Are You As Haunted and Burnt Out As a Writer As I Am or What?
In Conversation with M.M. Carrigan
The following conversation between Taco Bell Quarterly editor M.M. Carrigan and Malarkey Books print editor Alan Good took place via direct message mostly on January 13, 2022. It has been lightly edited for grammar, space, and saltiness.
M.M.: I kinda wanna interview you. I’m reading the stuff that Malarkey is putting out this year. What’s your deal? You’ve got a great eye for writers. Are you as burnt out and haunted as a writer as I am or what? A question that’s pulling at me is what’s left for writers to aspire to? I decided to try my hand at twitter and found “the writers.” Don’t ask me how I found you. Googling indie lit or something.I liked the title Barn Again.
AG: I think the Carlin quote “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it” pretty much sums me up. I’m so mad, we’ve all been lied to all these years, publishing is an inbred hellworld. You have to be in the club or tick the right boxes to get a book deal. There’s all these talented writers who have dedicated themselves to their art just wasting away.
M.M. I wanna find out what we’re all wasting away for.
AG: Sometimes I don’t know. For me the last two years have been so hard I just sort of like having too much shit to do because it keeps my mind off the horrors of everything. Plus I thought I thought about death a lot but when I turned 40 I REALLY started thinking about death a lot.
M.M.: Me too, I just turned 41. I’m in hell.
AG: But like right now trying to sell books, mine and Malarkeys, it is on my mind a lot like why the fuck are any of us doing this. The big publishers will drop $250K, $600K, millions on advances for celebrities.
M.M.: I mean, people buy dumb books by celebs at the end of the day. They pay for these places to take chances on everyone else. The problem is they take no chances.
AG: Back to the capitalism problem. The chance books deflect from all the problems in publishing, but they dangle it out there to keep us grinding. This too can be you!
M.M.: The main thing the Big 5 offers from what I can tell is care. What we want is care. We want editing, feedback, validation, professionalism, and some basic bare minimum level of exposure for our work. And money. The best small presses can offer like maybe two of those.
AG: Yep. That’s also what’s driving me, a lot of the small press stuff I’m not real happy with the quality, in terms of design and editing. I’m putting in a lot of hours on copy edits and typesetting.
M.M.: Yes Arzate and Bassey’s books look great and I’m looking at an early copy of Leigh’s.
AG: So what I see most in the indie world is the validation factor with a lot of that other stuff lacking.
M.M.: Yes I agree, definitely validation. I think that’s what TBQ has always wanted most, to actually have writers feel excited and validated to be in the big dumb Literary magazine.
AG: TBQ is like a club that you actually can be in.
M.M.: That’s a great way to describe it. I think I want writers to feel that way. It is a club, a community. The literary world is ice cold. Everyone is faking it.
AG: I also fake my confidence. To be fair.
M.M.: I fake it thinly behind taco bell corporate branding. My long game is to become a literary empire so that taco bell has to pretend it’s cool because it has too many radical writer followers.
AG: Genuinely hope your plan works! Taco Bell is how I initially learned about the concept of alternative culture. They tried to co-opt alternative/grunge music at the tail end of that scene and they had like a promo where you could get a CD with some “alternative” music with a purchase. I don’t remember the details, other than like that’s how I learned about Pearl Jam.
M.M.: Taco Bell is the ultimate co-opter. I’ve watched them nakedly jump on every trend, because I also get tagged in a lot of it now.
AG: People might give you shit, just know that as much as there’s not a good way to change the system from within there’s also not a good way to change it from without.
M.M.: People giving me shit means I gotta listen.
AG: We are psychologically complex creatures. Like I know that meritocracy is a scam but I also want people to think I am a Good Writer, and I want people to recognize that we’re making professional-quality books at Malarkey and act accordingly by showering us with money and esteem.
M.M.: Yes exactly. The money part is impossible. I’m finding out how to get one of them NEA grants next year somehow.
AG: Another way to get people mad at you!
M.M. I’m trying to figure out how to go nonprofit so I can write this shit off but it’s expensive.
AG: The business/administrative shit kills me.
M.M.: And apparently you have to be smart to know how to do it. I’m not smart like that.
AG: If you go nonprofit you have to get a Board.
M.M. Yeah I was reading that, it’s too hardcore.
AG: Maybe the CEO of Taco Bell will be on your board.
M.M.: Haha that would piss people off. Taco Bell stopped talking to me because the FTC investigated them after they gave me those gift cards.
AG: Holy shit!
M.M.: I don’t even understand it and don’t care.
AG: That’s like the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Is this the interview?
M.M.: No, I’m just bored. It could be though. I really just wanted to encourage you because I was reading Leigh Chadwick’s book.
AG: Thanks. I’m insanely stressed about being responsible for all these books right now.
M.M.: It’s needed work. The writers need it. Budgets cuts and baby boomers are killing off literary magazines and small press and there will be nothing except staff writers at The New Yorker cracking jokes about bad writing and kidney donations to aspire to.
AG: That is quite nice to hear.
M.M.: Maybe we should just rant more about Conjunctions and all of these literary magazines dying. What do you make of that? My thoughts are rambling and angry and not fit for publication.
AG: Well see I wasn’t even familiar with Conjunctions until the other day. But basically I’d say all the places that rely on educational institutions are doomed.
M.M.: Who will fund The Arts? Where will it exist?
AG: It’ll all be like Northwest Arkansas where everything good is bestowed upon us by The Waltons.
M.M.: That’s inspiring. Says the inspiring taco bell magazine.
AG: Dibs on The Walmart Review.
M.M.: Thank god I got dibs on Taco Bell I might make it out alive.
This interview first appeared in Pontoon, our irregularly published literary journal that is not only Bigger Than The Paris Review but, well, honestly, probably more interesting. There’s ten really great short stories plus poems by Tiffany Belieu and Leigh Chadwick. The PDF is available for cheap here and the print version is available in our store. We don’t have offshore accounts, no one gifted us startup money (not the CIA, not anyone’s billionaire dad), all we have is our readers, who are great!
