Grub Street means many things. Literally speaking, it’s the former name of a street in North London. Grub Street as we know it now has been largely swallowed by The Barbican, and what remains goes by the name Milton Street. ‘Grub Street’ as a phrase survives, though. It has weight and a legacy.
By the late 17th century, Grub Street was full of publishing houses. Many took advantage of recently lapsed laws that restricted press freedoms, meaning fewer consequences for ‘seditious’, treasonous, and downright false writing. They also took advantage of the street’s lower-class locale, hiring cheap writers with poverty hot on their heels. All this gave Grub Street a reputation, and it was far from the former image of authors.
No longer was the writer a noble figure, touched by the muses (and funded by esteemed wealthy patrons). Now, they were prostituting themselves. These desperate tradesmen couldn’t possibly produce works of worth – because they were doing it for money, not art.
The phrase ‘Grub Street’, after many years and many satirical essays, became associated with all ‘low-brow’ writing. Before there were tabloids, trashy novels, B-movies, and genre fiction, there was Grub Street.
I’m starting my own blog, and Grub Street is on my mind. I’ve been a professional author for almost 10 years (most of it full-time, too). I’ve published poetry, but I’ve also written accounting textbooks. These past five years, I’ve been an ‘entertainment’ journalist. ‘Entertainment’ is here in big, sarcastic quotation marks, because my beat is tabletop games. There are some who might see still see games journalism as ‘low-brow’. As for whether I’m an artist or a hack, that’s up to the readers.
Professional writing is my dream job, but it’s still a job. You get your dessert, but you still eat your vegetables. I have more creative freedom than most employed authors, but there are still boundaries I cannot cross. There’s no wealthy patron to back up my most out-there ideas (at least, not yet). To an extent, I’m paid to supply what people demand.
Here lies the purpose of starting a blog. Despite writing at my desk every day, there’s still more I want to say. I want to muse on topics that no self-respecting publisher would pay me to write about. There are unloved horror movies from 75 years ago I have strong opinions on. There are poems of hidden in out-of-print magazines that deserve a new home. There are waning, weird creative muscles I’m dying to flex.
This blog is not a career move, and it’s not a haven of high art. It’s a place for me to wax lyrical about the obscure – often low-brow – media I love. In a way, it couldn’t be more and less Grub Street. Welcome to my catalogue of complete trash, driven by passion rather than pay.
If you’re interested in reading, you can sign up to the newsletter I am, as of writing, ineptly trying to set up. It might just be my Dad reading, but who cares? This is the internet: totally unrestricted and uncaring when it comes to quality. There’s that Grub Street metaphor again…