Garrison Keillor wants you to know he walked to school uphill both ways in the snow, and also a bowtie he tied himself.

Garrison Keillor wrote an obnoxious and condescending op-ed for the New York Times last Monday, and for your sake I do hope you were not unfortunate enough to have read it.

The final graf begins thus: “Children, I am an author who used to type a book manuscript on a manual typewriter.” And that pretty much tells you all you need to know about the rest of the piece’s tone and content.

I’ve listened to a lot of Keillor in the past, and will readily agree that he is a master storyteller and ersatz symbol of all things drippingly Midwestern and folksy. Yet his particular take on the Death of Publishing [cue dramatic music] makes me believe that his entire worldview is literally stuck in 1957.

I started writing a much longer rebuttal to Keillor’s self-indulgent tsk-tskery, but then I read a glorious piece at Flavorwire, where he is taken down in grand fashion by several current book editors, publicists, and critics. I advise you to read the entire piece.

In the end, Keillor’s message is just one more thinly veiled pity-party; he cares not so much about the arguable demise of publishing as an industry, but about the unwashed masses who now have the ability to reach an audience without the barriers to entry that he encountered. You can almost hear him whining, “But it’s not fair.”

I’m really sorry, Mr. Keillor, but your club is no longer invitation-only.

71 Notes/ Hide

  1. bymomo reblogged this from delgrosso
  2. atomicovermind reblogged this from tbridge and added:
    I have to say…count me in the Keillor camp on this one. We may be gaining something new, but if you deny we’re losing...
  3. freshmn reblogged this from tbridge and added:
    I hate that so many people’s opinion of Minnesota is shaped by Garrison Keillor.
  4. tbridge reblogged this from delgrosso
  5. gatsbylives said: Indignant Tony is the best of all your personalities. ;)
  6. librariansoul reblogged this from delgrosso
  7. nedhepburn said: but he sounds like a storytelling bear! has nooobody else thought that?
  8. escapereality reblogged this from delgrosso and added:
    “Culture doesn’t...publishing. Culture needs writers