Yuvi Zalkow: The Failed Writer Succeeds!

Yuvi Zalkow, the Failed Writer himself–but wait, he’s successful!

Portland author Yuvi Zalkow has earned a reputation as a failed writer. He talks openly of rejection. He runs the hilarious Failed Writer video series on his blog.

But now there’s a problem. A big problem.

Yuvi has succeeded–in fact, for a fiction writer, he has attained the ultimate success. His debut novel, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, is being released August 14 by MP Publishing.

He’ll be reading at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, August 16, at the downtown Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, among other upcoming readings.

As we’re approaching the release date, I’ve been puzzling over how Yuvi would come to terms with his identity as a failed writer and as a successful novelist. So instead of continuing to puzzle, I asked him.

“People have been asking me this year about whether I can keep calling myself a failed writer now that I have a published book (as of August 14th!),” Yuvi explained. “But I think it is just as relevant as ever to consider myself a failed writer. Probably more important now. Even though I’m very excited about the book, there are plenty of potential failures ahead that I can look forward to: bad reviews, failed subsequent novels, and so on.”

Yuvi’s presentation is about failing to fail as a writer by being successful–wrap your mind around that!

Yuvi also explained how the Failed Writer concept evolved from his state of mind, not due to specific rejections. “But I think even more important than my future failures is that this whole Failed Writer shtick came about from my state of mind, which didn’t have so much to do with the specific successes or failures along the way. If you follow my videos (especially #7: Failing as a Failed Failure), you know that this attitude has both positive qualities and negative qualities. On the downside, I probably feel more shame and self-loathing than what is healthy; on the upside, I’m constantly trying to learn how to do things better. I’ll always be a failure, some days more successfully than others.”

And there you have it.

I had the pleasure of reading early versions of A Brilliant Novel in the Works, and it’s amazingly exciting to see this laugh-out-loud book get the recognition it deserves.

I’ll be posting lots more about Yuvi’s novel, which, incidentally, is about a failed writer named Yuvi, around the launch date. Stay tuned, because there might be a giveaway (or two!) involved.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1bhaB-KL