My Life in Argentina and Beyond

Sunday, September 23, 2007: I am taking a writing class here in BA. Last Monday, the teacher invited one of his former students to come give us a talk. This man has recently published a book of short stories. After he read one of them, the class asked him questions like What inspires you? What is your writing discipline? Who are your favorite authors? When two of my classmates wanted to know if he had submitted his work to editors of well known publishing houses and what had these editors said, the teacher cut off the answers. Then another student asked a question about money. How much had being published cost him? Again, the teacher said no. We will not touch that subject.
This surprised me because who wants to write for free? Being published is hard enough and we, who have that luck, should do everything within our power to make our work known. One of the rewards we need to seek is sales. If someone pays for our book, it means validation. It means that our efforts to reach that reader have not been in vain.
The teacher is very good and knowledgeable and the story read by the guest student was interesting and well written.