Showing posts with label elitism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elitism. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Trolls! Trolls! Everyone trolls!



















It has been a while since I posted about trolls. In fact, I can't remember if I ever posted about them at all, so I guess it's time.

I now belong to not one, not two, but THREE Facebook troll groups. By the time I actually post this, I might belong to zero troll groups, because I have gone back and forth a lot in my feelings about them.

Yes, it's nice to connect with people who love their trolls and have an enthusiasm for them. No, it's not so great to have someone push and push and push to try to sell expensive trolls to me, or tell me they collect nothing but one-of-a-kind 24" trolls from Denmark that Thomas Dam created with his own two hands in 1942. Or see photos of ultra-expensive trolls posing on the deck of a cruise ship, or in a room with a view in Sicily. Or see someone casually mention a small collection of, oh, say, about 5000 or so Dam trolls, only the finest and the oldest, and -

You know what I'm saying. It's all the same problems I have had with social media from the beginning. Troll elitism! It's beyond my powers to comprehend.

My trolls, the ones I started out with until I began to branch out a little, came from the wrong side of the tracks. They came in a little plastic bag:




. . . and cost me, rounded off, about $5.00 each at the dollar store. I had never seen a troll at the dollar store before, so soon I was stoking my collection and making them little felt outfits. I began replacing their silky but rather sparse hair with great spills of yarn, the fibres all pulled apart for maximum volume.

I thought they looked great! 





Needing a place to store them and not wanting to just use a shelf, I  converted some old CD racks and began to stack them in. 

There weren't too many at first.

I am not sure which troll group I joined first, but it didn't make me very happy, even though I got some initial "likes" for my poorhouse trolls in their CD highrise.

But I still had the feeling they were from a different social stratum, and I was never allowed to forget it. People talked in "troll-ese", I am convinced to make people left out who DIDN'T speak troll-ese. It didn't occur to me that Facebook and its intentional envy syndrome had anything to do with it.




But then the inevitable happened, and I began to "covet". I knew I couldn't begin to afford the holy grail ones, but even the mid-sized Dam trolls cost plenty, what with outrageous shipping charges and conversion of the American dollar to Canadian.

But I went ahead. I looked on eBay, I ordered trolls, I bought trolls. I couldn't help myself.










I don't know how to feel about it now. I haven't counted how many trolls I have, and I don't want to, though I did move a bookcase into my office for the overflow. I have spent a lot of money, for me at least, which translates to a few hundred. Money I can't spare. I think I still like my "Dollarinas" best, my yarnies with all the masses of hair I created from material I already had. But the problem is, their faces all look pretty much the same. They're identical cousins. Their bodies are so fragile, knockoffs of knockoffs made of thin plastic, that you could squish them flat by sitting on them.

The feeling is exciting when I order "real" trolls, and even more exciting when I get them and open the box. It's Christmas morning! One of my faves is the one I call Grumpy Grandpa:




But now I want another one. With the same face. Should I get it?

Collections are horrible things, voracious, insatiable. I've never really had one before, and now I don't know what to do. Stop buying them, maybe?

Am I honestly trying to reproduce my Year of the Trolls when I was ten years old, which was (though of course I didn't know it at the time) the best year of my life?


Friday, May 18, 2018

The Six Million Dollar Troll




VHTF 3.5" VTG DAM TAILED TROLL W/SWIVEL HEAD, NEW SALT & PEPPER HAIR

Item Information
Condition:
Used

“He is in great shape for being almost 50 yrs old”

History:
2 offers

Price:
US $1,499.99
+US $60.00 shipping 

Approximately C $1,920.59 (including shipping)




BLOGGER'S LAMENT: I've had some doubts about getting back into trolls. What started as a happy thing ended up with joining Facebook groups in which people display collections of hundreds or even thousands of expensive, vintage trolls, or trolls they just happened to pick up at a flea market (a couple hundred, usually) that just happen to include several treasures like the phenomenal find pictured above.

Like, a two thousand-dollar troll! It's nice, for sure. He's cute. Looks in great shape, maybe even mint, as if someone bought him and just put him away somewhere back in 1961. But I just don't have two thousand dollars for a troll! I have to eat.

I started off enjoying my troll hobby, and I still do, to some extent, but the experts are ruining it. I posted some photos on Facebook of troll clothes I knitted, and hair I've replaced, and I can feel the shock and disdain - shock that I'd have the nerve to even do such a thing when the standards are too high for me to reach, disdain because I'm a newbie and have to sit back for at least two years before contributing anything at all.

My thing was making yarn hair that doesn't look like yarn, or is at least pretty enough to fool the eye (or *I* thought so):









These seemed OK to me until I posted some, and the comment was, "It looks like yarn". Yarn isn't used on trolls. Tibetan cashmere, perhaps - mohair from the pelt of a yak, fleece from the Golden Ram of Jason and the Argonauts - but not yarn. Yarn is for an old Raggedy Ann doll left moldering in the attic. It seems there are certain rules as to what you can use. Which is funny, because I've seen things like steel wool, wires, shells, fake flowers, quartz crystals, snow globes, and other unlikely substances for hair replacement. But don't use yarn because it's for amateurs and grandmas, because it means you don't know what you're doing, and even if you're doing it for fun and just to share with the group and not try to sell or trade, there is a certain standard to be maintained.





The group "in-talks" a lot, meaning a lot of obscure troll jargon. WHY do people do this, in any and every field of endeavour? It's to make people who know less than they do feel like know-nothings, or to show off JUST HOW MUCH MORE they know about the subject than you do. So you are suddenly in the position of supplicant, of meekly asking questions and waiting for the Big Oom-pahs to answer rather than joining the conversation and actually saying anything.

I'd say the internet has poisoned everything, but maybe not, maybe it has always been this way. Sashaying around, ass-wagging and showing off seems to be intrinsic to human nature, and it stinks. I am SICK of it. OK, it looks like yarn, but is THIS any better?






































This is what troll hair is s'posed-ta look like, not long waterfalls of de-stranded yarn fibres. But they're not collecting MY trolls, are they? Aren't they interested in what I like? I don't know.

I guess this is a whole lot of complaining, but it just galls me that the "does not belong" stamp that was placed on my forehead at birth is still so much in evidence. Even when having Fun with Trolls. The hidden agenda in these groups is that you have to be a professional doll-collector/restorer who knows and uses all the jargon, in spite of repeated insistence that it's "just for fun". I even read someone say that they think more members should contribute and get involved, rather than just sit back to be entertained. 






(I can't remember if I posted this already, so here it is again, or still).


Saturday, February 3, 2018

CanLit on fire: who can win this game?




I had an immediate reaction to this meme (or whatever it is): truer words were never spoken! Of course, if you truly embrace this perspective you're seen as crass. But what is a writer to do? I've said many times that we don't expect a trained concert pianist to play in an empty hall. But that's the equivalent of what professional writers are expected to do.  That is, those who aren't at the top of what is starting to look like a literary slag heap.

I'm a little sick of being disappointed, and I do try to comfort myself with the three novels I did get published (NOT self-published, by the way - I had to wangle contracts from three different publishers). I also have three or four manuscripts stashed in my computer, and ran one in parts (Bus People - if you wanna see it, the link is here) on this blog. I think ten people looked at it. I just think if it's meant to be, it's meant to be, and in this case it wasn't. 

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2016/10/bus-people-quick-links-to-parts-1-12.html

But was there some sort of weird karma going on? If not karma, then guardian- angel-ship, which I absolutely did not believe in. But maybe something was protecting me from "success", after all: the kind of success that lifts the privileged class out of the slag heap of anonymity and onto the shoulders of the gods (while selling lots and lots of copies).





It seems the game changed before I could catch up. I was only interested in writing well, which I believed would result in having a healthy readership. I don't think that's an unreasonable goal. But it didn't happen, and now I know it won't.

But my melancholic acceptance of failure was disturbed by the current CanLit "dumpster fire" which is threatening to consume the whole industry (and yes, believe me when I say it IS an industry, though that's not such a bad thing - we all need to pay the rent). Though someone came down hard on me for posting the wrong piece on this (though there is no such thing as a RIGHT piece on this!), I will share a link (below) which gives you some idea of what's been going on in the schoolyard. If nothing else, it will give you an idea of the sheer complexity of the situation, how twisted and tangled it has become. Worst of all, it has made some writers afraid to say anything, knowing they risk having their most innocent comments mangled and distorted by the monstrous sharks of social media.





What vexes me is that NO ONE has yet said anything at all about how Twitter has poisoned the well: without even having to face your adversary, and having spent an entire nanosecond composing your thoughts, you can fire off the most hateful volleys, only to be met by a Greek chorus of approval from somewhere before your enemy fires back. Without context, and I mean ANY context at all, even relatively innocent statements can appear to be soaked in poison like a lethal dart.

I will be accused of being a crusted barnacle for saying this, but in the past, if a writer read something in a magazine that made her furious, and she wanted to write a letter to the editor in protest, she would have to take the following steps: find a piece of paper and a pen, compose it, fold it up, address it, find a stamp, walk to the nearest post box and drop it in. At any point, she might think better of it, or at least rewrite it. Then, after a long wait, perhaps weeks or months, it might be published (likely severely edited). But once a tweet is tweeted, there is no taking it back. 





Poison darts are poised everywhere, and can't even be deleted because someone will take a screenshot and use it as a weapon. Those who wish to have a future as a published author are on thin ice, and it doesn't help that the stodgy, arthritic, unmoveable CanLit establishment is sawing a hole in it.

Speaking out is risky. NOT speaking out is crippling, and plays into the hands of elitist powermongers interested only in disenfranchising marginalized groups who MIGHT bring fresh perspectives to the table, if only they were allowed to. But the reins of power, not to mention the purse strings, are in the hands of the Big Few - bestselling writers, hotshot agents, major publishers. So perhaps some unknown angel prevented me from getting what I thought I wanted.

Or not? Are the grapes sour? Who gives a shit, at this point!


CanLit-dumpster-fire-disaster



If you'd rather not wade through this long piece, here's a short excerpt which demonstrates how rancorous and confusing this has become:

Then, a new twist: B.C. author Angie Abdou wrote on Facebook that she in fact had notified Kay about Wunker's post as "part of a conversation about troubles raging in the [CanLit] community and how those issues are making their way into the classroom." But by the time Abdou went back to look for the post to send it to Kay, Wunker had unfriended her. So Abdou asked Bok to screen-cap it. In her confession, Abdou apologized for unintended consequences against Bok and Wunker; she called Wunker "a committed teacher and writer." She then left Facebook and Twitter. (On Thursday, Abdou provided The Globe with a statement. "I made a mistake, and I'm extremely sorry. I did not intend to betray anyone's confidence or to harm the reputations of anyone involved.")


Are you with me still? . . . No? Well, don't feel bad. Neither am I. The twists and turns of it are giving me vertigo. Come OFF it, people! Try to come up with some sort of armed truce, before the whole thing collapses and entire books are lost due to discouragement and pain. Creativity will be extinguished along with the flames. If people are not allowed to express themselves, if works of real literature (NOT TWEETS!) die on the vine, everyone loses. Everyone. Do you hear?


Saturday, November 26, 2016

None so blind: the Galloway affair





May as well enter the fray, as most other writers have in this country.  But how to deal with the maelstrom of "issues" that have jumped out of the closet? Why is this strange jack-in-the-box suddenly exploding out of the container, if everything is going so well (as the more privileged writers insist)? Why are you so upset all of a sudden, why are "all you survivor people out there" in such a snit? God's in his heaven, all's right with CanLit: isn't it? Hey, MY paycheque is OK, how about yours? Gone to any signings lately? And let's not get into all the other issues. Better yet: let's.  It's my video and I'll kvetch if I want to. But after all these years, I believe I have a right.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Steven Galloway: outside of Canada, nobody cares




BLOGGER'S LAMENT.  I am absolutely exhausted. Just wiped out. I've been - somehow - don't know how - didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it - caught up in the Steven Galloway "affaire".

What's that, you ask? Who he? Outside of Canada, nobody cares. Steven Galloway is a former professor of Creative Writing at UBC (University of British Columbia, for my hordes of overseas fans). Professor Galloway had a habit of sexually assaulting female students, quite a number of them in fact, and some of them were beginning to actually complain about it. After an internal investigation, UBC dismissed him. 





But that is not the end, readers! The muck really begins here. In the past few days, 80 of Canada's creme de la creme/elite/"just plain old BEST" authors all lined up to sign an "open letter" to UBC protesting his dismissal. These Big 80, described in the press as "a Who's Who" of Canadian Literature, didn't think it was too gol-dern fair for The Professor to be held accountable for his actions - not to the point of actually losing his job! They insisted that a proper investigation be held to drag the situation out endlessly and allow Galloway to hire some crack lawyer who would blow down the (likely poor and marginalized) injured parties with one breath.

But the more people looked at this petition and the signatures under it, the more they smelled days'-old fish.





UBC is known as a sort of literary mill, a vast machine churning out new writers, who then, eventually, become Establishment: the new elite of CanLit. This is how the system renews itself: think of an immense, seething termite queen whose sole purpose is spewing out more termites.

If one unit of this family (and I use the term in a Sicilian sense) suffers in any way, the others must, according to their contract, rush to his/her aid. It is the termite way, and it is immutable.





The whole thing made me ill. To my mind, it was an extreme example of the wagons going in a circle, not to mention what Orwell might have called "wethink" (or, perhaps, "we-think"). A number of these CanLit muckety-mucks actually took their names OFF the "open" letter (which, to my mind, was about as closed a thing as I have ever seen), once they realized what it was they had actually signed.





Not to jest, because this has left me feeling like road kill. For the glittering Literatti will surely mass together when one of their own is under attack - while casually throwing a number of vulnerable, relatively powerless sexual assault survivors under the bus.

Or so it seems to me. 





Margaret Atwood, the Queen Bee or perhaps the Termite Queen of CanLit, wrote a letter of her own, which I won't reproduce here, but it's haughty. She tries to backtrack on her original statement, which compared Steven Galloway's dismissal to being burned at the stake in Salem. (Her references to a "witch hunt" strongly implied the students' claims were driven by hysterical delusion).

She has since made an effort to cover her literary ass, but it's a little late for that. Charmingly, she does remind us all that Galloway was "thrown in a mental hospital", which is apparently the worst fate which can befall a human being. The indignity of it - the horror, the shame - a Gulag Archipelago, UBC-style! It was all designed to cue the "He's Really The Victim" music.





If I jest about all this, it's so I won't cry. The whole thing exhausts me. Like Dorothy Parker, I only jest to keep from howling. (And please don't think I am comparing myself to her - I stopped drinking 26 years ago).


Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Fahrenheit 2014: or, the Bonfire of the Vanities II

Local authors fume as Bezos holds secret Santa Fe retreat

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos watches a from the wings during the June 18 launch of the Amazon Fire Phone in Seattle. Bezos is hosting a covert gathering for the culturally elite in Santa Fe. Associated Press file photo

(Blogger's note: this is an article from the Santa Fe daily newspaper, the New Mexican, in which we learn more than we ever hoped to know about Jeff Bezos and his happy little bonfire of exploited writers. I couldn't excerpt this thing very well, so I present it pretty much whole, interspersed with my usual nasty little images. Goody.)
Posted: Saturday, September 20, 2014 7:00 pm | Updated: 1:36 am, Mon Sep 22, 2014.

A hush-hush, very private, under-the-radar, author-schmoozing affair for the creative elites is taking place in Santa Fe.

Nobody, but nobody in the know will talk on the record about Campfire, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ early autumn gathering of writers and other visionary types held in recent years at the Bishop’s Lodge Ranch Resort & Spa. It’s the local version of Northern California’s Bohemian Grove, although that all-male retreat is filled with politicians and captains of industry.
Everyone connected with the covert affair here is sworn to secrecy — hotels, restaurants, even those who handle staging and logistics. As one author who has participated in the past put it, “Campfire is a private event, and the sponsors prefer to avoid all publicity.”



As far as The New Mexican could determine, no local writers are invited this year, even though Santa Fe is home to many, including best-selling authors whose works are sold on Amazon.
But several Santa Fe writers were among more than 900 who criticized Amazon last month in a letter published as an ad in The New York Times. Santa Fe-based Authors United accused the retailer of targeting them in its long-running dispute with publishing firm Hachette over e-book pricing. The writers, many of whose works are published by Hachette, say Amazon is threatening their livelihoods by delaying delivery of their books and refusing to accept pre-orders.
“Every year, Jeff Bezos of Amazon invites authors, artists, musicians and other creative people for a secret, swag-laden get together called Campfire,” said Authors United organizer Doug Preston, a writer who lives part time in Santa Fe. “Meanwhile, for the past six months, Amazon has been harming the livelihoods of 2,500 authors by impeding and blocking sale of their books in order to gain leverage in its dispute with the publisher Hachette.”



Carol Armstrong, also known as Carol Held Knight, the widow of astronaut and moon walker Neil Armstrong, said in a brief phone interview this week that she attended Bezos’ secret Santa Fe gathering in 2011 and 2012. “It was very interesting,” she said. There were about 50 people at the event, which she described as “low key,” with talks by authors and dinner excursions.
Tours to nearby sites such as Puye Cliffs are arranged for the guests. One year, the event included a geocaching treasure hunt on the Plaza.
The invitees are all ages, all very accomplished and, most of all, interesting to Bezos. And they don’t exactly get here by bus. Pilots are warned about extra traffic at Santa Fe’s airport during Campfire weekend because of all the incoming Lears and Citations.
But even in the age of the Internet, it’s hard to find out much more about Bezos’ Campfire.
Only a few snippets show up online about the 2011 event.




Diversified Production Services, which produces special events, listed the “featured talent” that year as Neil Armstrong, Man Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), musician, songwriter and producer T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart), street artist and graphic designer Shepard Fairey, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, Czech model and philanthropist Petra Nemcova and Pulitzer Prize Winner Alice Walker (The Color Purple), among others.
Publishers Lunch, a daily online report on stories of interest to the professional trade book community, confirmed Oct. 11, 2011, that a “select group of authors, performers, thinkers and others” were gathering outside Santa Fe for the second annual Campfire, where the theme was said to be “storytelling.”
Kurt Andersen, a former Time magazine writer, author and host of Studio 360, Public Radio International’s guide to pop culture, revealed in 2011 that he had attended the gathering in Santa Fe the previous year. His website says he “felt the company [Amazon] was trying to soften up the literary establishment as it moves toward publishing.”




Dennis Johnson, writer/journalist and co-founder of Melville House, the independent publisher in Brooklyn, N.Y., said on his book blog that year, “Well, now that Jeff Bezos is pretty much done destroying American book culture, he’s decided to spend some of his ill-gotten gains on … looking like a champion of writers. Or maybe he just needed to buy some friends.”
The item went on to say that the “Amazon oligarch” had flown authors Michael Chabon, Khaled Hosseini and Neil Gaiman, songwriter Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, and film directors/producers Jason Reitman and Werner Herzog, in addition to Atwood and Walker, to a “think-tanky” event he called the “Amazon Campfire.”
(Gaiman is in Santa Fe this weekend for a sold-out event with his wife, Amanda Palmer, at the Jean Cocteau Cinema called “Another Night of Random Stuff with Neil and Amanda.”)
Johnson’s blog quoted Publishers Lunch as saying that Bezos had paid for all the accommodations.
Johnson said in an interview that the event had been “hotly rumored,” but until the Publishers Lunch item, he hadn’t dared write about it. “Nobody knows anything,” he said. The invitees sign nondisclosure statements, and “they’re sticking to them.” Breaking the agreement would be taking your life in your hands, Johnson added, because “he [Bezos] will pursue you.”





Bezos, the technology entrepreneur who was born in Albuquerque and graduated from Princeton University, founded and runs Amazon, the largest retailer on the Web. Named Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999, he bought The Washington Post newspaper in 2013. He is also a member the Bilderberg Group, another super-secret assembly of 120 or more political leaders, and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media who are invited to take part in annual discussions about megatrends and major issues facing the world.
Preston, who said his paperback and e-book sales are down more than 60 percent since Amazon began its tactics to pressure Hachette, said the book retail giant should put more focus on the thousands of writers who supply works for Amazon rather than the elites he is hosting in Santa Fe this weekend.
‘These writers, most of whom are struggling, mid-list authors, have seen their book sales decline 50 to 90 percent at Amazon.com,” he said. “They are fearful about what this means for their future careers. If Mr. Bezos truly cared about authors, instead of inviting an anointed few to his little Campfire and handing them a bag of goodies, he would end the sanctions against thousands of authors and their books.”
Santa Fe author James McGrath Morris (Pulitzer) conceded that Amazon has done as much good for publishing as it has done harm and is “not necessarily a one-dimensional evil monster.”



But McGrath Morris still sees irony in the fact that Bezos holds his Campfire in “an artistic, creative city with independent bookstores who are suffering from competition with Amazon and Kindle Fire.”
To hold the Campfire here, and not to reach out to local authors and bookstores, he said, “seems a little lacking in forethought.”
One of those bookstores, Collected Works, has a sign in the window banning Amazon’s Fire Phone, which shoppers can use to order books by scanning their covers, automatically placing an order and bypassing brick-and-mortar stores.
Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.




Blogger's note: I can't tell you how relieved I am that all this crap is finally coming out. I suppose that up to now it's been justified by a "private little event" mentality, with high-profile writers easily seduced with lots and lots of candy. Otherwise it never would have gotten off the ground.
I said in my last post that silencing a group of people by coercion or veiled threats has another name: abuse. It also has the shameful stink of bullying, of casual manipulation through generating a nameless, formless dread. But I've thought of something else (there's always something else, as followers of this little insignificant blog will realize): it also has the flavor of "YOU can play in my tree fort (if you're rich, well-known and extremely malleable), but YOU can't (if you don't have high status and won't keep your mouth shut)". My mother used to sing an ancient song that now comes to mind: "I don't want to play in your yard/I don't like you any more. . .No, I don't want to play in your yard, if you won't be nice to me." "Nice" meaning, in this case, ultra-discreet, also known as "silent". 




These writers had to sign a sort of oath of silence even to be let in. More tree fort mentality. It's like one of those really neat Captain Marvel clubs of the '60s where you sent away for identification papers, strict printed rules, and a badge. You're in; everyone else is out. Otherwise it just wouldn't be any fun. 
Writers often take a vehement, even violent stand against elitism and the worst excesses of capitalism - well, some of them do, sometimes, when they're not out there spelunking or whatever-the-fuck-it-is, getting wrapped in vast polar bear robes that they get to keep in their Vespucci endangered-alligator suitcases. For all we know, they eat bush meat, capybaras and such, roasted komodo dragons, with spotted owl souffle for dessert. Anything to keep those pesky writers satisfied - and quiet.




I'm still not seeing very much coverage on this event - Bezos is still keeping a muzzle on those who attended, apparently - or has he managed to intimidate the media, too? (Does the name William Randolph Hearst mean anything to you?). It's been pointed out that Bezos has a fondness for fire imagery: Kindle, Fire Phone - and now, Campfire. Why is this? Oh, I don't know, it's "hot" maybe? Or maybe it will just burn up the competition entirely. It's a pretty alarming take on the word "campfire". This time, however, what with all that fuss about ebooks, we don't even need starter fluid. The conflagration has already begun.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Big chill around the campfire: how writers are being silenced


A Writerly Chill at Jeff Bezos’ Fire

By DAVID STREITFELD  SEPT. 20, 2014

(Blogger's note: this is a New York Times article which I have illustrated in my usual non-literal/linear way. I have added italics for emphasis. A lot of italics. A lot of shit going on here.)




Jeff Bezos of Amazon has rented Bishop’s Lodge Ranch Resort and Spa in Santa Fe for Campfire, a literary gathering, this year. CreditRick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times

When Jeff Bezos tells writers to keep quiet, they obey.

Every fall, Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, hosts Campfire, a literary weekend in Santa Fe, N.M. Dozens of well-known novelists have attended, but they do not talk about the abundance of high-end clothing and other gifts, the lavish meals, the discussion under the desert stars by Neil Armstrong or the private planes that ferried some home.

Writers loved it. There was no hard sell of Amazon, or soft sell, either. The man who sells half the books in America seemed to want nothing more each year than for everyone to have a good time. All he asked in return was silence.





For four years, the bargain held. But the fifth Campfire, which writers say is taking place this weekend, is a little different. Amazon’s acrimonious battle with Hachette, the fourth-largest publisher, is fracturing the secrecy and sapping some of the good will. (Amazon will not confirm that the event is even happening.)

The struggle between the retailer and the publisher is ostensibly over the price of e-books but really over profit margins and, ultimately, the future of publishing. The conflict, which is unlike any in recent publishing history, has inflamed tensions across the literary spectrum. It began six months ago and appears unlikely to end any time soon.



Jeff Bezos Credit Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Some repeat Campfire attendees who have supported Hachette in the dispute say they were not invited this year. Others say they are having second thoughts about going. The event has become as divisive as the fight.

“My guess is a lot of writers turned it down this year,” said James Patterson, who attended last year’s festivities. Mr. Patterson, whose novels are published by Hachette, gave a speech in May, when he warned that Amazon needed to be stopped “by law if necessary, immediately.”

“I wasn’t invited again, and I wouldn’t have gone if I had been,” he said. “I would feel very odd being there.” He noted, however, that the event had been “terrific.”





Hugh Howey, a self-published science fiction novelist who is one of Amazon’s most dedicated defenders, is in Santa Fe but said he had not wanted to go.

“I asked not to be invited back this year, as I want to be able to speak my mind and not have any hint of a quid pro quo,” he wrote in an email.

But this kind of openness is not for everyone. Some writers, when contacted about their past attendance and asked whether they were going this year, reacted with something akin to terror. One writer begged not to be mentioned in any way, insisting that it was a private, off-the-record event and should remain so, lest Mr. Bezos be offended.





The Amazon mogul does not make attendees sign nondisclosure forms. His team just cautions them that the weekend is off the record. Even those who like to share their every thought on Twitter and Facebook have kept it that way.

Ayelet Waldman has attended Campfire with her husband, Michael Chabon. Both novelists signed an open letter this summer in support of Hachette authors, whose books Amazon is making it harder to buy as a way to achieve leverage in the dispute. Ms. Waldman, who gained fame by publicly chronicling some of her most intimate feelings, including loving her husband more than her children, did not respond to emails about Campfire.

An Amazon spokesman declined to discuss Campfire. A spokesman for Mr. Bezos did not respond to a message seeking comment.






Traces of Campfire on the Internet are decidedly rare. A publishing newsletter mentioned the 2011 event, saying it included Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and the directors Jason Reitman and Werner Herzog. Diversified Production Services, which helped stage the 2011 event, describes it on its website as a “private gathering and conference of influential artists, writers, activists and scientists for a sharing of inspiration and stories.”

The company listed the “featured talent” that year as Mr. Armstrong as well as Margaret Atwood, the musicians T Bone Burnett and Moby, and George Martin — presumably the “Game of Thrones” novelist George R. R. Martin and not the Beatles producer.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Atwood declined to comment except to point out that the writer was in Europe this weekend. Mr. Martin could not be reached. Mr. Armstrong died in 2012.

Whether or not fear of Amazon is legitimate, it exists.




When Authors United, a group of writers, reprinted the open letter denouncing Amazon’s tactics in the Hachette dispute as an advertisement in The New York Times, 17 writers and a trust split the bill. Douglas Preston, the founder of the group, said the writers willing to be identified were Mr. Patterson, David Baldacci, Lee Child, Nelson DeMille, Amanda Foreman, Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Stacy Schiff and Scott Turow. Mr. Preston also paid a share, as did the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.

Seven other contributors asked to remain anonymous. “They were quite specifically worried about the possibility that Amazon would single them out for punishment,” Mr. Preston said.

An Amazon spokesman did not respond to questions on the subject of fear.






Campfire this year is being held under the conditions of utmost secrecy, as usual. Mr. Bezos has rented the entire Bishop’s Lodge Ranch Resort and Spa, which is set on 450 acres a little north of Santa Fe. If you call the front desk seeking a particular guest, the operator will not ring the room or even take a message. There are guards at the front gate to prevent the curious from getting too far.

Mr. Bezos, who built Amazon from its dot-com roots as a bookseller into one of the country’s biggest retailers, knows the psychology of writers, several past attendees said in interviews. “You come to this exclusive event, you are treated fabulously and you get access to the next Steve Jobs, who happens to control how many books you sell,” one said.







Employees at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle have to pay for their perks, down to the treats from vending machines. And the company is famously tough on its suppliers; the Hachette conflict is just one example. At Campfire, however, there is no stinting.

There are impressive dinners, accompanied by live music. There is horseback riding, skeet shooting and lazing by the pool. In the mornings, there are formal talks on highbrow topics. One guest fondly recalled that the swag included down vests, fleeces, shoulder bags and small suitcases to carry all the loot home. Getting back to mundane reality was postponed for the attendees who took one of the private jets. (Others say they took scheduled flights.)

Mr. Howey said Campfire was nonpartisan. “They invite all kinds of people with all kinds of stances,” he wrote in his email. “You’re the first person I’ve heard suggest that people turned this down, so I’m inferring from you that the Hachette standoff has created tension?”





The literary world overflows with tension and invective these days. People are choosing sides.

Maxine Hong Kingston, who was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Obama in July, was a Campfire attendee but is not coming back. She signed the open letter.

“It seems that I’m not invited,” she wrote in an email. She declined to say anything else.




Like I said, a lot of italics. 
It is hard to know where to start here. I feel like I'm reading about William Randolph Hearst, so powerful that no one dared to stand up to him - so, no matter how corrupt his actions, everyone had to be his "friend". They were too frightened to be anything else.  I am disgusted at all the elitist fat cat writers who gleefully took the bait while pretending not to know they were being seduced: hey, aren't writers supposed to be more aware, more conscious, more sensitive, even more conscientious than the rest of us? Surely they would KNOW if they were being bribed into silence. But could it be they KNEW they were being seduced, and didn't care because it's nice to be dipped in melted butter once in a while? 

What bothers me most of all is the emphasis on secrecy, on keeping it quiet. This means that people in the writing community are being effectively silenced, and putting up with it because they are afraid that speaking out will cost them too much. Sacrificing your integrity is a mighty high cost for a deluxe weenie roast, I'd say. Don't go on the record saying anything against Amazon, or - . Oh! God! There goes my career, Henry! The fact I don't have one, and Amazon is partly to blame for charging junk-sale prices for my novel, means I can say whatever the hell I want.




The irony is that for years I thought Amazon was the best online company to deal with: I never once had a problem with cancelling an order, or returns, or getting things late, or ANYTHING. I have dealt with them for years, because - why? Because, like Kleenex Brand, they were "there", and slowly but surely getting bigger and better at their particular brand of con. With all the lying, deception, intrigue, secrecy, bullying and fear, there's a trace of McCarthyism here, of witch hunt, of who's-side-are-you-on, and it stinks to high heaven, while everyone is looking around sheepishly and saying, "What?" Don't you want your books to sell? What's wrong with discounting them, anyway? Isn't it an advantage to be able to buy six or seven copies for the list price? What are you complaining about?

. . . But that's just me.



It wasn't so long ago we were hearing a version of this in Canada, only it was about Chapters-Indigo. Now that particular brew-haugh-haugh has died down, mainly because now we know that it's no use, we're not going to change anything or get any of our real book stores back by snarling about a high-end gift shop with a few books in the back. Since there are no book stores in my community, none, I (an author, yet) don't go to bookstores any more - I can't get to one. I have to order them online. But where can I go for the best prices, best service, etc.? I think the only answer is to stop buying books altogether.

I don't like hearing about campaigns of silence because they reek of the dynamics of abuse. It means there is something SO special going on that if you tell anybody else, something very bad will happen. So hey, just keep it to yourself, don't say anything. It's our little secret, remember?  That's how it is with special things, and special people. And that is how it is going to stay.