If you don’t know it, US literature is in the tank. Ever fewer people are reading it. Those who are writing it are ever more circumscribed, working to formula, a career formula, in a death dance with their resented teaching positions…irrelevant…nichefied. An astounding dilemma.
That’s not discussed.
Except by the ULA.
So what’s missing?
What’s needed to get people reading again?
(And I don’t mean reading for reading’s sake. Reading can be like TV. I mean reading to get what only reading can give. What’s that? How do we find out?)
Well, for a clue, let’s see the kind of writer who’s not represented on the shelves these days: *nonacademic, *nonNewYorker, *unaffiliated/nostringsattached/nogrants/noidentitygroup, *selfmade who already has a following, who’s already influenced many, *who’s suffered sweat, homelessness, poverty, foreclosure, *who considers writing their calling and who thinks they have something to say that could inspire folks and who has done all they can to get their word out despite rejection without becoming bitter.
I’m not saying that those who are being published are worthless. I’m just wondering if the kind of voice that’s missing might be the kind that’s needed to revitalize our current cultural doldrums, not to say disaster.
I’m going to test that wonderment with ULA PRESS. Because I know those exact missing writers. Six writers coming up. Who’ve all been busting their butts for decades. Who you’ve never heard of. Who’ve been prevented, rejected, denied, ignored, despite fulfilling all the standards of The Missing Voice.
