Fuck the Tote Bag—This Is What Writing Looks Like Now

New Yorker Vs Substack

The New Yorker just asked if the next great American novel is being published on Substack. As if they're above everyone else like Zeus on Mount Olympus.

I'm 41. I'm writing a novel and haven't pitched it yet because I'm still in it. Scene by scene. Sentence by sentence. Not even sharing it inside MFA workshops because they don't get it.

I came in the MFA to get better at the craft. I stayed longer than I should have, thinking the degree was a path. I'm done pretending. Done waiting. I'm about to drop out. Not because I failed, but because I see it for what it is. Just another resume builder in a path that might not even exist.

CEO of Substack shared this piece from the New Yorker. Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack. That perfect condescending headline. Like they're staring at a homeless prophet screaming under a bridge and wondering, Could this man possibly be Jesus?

They talk about Naomi Kanakia, a writer who posted a novella to her Substack because, in her words, that possibility of traditional publishing felt distant.

I've never heard of her, but she's been popping up on my Substack feed lately so I gave her a follow. She's number twelve in rising fiction. Also writes a (somewhat) popular literary newsletter called Woman of Letters according to her bio.

The New Yorker calls her novella like a trashy episode of reality TV, as if rawness is a flaw, as if honesty is a guilty pleasure. This is the same publication that advertises a free tote with every subscription. Like literary merit comes with a canvas bag to carry your cultural superiority.

As a marketer and someone who has had to write things the nice way, what they really mean is this work was too weird, too risky, too sharp. It wouldn't pass our filters. But it kind of slapped, so now we're confused.

Speaking of confused. Inside my MFA program we have to show we understand plot and do a fake pitch. But the syllabus confuses pitch with premise and wants a specific structure to fit a box. No wonder no one gets published.

The New Yorker's praise is backhanded. Constant. There's very little scene-setting. The point of view slides around unpredictably. Multiple plot strands are introduced without resolution. These aren't bugs. This is the code. This is how we write when we stop trying to impress you.

They talk about Money Matters like it's a cute little rebellion. They praise the speed" of the prose like it's an accident. But then they ask:

Is he an asshole? A manipulator? Or a fairly normal young person?

Like you can't be both. Like writing characters with fangs and flaws is something new.

But we all know Substack isn't an experiment. It's the escape hatch. It's where writers go when they stop begging. When they've had enough of agents ghosting them for being too real. When they realize the system only rewards what's already been done.

The New Yorker mentions Palahniuk. Alexie. Etgar Keret. Rick Moody. Writers who already made it, dropping fiction on Substack like royalty slumming it with the peasants. But what about the rest of us? The ones without bylines in Harper's or six-figure advances?

We're not experimenting. We're surviving.

The New Yorker wonders if Substack will become yet another digital space where authors felt the vague obligation to maintain a presence. As opposed to what? The hallowed spaces where authors feel the vague obligation to write what sells to people who collect tote bags?

I talk with writers daily who've published on Substack for years now. Novels. Novellas. Short stories. This isn't new. This has been happening. But The New Yorker only gives a shit when they need to seem relevant. When they're scared of missing something. Writers have been building audiences directly for years while they weren't looking. Now they're pretending to discover us like Columbus claiming he found America.

I talk to editors, too. Ones who've seen the machine from the inside and know it's rusting apart. They're not shouting about it on Twitter. But in private? They know. They see it too.

And while The New Yorker wonders if this might someday shape literary culture, we’re already doing it.

What does fast, ugly, and real fiction actually look like?

Not sure yet. But I do know it screams instead of sighs. It fucks instead of flirts. It screams instead of suggests. It questions while it answers. It respects readers enough to disturb them.

This does not mean soft doesn’t have a place, but not for me and many other writers who are sick of fitting in a genre box. Because great stories don’t fit inside boxes.

So I haven't pitched yet. But I will. On my own terms. Maybe I'll serialize. Maybe I'll drop the whole novel raw. Maybe I'll build a list, a tribe, a bonfire. Maybe I'll query until I die.

But I won't wait. Not for permission. Not for a tote bag. And neither should you.