On Publishability: A Conversation with Richard Mirabella

Richard Mirabella shares a little about his publishing experience, writing queerness in the industry, and writing what's challenging.

Richard Mirabella is a writer and civil servant living in upstate New York. He is the author of the novel Brother & Sister Enter the Forest.

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Andrew Hahn: Thanks for taking the time to gab some about queerness and publishing. First, I want to say I loved Brother & Sister Enter the Forest. The prose is subtle yet has a suspense and edge, like linen draped over a knife’s point, and I’m happy to see it was well-received and widely read! What was a key takeaway from your publishing experience?

Richard Mirabella: Thank you so much! I think what surprised me the most about publishing a novel is the incredible mix of emotions. Publishing the novel was the realization of a life-long dream, but it was also incredibly stressful. While you’re waiting for your novel to come out, it’s the most important thing to you, even though you’re sick of looking at it, working on it. Once it came out, the intensity dropped off and I was sort of relieved and ready to move on to something else. A more crafty lesson was that agents and editors sure are relieved if you spent some time editing and tuning up your prose before submitting.

AH: Seeing as you’re a Capricorn, I have no doubts that you submitted the cleanest draft you could! That all makes sense to me. I imagine agents are inundated with submissions, and we only have one chance to stand out –– gotta put our best foot forward. And it’s always a risk, with time and emotion, that can leave us burnt out.

I think I recall your agent is family. Does it help to have an agent who understands the fundamentals of our culture, or do you think it’s probably the same if they were straight and might be more ignorant to queer sensibilities? As I’m asking, I’m wondering if it’s a moot point and they’re all looking at the main goal, which is marketability.

RM: He is, and it does, but this is really all I know. I’ve never had another agent. I have heard about agents trying to flatten some of the queer content in other writers’ work, but this is not an issue with my agent. There are always going to be queer people in my stories. Of course, my agent thinks about whether or not he can sell something I’ve written, and so far, the queer content in my work hasn’t been an issue.

AH: I totally am sympathetic to agents thinking in terms of sellability because it’s their job and, for the most part, are beholden to wherever big publishing is moving. I’ve spoken with a few agents who “loved my book” but didn’t understand certain parts because they were too gay. The story isn’t unlike the novels we had in the 80s, like a group of friends going through some shit in a small town rather than in the city.

So I guess this brings up a question: Do you ever think about queer content in your work being an issue? Being too much or being misunderstood?

RM: I think about it, but it doesn’t stop me. Not because I’m intentionally trying to stick it to the man, though I am kind of, but because I write about queer people, and I want to write more, so I do anything to keep writing more. I can’t really force myself to do things I don’t want to do. I have thought: is this too much? Am I being too detailed about gay sex, for instance, or is this kind of struggle relatable? Some of our problems are really specific to being queer, and I think those things should be written about. I think people see certain media that is not really gay but has “gay” content, and they think that queer stories are having a moment, but the messiness of queer life is still perhaps a bit uncomfortable for some people.

AH: In the last few years it’s been interesting to see how queer culture has come more into the mainstream, what parts of it are being consumed and what are not. I have seen what I’ll call queer-adjacent novels that focus on a group of friends or something like Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors that feels queer-coded to me in terms of the relationships. (I loved that novel by the way.) But the novels about our lives, our sex, our specific sets of issues seem to have tapered off. I think of something like Ethan Mordden’s Buddies Cycle.

It’s obviously important for us to write these stories, even if they don’t see publication, but I suppose there’s a practice of writing “because I want to” versus “writing to get published.” Some writers do have that luxury. Where are you in terms of writing what “should be written about” versus writing to be published? Or do you believe the two aren’t mutually exclusive in this area?

RM: I just don’t know whether my work is publishable or not when I’m writing it (or after), and honestly don’t know if any writer does. The ones who try to write something “publishable” by glancing at the current market are going to be disappointed. I don’t think even agents know what’s going to sell anymore. So, I write what I want to write, and by that I mean I write what is demanding more writing from me, what has an engine for me. Often, that is queer, and maybe a little challenging to me, maybe a little strange. Queer in every sense I can include in the work, I hope! Of course, I’d like to see my work published, but if I think about that too much, I get too sad to write anything.

AH: Plus, the market changes so much from acceptance to publication, so it really is luck and/or a crap shoot. I’m glad to hear that thoughts of publishability don’t invade your process. If we’re not writing for ourselves, what demands more from us, then what are we doing? I recently left a writing workshop because it felt like they were so focused on publishability and marketability that it put bugs in my ear about what I wanted from my work. I started to actually hate a project I was once obsessed with, but thankfully I’m back in it now.

Tell me more about writing what’s challenging for you!

RM: I’m glad you took yourself out of that situation. I think workshops can be helpful, but I also think with something like a novel, it’s tough to work on something like that in that setting. A novel feels like it should be protected for a long time.

So, when I say challenging, I think I mean something I don’t think I’m smart enough to do. Maybe that’s just what writing a novel is like. They teach us how to write them as we’re writing them.

AH: I agree that novels need to be protected. To me, they’re a big expression of the self, and allowing too many voices in can derail from what we intended to create in the first place. I’ll talk about it with one or two friends who understand my work and maybe more importantly––me––and revise until I drive into a wall.

And I wonder if part of that challenge is the novel revealing some growth in us, whether that’s on a craft level or perhaps unveiling something we’ve subconsciously been working out.

Last question: Can you share a queer book that spoke to you, motivated you, and/or showed you what was possible and why?

RM: For some reason, this is always the hardest question for me! I don’t think I can pick one. The first that comes to mind is Nebraska by George Whitmore, which is such a strange and dark novel. It feels special to me because Whitmore died of AIDS, and I think Nebraska was the beginning of his breakthrough. I got to write about it when it was reprinted by The Song Cave recently. More recent novels that impressed and inspired me were Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg and The Future Was Color by Patrick Nathan.