If the Literary Scene was a High School Cafeteria

I have a fairly vivid imagination, and ever since I “kind of” “entered” the literary scene less than a year ago—via reading literary blogs, following publishing news, joining Twitter and following literary peeps there, joining this here Specter staff, etc.—I can’t but imagine the contemporary American literary scene as some sort of bizarre cliquey high school lunch room scene. Mainly based off of my intense Twittering, I’ve gotten the impression that the literary scene is some kind of super-interconnected incestuous being, even though there are in fact so many different independent journals, publishing houses, and writers out there.

Here is a glimpse of the strange lunch room cafeteria that is the American Contemporary Lit Scene, through my eyes:

In the middle of the cafeteria sits Random House. Alfred A. Knopf looks exactly like his Twitter picture. Occasionally they do fun things like pretend to be zombies, but on the other hand occasionally they throw dollar bills in the air and roll around in them, confusing and upsetting many. (Mind you, these are only one-dollar bills, since this is the publishing industry.) Everyone secretly or not-so-secretly wants to be their best friend.

The separate Penguin Group, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster (with Stephen King at the head of their table), Scholastic, and MacMillan tables are not far away. Sometimes Snooki shows up with a red cup. Norton is at a table off to the side, wearing hipster glasses. Graywolf is always nearby, drifting in-between these tables and those of independent publishers like Milkweed Editions. Graywolf has many friends.

Next to these tables is a table of James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Danielle Steel, Tom Clancy, Nicholas Sparks, etc. They call themselves “The Bestsellers.” They are loud and laugh a lot, and generally ignore the rest of the cafeteria. Stephanie Meyer is lurking nearby.

The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, n+1, etc. all tend to group together, though the New Yorker likes to dominate the conversation among that group. Everyone pays attention, but when The New Yorker isn’t looking, they gossip about him and roll their eyes. “Frenemies.”

Tao Lin is probably eating something strange and talking to Megan Boyle in the corner.

GalleyCat and Publishers Weekly compete to be editors of the school newspaper. HTMLGiant, BookSlut, and the Rumpus write the Life & Style section together.

Amazon is basically the equivalent of Randall from Recess—slimy, with everyone secretly wanting to beat them up.

And, of course, the Specter staff is sitting at a table near the corner. William Henderson, mensah, and Brett are probably discussing something non-lit related, and mensah is wearing a Darth Vader mask. There is an overflowing ash tray in the center of the table. The table to our left is PANK magazine, and Danny Goodman keeps jumping between the Specter table and the fwriction table. Everyone except for me has an iPad.