The learned helplessness of an artist

A few weeks ago, we shared author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s thoughts on how not to be a financial victim, in the wake of the Donadio & Olson embezzlement.

Rusch herself followed up with a post on what it was like to have a literary agent.

You can read it here, but in sum: It wasn’t great. In fact, it was actually terrible.

Since then, she’s received a considerable amount of feedback.

Many people — some polite, some more aggressive — argued against her advice that writers not hire agents.

And others asked her how a writer is supposed to get published without an agent.

After all of this, Rusch distilled what exactly it was that bothered her most about the responses.

It was the “learned helplessness” behind so many artists’ reliance on others to manage their affairs.

Read the full post here.