Our Full Backstory
What inspired the birth of The Rauch Review.
I began submitting my first novel to agents in 2014. To increase my chance of success, I hired a friend of a friend to help me write an excellent query letter and target the ideal agents. He had been assisting an agent at the literary division of ICM Partners, so I was excited and grateful for his insights.
After a few months, the rejections started rolling in. When agents responded to my emails with actual feedback — going beyond the automated rejection template — they all had the same reasoning: “Teach Me How To Die” did not fit neatly into one genre, so it wasn’t worth their time to pitch the manuscript to a publishing house.
During my final period of attempting to acquire representation for “Teach Me How To Die,” I attended a Reader’s Digest conference and paid good money to have extended in-person conversations with agents. Unfortunately the result was the same.
Many of these publishing professionals said “Teach Me How To Die” was both literary and fantasy, because of its afterlife setting. Agents often praised my skill and said they could tell I wrote professionally. I suspected that “literary” was a euphemism for “not trashy.”
Despite this labeling and praise, literary fiction establishments did not accept me either. Once I no longer had fresh connections from my creative writing minor at NYU, literary journals stopped publishing my short literary fiction and creative nonfiction pieces.
Eventually I realized that the gatekeepers of the literary world preferred a certain style of prose and voice. I’m not capable of describing it, but I know it when I see it. At NYU, for example, my program was filled with liberal, future Hillary Clinton-supporting white women who fawned over Zadie Smith, and I think she is an effective exemplar of that stereotypical literary tone.
I was not blessed with an affinity for this style, and agents did not think my genre-spanning pieces were marketable. Average readers enjoyed my style and ideas, but I lacked the time and resources to reach beyond my small circle of friends, family members and colleagues. It was painful to arrive at the sad conclusion that my writing skill and desire to improve were the least important factors in determining commercial or critical success as an author.
As a last resort, I tried playing up my identity, which I thought might be interesting to at least a few agents and literary journal editors. My mom is Arab, my dad is white (Ashkenazi specifically), and I was an atheist with several mental and physical illnesses. I had lived in Beirut and witnessed a bombing.
The publishing industry was filled with politically moderate, identity politics-obsessed white people, and I had witnessed them choose many authors primarily for their backgrounds. Maybe I would be one of the lucky ones.
Nope.
At a Q&A event featuring an Indian woman who had recently published her first novel, I learned the infuriating likelihood behind why agents cared about some authors’ backgrounds but not others. This wise woman explained how, because she is Indian, her publisher wanted her book cover to be a photo of an Indian woman wearing a saree, a traditional garment. The author was confused because her story was about a modern Indian woman who did not wear anything like that. When she expressed this concern to the publishing company, their team insisted on the saree cover because they had data on how well books with that type of cover sold.
Later I met a Black woman who told me her editors and creative writing program colleagues were only interested in her pieces when the theme was her identity. She had interesting thoughts and opinions on many subjects, yet she was always pressured into prioritizing her ethnic experience.
After witnessing dozens of these situations, I no longer viewed them as isolated. There was a pattern.
Publishers are much more likely to be interested in minority authors who write primarily about their identity and express their traits in ways that are easy for white people to market. Similar to the genre issue, it’s about fitting neatly into esoteric, whim-based boxes.
For those of us whose identities are more complicated or less visible, our stories are usually destined to die in the slush pile. The accepted authors are those with a talent for telling stories about their identity in a way that receives the white moderate stamp of marketing approval.
These authors often enjoy a period of support, but then they are pigeonholed. Their identities are commoditized and wrung until dry.
This problematic landscape inspired me to create The Rauch Review. I am looking for writers who have had similar experiences, who share my views and frustration — or at least find them sensible. I’ve already met dozens of you. I know more are out there somewhere.
It’s time to build a new, better literary landscape that caters to the readers and authors who have been left behind.
I began submitting my first novel to agents in 2014. To increase my chance of success, I hired a friend of a friend to help me write an excellent query letter and target the ideal agents. He had been assisting an agent at the literary division of ICM Partners, so I was excited and grateful for his insights.
After a few months, the rejections started rolling in. When agents responded to my emails with actual feedback — going beyond the automated rejection template — they all had the same reasoning: “Teach Me How To Die” did not fit neatly into one genre, so it wasn’t worth their time to pitch the manuscript to a publishing house.
During my final period of attempting to acquire representation for “Teach Me How To Die,” I attended a Reader’s Digest conference and paid good money to have extended in-person conversations with agents. Unfortunately the result was the same.
Many of these publishing professionals said “Teach Me How To Die” was both literary and fantasy, because of its afterlife setting. Agents often praised my skill and said they could tell I wrote professionally. I suspected that “literary” was a euphemism for “not trashy.”
Despite this labeling and praise, literary fiction establishments did not accept me either. Once I no longer had fresh connections from my creative writing minor at NYU, literary journals stopped publishing my short literary fiction and creative nonfiction pieces.
Eventually I realized that the gatekeepers of the literary world preferred a certain style of prose and voice. I’m not capable of describing it, but I know it when I see it. At NYU, for example, my program was filled with liberal, future Hillary Clinton-supporting white women who fawned over Zadie Smith, and I think she is an effective exemplar of that stereotypical literary tone.
I was not blessed with an affinity for this style, and agents did not think my genre-spanning pieces were marketable. Average readers enjoyed my style and ideas, but I lacked the time and resources to reach beyond my small circle of friends, family members and colleagues. It was painful to arrive at the sad conclusion that my writing skill and desire to improve were the least important factors in determining commercial or critical success as an author.
As a last resort, I tried playing up my identity, which I thought might be interesting to at least a few agents and literary journal editors. My mom is Arab, my dad is white (Ashkenazi specifically), and I was an atheist with several mental and physical illnesses. I had lived in Beirut and witnessed a bombing.
The publishing industry was filled with politically moderate, identity politics-obsessed white people, and I had witnessed them choose many authors primarily for their backgrounds. Maybe I would be one of the lucky ones.
Nope.
At a Q&A event featuring an Indian woman who had recently published her first novel, I learned the infuriating likelihood behind why agents cared about some authors’ backgrounds but not others. This wise woman explained how, because she is Indian, her publisher wanted her book cover to be a photo of an Indian woman wearing a saree, a traditional garment. The author was confused because her story was about a modern Indian woman who did not wear anything like that. When she expressed this concern to the publishing company, their team insisted on the saree cover because they had data on how well books with that type of cover sold.
Later I met a Black woman who told me her editors and creative writing program colleagues were only interested in her pieces when the theme was her identity. She had interesting thoughts and opinions on many subjects, yet she was always pressured into prioritizing her ethnic experience.
After witnessing dozens of these situations, I no longer viewed them as isolated. There was a pattern.
Publishers are much more likely to be interested in minority authors who write primarily about their identity and express their traits in ways that are easy for white people to market. Similar to the genre issue, it’s about fitting neatly into esoteric, whim-based boxes.
For those of us whose identities are more complicated or less visible, our stories are usually destined to die in the slush pile. The accepted authors are those with a talent for telling stories about their identity in a way that receives the white moderate stamp of marketing approval.
These authors often enjoy a period of support, but then they are pigeonholed. Their identities are commoditized and wrung until dry.
This problematic landscape inspired me to create The Rauch Review. I am looking for writers who have had similar experiences, who share my views and frustration — or at least find them sensible. I’ve already met dozens of you. I know more are out there somewhere.
It’s time to build a new, better literary landscape that caters to the readers and authors who have been left behind.
