POWW! member and Tulane University writing professor Thomas Beller is rumored to be so impoverished-- by literary establishment standards-- that he's down to his last bagel. It's not easy maintaining a small family and residences in both New Orleans and Manhattan, with regular vacations to places like Rome, Zurich, and Cambodia, on a professor's salary and what is rumored to be one of the smaller trust fund stipends among POWW! (Protect Our Wealthy Writers!) members.
It's not as if his books are selling. Beller joined POWW! because the actions of no-longer-active protest group Underground Literary Alliance-- at least the hint of actions by them-- have pushed privileged Insider writers like Professor Beller to the point of extinction.
"It's not easy being a POWW! member," Professor Thomas Beller tells his disbelieving students. "Keeping up appearances is tough. I have a privileged lifestyle to maintain. Toughest of all is pretending to be a good writer."
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