In America, we never find out the names of the blind reviewers of our academic books. But in Ukraine it’s different (which I didn’t know). If the blind reviewers like the book and approve it for publication, their names and affiliations must appear on the title page. Which, I believe, is a great idea we should adopt in the US.
The reviewers of my Ukrainian book have finally been revealed to me, and one of them is the (not “a”, “the”) leading Ukrainian Hispanist. I feel very vindicated.
Back in October, I emailed a friend of my father’s who is very well-known Ukrainian author with a boatload of books in literary studies. I asked him for advice, and he said that it’s an absolute impossibility to publish a book by a no-name author right now. There’s a war going on, the number of books that get published dropped, paper costs soared, and I should just forget about it. “Thank you, kind sir,” I said, while thinking to myself, fuck that noise. As a result, I found 4 interested publishers, got great reviews, interviews, public appearance invitations, and my father’s friend is now so into the book that he’s nominating me for a literary award.
The moral of the story is: just go for it. Forget what anybody else says, and proceed according to your own criterion. When I was 22, my academic advisor laughed in my face when I said I wanted to do a PhD in Spanish literature. And I wasn’t even upset. I found it funny that she would be so adamant I would fail. And guess who was right the whole time? I mean, you don’t have to guess. We all know how that story turned out.
I also have an experience with a doctor who told me it was lunacy to try to get pregnant again after the horror of my first pregnancy. “Some women’s bodies are simply not made to carry a child to term. Have you considered adoption?” As a result, my very happy child turned 8 yesterday.
So yeah. Stand your ground. And fuck that noise.
Clarissa's Blog 
A proud achievement!
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that is fantastic .My mother did something similar
back in high school the guidance counselor asked her why did she sign up for the college prep courses? said She was too stupid and should do secretarial courses, but she just walked out of the office and ignored him and later she became a nurse
for her that was unusual behavior, and she surprised herself. but she was determined to be a nurse
Amanda
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“proceed according to your own criterion”
My approach when told no in formal channels is to pursue…. different, less conventional channels…. it’s amazing how many structures only exist as long as people agree to pretend they exist and how easy it is to ignore or circumvent them (while maintaining social/institutional order).
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“less conventional channels”
To dispell any random, insane thoughts that I’m some kind of master strategist (I’m not) my subconscious seems to map out things (in roundabout non-linear ways) and then later I can see some logic in it but I only see that afterwards, at the time I’m not that sure what’s going on it just seems like a…thing I want to (or maybe sort of should) do.
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“We’ve replaced this fine establishment’s regular blend of Constructivist Aestheticism with the Situationist International and Def Poetry Jam, let’s watch what happens …”
🙂
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Right, a lot of the naysaying boils down to this: “If I had to get published today doing what I did back then, I can’t see how it’d get done …”
So try this: choose a new pen name every decade for any fiction you may otherwise not want to admit to.
That’ll encourage you to approach getting published with better stuff than your old reputation gets you locked into.
It also works great to have one for collaborative projects, just so you don’t smack into the publication portal with excessive Δv because of a long roster of names.
But it’s a tactic, one that forces you to look at what you’re doing from a fresh perspective.
Sometimes the best reputation is no reputation.
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