Being a Minor Writer

From the Publisher

“[Author Gail Gilliland] discusses major issues in this examination of the role of the lesser-known writer in today's society. Being a Minor Writer will interest anyone who has ever struggled with that 'raid on the inarticulate' called writing…Learned, impassioned, filled with high moral purpose.”—Wilson Library Bulletin

Feminist Bookstore News

In literature, there are distinctions between being a 'major' or a 'minor' writer. Not surprisingly, what gets relegated to 'minor' usually involves subjects such as child-rearing or anything in the stereotypical world of women. Gail Gilliland recognizes herself as a 'minor' writer in Being A Minor Writer and offers a critique of issues associated with writing: choice of subject matter, genre, diction, characterization, setting and style.— (Nov/Dec 1994)

Washington Times

The title of this alternately scholarly and personal essay refers not only to writers who haven't made it into the big leagues, those who haven't 'made a name' for themselves; it also refers to those whose work is set in a minor key--especially women writing about subjects central to women's concerns....
Jean-Paul Sartre said that the question underlying all philosophy was, Why continue living? For the writer, Ms. Gilliland says, the question is, Why write? And she weaves together various thoughts from authors beginning with Horace in an attempt to answer the question and arrive at her own practical guide to the art of writing. —(Nov. 20, 1994)

Wilson Library Bulletin

Don't let the self-depracatory title of this work put you off. Author Gail Gilliland may be minor but she discusses major issues in this examination of the role of the lesser-known writer in today's society. Cranky at times, never boring, Being A Minor Writer will interest anyone who has ever struggled with that 'raid on the inarticulate' called writing....Learned, impassioned, filled with high moral purpose, Being A Minor Writer elicits strong disagreement and strong delight.—Ellen Donahue Warwick, Winchester, MA Public Library (April, 1995)

Library Journal

Amid the current controversy over canon and "great books" is a corollary debate about the role and identity of "minor" literature. Focusing on the ethical responsibilities of the author, Gilliland, herself a poet and writer of short stories, argues that the distinction between major and minor dissolves on a moral level. For her, minor genres (short stories instead of novels), minor actions (the everyday instead of adventure), and minor subjects (motherhood instead of the heroic) represent important values. Never satisfactorily demonstrating the polarities that define what is minor, however, Gilliland spends much of the book in a demonstration of the obvious. While she drops many names, her analysis is often facile and historically superficial. Thus, while well written, this book is ultimately disappointing.-T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.