Siobhan Harvey on the poverty of the writing life

Siobhan Harvey. Photo / Supplied

Winner of this year's Janet Frame Literary Trust Award for Poetry, Siobhan Harvey, reflects on the poverty of the writing life.

The word "author" still conjures up the idea of an impoverished artist living in a cold garret who sacrifices all for their art. This image, though, troubles me. It's not the iconography that I'm concerned with as much as its sum parts; particularly the bit about being "impoverished".

When I started my writing career in 1990, my first publication in a literary journal rewarded me with $200. Back then, that bought this impoverished but happy 18-year-old four weeks' rent and one week's shopping. Move forward 30 years. Today, I'm the author of eight books. I've won numerous prizes, my work has been published in journals and anthologies in Australia, Hong Kong, France, the UK and the US, as well as being translated into Italian. I've attended literary festivals around the world. Yet financially, I'm no better off. Indeed, earnings-wise, I'm considerably worse off.

Why? 1990's $200 equates to $460 today. Sadly, few literary journals are paying their authors that kind of money for a single piece of work. Indeed, today, most don't pay at all. Meanwhile, in the age of technology, fewer book sales have seen royalties dwindle.

Last year, Copyright Licensing New Zealand commissioned a survey into New Zealand authors' incomes. It found that, on average, writers earned $16,000 per annum from the literary output. At a time when the minimum wage of $20 per hour equated to an annual salary of $38,400, it's clear that the job of writing is not enough for our authors to live off.

Of course, this depiction of the literary wage isn't universal. There are a few illustrious writers in New Zealand and elsewhere who pay the mortgage, fuel the car and feed the family from their writings. But for every one of them, there are a multitude like me who find it impossible to make a living by writing alone.

I would like to say things might improve. But I retain grave fears they won't. The New Zealand Society of Authors is doing important work to save authors' earnings from decreasing further. Along with the Publishers Association and CLNZ, they've been fighting a four-year campaign against MBIE proposals to change copyright laws which could leave writers uncompensated for work appropriated by online content creators who will then be able to make money off it.

This is why receiving this year's Janet Frame Literary Trust Award for Poetry matters to me. In an era when it's almost impossible to survive as a writer, this award feels like a rare gift. Firstly, this is because the award is given in recognition of my body of work, including my recently released book, Ghosts. After decades of going without financially, that's something that makes such sacrifice worth it.

Also, there's the esteem. In being bequeathed a prize founded by our greatest New Zealand author, Janet Frame, I feel a sense of lineage back to her. Not to mention the sense of belonging to a cohort of amazing writers who are the award's previous recipients, like Poet Laureate David Eggleton.

Last but no means least, there's the bequest. Unlike other prizes which must be applied for, I was secretly nominated for this award. As such, the stipend isn't one I expected or sought. When I won the Kathleen Grattan Award back in 2013, my partner and I spent the $16,000 prize money funding a teacher aide for our gifted, neuro-diverse son. That those monies gave him the learning support he needed to thrive and, two years later, be honoured with one of his school's foremost academic prizes as well as achieve a straight-A report was worth it.

This time, though, I'll be a little selfish. A new car perhaps? A shopping splurge? Jewellery? No, I haven't spent 30 years earning below the minimum wage to suddenly change tack. I plan to pay the mortgage, fuel the car and feed the family while I write without the need - albeit briefly - to worry where my next source of income's coming from.