Ryan Boudinot killed Seattle City of Lit and the Stranger helped him bury the body

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We’ve largely remained mum on the subject of local media shakeups because we don’t believe in playing inside ball, and because if you don’t know what’s going on, you probably don’t need to. Two-thirds of your Seattlish editors have also, at some point, worked for the Stranger, and we don’t like to throw shade for shade’s sake. 

Plus, the Stranger still, in spite of huge losses, has a ton of amazing talent who had nothing to do with what we’re about to talk about. 

But this is something we can’t be quiet about.

In the last few weeks, the Stranger has gotten international attention not for their news journalism, but for one inflammatory, click-baity opinion piece by a man named Ryan Boudinot. And, as a result of the attention and the Stranger’s response, Seattle has lost a potentially huge opportunity in the literary community.

Boudinot was the executive director of a promising new non-profit called Seattle City of Literature. City of Literature, a program funded by UNESCO, exists to create an international network of cities whose focus is literature. 

As part a city bidding to be part of the City of Lit program, a bid which the City Council endorsed, Ryan and managing editor Rebecca Brinson traveled to China and generally started making cool plans. A lot of work was done, a ton of impressive people were on the board, and Seattle was on its way toward being a bigger international player in literature. 

Until Boudinot wrote The Article and, to some degree, until the Stranger’s leadership — chiefly,  Editor-in-Chief Christopher Frizzelle — backed him and his opinions, ruthlessly.

The article was a pretty typical “lighting up” of something a lot of people believe in (in this case, MFA programs), which is not revolutionary or even particularly enlightening. But, a lot of critics stated, it was also just mean-spirited. It did not punch up, and it did not feel fair. It felt more like someone with an axe to grind doing it very publicly. 

And unfortunately, the person with the axe to grind was also in charge of a really, really cool, very fledgling, thing in our city.  

The article did not ask important questions or start a smart dialogue. What the article did manage to achieve, in addition to tons of pageviews for the Stranger, writer J.C. Sevcik contests in the rebuttal the paper ran, is alienate Boudinot from the literary community. 

Because it wasn’t just about MFA programs, which are certainly not immune to criticism, but of writers and literary people generally.

During my time in that MFA program, I found the institution to be the single most nurturing and accepting community I had ever been a part of. Not kidding. It’s the coolest tribe I’ve ever belonged to.
And Ryan was a part of that tribe. Now he has alienated himself from it. People are hurt and angry. He has been ostracized. I’m friends with other faculty advisers in the program, and they’re all astounded at the audacity of their former colleague. It upsets me to see our online message boards awash with students and alumni attempting to process what essentially amounts to being called worthless by a man they trusted with their fledgling efforts.
As good readers and literary citizens, we might ask: Why would Ryan do this? What was he trying (and failing) to express?

That’s a really great question — and one that was buried amid the “omg controversy!!!!” that the Stranger then attempted to stir. 

You could say that by running the article, the Stranger was just doing what they do — running articles. And they even ran that rebuttal a few days later, so equal coverage, right?

No. Though there were numerous well-reasoned responses, including the one that the Stranger did run, but all of the articles from the actual Stranger writers (read: Frizzelle) were 100% in Boudinot’s — and not the lit community’s — corner.

Frizzelle has doubled down on his support, running what Salon writer Laura Miller called “a ridiculously self-congratulatory follow-up” and then another one yesterday, which announced gleefully that Boudinot was in talks to get his own Fantagraphics imprint and oh by the way, his article and refusal to apologize for it has essentially dissolved City of Lit, whose board asked Boudinot to apologize or step down and, when he would not, had “shuttered.” 

Boudinot defended his decision in the way that all white dudes ever do (see: the myriad accounts of sexual assault and abuse within the alt lit community that were met with “eugh! Free speech!”) — by claiming it would be “censorship” to apologize. From the email he sent to the City of Seattle:

What weighed most heavily on me were the other writers around the world who are challenged for their expression. I thought about the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the conversations I had in Chengdu with delegates from Kampala and Baghdad, where the cost of expression can be far greater than being hounded by angry bloggers. If Seattle is to stand as a peer among other cities of literature, we cannot set the precedent that a writer’s opinions—however unpopular or provocative—can lead to the loss of that writer’s livelihood. I want Seattle to stand as a place where expression that provokes—and even offends—is protected…
I do believe that Seattle should continue to engage with UNESCO. I have been nothing but impressed by this organization and by the UCCN. The hospitality, guidance, and friendship I have found in many of the Cities of Literature has enriched my life immeasurably. I’m of the opinion that the organization Seattle City of Music, which has been doing phenomenal work for our creative economy, should prepare a bid. I also intend to continue working with the people and organizations I have met through the UCCN on other initiatives related to literature and the arts in Seattle.

That’s too bad, Ryan. Because we’re not going to be doing this anymore because you blew it up (maybe; those inside Seattle City of Lit have told us they’re working to salvage something and possibly continue with the bid) when you decided to put your own opinions before the best interest of the city. 

Boudinot tweeted yesterday that he was canceling Seattle’s 2015 bid to the UNNC because “Seattle City of Music deserves a chance.”

City of Literature — and Boudinot — have become so toxic that he himself is worried it will cost us other cool opportunities. And he didn’t do it alone.

It deserves to be noted that no one was censoring Boudinot — they were just asking that he be less of an asshole to the community. 

One board member, who asked not to be named (because that’s how awful this whole thing has become), noted that mostly, they just wanted him to separate his writing and involvement with the Stranger from his role as ED.

“We had no problem with his right to speak his mind, but we did have a problem with him speaking as the executive director of an organization that’s supposed to be pro-writing-education,” the source said. “We wanted him to make a distinction between his role as ED of Seattle City of Lit and as a writer, because that interview with [Frizzelle] made it sound like the piece was written by him in his capacity as Executive Director.”

As the board became more concerned, Ryan (and Frizzelle) continued to dial up the drama. At one point, there were even rumblings that the City of Seattle would not support a 2015 bid — which they need to do — if Ryan was at the helm.

Their concerns that he might not be the best leader, all things considered (and because of HIS OWN DECISION to write a piece which he surely knew would upset people) were not unfounded. 

He is now a divisive character, and the Stranger/Frizzelle’s coverage of the issue had a not-small something to do with that. And instead of stepping down and letting City of Literature continue without him, he dug in his heels and tanked the whole damn thing.

From City of Lit’s email that went out yesterday:

We are sorry to report sad news today: the leadership of nonprofit organization Seattle City of Literature is regrouping and considering what the future might look like for us. Unfortunately, there were unresolved differences of opinion regarding leadership and how the organization should be represented in public discourse. Many of us put a lot of time, care, and faith into this organization; please know that we did not take on this process lightly.

The lit community will go on in Seattle — it’s strong and it’s backed by a lot of really cool organizations (APRIL, Hugo House, and the others name in City of Literature’s goodbye letter). But this is a blow and, frankly, it didn’t have to happen like this. 

It happened like this because, as you’ve probably heard from the rumors, the Stranger has a leadership problem. 

In an alternate universe, the Stranger would align, instead, with the literary community, and with City of Lit, calling out a pissy white guy whose foot-stomping has robbed our town of a pretty cool thing.

In an alternate universe, the Stranger wouldn’t joyously dance upon the grave of City of Lit, touting the achievements of the man who let it die. They would investigate what else had happened, they would talk about how, with APRIL coming up next month, Seattle is still A city of literature, but no longer one with major international support. They would publish other sides of the story, like the side of literally anyone not on the side of Ryan Boudinot / anyone on the side of City of Lit  who we know for a fact have reached out to the Stranger [BTW, no, we did not reach out to the Stranger for this article because we feel that they have had plenty to say on the matter already and it’s time for someone else to talk].

But they are not doing that thing, because there is no one left at the paper to stand up to the strong opinions of Christopher Frizzelle. 

There are some very, very talented writers and reporters who are great at their beats. But several are new to the city, and no one’s beat is literature anymore. And, as we at Seattlish know first-hand, no one wants to lose their job in a market that sucks for young journalists. This is not a climate for young reporters to raise their hands and say “wait, are we serving the city with this?”

Last night, Frizzelle removed any doubt of the paper’s alliances, tweeting “#TeamRyan.”

No one responded.

Team Ryan, it seems, is the team that doesn’t care if Seattle has programs and cool international sponsorship as we try to become a more recognized literary city.


Note: This article has been updated to reflect the state of the Seattle City of Literature bid, per City of Lit. 

Editors

Hanna Brooks Olsen

Editor-in-Chief

Hanna is a journalist and political person whose work has been published in the Nation, the Atlantic, and Salon. Likes: her dog and dark bars. Dislikes: apathy and mushrooms.

Sarah Anne Lloyd

Associate Editor

Sarah is Teen Girl Squad in a trenchcoat. She likes public records, tomatoes, and animals that are friends with different kinds of animals.

Alex Hudson

Editor Emeritus

Alex likes cats, oysters, and Steven Hauschka and hates it when people don't exit the bus through the back door.