NEW YORK, NY Dec. 10 (DPI) – A UNLV creative writing professor offered in a NYT op-ed this week that men are reading less these days, and reading and writing hardly any fiction, a development he says should “worry everyone.” The professor, David Morris, wrote:

Male underrepresentation is an uncomfortable topic in a literary world otherwise highly attuned to such imbalances. In 2022 the novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote on Twitter that “a friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good.” The public response to Ms. Oates’s comment was swift and cutting — not entirely without reason, as the book world does remain overwhelmingly white. But the lack of concern about the fate of male writers was striking.

Morris went on to pose a question about the broad implications of such a trend: “What will become of literature — and indeed, of society — if men are no longer involved in reading and writing?”

Not all readers on the NYT comment board bought into the notion that America’s men’s are becoming illiterates, or at least losing a literary sensibility.

The two most popular comments:

Even though he speaks about the lack of male representation, the language the author uses is clearly anti-male. “I welcome the end of male dominance in literature. Men ruled the roost for far too long, too often at the expense of great women writers who ought to have been read instead.” Flip the gender in that quote above. Now it sounds much more malignant, no? Boys growing up today aren’t responsible for “ruling the roost for too long.” Yet they read commentary like this and turn away. With language like that coming from people concerned about male disengagement, think about the atll missives of the literati that are not so “concerned”. There’s your problem right there.

As a not-young white male author, I have first-hand experience of my manuscripts being ignored by the literary agent establishment, which openly solicits material from female and so-called “diverse and under-represented” authors. It wasn’t until I found a publisher who focused more on the writing than on the sex/gender of the writer that I finally landed a publishing contract for a novel after a decade of trying.

But this article is sadly spot on–the few men who do read invariably choose non-fiction. Thus, aspiring male writers must be able to appeal to female readers to have any hope of success in the literary world.