A lot of people ask me how I can live in such opulence, given that I make my living writing award-winning literary fiction that nobody actually reads.

-- Julian Gough gives a writer's view of a proposed bailout of the US publishing industry

Geist's cadre of crack writers were delighted to read an article in the New York Times which detailed a bailout package for the US publishing industry. "Heck," we thought, allowing an uncharacteristic coarseness to creep into our language. "If American poets can once again expect to dine regularly on truffled partridge and champagne, is it not reasonable for Canadian poets and publishers to demand a similar bailout from their government?"

The text of the proposal analyzes the "irresponsible writing and irresponsible reading" practices which got us all into this mess, practices which "simply put too many families into books they could not finish":

We are seeing the impact on readers and neighborhoods, with 5 million readers now behind on their reading. Some are just walking away from novels they should never have been reading in the first place. What began as a sub-prime reading problem has spread to other, less-risky readers, and contributed to excess inventories. These troubled novels are now parked, or frozen, on the shelves of libraries, bookstores, and other reading institutions, preventing them from financing readable novels.

All we can say is "Write on!" If Mr Harper wishes his minority government to survive the next few weeks he should bear in mind that writers are voters too...