“…sifting through the publishing industry’s slush pile” and other links…
Aida Edemariam: “The only books that have been published and not arrived via an agent were recommended by friends in the publishing industry, or by Hamish Hamilton’s writers, ‘which is slightly different, because there is some connection,’ says Prosser.” Clearly, my author friends who have retail dreams nurtured in their childhood 1970s of being a “famous writer” don’t need my friendship. They don’t need my information—or my criticism—they need an agent.
The Literary Consultancy
“The Literary Consultancy, The UK’s leading manuscript assessment service, provides expert, market-aware editorial advice to writers at all levels writing in English. …Founded in 1996, The Literary Consultancy is recommended by The Arts Council England and major publishing houses, and holds a strong track record of helping writers get into print.”
John Oliver Killens (1916-1987)
Toni Cade Bambara: “Published originally on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954, Youngblood marked the beginning of a new era in African American literature, for it broke starkly with the Wright school and opened a path for those novelists, poets, and playwrights who comprised the Neo-Black Arts Movement—a movement that recognized John Oliver Killens as its spiritual father.”
“Wright: On assimilation”
Liberatormagazine.com: “Once the Negro has won his so-called rights, he is going to be confronted with a truly knotty problem. Will he be able to settle down and live the normal, vulgar, day-to-day life of the average white American? Or will he still cling to his sense of outsidedness? For those who can see, this will be a wonderfully strange drama.”
It appears that Wright’s fictional character is constructing a false dichotomy between clinging to being an “outsider” and settling “down.” These two-choice positions are typical of a lack of imagination—even in the 1950s. These constructs are very “Negro”—not African.