I wish I could say what you described in this piece is surprising to me Liza, but it sadly is not. Our public education system and higher education system are a mess. No wonder your experience at Columbia was extremely disappointing. That’s the way it was for me with college too by the way. Your professors didn’t really care about litera…
I wish I could say what you described in this piece is surprising to me Liza, but it sadly is not. Our public education system and higher education system are a mess. No wonder your experience at Columbia was extremely disappointing. That’s the way it was for me with college too by the way. Your professors didn’t really care about literature but rather grievance studies and analyzing everything through the lens of Marxism and critical theory. Meanwhile, your peers were bored, apathetic and had zero passion. Nor were they prepared given that their teachers never had them read a single book. Not one. So can it be any wonder they put no effort into these courses? It’s just so sad English teachers are not having them read real books and teach them to appreciate them like your grandmother did for you. Instead they’re reading study guides, spark notes, and song lyrics by talentless modern day artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. On top of that English is considered to not be an important subject as is the case with all the humanities (I found the same with the history field as well) while Science, Mathematics and Business are emphasized. The Humanities are also in steep decline on college campuses too. You are absolutely right Liza! We must restore book reading and essay writing as the way English is taught! The fact that high school students and incoming college freshman you work with have either never read a single book or haven’t read one since Middle School is shocking and appalling! Those poor kids are being set up for failure! English and the Humanities must be taken seriously as an important subject again! It was a huge mistake on the part of our leaders to emphasize some subjects while others were deemed passé. Also, Marxism, critical theory and other such nonsense must be abolished from English departments nationwide! I also wanted to say a few words about your interview with Pedro Gonzalez yesterday. I listened to it in its entirety over dinner and I had some things I’d like to say about it as I was unfortunately unable to leave a comment on it due to Pedro requiring you to be a paid subscriber to do so. But anyway, I think you made a lot of excellent points in the podcast as did Pedro. All the awful smut and identity politics filled trash that you see from popular literature today is boring, predictable and has no value whatsoever. No one’s buying it and the mainstream publishing houses are losing billions. Pedro is right that they’ll burn through money just to push their agenda. But in a capitalist economy they can only do that for so long before they go bankrupt and collapse. This will likely be their fate. I know you want to try and get into one of the mainstream publishing houses. But I’m sorry to say (I want to be honest with you Liza) that I don’t think that will be possible. I know it gives you a greater reach than Indie Publishing but I fear you’ll keep getting rejected because of their political biases. I want to see your book published don’t get me wrong, but I think Indie Publishing is your best bet. Coleman Hughes’ agent might be promising and I hope he can help you, but if not have you considered reaching out to Black Sheep Books who published Jake Klein’s book “Redefining Racism?” I know many Indie Publishing Houses are also far-left leaning, but I really think it’s the best route for you to take. I’m sorry I can’t be more optimistic about the big publishing houses, but I don’t trust them with your work. You might also consider contacting FAIR, I believe they did a story on some Indie publishing houses a couple years ago. That might be helpful as well. You also mentioned not being sure what you’d identify as politically. I would say from having gotten to know you and your values a little, you strike me as a libertarian like Jake or Salome.
I wish I could say what you described in this piece is surprising to me Liza, but it sadly is not. Our public education system and higher education system are a mess. No wonder your experience at Columbia was extremely disappointing. That’s the way it was for me with college too by the way. Your professors didn’t really care about literature but rather grievance studies and analyzing everything through the lens of Marxism and critical theory. Meanwhile, your peers were bored, apathetic and had zero passion. Nor were they prepared given that their teachers never had them read a single book. Not one. So can it be any wonder they put no effort into these courses? It’s just so sad English teachers are not having them read real books and teach them to appreciate them like your grandmother did for you. Instead they’re reading study guides, spark notes, and song lyrics by talentless modern day artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. On top of that English is considered to not be an important subject as is the case with all the humanities (I found the same with the history field as well) while Science, Mathematics and Business are emphasized. The Humanities are also in steep decline on college campuses too. You are absolutely right Liza! We must restore book reading and essay writing as the way English is taught! The fact that high school students and incoming college freshman you work with have either never read a single book or haven’t read one since Middle School is shocking and appalling! Those poor kids are being set up for failure! English and the Humanities must be taken seriously as an important subject again! It was a huge mistake on the part of our leaders to emphasize some subjects while others were deemed passé. Also, Marxism, critical theory and other such nonsense must be abolished from English departments nationwide! I also wanted to say a few words about your interview with Pedro Gonzalez yesterday. I listened to it in its entirety over dinner and I had some things I’d like to say about it as I was unfortunately unable to leave a comment on it due to Pedro requiring you to be a paid subscriber to do so. But anyway, I think you made a lot of excellent points in the podcast as did Pedro. All the awful smut and identity politics filled trash that you see from popular literature today is boring, predictable and has no value whatsoever. No one’s buying it and the mainstream publishing houses are losing billions. Pedro is right that they’ll burn through money just to push their agenda. But in a capitalist economy they can only do that for so long before they go bankrupt and collapse. This will likely be their fate. I know you want to try and get into one of the mainstream publishing houses. But I’m sorry to say (I want to be honest with you Liza) that I don’t think that will be possible. I know it gives you a greater reach than Indie Publishing but I fear you’ll keep getting rejected because of their political biases. I want to see your book published don’t get me wrong, but I think Indie Publishing is your best bet. Coleman Hughes’ agent might be promising and I hope he can help you, but if not have you considered reaching out to Black Sheep Books who published Jake Klein’s book “Redefining Racism?” I know many Indie Publishing Houses are also far-left leaning, but I really think it’s the best route for you to take. I’m sorry I can’t be more optimistic about the big publishing houses, but I don’t trust them with your work. You might also consider contacting FAIR, I believe they did a story on some Indie publishing houses a couple years ago. That might be helpful as well. You also mentioned not being sure what you’d identify as politically. I would say from having gotten to know you and your values a little, you strike me as a libertarian like Jake or Salome.