Into a New Year

WE HAVE a lot of ideas to pursue in 2026, chiefly on the drawing board, but a few we hope to implement on our site. 2025 was challenging for us for a variety of reasons, but we survived, are still in the game. The present and future look to be challenging for everybody, but as they say, in crisis comes opportunity. In the literary game we see much crisis, many challenges, and a few opportunities.

Lined up as features for our site over the next two months are at least two terrific works from talented writers: one fiction, one poetry.

Our News of the Moment: the daughter of Tom Ray, a member of our Advisory Board, is making a movie based on a story of Tom’s we ran over a year ago, about AI insanity. Find out about it at our NPL News blog, here. See if you can support the project, or at least, help spread the word! Thanks.

Christmas 2025

Announcement

ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2025, we’re presenting words to one version of the popular Christmas song “I Heard the Bells”– recorded famously by Johnny Cash and many others– because they express the way many of us may be feeling. (The words were originally written by Henry Longfellow in 1864, at the time of the Civil War, a crisis worse than anything we’re experiencing.)

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play;
In music sweet the tones repeat,
“There’s peace on earth, good will to men.”
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th’ unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead nor doubt He sleeps
The wrong shall fail the right prevail
With peace on earth goodwill to men
Till ringin’ singin’ on its way
The world revolve from night to day
A voice a chime a chance so blind
Of peace on earth goodwill to men
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead nor doubt He sleeps
The wrong shall fail the right prevail
With peace on earth goodwill to men.

Merry Christmas from Karl and Kathleen

The Best The Best The Best

Announcement

OUR NOMINATIONS FOR 2026 BEST OF THE NET

AT THE MOMENT we’re strictly an on-line project, at least until we get our art printer fixed and begin cranking out print publications again. Which means the best location for nominating writing we’ve published is Best of the Net. SO: we nominated some of the work we’ve run, by some of the de facto if not de jure very best writers out there. You can read about which writers, and which writings– two stories and six poems– at an announcement at our underutilized News blog.

THE TWO STORIES: Both are excellent reads which stress our humanity– so necessary in this time of AI, of the diminishing value given to human needs and uniqueness.

THE SIX POEMS: All exhibit from their authors a way with words, with sound, yet are simultaneously visual. The poems project penumbras of meaning while capturing the vibe of NOW.

All eight nominees are well worth rereading.

Summer Happenings

Announcement

WHAT’S HAPPENING at New Pop Lit?

We have a somewhat more relaxed posting schedule this summer, of features anyway, as we reassess this project and examine moves toward possible cultural and artistic breakthrough, as discussed in this post at our infrequently used News blog.

That said, we do have several amazing feature short stories upcoming, beginning in August, and a basketful of ideas to try out at our Fast Pop Lit site.

Don’t go anywhere. . .

But Is It Literature?

Announcement

ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF THE LOUD BOYS

THE QUESTION is whether or not it’s permissible to present hyper-pop writing as literature– mandarins in Manhattan and portions of academia would shake their heads “No!” in strong disagreement– when before the Technocratic Era of American Literature which began during the Cold War– circa 1950– hyper-pop emotional involved-in-the-world populist, naturalist, melodramatic, Dumas and Dickens writing was the standard of value. High Modernism and its distorted offshoot, Postmodernism, were on a railway side track. Definitely not the main line as it was later portrayed to be by those with an assortment of agendas to push.

OUR GOAL at New Pop Lit from the beginning of this ambitious project was to bring literature back to the people, via readable, exciting, entertaining and meaningful writing which can connect with the everyday lives of everybody. NOT solely an insular snobby elite removed from the hectic wars of society which seem to become with each passing year ever more hectic and challenging. For many of us, it’s a fight just to survive. Plodding dull fiction– Stoner by John Williams for example– doesn’t cut it.

The new novella The Loud Boys is an attempt to present the antithesis of the status quo Stoner mindset. The book has roots in a variety of influences, from Stephen Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Georges Simenon and Raymond Chandler, to movie editing techniques and even graphic novels.

A few posts explaining some of the aesthetic and strategic ideas behind it:

“Open Territory.”

“About Graphic Novels.”

“All About ‘The Loud Boys.'”

“Simultaneity.”

ARE the ideas behind hyper-pop aka multidimensional writing the future of the literary game? We’ll find out!

Best of the Net Nominations

Announcement

EVERY YEAR Sundress Publications issues their prestigious Best of the Net anthology, devoted to spotlighting writing appearing online, in digital form. As this has been our chief focus of late– and as this may change, as we’re eager to return to analog print publishing– we decided this would be a good time to submit nominations. As we did last week, ten total, from both our main features and our Fast Pop Lit page, chosen for various reasons.

(Keep in mind that a literary project is limited to two fiction, two creative nonfiction, and six poetry nominations. Book reviews not allowed, unfortunately.)

Our ten nominees are:

Dominik Slusarczyk, “Little Church,” 9/11/2023.

Michael Maiello, “Jon Fosse: Reaction,” 10/05/2023.

James Croal Jackson, “Moment (October),” 10/18/2023.

Ali J. Prince, “Slick,” 11/17/2023.

Bela Seitz, “Give the People Guns,” 12/08/2023.

Ken Kakareka, “Encounter,” 2/20/2024.

James Lee, “Marillion On My Face,” 4/12/2024.

Perry Genovesi, “Sketch Rex,” 4/16/2024.

Brian Pilling, “Today’s Poetry Scene,” 5/13/2024.

Haoyi Zhang, “Ad Break,” 6/26/2024.

There were several pieces we would’ve liked to have nominated, but couldn’t or didn’t. Intense debate at New Pop Lit HQ? Maybe!

The chief idea was to choose those works whose writing and presentation best fit the digital medium. And frankly, we wanted the nominees to be eye-or-mind catching in some way, whether in aesthetic effect, in style, subject, or theme. How well we accomplished that will be for you– and for “Best of the Net” judges themselves– to judge.

-Karl and Kathleen

Pop Lit Summer 2024

Announcement, Poetry

WE ARE HERE to celebrate life, the world, humanity– including the celebration of ART and the joys of prose and poetry. Despite wars and inhuman tragedies filling our phones, our screens, and our brains, the world is for the moment still here– it’s summer. July! Let’s enjoy it.

TOWARD THAT END we have several pop lit happenings to announce.

FIRST, our new feature, “Four Poems by John Zedolik,” which consists of– you guessed it– exactly four thought-provoking new poems by John Zedolik, one of the best practitioners of the poetic art around today.

SECOND, ongoing happenings and happiness at our pop-lit literary art gallery, Fast Pop Lit. The current week’s special-on-the-menu, “Ad for Contemporary Artist Wannabes,” is by hyper-talented actress-writer Zoé Mahfouz. Summer writing with flair and energy.

THIRD, we have coming up in less than a week at Fast Pop Lit an impromptu Hemingway Festival(!!) as tribute to one of our favorite authors and literary role models. (Without doubt the best of the highly-touted 20th Century modernists.)

Things are happening. Don’t miss any of it!

About Style

Announcement

A state of mind. An agenda. A program. A manifesto. An expression of self. An expression, perhaps, of a potential new literary movement.

WHEN’S the last time the literary world had real style?

painting by Thomas Phillips

Byron had style. Lord Byron. Sounds like the name of a WWE wrestling star.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their Lost Generation friend Ernest Hemingway had style, in their persons and prose. They influenced entire generations of American writers.

Jack Kerouac and the Beats had style. Their look, swagger, words, ideas created a cool subculture and gave business to burgeoning coffee shops, nascent venues for poetic musical talents like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith.

WHO among writers today has real style? Not affected pretentious overwrought “style” in their workshopped too-literary words. Style instead in their person, swag, attitude– a vibe projected in their look and their writing and in every part of their being.

We’re looking for style, because we know those who have it will revolutionize today’s literary scene.

ALSO: KEEP UP on what’s happening at Fast Pop Lit. Coming soon: Part IV of our “What’s Wrong with American Literature?” series.

AND– If you haven’t already, please sign the “Save the Writer!” petition to protect writers and readers. Thanks!

2024: A New Start?

Announcement

EVERY NEW YEAR is a chance for a fresh start. A do-over. An opportunity to this time get things right. Which is the attitude we’re bringing into 2024. Our goal: to punch a hole through the curtain of today’s culture and jump through it.

Only one strategy will work: totally revamped literary art. This will include a sea change in how people view fiction and poetry. New standards. New canons. The only path forward. Let’s make 2024 a year to remember.

Goodbye 2023!

Announcement

NO DOUBT 2023 was a tough year for everyone except a handful of tech billionaires who gathered enormous wealth–

— but we got through it, which is what counts. In so doing, at New Pop Lit we published a variety of sterling work, fiction and poetry both. In our admittedly biased opinion, some of the best writing to be found anywhere. Doubt this? Then click onto our “TOP OF THE POP” page and browse around. READ some of the stories and poems. They fit our goal of being readable and striking.

WHAT ELSE were we up to in 2023? For one, our “Save the Writer!” petition, which has us standing at the forefront among literary people in questioning the dubious benefits of Artificial Intelligence. If you have not yet signed the petition– you should.

WE ALSO began a new page at our site, Fast Pop Lit— a site within a site, really– for posting shorter work much faster than we can put up our longer features. Also, as a way to promote those writers we do feature at our main site. Plus, it’s as striking looking as any literary site out there– a reflection of our intention to be not just one more literary mag. Previews, interviews, commentary, satires– with much more to come. Check it out!

Then stay tuned for a lot more to come in 2024.