It's not all about New York. Except when it is.

Writer Rachel Maddux wrote this great piece  on her Tumblr about the ubiquity of New York as the setting in a lot of younger women's writing. She says:

"I am so tired of New York City as a default setting. I am so tired of New York City as the psychological home turf. I am so tired of New York City as an aesthetic choice. I am so tired of the assumption of New York City’s fundamental interestingness. At this point it is actually the most boring thing in the world to me. Oh, you’re a writer? In your 20s? Living in New York? Writing about being a writer and being in your 20s and living in New York? Tell me more! Wait no, do not tell me more, because that is almost literally all I am ever ever told about."

It's not only memoirs and essays, but New York is the default setting in a lot of fiction penned by twenty-somethings. As a Midwesterner -- and an uprootable one at this point, I have no desire, nor the hubris, to write a memoir, but I have written a few short pieces of (yet unpublished) fiction, and I always use the Midwest as a backdrop. Call me corny, but it never occurred to me to trade my provincial background for the glamor of NYC. I had no idea this was a liability.