>> when i was a new ph.d. in 1970 i added my first anthology. "this is it."

and there is a book called women's liberation and literature and i think it was the first textbook for feminist criticism that was never published. a new ph.d. with my professorship job and felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to do the book for my readers. putting my tax together was not hard decided not know of that many but i got a real shock when they sent down to the copyright holders to reprint the work. i had wanted to include sylvia platt celebrated poem daddy. we probably although the pollack and wanted to include two others i was

going for broke and i wrote to the executor and also the sister of her estranged husband he was rumored to be a ferocious% and all responded that to reprinted daddy would cost me $100. i was paying for the permission fees out of the pistons of the book and is a beginning assistant professor with two kids i had not very much money of my own and the other two poems i asked for were $50 each. that was the beginning of my literary career. i settled for the $50 poem. i struck a bargain in bought one that is quite long and is magnificent between two win it was cheaper than

daddy for reasons that we can speculate about. that was my introduction to the business of the of literary anthology as the idealistic young scholar and never occurred to me that poem's could be graded by the ticket price as well as by their quality. that experience changed my a perception of literature for ever and from then on i really understood that literature it is always a business and poems and stories and essays and novels are products of the marketplace as well as acts of the creative imagination and professional writers depend on the market value as well as critical reception. in this new collection i have to poems by sylvia platt and i have to tell you i still cannot afford daddy. [laughter] because those-- when hundred dollars was the unbelievable board did -- target node has

escalated so i still cannot pay for it i turn to other powerful poems written in the last few months before her suicide and i realized that sometimes financial constraint for sues you to looked beyond the conventional to find something wonderful. not all the time but in this case. fast forward to the present. i signed a contract which as many women writers but the literary history more than the anthology and my editor suggested it would be a good idea to put together the anthology to be published in paperback that is a book i am talking about today that was the extremely welcome suggestion i know many of the work is out of print and reader said american i get ahold of the text now that i

am interested in them? and i knew from the beginning i could not possibly include all of the important work by eight american writers in a single volume. on the other hand before this there has never been a single volume anthology of women's writing from the beginning. we see a staggering omission and i knew that i wanted to make the anthology to put together a book that was affordable and economically not weighted down by the apparatus of the textbook and brought together stories and poems and essays by american women writers that would reflect their diversity and works that were beautiful and tragic or funny or satirical or

inspiring more all of the above. the anthology overall was intended to offer a minicam and a partial list of who is the most significant women writers of the literary tradition to provide a map to american literature in general. all of us know that today the anthology is a genre pretty much dominated by a few large and wealthy publishers who can afford to hire the researchers required to put a good book together and who has the bottomless pockets to pay the staggering permission fees most of the important and why a ranging anthologies are at the textbook market. multi volume marks over

5,000 pages and have passed budgets and vast sales of the student captive market for the price of textbooks and over the past 15 years they are getting bigger and more a leverage and expensive and package now with pictures coming teaching manuals and in some cases, audio and video supplements for you buy a the entire experience and that is not what i was trying to do. want to put together a book for the general reader as well as the undergraduate and to do that without the enormous committees and consultations. i started by making a list of all the work i would like to include in the utopian

publishing world then with the help with a grant i was able to pay three graduate assistants one from princeton and one from harvard to see if there was works i had overlooked. vented had established, there goes my earring. i will let you again on all of the financial statistics of putting the anthology together they establish a rough guideline of 800 pages. they were willing to pay about $20,000 of permission fees which is probably about 110 per less than what the big textbook publisher has. it is a huge business. 800 pages, $20,000. copyright law is different in every country.

the guidelines of the united states were to get permission for everything published after 1922. they figure that would cover everything. canadian law is different and i had to get canadian rights and british law is also very different but no british publisher was willing to put up the money to produce the anthology of american women writers and that is a shame. that gives a bit of the background. however, even with my realistic and the cynical view and publishing and with the encouragement back up from my very patient and endlessly optimistic editor editor, i was really unprepared for the nightmare of getting permission. i cut my list at 100 writers. i had to write for copyright

permission for 48 of them under copyright protection. i started one year before it was the education for me practiced and the bureaucracy and greed and control or out to write lying and also the circumstances of leadership. i thought naively that to the many executors' would be happy to have forgotten some long forgotten poll that nobody had talked about in 40 years and i would say i will reprint this call the vintage book isn't that good? not one bit. they did not see this as an opportunity to find a new audiences there were two

exceptions peter davis davis, whose wonderful story is in the book and fabulous story which recommend was happy to have his mother's work made available and exceptionally generous with his terms with overall copyright holders made it as hard as possible for me to anthologize and reprint the right jurors' work. permission editors blocked my letters intel prodded by their bosses for the aggrieved authors and miraculously they located the letters in a matter of minutes. at one press the permissions editor was quite annoyed with me for continuing to pester her about one writer's work because she had many other responsibilities. i am sure that is true because publishers like every other business are having a lot of things to do.

i would think they would be centralized and on the website publishers say they will respond to queries and they warn you not to telephone. and facts several of the largest publishers took up to five months to reply to simple queries. in one case i could never get a reply from the copyright holder in just gave up. why isn't so and so in the book? these of the reasons why they do not make it into the books. back in 1970's $100 was a lot of money but poems and stories is a lot more costly the price is set by the copyright holder no standard

you charge what the market can bear and what you think you can get away with no correlation to ranks or to the fame of the writer or the classic nature of the work you may expect to pay a lot of money in a classic story you could be charged as much for the 10 line poem that nobody has ever heard of and there seems to be no sense among executors' there might be some kind of discussion to these people get together and talk to each other about what they're selling? they ask for it exorbitant sums for lesser work some laudable authors whether political or radical or feminist they were just as demanding and uncompromising as those with much more commercial and mainstream. carry no sin who is a

left-wing editor himself of modern american poetry has written that trying to reprint work by radical writers is the real force of the expression in the red. [laughter] kerry nelson who i know and whose experience which we described in a funny article was very similar. he enjoyed bargaining with publishers. he likes making offers they could not refuse. of this publisher offered oxford university press i did tell myself but did it with good cop and bad cops threatening to drop their riders altogether if the publishers do not come through to cut their fees. i did a little bit of bargaining. many publishers took so long to reply that the book had

actually gone to press before i ever heard back from them. to negotiations were concluded on the final day at the last possible minute before the book was set in print. it even an important writer cannot always control copyright. i did include those wonderful short story golden glove but i wanted to included because it is about a boxer i wanted to include counter intuitive examples. women write about everything and not just limited to feminine subjects. i wrote and asked her for many months and appeal to joyce herself who was an old friend and supporter of the anthology in women's raking in general and was very glad i wanted to reprint the story it has never been anthologized before. but it turns out the copyright of golden glove was held by a former

publisher she had left many, many years ago and the rights never reverted to her. she appealed to them to be merciful to charge me a very low some but of course, they did not and charged a whopping fee which we paid and in many cases as an academic writer and other of the writers the writers themselves never get paid on these copyright royalties from the publisher. it is limbo land where the royalties go. who is in control? in addition to the financial battle, many of the agent secretaries insisted to look at the head notes of the selection of the writer and want to critique and make

sure it is all okay. several of them wanted to know where xerox copies of the writer who comes before them or after them in the book. the book is an arrangement of writers date of birth so i did not have a lot of flexibility on that. there were writers with their ages who demanded revisions of the head notes and objected to critical statements i made about them. in one case they complain that have not given sufficient space and detail to the authors political causes. finally i had to drop 20 of my original 100 writers because they were too expensive or too demanding or to controlling with their request. and nine of you will be surprised to hear that once they agreed to the and

signed the contract the same publishers wasted no time to send out their bill. they were very speedy about that so to put together a literary anthology has a lot of painful and editorial decisions. i needed assistance have a diet include excerpts published after 1900 plant and are very long, not that readable that you want to have a sense they are represented with 20th century. but i did want to include our major women novelists for joe torre -- toni morrison who said why isn't she in the book? okay. she has published one short story came out 1983 that there is any anthology of american writers that story

will be in it because that is the short story and it is pretty good but it is long, very expensive as you can imagine. and i had to choose between including that or five other pieces by other women writers. now robinson and other contemporary women have also only published one short-story and did not want to have their reprinted for i think it is good but she does not want it to come to life again for foul a number of favorite contemporary writers off for a very expensive and if you look at literary anthology especially the deal with the contemporary period it may be 11 per poet because poetry is cheaper you can get more riders if he is a

poem. not always i did not want to go that route and i did want to have a lot of choices and i could but i will mention i have been cut from the anthology myself as a critic around 2000 the norton anthology of criticism came down and the editors had to cut 300 pages at the last minute and "the new york times" growth this up and published on the front page and noted that along with others elaine showalter was dropped from the book. [laughter] one of my proudest moments. [laughter] although the students reacted as this i was the host of the most elite -- leed is club they thought it was so horrible

that the anthology is about the art of the possible nonetheless i am very happy how it turned out and i am excited to say readers can find astonishing work or funny work by writers who will be new to them that i feel should be recognized and i hope they will be able to recognize the styles that are characteristic of american women's writing and those that are allegory use by women writers including those like katharine cedric and harper and shirley jackson and i could go on and on. i want to conclude my

reading called she and names them. how many know this piece? my daughter. [laughter] otherwise this will be something new to you and i hope that you like it. it is set in the garden of eden and told by a rebellious the fan reflected at the time the concern our fascination of the feminist with escaping from patriarchal language that it is a language invented by men then told what we can express. and creating a new way to speak so she names them those with the perfect indifference which they had so long excepted whales and dolphins and seals and sea

otters consented with great alacrity and sliding into anonymity and a faction of the ax protested and that almost everyone who knew they existed called them that. , the ubiquitous creatures such as rats and fleas have had in many games it was so redundant for a yak point* of view they never spoke of themselves. after they presented the argument that a full consensus made up of blizzard, soon after the beginning the agreement was

reached a of the designation yak was returned. >> but few horses cared anybody called them chickens geese or turkey all agreed enthusiastically to whom they belong to. too many names belong and a couple of problems did come up to and they denied ever having had any names ask and still unspoken and which is which they spend long hours daily contemplating. with some lovebirds and ravens that the trouble arose. these verbally talented individuals were important to them and flatly refuse to

part with them but as soon as they understood the issue was precisely of individual choice anybody wanted to be called rover or birdie in a personal sense was free to do so. not one had an objection to be with the german creatures with the appellations of poodles are parents or dogs or birds it all the kuala fairs that trail behind like tin cans. the in six parts to with their names and tunneling away from it and throughout the oceans like faint dark words and drifted off nine

left to remain but yet how close i felt to them when i see one of them swim or fly over trod or fall or stock be in the night then when then name stood between myself for them or so close i fear them in their fear of me became one of the same. the desire to smell smells smells, but to keep one another warm that attraction was all one and the hunter could not be told from the hunted or the teacher from the food. this is the fact i have been after it was somewhat more powerful than i anticipated

but could not now make an exception for myself so i resolutely put anxiety away and said you and your father gave it to me it has been very useful but does not seem to fit very well but thank you very much it is very useful it is hard to do give back the gift and i do not want to the void that impression he was not paying attention and said went on was what he was doing. one of the reasons that talk was getting nowhere but i felt a little letdown am prepared to defend my decision and thought he may want to talk and fiddled around but continue to do what he was doing and take notice of anything else so

good by. he said without looking around, okay when is dinner? i am not sure. i am going now. i hesitated and said with them. i had only then just realized how hard it was to explain myself cry could not chatter away as i used to taking it for granted and my words now must be as low and a new and single and tentative as the steps i took going down the path away from the house between the dark branch to all the answers motionless against the winter shading. >> guy want to leave you with a question about this table does this speaker give

back the name eve or woman and what difference would it make if it was either one? and now you have questions or comments seven be very happy. [applause] >> i have a question. that were the copyrights mostly men? >> no, no, no. as i said the most politically radical writers were just as bad as the others it is all a product of capitalism but if you were against that or not to it did not matter you tried to get whatever you cut and a number of the people may

be all permission editors except for one where women. they don't pay them very well and get lots of other jobs and this falls by the wayside. anybody who has done the anthology will tell you what a nightmare it is to get the permission spread it seems that the internet is made for. why can this be handled online why can be standardize or a commission that gets together to settle on a fee? and to make it easy to get it done but it is very old-fashioned. >> i want to teach all over again and start all over. [laughter] i think this is a wonderful book emily dickinson its i found it so appalling to have to pay harvard to print anything of emily dickinson and i noticed that you have

three they are all out of copyright. >> not necessarily. i think all among the dickinson is wonderful but this is what it comes down to. i think it is fascinating because as a reader this is not what you think about and you don't realize when you look at the budget and faced with spending several thousand dollars to the works and you get a chance to get some of it for free or for less, this is what you have to do. it is a fascinating case study of commerce and art and production and education and these are hard decisions to make but it is a system that is entrenched. >> you do not get the one. >> i do have the latest.

. . indeed she rose and the addendum that i quoted in the book. she has always struggled with whether she is a woman writer. she doesn't like to be called a woman writer because as she was growing up, this is a her essay, being a woman writer was accepting inferiority. she has gotten over that now.

i am not going to name names. i was amazed at people i thought would be understanding and happy. it is not the ryder's fault in most cases. the origin is a complicated series of strata. once you get into that you get into the legal and financial aspects of a writer. >> wonderful. >> i am just wondering -- >> an interesting question. a short time ago it was assumed that it was.

whether it was assumed that it was not as good, which many males and critics believe that many women came do believe themselves as they wrote or after the movement that was assumed women have a totally different nature and ways of looking at the world in a book filled with different topics and even as ursula le win speculated different language. we are past that in the twenty-first century. they are women -- you might recognize the scene you think is feminine or americans but other times you don't. that is a really good saying. a step toward creative freedom. on the other hand, this is another of nexus of the market.

when they are reviewed. you see it every week. the post is very good about that and very aware. the new york times not so good. as choice karos said when she sat down to write, just a writer. that sums it up pretty effectively. whatever people think a woman writer might be. [inaudible] >> women in turn allies to it. there are anthologies of women writing. anthologies of women writing collectively. there was an anthology of black writing. can you imagine anybody saying i

won't begin that? is because they thought it was a stigma. i will say in this anthology, it was a kind of progress. >> still struggling with marginality. fink about identifying with that nature. [inaudible] >> still a sense of marginality

for women writers and other minority writers not that women are a minority. they feel they are not quite representative of all hole. there is a marginal view and can speak for the entire culture. >> i think that most women like the idea of being identified as women. there is a pride that there wasn't before. what we haven't achieved is a balance. i am part of this society. the fact of the balance, there is a lag with the critics.

>> absolutely right. it is particularly problematic for american writers because we have this fantasy called the great american novel. and it has always been assumed the great american novel must be about the male experience. women are just some how excluded from that category and in the past decade we had a number of famous writers who died, every time a great american male writer dies there are a spate of articles. who is going to take sallinger's police? who is writing the great american novel now? there will be a list of 20 male writers, even elderly male writers and maybe one woman stuck on at the end. it is very frustrating because

the assumption is that the female experience is not the american experience and certainly not the great american experience that will be reflected in the novel and is really hard to contend with that. there was a tremendous lack about jonathan friends and whose novel was picked up by a number of critics, just hiked. this was another great american novel. it is about a lot of things women right about. it is about families. domestic life. some women writers say women don't get this kind of attention. this kind of focus that hasn't happened yet. diaz -- the exclusion is attributed to the subject matter. is really about gender. it is a man writing about the family that is a contender.

>> you talk about how it is perceived in america. is it different in different countries where women officers are treated differently in europe and asia? >> absolutely. it is different country by country and i won't try to go through it. anywhere where i started to do of a following work on the english novel and where i live part of the time is not in england. not that english writers are totally happy, but not the same tradition or hope of the great english novel and in addition if you look at the literary tradition there are a number of women who helped form it.

it is extremely hard to come in at this point when they created it. the expectations are different. if you look at nineteenth century literature in the united states most people when i ask this question identify two american writers, emily dickinson and harriet beecher stowe and dickenson is accepted the violence taught a course at with a male colleague. when it came to dickenson he said i can't read the little bitty poems. i don't want to bother with that. there are a few throwbacks. harriet beecher stowe entered as a best seller and a pulp fiction writer. someone who wrote very important fiction and huge historical

impact but not as an artist. one thing i tried to do in my book is to contest that attitude. we don't have an american jane austen or woman novelist with the same status. that has to be challenged. we have to say all these women writers producing artistically significant work who never got the attention they deserve. we need to dismantle this. if you read reviews in england they won't be quite the same balance there is in american and there are a lot more venues for book reviewing and great britain than the united states and a lot more different voices in each publication and they are dwindling. >> two questions related to what

you mentioned. first one is when you said it is written by a female author it is friendly but by mela their -- can that be attributable to gender discrimination? just out of curiosity, why male writers versus female writers is it 60/40? and also the reviewer's? 60/40? >> i can't answer very precisely your question about how many. it depends on what you are looking at. at new york times, there have been studies in the new york times book review which is the dominant reviewing form in the united states and the other is

that closed down. very recently there was a study in the new york times and the reviewers were primarily male. the times got touchy about that in my opinion because the last several issues on the cover with two reviews by women, they started making up as hard as they could. in the other places they will be equal or more women. the don't think it is standardized. i couldn't answer about proportion of male or female writers. my view is they are roughly equal. what i do know and i know barbara will confirm this for me is women are the majority of the consumers of fiction whether it is by men or women. women by the vast majority of novels, poems by any writer, male or female. when the great carla cohen was

with as she set about politics and prose people come in the front door did is like a wedding. men toy history and sociology and women turn towards fiction. there have been lots of studies that show that. with the difference is discrimination i don't like the word discrimination. stereotypes and received opinions. i don't think this day and age people feel uncomfortable if they thought they were discriminated but they are expressing attitudes they have that are very ingrained and very hard to eliminate. they have to be made aware of that. every now and then you will get a woman writer publishing under a male pseudonym. that was very common in europe when you ask about other traditions. american women writers have very rarely use the mails to know limbs where in europe all over

europe this was common to get equal treatment from the critics and readers. it happens rarely year. when it does happen people are confound. they can't believe it. they start reading a work they think is by a man and react to it in a particular way and when it is unveiled being the work of a woman they don't know what to say. they are stunned at one of the cases i talk about is her work is represented in the anthology of 12. a wonderful woman named alice children who lived in the washington area and wrote under the name of james henry jr.. she started writing in the 70s. we are not talking the dark ages. she wanted to write science fiction. alice sheldon had been in the army in world war ii. she was stationed in a military base and have a ph.d. in biochemistry and work for the cia. she is also the daughter of a

safari traveler all over the world and hunted wild animals and so on and when the science fiction started to come out, who is this heroic wonderful writer? she won called the award you can get in the science fiction. everyone said this is the best there has ever been and all this speculation that this is somebody who clearly has been a spy, clearly is a scientist and a military man. a very adventurous man and eventually james was touted as a woman. when that happened, that is a relief. i don't have to do that anymore and she kept writing. nobody wanted to read the books.

it is melodramatic to say she committed suicide but she did. i don't want to say this was a cause and effect. it doesn't help. fares a persistent attitude about what kind of work men produce. and the signature is really what we are talking about. not creativity. not imagination or skill. signature. is a man's name or a woman's name? in europe, a lot of writers published under their initials. and mystery writers particularly. they are gender neutral and they don't know if it is a man or a woman. when they discover it is too late to change their mind. all of these things make a big difference. >> time for one more quick question. >> this is my last question.

if most of the fishing and leaders are women, i don't know if a poll was conducted but if you were to conduct a poll and ask are you a man or woman, why do you think -- >> i don't think it would be very conclusive because women are willing to read books by male writers and i will ask the women in this room most of you are like me would you were little girls do you read about boys? how many did? read books about boys when you were a little girl? you didn't? you didn't read the hardy boys or hooks shin or anything like that? and if you ask boys how many when you were little boys did you read books about girls? not many. even the great american girls books of all time, little women

which is a book every year some people call -- even sarah palin has read it. what was your favorite children's book and all the women will say little women. never been cited by man. men don't read little men either. any little men? no way. no way. they are not going to do it. the thing is to read about fetterman experience is feminizing and stigmatizing for a man. to read about male experience is expanding and positive for a woman. so women will read with happiness work by men and women. >> that is interesting because she did right under a pseudonym

for many years. was contraband the one you have in here? >> some of those are very recent. and they were read by men. >> they didn't know. and there are some things in the books that were written. i put in some early things by women that are quite violent. not at all what you expect of nineteenth century women. as an indication they're very interesting but as an indication that women could write anything but were expected to write in a certain way. the sworn, the contempt of male writers towards their female competitors which is what they were well into the 20th century was extraordinary. we are talking of foreign to hemingway. absolute contempt. that is because often the women

were selling better. look for the money. you can't neglect has a factor though there were other factors. thank you for so much for coming. hon this stormy night, i really appreciate it very much. >> elaine showalter discussing her book "the vintage book of american women writers" at politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c.. is there a nonfiction on tour of quote you would like to see featured on booktv? e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org war e-mail us at booktv.org. the c-span network provide coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books and american history. it is available on television, radio, online and social media sites. find our content through c-span video library and we take c-span

on the road with our local content vehicle bringing resources to your community. it is watching to your way. the c-span network available in 1 hundred million homes created by cable provided as a public service. >> after 27 years of operation the well-known washington d.c. independent bookstore politics and prose has been sold and we are taking this opportunity on booktv to talk with the new co owner. bradley graham formerly of the washington post. congratulations to you. what made you by an independent bookstore in 2011? >> guest: thanks very much. very excited about taking over politics and prose. as journalist and author, former senior government staff, we have

been very involved in and contributing in various ways to the washington community and we see this move to politics and prose as part of the same sort of thing. did is another way to continue to contributes to the community. we really believe in the mission. much more than a book store. the community institution. a forum for debate and discussion and believe in the need for such forums. >> mr. graham is referring to his wife who is the new co owner of politics and prose. what changes do you think there needs to be in order to stay competitive? >> guest: there's a lot about politics and prose that is very

strong. the sales are strong. there is a loyal customer base. at a time when the industry has been facing threats from the books and declining readership, sales have continued to rise. first and foremost, preserve everything that was made, politics and prose a success. for the store to remain relevant and influential and technologically up-to-date they are going to have to be some changes. carla and barred recognized that over the years. the store evolve under their leadership but just what additional directions we hope to move the store in we are still formulating. we are beginning the process of talking to the staff and getting

some of their ideas. we would like to survey opinion among politics and prose customers so this will be an evolving process in terms of deciding what new directions and initiatives to undertake. >> host: when you were researching whether or not to purchase this tour i read you visited a lot of independent bookstores around the country. did you find any similarities among the independent bookstores? >> i did. for all the disappearance of a number of stores in the industry in recent years, what is impressive about the business is a number of bookstores have survived and remains strong and i was interested in seeing why that is so i visited a number -- around the country and i found some common threads.

i found those that are continuing to succeed have strong community roots. very dedicated owner, operators trying a number of different initiatives. i did not find that anybody anywhere has hit on a kind of solution to keeping their store successful. it is more a matter of a baseball analogy of hitting a signal and getting on base. looking at politics and prose i came away reassured that this store has many attributes for success that other stores around the country particularly the loyal customer base, large

number of avid readers and great reputation that still has a lot of unrealized value in it. >> host: barbara meade and carla cohen were known for working the floor at politics and prose. booktv viewers have come because they have seen it so often, come to visit politics and prose in washington, will they be able to meet you? will you be on the floor? >> i intended to be at least 4 full time. one of the great strengths of politics and prose is the staff. we are in herring a tremendously talented, deep bench of experts about books of all kinds. they have participated in introducing a number of authors. they are the reasons so many

customers come to the store seeking advice and we are counting on many of them if all of them to remain and carry on. >> host: do you see a need for politics and prose to move into the selling of digital books or enhance the of the web site? >> guest: we are looking at enhancing the web site. we think that will be important. we realize the threat from e books but it is not a threat we will run away from. we are hoping to provide an opportunity for self publishing. we are looking at print on demand machine like other stories required around the country. there are a host of initiatives that you will see beginning to take shape