The Dead Writers Reading Series

Photos by Steven Pisano

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Funding was always an issue. This was one of the administration’s favorite lines, and it was, Jonathan would later tell himself, what led to the mistake, which led to the miracle. Scrambling to find someone to fill the slot of Distinguished Visiting Writer without the money to bring someone truly distinguished, at least not someone who would be widely recognized as such, he’d made a typo, or, well, honestly he didn’t know how it had happened.

Maybe he’d been thinking of Edmund White, whom he knew he couldn’t possibly afford and anyway whose status as a major gay novelist, perhaps even the major gay novelist, might stir up trouble at the small Catholic college where he was still teaching, despite having been denied tenure last year. This was a consolation year during which he kept his now utterly dubious title of assistant professor while he tried to get another job, which was nearly impossible, considering the glut of writers out there and his dearth of recent publications, in part because he’d been busy doing other things like teaching and running this reading series. Which he was still running, even as he was about to be fired. Probably he should’ve said he wouldn’t do it; find someone else—good luck with that! But his department chair had asked him soon after the word came back from the Board of Regents confirming the provost’s decision to deny him tenure, and he’d been so filled with shame, with a terrible recognition that while they might all be sycophantic assholes who didn’t know what they wanted—A teacher? A writer? A fucking workhorse?—they were right to vote him down. He didn’t deserve it. He’d failed. Since getting this job six years ago, he’d ceased to be a writer in any real way, had not only failed to publish anything of note but hadn’t written much either. And so when they asked if he’d be willing to keep running the series, he’d said yes, of course, thank you. As if they were doing him a favor. Instead of him doing hundreds of hours of work for a measly stipend, which in nine months’ time he’d probably give anything for.

Maybe, he’d thought one night while alternately panicking about and submitting to the horrors of the near future, he could use the position as director to make connections, bolster his prospects. But instead he’d floundered, barely managing to put together a fall schedule, and it was in this confusion that he’d apparently attempted to contact Edmund White. Later, trying to unravel the mystery, he went through his Sent folder but couldn’t find that initiating e-mail. The first evidence of contact was the “reply” he received that rainy November afternoon during office hours.

Dr. Harris,
Thank you for the kind invitation to read at your university. As it happens, I am free much of this coming spring, and would be happy to be a part of your program. Please suggest some dates, and we’ll move forward from there.
  Sincerely,
  E. Wilson

He opened this e-mail in the middle of a meeting with a spectacularly deluded young man. They were discussing the student’s disorganized story and how it might be improved (it couldn’t), and where he might send it for publication (please, God, don’t do that), and if Jonathan thought the student should try to make it as a writer (who even knew what that could possibly mean, but you know what, honestly, his judgment would probably be no). The e-mail distracted him—which was what he’d wanted, distraction, hence checking his e-mail—and he fumbled over a few more sentences before saying, “OK, anything else?” so that even this student, with his infantile level of narcissism, got the hint.

Provoked by a pleasurable surge of shame, Jonathan made the mistake of looking up: long hair in the...