Novel

Wednesday, March 2

After Brew and Brenda lost the house on Martin Lake, declared bankruptcy, and moved into the trailer behind Uncle Wayne and Granny Brown, Brenda car-pooled to the prison with a co-worker who lived nearby and Brew stayed at home and wrote pamphlets he would publish himself. With no debts, the only bills they had were utilities, food, clothing, and entertainment. As most of their entertainment was library books and rented movies, and they seldom bought new clothes, they were able to live on Brenda's wages from the prison without Brew working.

That is, writing was his work.

Brew had an application for an individual artist grant in, with the Division of Cultural Affairs, in Tallahassee, and he was off, so he drove over to Tallahassee for the public meetings of the panels deciding who got the grants.

Time was allotted for public comment on the grants-awarding process, so Brew made some notes for the panel he would deliver in the allotted time.

The meetings took two days. The first day was for arts organizations. The second day was for individual artists.

Brew saw Les Standiford in the audience. He introduced himself and said he liked Standiford's John Deal mysteries, and asked him how he liked the movie they made out of his book about the environmental spill in Yellowstone National Park starring Brian Bosworth, Spill.

Standiford seemed embarrassed by it, but he shouldn't have been too embarrassed--he wrote the screenplay.

In addition to his successful mystery series, Standiford taught at Florida International University, where he was head of the writing program. A colleague at FIU was James Hall, the mystery writer.

Brew said he'd read that the year FIU invited James Jones to be a writer-in-residence had meant a lot to Jones, because he was a professional soldier before he became a writer and felt he lacked the respect in academia someone like Norman Mailer, a Harvard graduate, got.

Standiford said Jones did enjoy himself, even to the minutiae most academics avoid or shun, if they can: meetings with students, faculty meetings, helping out at registration.

When the meetings got started, Standiford made a pitch for the writing seminar FIU proposed to hold at Seaside, in South Walton County, one of the poorest counties in the state.

He pitched it as economic outreach.

He said a writing seminar at Seaside was just what some unemployed seine fisherman in Hogtown Bayou needed.

Seaside is one of the wealthiest communities in Florida. A nest of rich people among the peckerwoods and crackers of L. A. (Lower Alabama).

Seaside made the Redneck Rivieras of Panama City, to the east, and Fort Walton Beach, to the west, look tacky, and made Freeport, DeFuniak Springs, and Paxton, to the north, look dated, backward, and quaint. Look like a Museum of the 10% That Didn't Get the Word.

It seemed hypocritical, or disingenuous, to pitch a writing seminar at Seaside as good for the economy of Walton County.

It was good for FIU.

It was a pork-barrel project for FIU. Like sinking potholes in the courtyard of the Old Capitol because construction, or demolition money was set aside for archeology was a boondoggle.

FIU got the grant.

At the time for public comment, Brew said that, as a small press, who published his own work, he could not apply for an arts organization grant because he was not a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit corporation.

He said he was for-profit.

He said he had not made a profit in 25 years of publishing his own pamphlets, and never would. He estimated he had lost several thousand dollars a year, over 25 years, publishing his own work, in good years, a lot, and in the year he published Evil Genius and Open Book, $15,000. Probably $10,000 in the year he published Common Sense, Full Plate, Blue Darter, and Lost Writings.

His work was a labor of love, that should be supported by the state, not penalized because he would not lie about his motives.

For-profit presses that clearly did not make a profit should be allowed to apply for an arts organization grant until they started making one, if they ever did. Like seed money for small businesses starting out.

The panel thanked Brew for his comments and he sat down.

The rules were not changed.

Brew drove back to Panama City that night, instead of staying in a motel, in Tallahassee, or with a friend, or with a stranger who picked him up, because she admired his balls, and thought his remarks held truth and beauty.

He drove back the next day for the individual artist hearings.

Individual artists were assigned numbers. This way, they would not be embarrassed by what panelists had to say about their work, as they discussed it, critically.

Also, blind judging assured excellence. Winners were only considered on the merit of their work. Not what color, gender, or sexual orientation they were or who their major professor was.

Barbara Hamby was one of the panelists.

At least she was a real poet. Even if she was part of the insider hustle where grants went to students associated with writing programs, sometimes to professors in writing programs, if they were shameless enough to apply. Les Standiford won a grant as a writer even though he had a teaching job and a successful mystery series.

Since Hamby taught a writing style, it was only natural to think that the style she taught was superior to another, self-taught style, or lack of evidence of any taught style. That's counter-intuitive, to admire no style, or a style that violated the rules of what you taught.

At the time for public comment, Brew said that his work was autobiographical, it combined fiction and nonfiction, he used himself as a character, and that the blind-judging requirement forbade him to submit examples of his best work, as writers like Norman Mailer of Advertisements for Myself, Truman Capote of Answered Prayers, Ernest Hemingway of Death in the Afternoon or A Moveable Feast would have been disallowed from applying as individual artists. Donn Pearce of Dying in the Sun. Chalres Willeford of Something About a Solider and I Was Looking for a Street. Any Bukowski.

Besides, Brew said, blind judging was a canard. The judges knew who they were giving grants to. That's why the same writers won them, year after year, and the same writers didn't.

Brew was thanked for his comments and asked to sit down.

The rules were not changed.

Brew wrote and asked to see the comments judges had made on the writing sample he submitted. After the judging was over.

Jean Trebbi, Center for the Book, Broward County Public Library, had written on Brew's writing sample, "Verse of angry would-be writer."

Brew got a title for a book out of it.

He called his next book DIARY OF AN ANGRY WOULD-BE WRITER.

He was angry that someone like Jean Trebbi was judging his work.

He was angry that he made a fool of himself, protesting the way the game was played.

That was the way the game was played.

If you wanted to win, you played by the rules.

You didn't break the rules and then piss and moan about losing. That was childish.

Grow up, Brew.