Off with the new...

"We need better networked programmes [...] offering talented writers help at early stages in their careers. [..] and the profiling of work by new writers" (Arts Council England, in a recent consultation paper)

This might seem unexceptionable, and probably is, with one proviso: that "new writers" and "writers at early stages" are not, as they often turn out to be, weasel words for "writers under 30".

Not that there's anything wrong with writers under 30; they can't help it, and, given time, will acquire the experience of both life and language that gives them something to write about and the skill to do it. In the meantime, the energy of youth may even compensate, to some degree, for what they necessarily lack... ok, ok, slightly tongue-in-cheek, but no more outrageous than the assumption by so many movers and shakers in the literary world that youth and newness are intrinsic virtues.

I've got no locus in this, btw; I am neither young nor at an early stage in my career, more the stage of checking the obituaries for an appearance. But it so happens many "new" writers are not young, because they didn't start writing (and marketing) seriously until other pressures allowed them to do so. One such pressure is childcare, and although there certainly are male late starters, it's a more common pattern with women writers, which raises interesting questions re equal opportunities.

These writers are disadvantaged by "initiatives" that, more often than not, seem to be targeted at the under-30s, as if what was wanted by the public was specifically young work, rather than, as I suspect, good work. Drama is a particular offender, but in novels and poetry too, if a year goes by without some rising teenage star, or a prize shortlist consists of established authors (as why would it not?), you can guarantee some broadsheet running an article on the lines of "where are the young writers?" (a question to which I'm always tempted to reply "learning their trade in decent obscurity").

It's also a fact that, these days, you don't just break through into publication and find you have it made. I wish I had a quid for every novelist I know who had real trouble placing a second or third novel because the first, though it sold respectably for a first novel, wasn't a mega-earner. At one time publishers would stick with a writer building a reputation, rather as TV bosses allowed a sitcom to bed in; now everything has to be a mega-success from the off. As far as novels go, I'm not sure ACE shouldn't focus on mid-career writers rather than new ones.

I've heard it suggested that mid-career writers would do well to reinvent themselves with an assumed persona, because of this craze to find something "new" each year. That craze, which I'm not sure readers actually share, is one reason for this youth focus. Another is the drive to find a young audience for genres, like poetry and litfic novels, that tend to appeal to an older one - maybe publishers should accept that fact and concentrate on marketing to the audience they know is there, rather than the one that isn't listening? Another culprit, in my view, is the universal modern practice of putting a picture of the author on the book. This pernicious habit presumably brought about the question reportedly asked by a US publisher about a novelist recommended to him; "will she look like a babe on the back cover?" (So: reinvent yourself with a new name, but also with a picture of some obliging young model; he or she'll only want 10% of the hopefully huge dibs.)

I'd be interested to know what experiences writers on my f-list and elsewhere have of this, also if anyone has age-related stats on the sales of writing? And readers; does the age or newness of an author make any odds to you?