Fringe

Welcome to the slush pile

Recently I saw someone lament the death of “true indies,” films lacking institutional backing. “Festivals don’t prop up fringe films anymore,” they commented, “Instead, indie filmmakers need to get into an institutional pipeline for an iota of legitimacy.” I am no expert on the film industry, but this follows a clear pattern in the creative industries generally. Pioneers of alternatives to the big institutions either fail or get institutionalized themselves. What they do not do is replace the major institutions. Though specific members of the big players may go belly up, something like them always triumphs—sometimes something that began as a fringe player.

But fringes always exist. It’s a mistake to think that they do not. Institutions penetrate ever further down, but the bottom simply sinks further, and expands drastically. In publishing they have what’s called the slush pile. This is the stack of manuscripts that were sent in directly to a publisher by authors, something that is not really done nowadays if you want to actually get published. Because of the volume of submissions publishers get, their editors rely on trusted agents to act as the first quality filter before bothering to spend their time reviewing something personally. It is not entirely impossible to get published by passing through the slush pile, but it is only just on this side of possible.