Be Nice

I went to hear Ruth Reichl speak last week. Reichl, for those who don’t recognize the name, was the last editor of Gourmet Magazine. She is best known, however, as a restaurant critic. Ruth found her niche by telling stories about her experiences in the restaurants she visited. She often went in disguise so she could experience the restaurant, not as a VIP, but as a regular customer – and sometimes as an undesirable customer.  She knew that when she appeared on the reservation list as herself she could expect the line chefs to outdo themselves trying to impress her, the service would be impeccable, that no detail would be overlooked as everyone tried to impress her.  The best restaurants, although not necessarily the finest restaurants, cared about her almost as much when she showed up as a little old lady or a brassy blonde from the Bronx.  Last week, she told horror stories about restaurants that treated the disguised Reichl with less regard than she might have received at the neighborhood Denny’s–despite a tab that ran hundreds of dollars.  Needless to say, those restaurants did not get many stars in her write-up no matter how delicious the food.  Take-home message? Be nice. It’s good for business.

At the Los Angeles Review we think a lot about literary citizenship. There’s no way we can avoid it–we work with Kate Gale, the consummate literary citizen.  We think about ways we can help our fellow writers and readers. We put on author events, we give writers exposure on our website, we buy their books and we talk about their books to readers whenever we get the chance. We’re always looking for ways to practice our citizenship inside the literary community and as an interface with the broader communities where we live. It’s too easy to be a taker instead of a giver. Ask Kate Gale sometime why she and Mark named the press Red Hen.

Some years ago, as part of my citizenship campaign, I organized workshops for a small writers organization in my town. I asked other groups to get the word out to their members, just as we put their events to our mailing list. Most people were very accommodating. One group got snarky with me—multiple times–and I stopped dealing with them. Recently, my husband and I have shown up on donor lists for some larger literary organizations. Suddenly, we started getting calls at home from the snarky group. I’m sure they have absolutely no idea that we’ve crossed paths before. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a spare minute to return their cold calls. No, really, I haven’t. But with everything else going on, they are very low priority for me. Bottom line? Be nice to people, even those you don’t think can do anything for you. It’s good for business.

Hope to see you all at AWP. Let us know if we can be of any help.