"We're also far enough from the publishing power that we have no access to the politics of publishing, although there are interpersonal politics, of course"
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The line lands like a shrug, but it’s really a map of how literary prestige gets made. Dunn positions herself outside “publishing power” not as a romantic exile, but as someone who understands the machinery well enough to name what she can’t see. “Far enough” does double duty: it implies both geographic/cultural distance from New York’s gatekeepers and a kind of class distance from the rooms where decisions get laundered into “taste.” She’s not claiming purity; she’s describing a structural fact.
The phrase “politics of publishing” is pointedly abstract, almost bureaucratic. It suggests the real action isn’t just about manuscripts but about committees, favors, social capital, blurbs, prizes, timing, and whose phone calls get returned. Dunn’s subtext is that access isn’t evenly distributed, and that not having it changes what you can even perceive: power is partly invisible to those kept outside it.
Then she pivots: “although there are interpersonal politics, of course.” That “of course” is the tell. She refuses the comforting myth that the margins are politics-free. Even without institutional leverage, people still jockey, form alliances, hold grudges, cultivate scenes. The difference is scale: one set of politics can move a career with a lunch reservation; the other can only rearrange the furniture in the room you’re already in.
Coming from Dunn, a writer long admired for work that sat askew to market logic, the remark reads as both diagnosis and defense: if her trajectory didn’t follow the industry’s preferred routes, it’s not because she missed the game. It’s because she was never issued the same pass.
The phrase “politics of publishing” is pointedly abstract, almost bureaucratic. It suggests the real action isn’t just about manuscripts but about committees, favors, social capital, blurbs, prizes, timing, and whose phone calls get returned. Dunn’s subtext is that access isn’t evenly distributed, and that not having it changes what you can even perceive: power is partly invisible to those kept outside it.
Then she pivots: “although there are interpersonal politics, of course.” That “of course” is the tell. She refuses the comforting myth that the margins are politics-free. Even without institutional leverage, people still jockey, form alliances, hold grudges, cultivate scenes. The difference is scale: one set of politics can move a career with a lunch reservation; the other can only rearrange the furniture in the room you’re already in.
Coming from Dunn, a writer long admired for work that sat askew to market logic, the remark reads as both diagnosis and defense: if her trajectory didn’t follow the industry’s preferred routes, it’s not because she missed the game. It’s because she was never issued the same pass.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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