NYC is Lit:
Big Dreams, Big Talent,
Big Publishing…. Small Apartment!
Hopeful publishing professionals fresh out of liberal arts college share an apartment in Bushwick. Together, they navigate the highs and lows of the real world of books, from the $24K starting salaries to the soul-crushing jealousy when a friend gets an essay published on Tin House’s blog.
- Will they get the lives they always wanted?
- Will they apply to law school?
- Do they even like reading that much?
- What’s the point of anything anyway???
Cast members include: The Trust Fund Kid, multiple Trust-Fund-Kids-Who-Don’t-Tell-Anyone-About-Their-Trust-Funds, Baby Carver, Baby Didion, Moleskin-In-Shirt-Pocket, The-Secret-Conservative, The-One-Person-of-Color-in-a-Group-of-Ten (in keeping with industry demographical records).
Confront Your GoodReads Reviewer
Habitual 1-star reviewers think they’re out on a casual Tinder date… little do they know that they’ve swiped right on a mid-list author about whose work they once commented: “self-indulgent and pedantic — I’d rather kill myself than finish this book!!”
NOTES: Intimate interviews with each participant immediately follow the date. Therapists will be on hand. Security will be on hand.
Family Fallout:
The Aftermath of a Memoir
They’ve already been through too much unwanted public exposure, so why not sign up for more? This is the logic at play as four memoirists move back into their childhood homes and reckon with loved ones who are convinced that none of it happened the way they said they did. Confrontation lies around literally every corner, and the front door of the house is locked from the outside! Will any relationship survive?
Some sample scenes, from the teaser reel:
AN AGING MOTHER, IN HER KITCHEN: “Does this look like a sad, dilapidated room to you? Where’s that peeling paint you made so famous?!”
A DOWN-ON-THEIR LUCK SIBLING: “No I won’t drink my beer in front of you; you’ll just tell the whole world I’m trying to escape. Maybe I just like the fucking taste after a hard day’s work!”
NOTE: If the families last a full month together, each member gets their own book deal.
AWP: A 4-Part Docu-Series Event
Booze! Sex! Tears! That one really tall guy dancing majestically at the kickoff party! Hastily composed panel presentations on documentary poetics!
To the outside world, it may just be another four-day trade show, but this insider’s tour will reveal the dark underbelly of America’s least important convention. Marriages will fray, academic careers will die before they were ever born, 15,000 people will start smoking again, but only for, like, a week, so it doesn’t really count. And when the dust settles, they’ll all be back next year.
Climbing the Ranks:
What would you do for a higher Amazon ranking?
Modeled after Fear Factor and any number of the most extreme Japanese game shows, Climbing the Ranks takes a group of debut authors and tests the limits of their will. Challengers will compete in feats of strength, stare down their worst fears, and attempt to satisfactorily flatter a star-studded and disinterested group of gate-keepers.
NOTES: Judged by Jeff Bezos, J.D. Vance, Andrew Wylie. At the end of each episode, rankings will be revealed, and the bottom contestants will have to field phone calls from loved ones asking them to explain their career choices. At the end of the season, there will be a final twist: the rankings were arbitrary all along. How will the contestants react when they discover that their whole professional lives have been thrown to the whims of a cruel and senseless algorithm?
The Slush Pile
If you thought Simon Cowell was mean, wait until you see these graduate students experiencing a fleeting amount of power as readers for a minor university literary magazine! The show follows them from the editorial meeting to the bar, where the opinions only get more vicious, until they finally discuss one another’s work.
NOTE: At the end of each season, a single writer wins the grand prize: publication and a $50 dollar honorarium. Their name will be misspelled in the acceptance email.
Adjunct: Life in The Shadows
A gritty docu-series, in the mold of Hoarders and Intervention. Three writers tackle their second decade of adjunct teaching in this no-holds-barred account of what a person will endure for the life they were promised, even when that promise was a lie. See the constant side-hustles, the office hours held in a van, the coffee shop meetings with family friends offering data entry work as long as they’re willing to commit full time.
Potential corporate collaborations: Uber, Seamless.
Are You a Worthy Enough Human Being
to Chronicle the Human Condition?
(Contingent on Marilynne Robinson’s availability as a judge.)
TWIST: There will be no winner.