Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
- Jules Renard
Jules Renard was a noted French literary figure who died while I was in college. This quote comes to mind because next month I have an article appearing in Spiritual Life, for which I will be paid a small but welcome sum of money. The first article I ever published there was in the Winter 1978 issue. I was visiting Steve Yarbrough and Bonnie up at Penn State afterwards and was all excited that I had been published and paid for it. Steve was floored. In the academic world in which they lived, people worked very hard to get published: "Publish or perish" was not a joke. So they had things in these prestigious journals but not a penny to show for it. The payment was that you got to list the publication on your Curriculum vitae when applying for jobs.
I have had that experience, too. Although Spiritual Life has always paid me for articles and book reviews, other places have rewarded me only with copies of the magazine or book in which my work appeared. That's not bad, but a couple of bucks would also be nice!
3 comments:
So you've been publishing writings since before I was born? Wow.
When you was religious could you keep the money or, because the vow of poverty, you had to give it the community?
When I was a friar, I could not keep any money I earned from my writing or teaching or retreats or anything else. Often when we received a small amount of money as a gift, we were given permission to use it for ourselves; but everything was supposed to be turned in to the community. I know of a case personally where a religious won a state lottery worth a great deal of money and turned it all over to her community.
Post a Comment