The Dirty Secret the Rest of us Know

Recently author Lynn Steger Strong, wrote a much shared piece for The Guardian titled, A dirty secret: you can only be a writer if you can afford it.

The story is well written. Not controversial and I appreciate this summation at the end of the piece:

Like most other American systems and professions, delusions around meritocracy continue to pervade the writing world. Those of us who are not bolstered by outside sources, those of us who are but still struggle, and say it out loud, often run the risk of seeming whiny or ungrateful; maybe we worry we will just be thought not good enough. To be a writer is a choice, after all, and I continue to make it. But perpetuating the delusion that the choice is not impossibly risky, precarity-inducing, only hurts the participants’ ability to reconsider the various shapes their lives might take in service of sustaining it and them.

The reception to this piece as I’ve seen it shared across multiple platforms and communities I am connected to has been enthusiastic and I see a lot of writers, especially women cosigning very hard.

I appreciate that this issue is getting attention and yet, like many other WOC I have witnessed, we’ve already said this. And when we’ve talked about it, especially those of us who are Black women the responses have been, less than stellar.

Aside from the issue being presented by a white woman, the other “problem” for us is that many of the WOC I have seen write about these things, are…