Hello again!
Welcome back to the most fascinating corner of the internet. That’s right, it’s time for another incredible installment of Am I the Literary Asshole, an advice column that asks you to please drink responsibly. I’m your host, Kristen Arnett, and I can’t believe it’s already November. This year has both flown past and also crawled along at a snail’s pace. I guess two things can be true at once? Strange how that’s often the case!
I’d love to celebrate some cool weather with a nice bottle of red wine. As a side note, I once bought some of those teeth wipes from a wine shop after the owner assured me that they absolutely work to remove red wine stains. Reader, they do not work. I wound up looking like I had chompers carved from a block of mahogany at a keynote speech (after downing several glasses of merlot at the open bar). When I swiped that wipe across my teeth it was akin to using tissue paper and expecting it to effectively remove a blood stain.
Never again!
But in this instance, I’m happy to chance the stains and enjoy a couple of glasses with you, my friends. So let’s uncork this bad boy and take a peek at our first question:
1) There’s a weekly silent book club in my city that costs $100 a month to attend. Which is weird because it’s held in free spaces at public cafes where people buy their own drinks, and read their own books silently in their own seats.
On one of their posts, I replied with what I thought was a gently-worded question about where the money goes. But unfortunately the rest of the local bookish community saw that and ran with it. There are many completely free events in town that people work very hard on but struggle to find an audience. So the replies to my comment brought that resentment to the surface, and many replies called the organizer a grifter, a con-artist, and many much more colorful words. I did not add anything more, but the organizer reached out to me upset that I had kicked off an angry mob against a literary community. AITLA?
Oh no! This sounds awful for you. I’m so sorry.
First of all, let me attempt to put you at ease. You did not intend to cause any harm. There was no ill will buried in your heart; subsequently, you did not behave like an asshole.
It should be perfectly fine to ask a completely reasonable question about money here. Especially for something that costs one hundred dollars a month to attend. I had to rub my eyes and read that number a few times before I was able to wrap my mind around it. One hundred dollars! In this economy?!
I get that the fee is monthly, but that’s still 25 bucks per week, per person. What if people miss a week, is that money refunded? And how many people are showing up to this event? A dozen? Forty people? Even if it was only five individuals, that’s five hundred bucks a month. Since the spaces are “free,” I would imagine there’s no overhead. And only one organizer. So yeah, I’m with you here. I’m also wondering where the money is going.
Perhaps the spaces aren’t free. Maybe there’s a fee that’s required even for these “open” spaces. Or the money is being allotted to different charitable organizations. I have to be honest, I kind of wonder why no one else has brought it up before now? Are you the first, or has this person just been avoiding the question (or deleting those comments)? There should be an easy answer to all of this. If the money is being utilized for something that’s not immediately apparent, they should be able to supply that information with transparency. Instantaneously. It’s not a small amount, and even if it was, there should always be accountability when it comes to financial shit.
It’s not a bad thing to ask for a breakdown here. No one has any money right now and asking for such a large sum from people requires thoughtfulness and honesty. I hope there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation! But you don’t have to apologize for your own behavior. If anything, the person’s response should have included the pertinent information; not a reprimand.
Wow! I need another glass of wine after that. How about I pour us a few more and we slide right on over to our second caller?
2) Ok, ok, I know we’ve been over this topic, but I feel like I’m still not clear on where we stand. For years I’ve run final drafts through either Grammarly or ProWriter with the intention of checking for spelling and grammar errors and repeated words. I also have critique partners. My works have been published with small presses. Now it seems these programs have gone full AI making me hesitant to use them at all. For my last novel, I did not use either fearing that it would corrupt my work and offer all kinds of AI types of edits I didn’t want or ask for and possibly make my work AI ‘flaggable’. Are writers now assholes for using Grammarly and ProWriter? Please help this writer navigate what feels like a dystopian world.
This is a very good question! And because it’s such a good question, and I don’t know the answer, I think that I am (once again) going to put out an all-call to our community of readers.
I don’t run final drafts through anything (aside from myself). So, faithful readers of AITLA:
What are services and workarounds you are currently using when it comes to editing and final drafts? Your input here is greatly appreciated!
(and just as an aside, you are not an asshole for asking how to navigate this incredibly messed up world, especially when it comes to all this AI bullshit).
More wine? More wine! Here’s our final question:
3) Hi Dad,
I’m in a book club at a Whole Foods bar in Indiana. Have you seen that viral video of that woman running for Fayette County Council? Imagine that person drinking beer in a Whole Foods and discussing random books. That’s the jist of what goes on.
Recently the person who used to run said club stepped down and now the new person (who is also a bartender at the Whole Foods bar) made the unfortunate amateur book club runner mistake of having patrons decide what the next book to read will be.
I think it’s relevant here to point out that we recently read The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. In that book the titular book club ends up getting into true crime books and reads a lot of Ann Rule, and you might guess where this is going. Yes the Whole Foods beer drinking grandmas of Indiana are now suggesting all sorts of various true crime books for the book club.
The problem is, I’m not really a fan of true crime books. I also don’t pretend to be a detective so I’m not sure if I’m really interested in having discussions over these books. So am I an asshole for wanting to get out of this book club thinking that the true crime grannies are taking over?
As a person who also just read that Grady Hendrix novel (hell yeah Halloween, pretty fun vampire book for the season), I completely understand what you’re talking about.
I am going to tell you right off the bat that you probably don’t have a lot of say in what happens next. You can thank the new guy for that. When this new showrunner opened the door to suggestions, they essentially cracked open a situation that’s waaaaay beyond their control. Once it becomes a popular vote situation, there’s not really any returning to the way things were done before. Once people have a say, they want to keep voicing their opinion.
If it seems as though most of the people in this group want to read true crime? True crime it shall be. It’s tough, I know, but that’s how these kinds of things go.
However, it doesn’t make you an asshole for wanting to leave the group. It just means you’re not the intended reader. And that’s fine!
Why spend your time forcing yourself to read stuff you’re uninterested in when you can just find a brand new book club and engage with stuff that feels more suited to what you want to discuss? That’s very reasonable. I think any of these other members would do the same.
If you really feel sad about abandoning a group to which you’ve devoted a lot of time, you can discuss things with the new person in charge, just to see if there’s any chance that things might shift in a different direction. But if they tell you no, then I think you’ve got your answer–and that’s your sign to find a club that’s a better match for you.
And that’s all the time that we have for today! Join me next installment when we discuss all of your questions (please send those anonymous queries) and I’m still trying to get the red wine stains out of my teeth.
Woodenly,
Dad
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Are you worried you’re the literary asshole? Ask Kristen via email at AskKristen@lithub.com, or anonymously here.
