On Shame, Grant Announcements, and Toxic Writing Friendships | Issue 26
On Shame, Grant Announcements, and Toxic Writing Friendships | Issue 26
I recently learned something about myself, and I’ve had one-eighty on a long held opinion.
I recently learned something about myself, and I’ve had one-eighty on a long held opinion.
During grant results season many people share whether they got grants, didn’t get grants, and their opinion on grant announcements.
For years, I held firm to the notion that grant announcements on social media were bad—even though I have engaged in every form of self-promotion out there, and I encourage and coach writers I work with to self-promote and use social media. And as publisher, I even get a little irritated when people don’t.
So why did I draw the line at grant announcements? I used to maintain that it was insensitive to writers in your feed who didn’t get grants that round.
But that same logic could be applied to any form of self-promotion or any kind of positive news. So if someone got rejected from a literary magazine or a publisher where you were accepted, should you avoid sharing your story to spare the feelings of all the people who didn’t get an acceptance?
No, of course not. That’s ridiculous, so why did I feel that way about grant announcements?
I was not opposed to grant announcements out of any sense of jealousy. I’ve received grants throughout my career and some have saved me during bleak financial times, but I’ve also had my share of rejections. I am neither jealous, nor resentful when someone else gets a grant, so why was I so strongly opposed to people sharing this on social media?
A few weeks ago, I wrote a tweet about grant announcements and how I thought it was insensitive to share grant news on social media, but something about my tweet didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t like my own take, but I wasn’t sure why. The tone was off. It felt like I shaming others, so I deleted it. But I was curious about my own response and kept thinking about it.
The next day, I saw other tweets about grant announcements on my feed. One by Alicia Elliot, stopped me in my tracks.
As did Jenny Heijun Wills’ response to it.
As someone who prides themselves on being community-minded and supportive of other writers, why was I being such a jerk about this particular issue?
There is no feeling greater as a writer than to get your first arts grant.
And then it suddenly hit me why I had I been opposed to grant announcements, which actually has very little to do with grant announcements, and everything to do with a toxic writing friendship in my early writing days.
When I had just finished grad school, a friend of mine got a grant from the Ontario Arts Council for $12 000. As you can imagine, this was a significant amount of money in 1998.
When my friend told me, I was thrilled for them, and they wanted to celebrate by treating ME to lunch! How sweet!
Over lunch, I asked them all about their grant experience, and they were positively beaming. There is no feeling greater as a writer than to get your first arts grant, and a big grant at that! My friend showed me their award letter and told me how they wrote the grant. They even offered to share with me their application and encouraged me to apply for the next round.
That was a great day. I was fully celebrating my friend and learned something new.
I vowed that if I ever got a grant, I would do the same thing for someone else—take them out for lunch and pass on what I learned about grant writing.
Lo and behold my friend’s grant writing tips were spot on, and the following year I got the same grant!
I was over the moon.
At the time I had a couple of publications but was not very confident in my writing. In addition, I was in a pretty precarious financial situation and wasn’t sure how I was going to make a living after grad school while also having to pay back heavy student loans.
In keeping with this new tradition I was excited to uphold, I called another writer friend who I admired to share my news and invite them out for lunch.
But their reaction was not what I expected.
There was a pause and an icy tone on the other end of the line. No curious questions were asked, and the call ended quickly with an obligatory but cool: “Congrats.” This writer and I did not write in the same genre nor had they even applied for this award.
I was stunned, and I felt deep shame for sharing my good news. We didn’t even get to the lunch part because the conversation ended so abruptly. It was clear that I was not going to be celebrating with this person. Although I had the good sense to back away from this brief but impactful friendship, this experience shaped how I behaved going forward. Instead of realizing that this was their problem and not mine, I became exceedingly careful about sharing good news with anyone except my family.
Years later as social media took hold and announcing writing accomplishments and self-promotion became part of the writing and publishing landscape, I joined in reluctantly at first. But once I began publishing the work of others, I realized the necessity of self-promotion.
Despite my embrace of self-promotion, I never ever announced grants and believed that it was crass to do so.
I read somewhere (but I can’t find the source - likely on a self-help blog) that one way to determine a healthy relationship is not how someone treats you when you’re down (because it’s easy to be kind when someone is low) but how they treat you when something good happens. This is true of romantic relationships, family relationships, and friendships.
If a friend, family member, partner, or acquaintance cannot share in your happiness or success, they are probably not someone you want in your life. Even though that early friendship was short lived, I carried the shame with me, well, until last month. Fortunately it only lingered in this one small specific area, but it is a good reminder of the ways shame can control our behaviour and even our opinions without us even realizing it.
In addition to being about sharing good feelings, grant announcements like other forms of self-promotion are a vital part of the business side of writing. They are especially important for new writers who are looking for agents or publishers.
There’s no question that social media is bad for our mental health. And of course it’s painful to deal with a grant rejection when everyone is celebrating what seems like a windfall.
But the good news is that people do get over writing rejections. Big rejections usually take me about a week or two to recover from. The fact that you’re even eligible for a grant is a win, and in Canada we have a decent granting system with a pretty high success rate.
There will always be a writer who gets an opportunity we don’t. Jealousy and envy is something writers have to learn how to cope with if they’re interested in a long writing career. Pretending those feelings don’t exist isn’t helpful either. But to admonish people for sharing their grant announcements—when the councils specifically request it—reinforces a toxicity that I have no interest in perpetuating.
The other thing that this experience taught me that I am really proud of is that I can change my mind about a long-held belief even one so entrenched in my own shame that I didn’t even realize it.
Updated April 3, 2023.
Kathryn Mockler’s debut story collections Anecdotes is forthcoming from Book*hug. Pre-order Anecdotes at your local bookstore.
Issue #26 of Send My Love to Anyone
A Girl Walks Into the Woods by Diana Tamblyn
On Shame, Grant Announcements, and Toxic Writing Friendships by Kathryn Mockler
Embarrassing Myself in Public by Kathryn Mockler
Sign up for Where Do I Start? | Writing Prompts & Resources by Kathryn Mockler
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