Announcement

Save the Writer Campaign

Announcement

Are writers an endangered species?

You wouldn’t think so, based on how many of us there are. But the writer has become devalued in this society. “Oh, you write?” or, “You’re a writer?”– accompanied by expressions of disbelief, dismissal, and scorn.

We’re out to change that! FIRST, by fending off the assault of billionaire-generated fake writer-substitutes c/o A.I. devices whose purpose is to make further $$$ for their plutocratic proponents by wiping out writers as a class, while flooding the market with inferior books and articles.

To promote clarity about what’s happening, we’ve begun a “Save the Writer!” petition asking for proper labeling about A.I. content. Not much of a pushback, but the minimum. A start. Please read and sign!

SECOND, we continue to develop, behind-the-scenes, new kinds of literary products. We’re not against technology– we just happen to believe words, sentences, literature are also a complex technology. The original tech, one might say.

We also believe in human deep learning, instead of billions of dollars pumped solely into deep learning of machines!

Much to come.

No Robots!

Announcement

NEW GUIDELINES CONCERNING A.I. (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) WRITERS

This is to affirm we will be accepting no literary work– fiction, nonfiction, or poetry– created with the use of an A.I. program. As the task for human writers today is difficult enough as it is, and as we enjoy the human element in art, we seek to delay the march toward artificial everything as long as possible.

YES, WE KNOW the dream of the hyper-plutocrats– billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk– is to control everything themselves from the top down and eliminate all human employees, so they can run their massive businesses strictly via robots and phone apps. To this we say: Do what you will, world, but WE at New Pop Lit Headquarters will be cooperating with this insane plan as little as possible. -K.W. and K.M.C for NPL.

p.s. New feature works by human writers ARE upcoming.

New Aesthetics, New Canons

Announcement

DO PEOPLE realize the enormous cultural-media changes now taking place?

One needs to step back and view the bigger picture to fully see the changes. Legacy institutions in steady decline. The rise of often-inadequate-if-not-insane upstarts.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN that a racist nonentity like Nick Fuentes, podcasting out of his mom’s basement while promoting crackpot ideas, can become a national figure?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN that the richest man on the planet buys the most effective social media tool and uses it to decide what will or will not become major news stories?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN that a once-prestigious institution like the British Film Institute comes up with a list of “100 Greatest” movies that’s 100% out-of-step with public taste– as if they’re out to deliberately marginalize/sabotage/dynamite themselves and all current established-and-approved film critics?

These signs mean there are ENORMOUS openings in the culture right now– the opportunity to rethink everything arts related. Which we’re doing in the literary field with new styles of publications, as well as changing the structure of the literary art itself. The good guys (us!) need to pre-empt the bad guys in these changes.

Stay tuned. Much is happening.

National Novel Writing Month

Announcement

THE EDITORS of New Pop Lit Karl Wenclas and Kathleen M. Crane who are also writers will be discussing the creative process and the future of writers and writing AT the Trenton Veterans Memorial Library in Trenton, Michigan this Saturday, November 19, at 2 p.m.

On being a writer: WHY should a person invest the time in what might be considered by some an outmoded art form?

There are multiple answers to that “Why?” With clarity and energy we plan to present a few of those answers.

(Advance register by calling 734-676-9777.)

Fun Pop Poetry Has Arrived!

Announcement

MUCH TALK is happening everywhere about the literary scene where it’s headed its obstacles and divisions, What To Do, Where To Go why wherefore what’s your ideology your stance your pose your attention to minutaie your perspective on world issues– this and that– while we at New Pop Lit can only say: ENOUGH! Our answer to literary critics our solution to gatekeepers traditional or contemporary is embodied in our newest print publication: FUN POP POETRY.

Why do you read?

Why does anyone reaD?

aS A DUTY? aN OBLIGATION? a task??

Or maybe possibly to be amused for a few minutes– or dazzled– to find escape from the insoluble unsolvable eternally mad world of problems??

(Craft?? What’s that?)

We seek to blow the doors off institutions, the prison houses of literature, the gates of the gatekeepers, with words to be read and remembered.

Order your copy here, now. All Color, every page. You won’t regret it.

The future of poetry has arrived.

Why Pop Lit?

Announcement

WHY?

Why read our web site?

Why “pop lit”– an intended fusion of the literary and the popular?

If you’re interested in writing and literature and believe literature can change the world (which at the moment needs an upsurge in cultural enthusiasm), then we’re a literary site to keep an eye on. None are more ambitious. (A sign of absurd confidence?)

What makes us stand out is A.) We believe the literary art, as well as the publishing industry itself, will change. As arts over time inevitably change. B.) We have plans to change it. Plans-– the plural, because we know many if not most of our ideas won’t work. Which is why we have a lot of them. We’re the innovation machine of today’s literary world.

This means: creating prototypes.

We have a primitive “3-D” multidimensional short story as our current feature, as one example of a writing prototype. We also have “zeens”– print journal prototypes– available for sale at our POP SHOP, in addition to the latest issue of a newsletter discussing more of what our plans are about.

Jump on the New Pop Lit bandwagon before it takes off!

Winners and Writers

Announcement

A QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT

FOR THOSE who haven’t heard, we have a winner in our first cash prize contest, one Tom Ray. Check out our NPL News story about it.

ON OTHER FRONTS, we’ve been using our revamped Special Projects blog for quirky writings, often of a humorous nature, as well as for sneak previews of pop lit things-to-come. Peruse our latest offering, “Sending the Dog to a Farm” by Gregg Maxwell Parker. Next up there will be amusing fiction from Wred Fright— before we move on at last to our planned collaborative novel– which should be fun!?

Plus much more.

(Art: “Organization” by Arshile Gorky.)

Contests!

Announcement

PART of our mission with the arts grant we received will be to continue developing new forms for the short story. New structures and shapes, not unlike modernist shapes in the plastic arts. Experiments in structure.

As with anything, there’s a steep learning curve involved in perfecting the multidimensional short story. We’re working through several iterations. The end goal: A better reading experience.

TOWARD THAT END–

Our first announced contest is a short and modest one. A one-month contest, with a prize of eighty dollars ($80) for the FIRST competent and readable story we receive written from two different viewpoints. Alternate and connect the two viewpoints however you like. If we don’t receive an adequate story within those parameters at the end of one month, the contest will be extended for another month, and so on– until we have a winner. The winning story will be featured at our site.

The contest is open to anyone except New Pop Lit‘s two editors.

6,000 word maximum, 1,000 word minimum.

Send all entries to newpoplit@gmail.com, with “Contest” in the subject line.

The contest begins now, today: March 4, 2022.

Again, this is the first of several contests we’ll be running this year.

Thanks in advance to anyone, or all, who participate– and good luck!