Poor Artist? Lemme Help

Most artists are poor. “Imagine the dissonance your average starving poet feels surrounded by moneyed book-lovers and big-wig sponsors at your local writer’s festival. Or the supreme weirdness of the novelist nominated for a glitzy award like the Giller Prize, with its debauched evening of champagne, tuxes and gowns. I have heard the experience likened to being a street-level prostitute, yanked into a limo by a group of corporate man-gods, and treated to the good life for one queenly booze-and-bonbon-addled night. Before, of course, a bouquet is shoved into your arms as you are simultaneously shoved back into the street to face cold, familiar reality.” Lynn Coady proposes a small “corrective measure” to help.