Disproportionate Influence

Before you check out the new essay anthology edited by Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant, Ben Wasson urges you to revisit Sinykin’s illuminating examination of the unsavory machinery of the po-biz.

By Ben WassonOctober 21, 2025

When it comes to the myth of upward mobility, budding writers are an especially credulous breed. Perhaps no idea is more alluring than that of the great Artistic and Intellectual Meritocracy: the idea that, by the sheer brilliance of their literary debut, one might find their mailbox inundated with speaking requests, ceremony invitations, and prize checks. After all, shouldn’t literature—and, broadly speaking, “creative work”—be exempt from the disheartening realities of market forces? Is recognition, often in the form of literary awards, not the final frontier for the deserving artist? 

Well—no. At least, not according to Dan Sinykin, the acclaimed writer and critic whose work for the Post45 Data Collective led him to believe “the game is rigged—the prize game, anyway.” For all the industry’s supposed progressivism, the power to grant money lies in the hands of the few (unsurprisingly, those hands skew white). Awards are often reciprocated among small circles of authors, and even those who beat the odds find themselves confronting the secondary question “Who must I now appease?” Though still hopeful, Sinykin and his fellow researchers expose an uncomfortable truth: in the genealogy of prizewinners, there’s more inbreeding than many would like to admit.