I appreciate the way you've thought through this. As many criticisms as we can have, at the structural/discourse level, of doing a press focused on male authors... if Conduit publishes an interesting novel that wouldn't have been published otherwise, I think that's a good thing! And that hypothetical novel should be evaluated on its own merits, not where it sits in a greater discourse. It won't be, but it should.
Also - Zando is the same company that recently acquired Tin House. Pretty sad that they're now under the same roof as TikTok.
Thank you, Sam for an informative and pertinent post. I have reservations about a male-only publisher (bless them) but I’m all for redressing the balance if it’s tipped too far the other way. It probably had to after centuries of ‘the cannon’.
As for ‘Book tok’ I’m grateful for your comments. When I saw a whole shelf unit dedicated to it in a wonderful independent bookshop in Cockermouth, I was bemused. Was this what I was going to have to do to promote my next novel? Read excerpts and dance at the same time? Heaven forfend. Now I know their aims, and how they operate (I live in a small writer’s bubble!) I’ll give them a miss and pass on the grim news
As a children's author I feel blissfully spared from booktok - and rather hope it will have collapsed by the time I get around to writing that adult novel in the back of my mind! Re Conduit, I think "men" is the wrong group to support - because, as with schemes that prioritise "women", it often means white middle/upper middle class cis straight women. I'd love to see an imprint for men with other axes of minoritisation. That could produce some truly unseen work. And I'll hold off judgement, maybe it WILL focus on that.
Ella Creamer’s piece cites Welsh saying men need to read more before they write, so if Conduit gets to work on that, cool. And if they publish a good book that may never have appeared otherwise and the writing touched the reader in the heart so he (I’m using he here to take forward the Welsh point…but it does beg the question of how many women would go for books published by Conduit) goes on reading, then that may work for me. Who knows, maybe this reader guy I’ve posited will start to read books by women.
But, for me, it’s probably more of a turn-off. I don’t want my reading to be steered through something that runs the risk of special pleading. And, in any case, I’m not good with many modern (loosely) men writers: I feel alienated reading straight men writing about men I don’t understand, who I am wary of, whose interpretations through writing of their experiences leave me outside. So for me, and I get maybe not, well certainly not I guess, for many others (hence the perceived need for Conduit) identitarianism is far from the pitfall.
Andrew O’Hagan skewers an element of this shtick neatly in a strand running through his Caledonian Road. I’m not captivated by lots of the book, but his piss-take of male pleading, and a cynical financial and intellectual manipulation of it, is I think a helpful side-note.
I do see why Conduit Press exists. But given that for so long, women weren't allowed "a room of one's own", and are still shoved down the list in so many other areas of life, it's not really surprising there was a social media pile-on (can't say I'm a fan - it just seems like bullying to me, and without much thought).
Certain white men feel like they're being shoved aside (are they? Or is it because they've hogged every seat forever while manspreading and some of their seats are now being shared out to others and they don't like losing griund?). I think a publisher like Conduit could help to resolve that, in a small way. It would mean men would feel heard. Issues like toxic masculinity need to be explored - not just by women who are on the receiving end of it, but men who can be on the receiving end of it too. And who might even have been toxic and found a way out. Would it even encourage more men to read books? But then again, the most toxic of toxic men aren't going to be reading books which they feel challenge their stance as Superman.
And aside from that, we might be missing out on human stories. When I was a child, my brother and I were looked after for several years by our single-parent dad. How many books are there which explore that? (I assume there must be some, but none spring to mind!) I was so pleased to watch "Blossom" and even the completely bonkers "Round the Twist", because it was about families raised by a single father. I can see Conduit partly being a place where those stories have a place.
But there we are. These things need more words to explore than other social media usually allows!
I appreciate the way you've thought through this. As many criticisms as we can have, at the structural/discourse level, of doing a press focused on male authors... if Conduit publishes an interesting novel that wouldn't have been published otherwise, I think that's a good thing! And that hypothetical novel should be evaluated on its own merits, not where it sits in a greater discourse. It won't be, but it should.
Also - Zando is the same company that recently acquired Tin House. Pretty sad that they're now under the same roof as TikTok.
Hey thank you! And: yes, a good thing. I hope it gets a correspondingly warm reception. Guess we’ll see, as you say. (Didn’t know that about zando.)
Thank you, Sam for an informative and pertinent post. I have reservations about a male-only publisher (bless them) but I’m all for redressing the balance if it’s tipped too far the other way. It probably had to after centuries of ‘the cannon’.
As for ‘Book tok’ I’m grateful for your comments. When I saw a whole shelf unit dedicated to it in a wonderful independent bookshop in Cockermouth, I was bemused. Was this what I was going to have to do to promote my next novel? Read excerpts and dance at the same time? Heaven forfend. Now I know their aims, and how they operate (I live in a small writer’s bubble!) I’ll give them a miss and pass on the grim news
As a children's author I feel blissfully spared from booktok - and rather hope it will have collapsed by the time I get around to writing that adult novel in the back of my mind! Re Conduit, I think "men" is the wrong group to support - because, as with schemes that prioritise "women", it often means white middle/upper middle class cis straight women. I'd love to see an imprint for men with other axes of minoritisation. That could produce some truly unseen work. And I'll hold off judgement, maybe it WILL focus on that.
Ella Creamer’s piece cites Welsh saying men need to read more before they write, so if Conduit gets to work on that, cool. And if they publish a good book that may never have appeared otherwise and the writing touched the reader in the heart so he (I’m using he here to take forward the Welsh point…but it does beg the question of how many women would go for books published by Conduit) goes on reading, then that may work for me. Who knows, maybe this reader guy I’ve posited will start to read books by women.
But, for me, it’s probably more of a turn-off. I don’t want my reading to be steered through something that runs the risk of special pleading. And, in any case, I’m not good with many modern (loosely) men writers: I feel alienated reading straight men writing about men I don’t understand, who I am wary of, whose interpretations through writing of their experiences leave me outside. So for me, and I get maybe not, well certainly not I guess, for many others (hence the perceived need for Conduit) identitarianism is far from the pitfall.
Andrew O’Hagan skewers an element of this shtick neatly in a strand running through his Caledonian Road. I’m not captivated by lots of the book, but his piss-take of male pleading, and a cynical financial and intellectual manipulation of it, is I think a helpful side-note.
I do see why Conduit Press exists. But given that for so long, women weren't allowed "a room of one's own", and are still shoved down the list in so many other areas of life, it's not really surprising there was a social media pile-on (can't say I'm a fan - it just seems like bullying to me, and without much thought).
Certain white men feel like they're being shoved aside (are they? Or is it because they've hogged every seat forever while manspreading and some of their seats are now being shared out to others and they don't like losing griund?). I think a publisher like Conduit could help to resolve that, in a small way. It would mean men would feel heard. Issues like toxic masculinity need to be explored - not just by women who are on the receiving end of it, but men who can be on the receiving end of it too. And who might even have been toxic and found a way out. Would it even encourage more men to read books? But then again, the most toxic of toxic men aren't going to be reading books which they feel challenge their stance as Superman.
And aside from that, we might be missing out on human stories. When I was a child, my brother and I were looked after for several years by our single-parent dad. How many books are there which explore that? (I assume there must be some, but none spring to mind!) I was so pleased to watch "Blossom" and even the completely bonkers "Round the Twist", because it was about families raised by a single father. I can see Conduit partly being a place where those stories have a place.
But there we are. These things need more words to explore than other social media usually allows!
excited to see what conduit publishes tbh. most new indies are exciting