New York Literary Hypocrisy Update

Here's what's left of the exchange I had on twitter with n+1 editor Dayna Tortorici-- which began when I asked why she was saying nothing about the Daniel Handler National Book Awards incident (see previous two posts):

New Pop Lit@NewPopLit       @dtortorici I guess fighting racism, privilege & power a tad harder when it's in your own field :-) literarycircus.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-is… - 25 Nov Dayna Tortorici@dtortorici   @NewPopLit dude step off I don't know who Daniel Handler is and don't care       01:51 AM - 25 Nov 14

Ms. Tortorici subsequently blocked the New Pop Lit twitter account, and later deleted what she could of the exchange. Yet the key question remains unanswered: With all of n+1's activism, their outcries against privilege and racism, why do they refuse to speak about elitism, racism, and privilege in their own field?

Could it be because the established literary and publishing circles based in New York City-- including what I call Old Literary Media-- are among the most elitist endeavors in America? Where success is based on connections and cronyism more than any other factor? Where the lead mouthpieces for establishment literature, like Dayna Tortorici-- like virtually every editor, staffer, and intern at n+1-- attended the most exclusive schools in America? (Places like Brown, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard.) That when they profess to fight against "the One Percent" or "white privilege," they should first go after themselves?

The idea is to clean up literature and publishing-- to democratize American literature, and thereby make it more representative of the genuine American voice. Accessible and open to all-- not solely to a select group of  mandarins presuming to dictate from on high to everyone else. "What does democracy look like?"

This is what my fights over the years for literary populism have been about.