Letters From the Labyrinth 407

A Letter to the Writing World On Ageism and Sexism

A Letter to the Writing World On Ageism and Sexism
by Mary SanGiovanni

To Whom It May Concern,

I put off writing this for a long time, largely for two reasons. The first was that to tackle this topic, I might have to admit, on some level, that I was old, or at least getting older, which my pride idealistically forbids on a daily basis. I have not yet mastered the art of growing old with grace, much to my chagrin, but I am working on it. Yes, yes, I know -- old age is a privilege not everyone gets to enjoy. But it’s also fraught with change and uncertainty in just about every facet of life, which only increase as you put more years under your belt. In fact, the only certainty is the end outcome – death – and the more years you yourself are afforded, the more you see death taking those you love around you. Old age means forgetting as much or more than you remember, being forgotten, and losing more than you’re gaining.

I came to accept all that years ago. I much prefer living than the alternative, at least for now, and choose to view, as much as I can, the change and uncertainty as new adventures. It doesn’t make it any easier, mind you, to admit to getting older, but it does fundamentally make it worth continuing to get up in the morning.

My second reason for putting this off was the optics of it looking like I was being self-serving. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a novel which is close to my heart that my agent is shopping around to publishers, and I would very much like to see one of them pick up this book, love it as I do, and publish it. I have gotten great blurbs for it from a host of better writers than I am, I have seen a beautiful limited edition release of it, and the feedback overall seems to be positive. I don’t want the letter to follow to seem as if I’m strong-arming or guilting anyone into buying and publishing the book.

I simply want to address what I see as ageism vs. sexism in this industry – if not for myself, then in the hopes that someday, when other writers, particularly women, are where I am now, that they won’t have to fight fading away.

I am, of my “generation” of writers, something of the baby of the group. I came up with a bunch of folks in the early 2000s, when I was barely out of college, publishing short stories in magazines and anthologies and working toward a contract with Dorchester for a novel. I’m on the very tail end of Gen X, and so I’m not too far ahead of the eldest millennials out there in terms of sheer age. But, as I mentioned, I came along with a revolutionary group of writers, many five, ten, even fifteen years older, many of whom now form the foundational and influential body of literature that the current, newer writers of note read growing up.

I mention this because it is part of where I think we see the first basic issue to address regarding ageism vs. sexism – that the difference between personal age and professional age is perceived as different for women. Let me explain.

There is an unspoken, unwritten notion that writers with my years and experience in this business must command a certain amount in advances, royalties, per-word rates, etc. Further, such time in the trenches, as it were, would suggest that I might be both entitled to and of a mind to insist that I be paid a significant amount more than, say, some new writers who, in their twenties or thirties, may have less experience and name recognition, but would be willing to work for a lot less money and have, perhaps, a decade or two longer to write than someone in her forties or fifties (as if the good years we have to do anything at all weren’t arbitrarily decided by Darwin and the winds of fate). From a business standpoint, I understand that it would make some degree of sense to weigh name recognition (money coming in) with cost (money going out).

This, of course, belies two concepts which I believe are worthy of note: first, that men of a certain age tend to have more name recognition in horror, and so inevitably cost more, but more so that they are somehow more worth the cost than women of the same age and accomplishment. Second, that it is more cost effective to allow women in their forties, perhaps even those on the cusp of or in the midst of true financial and literary success, legacy, and security, to fade into the background in favor of newer, younger authors, where with men, that decision seems to come more often when those men reach their seventies. To base this on age, in my mind, is small-sighted and frankly, ridiculous. If the first rule of writing is to write what you know, wouldn’t it stand to reason that those who have had time to collect experiences and memories and profound revelations and realizations throughout life have a rich bank from which to draw things to write about?

That’s thirty years of things to say that are lost to the fade – the kind of fade women used to have to worry about happening personally, in regard to societal perception of their sexual viability, or professionally, because they had the audacity to reproduce and take on being a mother, a role simply riddled with responsibility to something other than efficient production of work. That fathers might have similar responsibilities doesn’t seem to cause the same concern about reliability and efficiency.

I think you can see where the problem here blurs back and forth between both ageism AND sexism. Ageism certainly and unfortunately exists…but even ageism is disparately doled out in sharper, swifter terms to women than men.

I have seen strong women, talented and capable women, simply faded until their voices were an echo, and then, sadly, until that echo was so faint that only the occasional diligent shopper in a used book store picked up one of their books. I have seen them talked over, heard their ideas parroted back by men who only THEN saw how great the ideas were. I’ve seen them passed over time and time again for being too new or not new enough. There was no long-term investment in their careers, no faith that they could build a name on. It was sink or swim from the beginning, and when these women proved they could swim, emerged from the water with no land in sight, and so they sank to the bottom in the same body of water in which they’d excelled, simply because you can only go for so long before you get tired and your body or your mind or your will simply give out.

I don’t want to go out like that. And I don’t want other women to go out like that, either.

The me of ten or even five years ago would have said I can’t – I won’t – go out like that. But I am getting older.

To anyone who needs to hear this, don’t let them fade you out. Be more focused, more active, more of an advocate for your career now than you were ten years ago, and even more so ten years from now. Push for what you want. Don’t be afraid to say no, that the terms and conditions aren’t good enough. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and compare notes.

Don’t let them take away from you what makes you so unique and fantastic as a writer in the first place, and sure as hell, don’t let them do it by simply wearing you away.

I had made it a point to try not to bring up a problem without offering at least one potential solution. I don’t know if there is a real solution, but I have some ideas, and I give them to you with the hope that maybe, maybe, it might make a difference.

Be prolific. Prove that you have more than a few decades in you to tell stories. Show them you’re here to stay, and that you have a lot to say.

Be bold. Go after what you want in your career like you believe you deserve it, even if right now, you think you don’t. You do. You are your best advocate, so do it for you. And whether you realize it or not, you are paving the bridge between the women who came before you and the women to come after. Do it for all the little girls who still believe they can be anything they want to be – show them they’re right.

Be professional. Handle business as business. Show you can meet deadlines, stick to contracts and agreements, and consistently improve your quality of work.

Don’t compromise. Don’t accept less than you’re worth.

Negotiate for yourself like you would for your daughter.

Remember our legacy. Talk about writers who came before you – help keep them in people’s active awareness. Talk about those coming up behind you – carve a pathway for them to make their mark.

Legitimize and normalize women’s writing as a matter of fact, so that it seems redundant or unnecessary to say “women writers.” We are just writers. We are not like shiny unicorns simply because we write AND happen to be women.

Tell stories that are both unique and true to the female experience but also universal. Stories with staying power speak to a broad range of people for a broad range of reasons. So do their authors.

Diversify your publishing models.

Be innovative. If you have an idea, go for it. Don’t let someone talk you out of it because it’s never been done before, or because it’s never been done by a man. Surround yourself with people who believe in your capabilities and make new things happen.

Trust other women to have your back. Trust men to have your back. But carry yourself forward.

Remember that every opportunity you’re given is a chance to prove yourself. And don’t waste time on people who can’t spare the time for you.

Learn to say NO.

Never lose sight of the fact, no matter how much of this job is demoralizing, depressing, disappointing, frustrating, degrading, or difficult, that you have something important to say, and a contribution to make to literature, and that the world is a little dimmer without your words. Write for yourself, and for that one person you might not even know exists who reads your work and is influenced or impacted by it.

I wish I had practical advice rather than just platitudes. I don’t know how to convince the money people ( and doesn’t it boil down to the money people in the end?) that a forty+ year old woman has something valuable to say and that her books should be bought, read, and paid appropriately for, but they should. To do otherwise is, to me, frankly unfathomable. Especially in this day and age, are we really going to roust out the people who helped define this genre’s body of words over arbitrary numbers? Isn’t it possible that opening things up to women standing on the edge of that cliff will prompt them to fly instead of fall?

Can’t we see women write and grow brighter and more vivid instead of letting them fade away?

All I can think to do is to put it out there in the cosmos that this needs to change. Maybe that means starting a dialogue and reminding people who need to hear it that you might bend in the wind but don’t break. You might burn out, but…

Maybe the solution will come some day when I have decayed and gone away, but I hope not. I hope I live to see a time when women are writing AND publishing on the same equal playing field, where there is no horror writer default, and we take care of those who gave their lives to this genre and this art. Maybe I and other women will join the men who have achieved the timeless legacy of a lifetime of achievement.

Maybe I’ll be old by then. Maybe.

Sincerely,

Mary SanGiovanni

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Good morning. That was my wife, Mary SanGiovanni. I’m Brian Keene. And this is Letters From the Labyrinth, a long-running weekly newsletter for fans, friends, and family.

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Over on YouTube, I’ve begun a new series called Secret Histories. In it, I’ll talk about each of my books in chronological order — the stories behind the books, and memories I have of their creation and publication. The first two videos, detailing NO REST FOR THE WICKED and 4X4, are available to the public here. (Subscribers to my Patreon got early access to these first two, as well as two more, neither of which will be posted to YouTube until next week).

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I am exceedingly proud and honored to have provided an Introduction and an Afterword (respectively) to the Gauntlet Press Lettered editions of F. Paul Wilson’s final novels, The Upwelling and Lexie. Pre-orders begin on January 1st, and shipping will happen this spring. More information here.

Paul is, of course, one of the Top Five Big Influences on me and my work. You wouldn’t have Brian Keene books without F. Paul Wilson books. Moreso, his support and friendship and counsel have meant a lot to me over the years. If you’ve never read him, that’s okay. You can start now, with these. (Or, if you want to start with the first book by him that I read, buy yourself a copy of The Keep, which has always been and will always be one of my Top Ten favorite horror novels).

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Sadly, writing time this past week was limited mostly to signing contracts and answering emails. Personal, familial obligations prevented anything more than that. But I did sell a brand-new short story called “Open Books” to a forthcoming supernatural crime anthology called Gaba Ghoul. And we got our contracts for OPERATION: SERIOUS DICK (see last week’s newsletter). And I continued lining up guests for AuthorCon 5 and signings for Vortex for next year.

This coming week will — I suspect — again not offer much hope on the writing front, so instead I want to use it to square away the Brian Keene Walking Tour folks and the Lifetime Subscribers.

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Dacia was on vacation for her anniversary, so on last week’s episode of HOW TO SURVIVE 2025, Jim and I discussed Going Gray. No, not our hair or beards. Going gray as in situational awareness, hiding in plain sight, and how to blend with your surroundings and leave no trace behind. Sometimes the best preparedness involves being nondescript and unnoticed.

Listen free via: Web Browser ~ Spotify ~ iHeartRadio ~ Apple ~ Amazon/Audible ~ YouTube ~ Podbean ~ Player FM

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Currently Watching: Survivor Season 47 (Paramount Plus), What We Do In The Shadows season 6 (Hulu), Nobody Wants This Season 1 (Netflix), Deadwood Season 1 (Max), and Leave The World Behind (Netflix).

Currently Reading: Dignity by Ken Layne, Walk On The Wildside by Karl Edward Wagner, and Wolves of the Calla: The Dark Tower V by Stephen King.

Currently Listening: This was an eclectic week with lots of Prince, Sheryl Crow, Wu-Tang Clan, Anthrax, Katy Perry, Twisted Sister, Kurtis Blow, and The Rolling Stones.

This season of Survivor started slow, and all of the players I was rooting for were eliminated early, but my god these last few episodes have kicked things into high gear and provided some of the most intense, exciting, surprising gameplay this show has had in years. If Rachel doesn’t win next week, I riot.

I really enjoyed Leave the World Behind. Stellar cast and wonderful performances. A human drama with a very realistic look at how folks would actually behave in a grid down scenario (as we’ve discussed on HOW TO SURVIVE 2025). The ending is divisive. I loved it. Mary hated it. She said “It’s a Brian Keene ending.” So keep that in mind before you watch.

Nobody Wants This is my favorite watch of 2024. It is a delightful, funny, charming rom-com, and a desperately needed shot to the soul for me. Highly recommended.

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And that does it for this week. Thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll see you back here again next Sunday.

— Brian Keene