Writer life crowd dynamics

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One of the biggest writer conferences, AWP is coming up this week. I can’t make it this year (it started out as an academic conference but in recent years has opened to all writers), which is disappointing because there are so many people I wanted to see especially after the pandemic, and I am on two panels. My son with autism needs to have surgery and of course that automatically takes precedence over anything careerwise.

But back to writer dynamics! Finally after years of writer neurosis, worrying about who was doing what, who was saying what about who, I’ve finally let the dust settle and can see things more clearly.

I’m not a fan of transactional friendships, which the ways of writing and publishing often encourage. Face it, you need FAVORS from people: recommendation letters, blurbs, contacts to agents and editors. These things are just part of the game. I honestly don’t mind doing these things for friends, and I now just go by how I feel. If someone hasn’t kept in touch with me and suddenly comes bounding in NEEDING my editor at the New York Times, someone it took me years to cultivate (I started when she nicely rejected a piece of mine, and I started directly pitching o her).

Similarly, I don’t “cancel” people. I just focus my very limited resources on people I want to be with, do things for, etc. For instance, a person who seemed like a…