Why Literature Needs a Punk Rock Mindset

The Washington Post shutting down its books coverage is a reminder that we have to do it ourselves

Joe Strummer outside of a bookstore in NYC, 1980. Photo by Roberta Bayley

Hello readers, I’m deep into drafting two long craft posts—part two of my “principles of plotting” series and a post on how artistic process informs product¹—but I’m going to put those on hold to post a little (hopeful?) rant today inspired by the depressing news that the Washington Post is gutting their books section (among many other cuts). The Post is only the latest outlet of many that have cut coverage and those cuts coincide with NEA grants drying up, literacy declining, and other depressing news. Yes, places like Substack are patching over some of the cracks and are increasingly important to the literary conversation. But the economics of Substack will never work to replace these institutions. Things are not great.

Before I get to all that, let me say that I’m really thrilled to have a Greek myth-inspired flash fiction piece called “Consider the Eagle” in the excellent new Substack literary magazines Strange Pilgrims. I hope you’ll give it a read. Although I would have shared this story on any new post, Strange Pilgrims will tie into this post’s topic.)

Consider the Eagle by Lincoln Michel

So, the Post is gutting its books coverage even though it is owned by one of the richest men on earth who made his fortune with an online store that started selling books. This is no surprise. Bezos never cared about literature—he chose books to start Amazon.com largely because publishing accepts returns of unsold stock unlike most industries²—and in general a project of the billionaire class has been to buy up newspapers, networks, and social media platforms³ to control and limit information. This is also, I would argue, why they are so invested in LLMs. If they can get people receiving all their information through LLMs, the propaganda potential is limitless. I view Grok’s “MechaHitler” and “white genocide” episodes not (merely) as embarrassing goofs but as clunky attempts at propaganda efforts whose methods will surely refine. But, I’ll save tech rants for another time.

What I wanted to suggest today is that we who care about literature—especially the kind of literature that will never top bestseller lists or appeal to the masses at large—need to adopt a punk rock mindset. It is DIY or die. We have to do this ourselves. We need to build our networks, fund what we can if we have the resources, and steal what we can from institutions while we can, knowing those resources will always be ephemeral. I don’t present this as any kind of panacea. (Part of the mindset involves changing your expectations.) I have no clue how we replace the important functions of newspapers—Bezos is also cutting, for example, international news reporting—that require real institutional support, access to lawyers, etc. I’m not sure how we can even save books criticism, which to do seriously and at length requires the kind of money you cannot get from Substack subscriptions. But I know that billionaires aren’t going to save us.

When I was growing up as a weird kid in rural Virginia, I was drawn, like many other weird kids, to punk music and the punk scene. There’s a lot I found in that world, from the politics to the connections with other artistic movements like Surrealism. But a central appeal for me was the punk ethos, as I understood it⁴. A Do It Yourself mindset that really meant do it ourselves. It meant contributing. If you wanted to be a part of the scene, you did something. You played in a band or you started a record label or you put on shows or you wrote a zine. Or maybe you brought some food for the touring bands playing in a tiny apartment. Or you did all these things and more. I found this inspiring. The idea that art wasn’t just for everyone, but it was something for anyone who cared enough to participate.

In the 80s and 90s, independent musicians had built up an independent network of record labels, touring venues, zines, and more that while hardly making anyone rich did support these artistic scenes. It wasn’t just punk rock. The same occurred in underground hip-hop, alternative art scenes, underground comics, and more. There was plenty of overlap between these worlds too. At the height, this was a thriving enough alternative world that could offer real support to artists and even generated much of the culture that would later burst into the mainstream in the form of grunge, rap, indie rock, etc. (I know a lot of people find community cringe, but art tends to thrive in communities. New styles sprout in scenes.) But even those who didn’t “sell out,” as the kids used to say, had an ecosystem to survive within.

The internet destroyed much of this. Yes, that’s reductive. And plenty of damage had been done by corporate conglomeration and other factors. But I think it is the fundamental truth. The big tech companies figured out how to siphon off all artistic revenue so that they make billions while paying out pennies. They trained people to think that technology was what was valuable and that “content” should be free, so you’d see people say it was unfair to pay musicians or authors when they “already spend a bunch of money on the iPod and Kindle!” Plus, they served up the endless free distractions of social media. In the end, they ended up destroying those alternative ecosystems and successfully trapping even mainstream, artists on their platforms. What would “selling out” mean in a world where everyone from “indie” artists to establishment names struggle for attention on corporate platforms like Amazon and TikTok that are run by the richest people in the world?

But let me rewind. I never played in a punk band. But I co-founded a record label with a friend assembled LP sleeves and cassettes in my basement. If I went to a house show and I had money in my pocket, I bought a record or a t-shirt to support the touring bands. I put on shows myself, finding spaces where I could. A punk mindset, to me, meant you took what you could from institutions when you could to support what you loved while knowing that you could never rely on them. E.g., in college I learned students could book one of the dorm basements for free. It was probably supposed to be used for a capella groups and knitting clubs. But I began putting on punk and metal shows for bands around the country (and even a few from abroad). Eventually the noise complaints made the punk shows get shut down. I always knew the end would come. I used what I could while I could.

My artistic interests gravitated to literature, yet I like to think I kept a DIY ethos. I made lit mag zines with covers I silkscreened after hours in the art department. Later, I co-founded a literary magazine, Gigantic, that we paid for by renting out bars and selling beer and tote bags at launch parties. Etc. My point isn’t that this makes me special. The exact opposite. My point is that you can do this too. Gigantic was one of countless little magazines that started up at the same time. Some of those, like One Story and N+1, are still going strong today and are institutions themselves. There are countless great small presses out there in various genres. There are people who put on reading series and blog about books and all the rest. There are indie and self-pub authors who hustle, going to events and hand-selling their books in the same way bands used to. The DIY ethos exists in parts of publishing. And everything I’m describing here probably gets a big “duh” for those involved in independent music, underground comics, or experimental art. But the bigger we can build alternative channels, the better.

Again, my only point is you can do this too. The internet has a lot of pitfalls for artists, but it does mean that you can start professional magazines for free—see The Metropolitan Review and Strange Pilgrims, for two great Substack-hosted examples. Although Substack is also a platform we can’t rely on. Use it while it works for you and flee if/when it stops working. You can start a small press with limited funds. You can create a book review website or host a reading series. And if you do have institutional connections, you can use them. E.g., anyone who is working for a university-funded literary magazine could do literature a real benefit by adding book reviews and paying the reviewers.

And if you don’t have the time or resources or connections for those things, what can you do?

Well, one thing is to stop paying attention to the bullshit that you hate. This was another part of what I’m calling a punk mindset. I did not care one iota what was topping the Billboard lists or winning Grammys or whatever nonsense. I didn’t think it deserved my attention. Do the formulaic bestselling novels or award-winners you find awful deserve yours?⁵ I know that social media algorithms reward giving your attention to an ever-narrowing set of popular things. We’ve seen where this has gotten us.

Screw the platforms. Ignore the stuff that you think sucks. Find books and art you love. Share them. Review them. Recommend them to friends. Make your own art. Share it. Hope it finds people who love it. What else can we do?

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My new novel Metallic Realms is out in stores! Reviews have called the book “brilliant” (Esquire), “riveting” (Publishers Weekly), “hilariously clever” (Elle), “a total blast” (Chicago Tribune), “unrelentingly smart and inventive” (Locus), and “just plain wonderful” (Booklist). My previous books are the science fiction noir novel The Body Scout and the genre-bending story collection Upright Beasts. If you enjoy this newsletter, perhaps you’ll enjoy one or more of those books too.

1. I’m currently it “Don’t Sweat the Techne.” I assume I will change that, so want to preserve the groaner pun in this footnote.

2. Like a lot of quirks of publishing, this came out of unique historical circumstances. Basically, it in the Great Depression to help retailers keep stocking a variety of titles instead of only stocking the ones they knew they could sell. The practice has persisted.

3. Musk and Twitter, Ellison and TikTok, etc.

4. I have no interest in debating what punk “really” means. There isn’t a singular meaning. This is just what I took from it.

5. This is something I have to remind myself too…