey has been described as a "place-defining novelist", credited for defining the western frontier in America consciousness at

366-503: A century after the novel form first solidified at the beginning of the 19th century. Often such British regional literature captures the social and local character of a particular region in Britain, focussing on specific features, such as dialect, customs, history, and landscape (also called local colour ): "Such a locale is likely to be rural and/or provincial." Thomas Hardy 's (1840–1928) novels can be described as regional because of

427-555: A distance) to note the order of their Coaches and Carriages..As if (presented to a Novelist) it had bin the spoyles of a Tryumph leading Captive, or a preparation to some sad Execution" According to the Google Ngrams, the term novelist first appears in the Google Books database in 1521. The difference between professional and amateur novelists often is the author's ability to publish. Many people take up novel writing as

488-450: A distinction between novelists who report reality by "taking life as it already exists, not to report it, but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it, and offer it to the reader" and journalists, whose role is to act as "crusaders" advocating for particular positions, and using their craft as a political tool. Similarly, writing in the 1950s, Ralph Ellison in his essay "Society, Morality, and

549-513: A fee paid by the writer. In these settings, unlike the more traditional publishing industry, activities usually reserved for a publishing house, like the distribution and promotion of the book, become the author's responsibility. The rise of the Internet and electronic books has made self publishing far less expensive and a realistic way for authors to realize income. Novelists apply a number of different methods to writing their novels, relying on

610-470: A group of writers known as the " Angry young men ," which included the novelists Alan Sillitoe and Kingsley Amis , who came from the working class and who wrote about working class culture . Some novelists deliberately write for a working class audience for political ends, profiling "the working classes and working-class life; perhaps with the intention of making propaganda". Such literature, sometimes called proletarian literature , maybe associated with

671-460: A hobby, but the difficulties of completing large scale fictional works of quality prevent the completion of novels. Once authors have completed a novel, they often will try to publish it. The publishing industry requires novels to have accessible profitable markets, thus many novelists will self-publish to circumvent the editorial control of publishers. Self-publishing has long been an option for writers, with vanity presses printing bound books for

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732-418: A minimal fee to be featured on a magazine cover. The term vanity press appeared in mainstream U.S. publications as early as 1941. In that year, C. M. Flumiani was sentenced to 18 months in a US prison for mail fraud, arising from his scheme that promised book promotion (a line in a catalog), expert editing (they accepted all books), and acting as agent bringing books to his own publishing houses. By 1956,

793-495: A paper called Get me off Your Fucking Mailing List   consisting of the sentence "Get me off your fucking mailing list." repeated many times. Vanity photography magazines often have little or no physical circulation, relying instead on the submitting photographers buying the magazine after publication. Some also charge a submission fee. Magazines such as Lucy's , Jute , and Pump – all managed by parent publisher Kavyar – often accept photograph submissions for free, or for

854-685: A particular character based on the national identity of the authors. In some literature, national identity shapes the self-definition of many novelists. For example, in American literature , many novelists set out to create the " Great American Novel ", or a novel that defines the American experience in their time. Other novelists engage politically or socially with the identity of other members of their nationality, and thus help define that national identity. For instance, critic Nicola Minott-Ahl describes Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris directly helping in

915-414: A particular social responsibility or role to novel writers. Many authors use such moral imperatives to justify different approaches to novel writing, including activism or different approaches to representing reality "truthfully." Novelist is a term derivative from the term "novel" describing the "writer of novels." The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes other definitions of novelist, first appearing in

976-496: A report to expose widespread bad practices among companies that charge writers to publish their work while taking away their rights. It is often stated that many famous authors, such as Mark Twain and Jane Austen , have used vanity publishers. This is incorrect and confuses self-publishing with vanity publishing. In a variant of Yog's law for self-publishing, author John Scalzi has proposed an alternate definition to distinguish self-publishing from vanity publishing: "While in

1037-489: A secondary hobby. Few novelists become literary celebrities or become very wealthy from the sale of their novels alone. Often those authors who are wealthy and successful will produce extremely popular genre fiction. Examples include authors like James Patterson , who was the highest paid author in 2010, making 70 million dollars, topping both other novelists and authors of non-fiction. Other famous literary millionaires include popular successes like J. K. Rowling , author of

1098-490: A small monetary advance before publication of their debut novel; in the rare exceptions when a large print run and high volume of sales are anticipated, the advance can be larger. However, once an author has established themselves in print, some authors can make steady income as long as they remain productive as writers. Additionally, many novelists, even published ones, will take on outside work, such as teaching creative writing in academic institutions , or leave novel writing as

1159-457: A strong focus by novelists from there on the significance of family, religion, community, the use of the Southern dialect , along with a strong sense of place. The South 's troubled history with racial issues has also continually concerned its novelists. In Latin America a literary movement called Criollismo or costumbrismo was active from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of

1220-480: A total of over 2.8 billion words. Novelists do not usually publish their first novels until later in life. However, many novelists begin writing at a young age. For example, Iain Banks began writing at eleven, and at sixteen completed his first novel, "The Hungarian Lift-Jet", about international arms dealers, "in pencil in a larger-than-foolscap log book". However, he was thirty before he published his first novel,

1281-426: A vanity press charges fees for these services. Hybrid publishing is the source of debate in the publishing industry, with some viewing hybrid publishers as vanity presses in disguise. However, a true hybrid publisher is selective in what they publish and will share the costs (and therefore the risks) with the author, whereas with a vanity press, the author pays the full cost of production and therefore carries all

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1342-440: A variety of approaches to inspire creativity. Some communities actively encourage amateurs to practice writing novels to develop these unique practices, that vary from author to author. For example, the internet-based group, National Novel Writing Month , encourages people to write 50,000-word novels in the month of November, to give novelists practice completing such works. In the 2010 event, over 200,000 people took part – writing

1403-476: Is ARK Music Factory , which, for a fee, produced and released Rebecca Black 's 2011 viral video " Friday ". Vanity academic journals also exist, often called predatory journals , which publish with little or no editorial oversight, although they may claim to be peer reviewed . One such predatory journal, the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology , accepted for publication

1464-576: Is based on, and nearly geographically identical to, Lafayette County, of which his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi . In addition to the geographical component of Southern literature, certain themes have appeared because of the similar histories of the Southern states in regard to slavery , the American Civil War , and Reconstruction . The conservative culture in the South has also produced

1525-409: Is not a question of the subject matter or political stance of a particular author, but of her gender : her position as a woman within the literary marketplace. However, the publishing market's orientation to favor the primary reading audience of women may increasingly skew the market towards female novelists; for this reason, novelist Teddy Wayne argued in a 2012 Salon article titled "The agony of

1586-585: Is particularly associated with the rural English Midlands, whereas Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) is the novelist of the Potteries in Staffordshire , or the "Five Towns", (actually six) that now make-up Stoke-on-Trent . Similarly, novelist and poet Walter Scott 's (1771–1832) contribution in creating a unified identity for Scotland and were some of the most popular in all of Europe during the subsequent century. Scott's novels were influential in recreating

1647-629: The Harry Potter series, Dan Brown author of The Da Vinci Code , historical novelist Bernard Cornwell , and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer . "[the novelist's] honesty is bound to the vile stake of his megalomania [...] The novelist is the sole master of his work. He is his work." Milan Kundera The personal experiences of the novelist will often shape what they write and how readers and critics will interpret their novels. Literary reception has long relied on practices of reading literature through biographical criticism , in which

1708-533: The University of Alabama . Monson's first two books, the novel Other Electricities and the poetry collection Vacationland , were published in 2005. Other Electricities was praised widely for its innovative approach, lyric intensity, and grim humor. His nonfiction debut, Neck Deep and Other Predicaments: Essays was published in February 2007. It was critically acclaimed for its imaginative reworkings of

1769-451: The 16th and 17th centuries to refer to either "An innovator (in thought or belief); someone who introduces something new or who favours novelty" or "An inexperienced person; a novice." However, the OED attributes the primary contemporary meaning of "a writer of novels" as first appearing in the 1633 book "East-India Colation" by C. Farewell citing the passage "It beeing a pleasant observation (at

1830-766: The 20th century, which is considered equivalent to American literary regionalism. It used a realist style to portray the scenes, language, customs and manners of the country the writer was from, especially the lower and peasant classes, criollismo led to an original literature based on the continent's natural elements, mostly epic and foundational. It was strongly influenced by the wars of independence from Spain and also denotes how each country in its own way defines criollo , which in Latin America refers to locally-born people of Spanish ancestry. Novelists often will be assessed in contemporary criticism based on their gender or treatment of gender. Largely, this has to do with

1891-474: The Author " that the author no longer should dictate the reception and meaning derived from their work. Other, theoretical approaches to literary criticism attempt to explore the author's unintentional influence over their work; methods like psychoanalytic theory or cultural studies , presume that the work produced by a novelist represents fundamental parts of the author's identity . Milan Kundera describes

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1952-684: The Novel", sees the novelist as needing to "re-create reality in the forms which his personal vision assumes as it plays and struggles with the vivid illusory "eidetic-like" imagery left in the mind's eye by the process of social change." However, Ellison also describes novelists of the Lost Generation , like Ernest Hemingway , not taking full advantage of the moral weight and influence available to novelists, pointing to Mark Twain and Herman Melville as better examples. A number of such essays, such as literary critic Frank Norris 's "Responsibilities of

2013-418: The alien and external as possible?" Vanity press A vanity press or vanity publisher , sometimes also subsidy publisher , is a book printer that is paid by authors to self-publish their books. A vanity press charges fees in advance and does not contribute to the development of the book. It has been described as a scam , though, as the book does get printed, it does not necessarily rise to

2074-404: The author's life is presumed to have influence on the topical and thematic concerns of works. Some veins of criticism use this information about the novelist to derive an understanding of the novelist's intentions within his work. However, postmodern literary critics often denounce such an approach; the most notable of these critiques comes from Roland Barthes who argues in his essay " Death of

2135-544: The author's personal life and identity being associated with a novel's fictional content. For this reason, the environment within which a novelist works and the reception of their novels by both the public and publishers can be influenced by their demographics or identity. Similarly, some novelists have creative identities derived from their focus on different genres of fiction , such as crime , romance or historical novels . While many novelists compose fiction to satisfy personal desires, novelists and commentators often ascribe

2196-569: The beginning of the 20th century while becoming linked as an individual to his depiction of that space. Similarly, novelist such as Mark Twain , William Faulkner , Eudora Welty , and Flannery O'Connor are often describe as writing within a particular tradition of Southern literature , in which subject matter relevant to the South is associated with their own identities as authors. For example, William Faulkner set many of his short stories and novels in Yoknapatawpha County , which

2257-497: The capital needed to market books by an unknown author to the public. Responding to the difficulty of successfully writing and publishing first novels, especially at a young age, there are a number of awards for young and first time novelists to highlight exceptional works from new and/or young authors (for examples see Category:Literary awards honouring young writers and Category:First book awards ). In contemporary British and American publishing markets, most authors receive only

2318-559: The company will still publish it if the author pays for something—engaging their professional editor, committing to buying a large number of copies of the book, or another similar excuse. In reality, the exorbitant fee charged for these services will fully cover the vanity publisher's costs for producing the book. Such a scam is a plot point in Umberto Eco 's novel Foucault's Pendulum . The vanity press model exists for other media such as videos, music and photography. A notable example

2379-584: The controversy also note that by removing such categories as "Women novelist" or "Lesbian writer" from the description of gendered or sexual minorities, the discover-ability of those authors plummet for other people who share that identity. Similarly, because of the conversations brought by feminism, examinations of masculine subjects and an author's performance of "maleness" are a new and increasingly prominent approach critical studies of novels. For example, some academics studying Victorian fiction spend considerable time examining how masculinity shapes and effects

2440-540: The costs. Because of that financial risk , mainstream publishers are extremely selective in what they will publish, and reject most manuscripts submitted to them. The high level of rejection is why some authors publish with vanity presses. James D. Macdonald says, "Money should always flow towards the author", a concept sometimes called Yog's Law . Mainstream publishers also provide services. Ordinary author services, such as editing, book cover design, and publicity, are provided by mainstream publishers for free, whereas

2501-476: The creation of French political and social identity in mid-nineteenth century France. Some novelists become intimately linked with a particular place or geographic region and therefore receive a place-based identity . In his discussion of the history of the association of particular novelists with place in British literature , critic D. C. D. Pocock, described the sense of place not developing in that canon until

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2562-687: The educated middle classes. However, working men and women began publishing novels in the twentieth century. This includes in Britain Walter Greenwood 's Love on the Dole (1933), from America B. Traven 's, The Death Ship (1926) and Agnes Smedley , Daughter of Earth (1929) and from the Soviet Union Nikolay Ostrovsky 's How the Steel Was Tempered (1932). Later, in 1950s Britain, came

2623-468: The exception rather than the norm. Other critics and writers defending the merits of genre fiction often point towards King as an example of bridging the gap between popular genres and literary merit. Both literary critics and novelists question what role novelists play in society and within art. For example, Eudora Welty writing in 1965 for in her essay "Must the Novelist Crusade?" draws

2684-480: The form of the essay. In March 2010 Graywolf Press published his collection of essays titled "Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir." The collection includes his essay "Solipsism" which was originally published on his website, republished by Pinch, and anthologized in Best American Essays 2008. In July 2010 Sarabande published a collection of his poetry titled "The Available World." Monson is the editor of

2745-549: The genre or within their own interests. In describing the place within the industry, novelist Kim Wright says that many authors, especially authors who usually write literary fiction, worry about "the danger that genre is a cul-de-sac" where publishers will only publish similar genre fiction from that author because of reader expectations, "and that once a writer turns into it, he'll never get out." Similarly, very few authors start in genre fiction and move to more "literary" publications; Wright describes novelists like Stephen King as

2806-752: The highly controversial The Wasp Factory in 1984. The success of this novel enabled Banks to become a full-time novelist. Often an important writers' juvenilia , even if not published, is prized by scholars because it provides insight into an author's biography and approach to writing; for example, the Brontë family 's juvenilia that depicts their imaginary world of Gondal , currently in the British Library , has provided important information on their development as writers. Occasionally, novelists publish as early as their teens. For example, Patrick O'Brian published his first novel, Caesar: The Life Story of

2867-571: The impacts of cultural expectations of gender on the literary market, readership and authorship. Literary criticism , especially since the rise of feminist theory , pays attention to how women, historically, have experienced a very different set of writing expectations based on their gender; for example, the editors of The Feminist Companion to Literature in English point out: "Their texts emerge from and intervene in conditions usually very different from those which produced most writing by men." It

2928-415: The level of fraud . The term vanity press is derogatory, so it is not used by the printers. Some self-publishing businesses prefer to market themselves as an independent press , and some authors who are self-publishing through CreateSpace and Amazon Kindle prefer to market themselves as indie authors instead of as self-publishing authors. It is not to be confused with hybrid publishing , where

2989-575: The literary magazine DIAGRAM , and the New Michigan Press . He lives in Tucson, Arizona , and teaches at University of Arizona . Novelist Novelists come from a variety of backgrounds and social classes, and frequently this shapes the content of their works. Public reception of a novelist's work , the literary criticism commenting on it, and the novelists' incorporation of their own experiences into works and characters can lead to

3050-443: The literary movement of modernist literature . She argues that the novelist should represent "not a series of gig-lamps symmetrically arranged; [rather] life is luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of the conscious to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of

3111-413: The male novelist" that midlist male novelists are less likely to find success than midlist female novelist, even though men tend to dominate "literary fiction" spaces. The position of women in the literary marketplace can change public conversation about novelists and their place within popular culture, leading to debates over sexism. For example, in 2013, American female novelist Amanda Filipacchi wrote

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3172-718: The political agendas of the Communist party or left wing sympathizers, and seen as a "device of revolution". However, the British tradition of working class literature, unlike the Russian and American, was not especially inspired by the Communist Party, but had its roots in the Chartist movement , and socialism , amongst others. Novelists are often classified by their national affiliation, suggesting that novels take on

3233-400: The process of self-publishing, money and rights are controlled by the writer." Self-publishing is distinguished from vanity publishing by the writer maintaining control of copyright as well as the editorial and publishing process, including marketing and distribution. Vanity presses often engage in deceptive practices or offer costly, poor-quality services with limited recourse available to

3294-423: The publisher and author collaborate and share costs and risks, or with assisted self-publishing, where the authors, sometimes styling themselves as authorpreneurs , pay various contractors and publishing services to assist them with self-publishing their own book, and retain all rights. Mainstream publishers never charge authors to publish their books; the publisher bears all the risks of publication and pays all

3355-506: The risk. The vanity press has absolutely no interest in whether the book is saleable or suitable for publication. Given the bad reputation of vanity publishing, many vanity presses brand themselves as hybrids, leading to exploitation of writers. The Society of Authors (SoA) and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) have called for reform of the hybrid/paid-for publishing sector. Trade unions representing 14,800 authors jointly published

3416-399: The sole master of his work. He is his work." The close intimacy of identity with the novelist's work ensures that particular elements, whether for class, gender, sexuality, nationality, race, or place-based identity, will influence the reception of their work. Historically, because of the amount of leisure time and education required to write novels, most novelists have come from the upper or

3477-462: The tensions between the novelist's own identity and the work that the author produces in his essay in The New Yorker titled "What is a novelist?"; he says that the novelist's "honesty is bound to the vile stake of his megalomania [...]The work is not simply everything a novelist writes-notebooks, diaries, articles. It is the end result of long labor on an aesthetic project[...]The novelist is

3538-504: The way he makes use of these elements in relation to a part of the West of England, that he names Wessex . Other British writers that have been characterized as regional novelists, are the Brontë sisters , and writers like Mary Webb (1881–1927), Margiad Evans (1909–58) and Geraint Goodwin (1903–42), who are associate with the Welsh border region. George Eliot (1801–86) on the other hand

3599-960: The works, because of its prominence within fiction from the Victorian period. Traditionally, the publishing industry has distinguished between " literary fiction ", works lauded as achieving greater literary merit , and " genre fiction ", novels written within the expectations of genres and published as consumer products. Thus, many novelists become slotted as writers of one or the other. Novelist Kim Wright , however, notes that both publishers and traditional literary novelist are turning towards genre fiction because of their potential for financial success and their increasingly positive reception amongst critics. Wright gives examples of authors like Justin Cronin , Tom Perrotta and Colson Whitehead all making that transition. However, publishing genre novels does not always allow novelist to continue writing outside

3660-522: The writer. In the US, these practices have been cited by the Better Business Bureau as unfavorable reports by consumers. One common scam is when a vanity press pretends to operate a traditional publishing arm, where the publishing house bears the full cost. However, when an author submits his work, he is told it does not quite meet the standards required for traditional publishing, but that

3721-640: Was not a great critical success, its popularity among readers placed it on the New York Times Children's Books Best Seller list for 121 weeks. First-time novelists of any age often are unable to have their works published, because of a number of reasons reflecting the inexperience of the author and the economic realities of publishers. Often authors must find advocates in the publishing industry, usually literary agents , to successfully publish their debut novels . Sometimes new novelists will self-publish , because publishing houses will not risk

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