CAROLYN GAGE DISCUSSES HER EXPERIENCE OF SELF-PUBLISHING

ICWP member Carolyn Gage has just self-published a collection of one-acts titled Nine Short Plays. This is Gage’s fifth book and her second collection of plays—and her first experience with self-publishing! She specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history.

“When the women’s presses closed in the 1990’s,” Gage explained, “it became very difficult for me to find publishers for my plays. The drama publishers were nervous about taking on lesbian material, and the lesbian presses were even more nervous about taking on drama. Last year, when I finally did get a contract from one of the ‘Big Three’ drama presses, it turned out to be substandard…well, that’s when I decided to be my own publisher.”

Print-on-demand has changed everything. In the old days, if you self-published, you sent your books out to all your friends and put one on your bookshelf and that was it. Now, I have my book in the Amazon and Barnes & Noble database.

Gage’s experience has been a positive one. “I got off to a rough start with a do-it-yourself website publisher, but then I signed with Outskirts Press. They charge an upfront fee, but their accountability and responsiveness has been outstanding. They assign you a representative who stays with you through the whole process.”

According to Gage, the term “vanity press” no longer applies to self-publishers. “Print-on-demand has changed everything. In the old days, if you self-published, you sent your books out to all your friends and put one on your bookshelf and that was it. Now, I have my book in the Amazon and Barnes & Noble database. I can offer competitive discounts to bookstores, who can order off the Outskirts website. For a fee, I can even implement a policy of accepting returns. I have not done this, but it is an option that facilitates bookstore sales.”

The one-acts in Nine Short Plays explore the impact of the dominant culture on intimate relationships, illustrating with dramatic intensity how interpersonal dynamics reflect political paradigms. For example, in Louisa May Incest, the author of Little Women is confronted by her alter ego Jo March for her decisions to force her spunky heroine to burn her writing, abandon her career, and marry an impoverished, unambitious older man.

One of Gage’s strongest themes is internalized oppression. In Patricide, an incest survivor confronts her father in a telephone conversation. The real dialogue, however, is between her self-doubt and her need to assert her truth.

Another theme of the plays is the impact of colonization on the human spirit. The Pele Chant, a play about the daughter of Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani, explores how the often hidden mechanism of spiritual colonization can be the “Trojan horse” through which entire dominions are lost.

And, as always, the conflict between Gage’s love for theatre and her critique of its historical misogyny is represented in the collection. Bite My Thumb is a satirical look at crossdressing and genderbending as practiced—or not— by a mainstream rep company and a women’s theatre. Battered on Broadway examines the masochism and martyrdom embedded in female roles in the traditional Broadway musical. In Entr’acte, the war comes home in a play about a rape that occurred backstage during a Broadway run of a play that romanticized domestic violence. The victim, lesbian actress Eva Le Gallienne, is in a sanatorium, facing the crisis of her career – a crisis that will lead to her founding of one of the most famous theatres in the world.

The anthology includes The Obligatory Scene, Bite My Thumb, Entr’acte or The Night Eva Le Gallienne Was Raped, The Pele Chant, Louisa May Incest, The Rules of the Playground, Patricide, Jane Addams and the Devil Baby, and Battered on Broadway.

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