Friends, Writing, Stories, and Humanity

MUCH discussion has taken place this week in the online literary world about distinguished(?) Granta magazine running a prize-winning short story later discovered to have been generated by AI. This raised the question of what kinds of stories literary publications, such as our own, should be running. How do we react to the ongoing AI onslaught?

WE BELIEVE the key to survival of the art is to keep it grounded in reality, with emphasis on our humanity. Our experiences, emotions, sensitivities, friendships and frailties. As portrayed in our excellent new feature short story, “A Fading” by Aspen Audley. A tale about two childhood friends, and the progress of that friendship over the years. We hope you enjoy it!

That was when our M-C folders were born. Megan came up with the idea. She said she wanted to “preserve” my letter, “make it a testament to true friendship”—“for our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, our great-great-grandchildren, and all future generations of best friends.” We found a couple of cardboard folders, mine bright orange, hers royal blue, and spent the afternoon decorating them. Megan invented a secret code, and in lieu of a blood oath, we cut sections of each other’s hair and taped them to the cover. I suggested we put our commitment to each other in writing. We got two sheets of notebook paper and, on each one, wrote the following:

This is to proclaim that forever and ever, Megan and Camila, also known as M-C, will be best friends and love each with all our hearts.

Pushing Back: 2026 to ?

Pop Lit Fiction

WILL LITERATURE RAISE ITS VOICE?

PUSHBACK against mad tech overdogs and an increasingly insane society has begun. Along the margins, so far. Among the people. At local city council meetings, citizens raising their voices against this planned technocratic atrocity or that one. From-the-ground-up happenings. The question for the populace, We the People, is how far to go. Open rebellion? Out of the question. Definitely not recommended with ICE and military budgets seeing big increases under this not-fascism regime.

Disconnection? Some may be trying it. A former member of the notorious Underground Literary Alliance (all mention of which is banned among the literary elite), who I’ll call here Paul S., has created an offline discussion group, using snail mail. A return to the defunct organization’s roots. Possible foundation for a revived literary alternative during an upcoming “Dead Internet” period–?

The idea of disconnecting from today’s technocratic dystopia is also addressed in our new feature short story, “Opting Out,” by Evan Brown. Fictional, yet timely and real. And after all, who knows what actions out there in the expanses of this vast country already are planned, or taking place? We hope you enjoy it!

Right-wing and left-wing podcasters warned the revolution would start in big cities like New York, San Francisco, or L.A. What the world learned from their daily hot takes and nightly news broadcasts was just how out of touch the opinion-makers really were.

Today’s Stressful World

Pop Lit Fiction

STRESS IS EVERYWHERE, and has been in this mad society at least since the pandemic. Move faster, take on more demands, growing to-do lists about cars kids pets schools jobs, keep up with everybody as our screens multiply and costs skyrocket, accompanied by brutalist redesigns and algorithmic advertisements, politicians becoming hysterical and neighbors catty while everywhere we turn is growing anxiety until we, everyone of us, wants to shout, “Enough!”

NO ONE has captured this aspect of the contemporary world better, in our opinion, than Elizabeth Ohga in our new feature short story, “Portrait of a Lady in Gold.” Or: life today. The writing is so spot-on perfect that instead of one excerpt here, as is our usual practice, we could give a dozen. Instead, click the link, read the story– plunge into the narrative– and discover it for yourself.

Penny used to have it under control. She was breaking the cycle. Then 2020 happened. Everyone acknowledged it was a bad time for working mothers, though Penny’s boss saying “we see you, moms, and how hard you’re working,” did not add hours of sleep to her nights or dollars to her bank account. It didn’t put food on the table or change Lulu’s diapers. And then the people in charge decided they were sick and tired of Covid – just completely over it – and deemed the pandemic over. Nothing to see here, folks, let’s get back to work and make the good old American dollar. Get vaccinated, or don’t. Wear a mask, or don’t. But we are not going to let a stupid virus upend our lives. Except for people like Penny, it already had.

The Hustle Is Not a Dance

Pop Lit Fiction

LIVING IN AMERICA TODAY

In this insane society there are two kinds of hustlers.

One kind are the multi-billionaire tech boys painting visual sci-fi pictures of futuristic craziness while scamming in every possible way to pump up their money bubble to further increase their enormous wealth.

The other is the traditional hustling-to-survive kind, still seen in parts of hectic cities like New York. Which is the kind portrayed in our slightly crazy new feature story, “Casanova Must Die,” by Dan Shapiro. A story which well captures the unique east coast city street vibe, and the fast-moving fast-talking characters who inhabit those towns. Especially fascinating is when one of the characters is a gorgeous woman.

Jump into the story. You’ll enjoy it.

The entire time not a single glimpse of the woman who stole his wallet, but plenty of women who reminded him of Madeline, something he hadn’t anticipated. Not so much facial resemblance, but the way they dressed. Cream-colored summer sun hats, with wide brims for extra protection. Long, flowy white short-sleeve sundresses that billowed in the breeze and swayed as they walked. Standard tote bags hanging off their shoulders.

Our Chaotic World

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NO DOUBT, as anyone who watches the news can attest, we live in a world and society in chaos. Given ups and downs, this has long been the case.

As example we present our new feature short story, “Contact” by Joe Del Castillo, who writes with humanity and heart. His latest story circles around the murder in 1980 of a public figure. As public– as famous– as one can get. Moreover, a figure known for his humanity, his often-flawed stumbles through this hectic world, as we all stumble through it.

The theme of Del Castillo’s story, so necessary in this age of robots and cruelties, is our common humanity. As the title implies, the need of all of us for human contact.

He gazed at the pictures and read the liner notes, knowing but not yet comprehending that a door had shut, a wall had risen, over his past.

WE’LL ALSO be posting in coming days many new thoughts and provocative writing at the other parts of this project, addressing various aspects of literature and the world. These spots include Fast Pop Lit, our NPL News blog, our Interactive page– which we need to make more interactive c/o quizzes and such– and we hope to soon revive our book review feature.

THE QUESTION for us, as perhaps for others, is: How to address the world without being corrupted by it? We’re still working on that one!

Topical Art

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IS THE TOPICAL POLITICAL?

(“Guernica” by Pablo Picasso.)

CAN a story, essay, or poem be political without being topical? Of the now, the moment, addressing today’s dark dilemmas and hectic happenings? Can an art form truly be meaningful or important if it never does? After all, literature is supposed to be “news that stays news,” but people forget the first part of the equation: becoming news to begin with.

Which serves as Introduction to our new feature, “Stormtroopers” by New Pop Lit Editor Karl Wenclas. Prodded by his co-editor to run it as a feature, rather than at one of our soon-to-be-jump-started blogs. A story submitted first to a two-week-response-time, relatively prominent literary journal for the heck of it. (Their loss.) A two-week delay! When being topical– “news”– a two-week delay might be crucial. But way better than dinosaur The New Yorker’s six month response time!

State of the moment and state of the art? That’s for you to judge.

From the first day, for Stewart it was go-go-go, like being pushed through a tunnel. Beginning with the Academy, which crammed four months of training into 47 days. A hiring blitz was on. 120 were in his class, which was one of more than a dozen classes at the facility. New agents ranged in age from 18 to 60. If you were an adult, willing, and breathing.

Fall Fiction!

Pop Lit Fiction

What’s happening out in the world?

As opposed to, say, in stray literary areas of gentrified New York, where what’s happening among a self-absorbed media elite seems to be an article in Harper’s magazine about, er, self-absorption.

We say, enough! Time for writers to not be as insular as an AI chatbot, but to become interested in other people. To plunge into real-world human experience– the one edge we have over our new programmed, computer-generated competitors– then write about it. As Jeff Nazzaro does in our excellent new feature short story, “Of Music and Men.” All it does is capture our prime goal as a literary site: to present humanity and reality. Isn’t that what art has always been about?

Up here over the South LA freeways, it’s hazy and cool. I stop and let the dirty air wash over me, then I see a man come up the steps, stop at the top, turn, and take a seat one step down from the platform. My friend from the train? I can’t see his face, but no, I don’t think it’s him. And what difference would it make? I walk over to get a closer look. He wears dark pants and a gray hoodie, the hood pulled up and drawn tight. He’s hunched over on the top step, sobbing.

Living In the Actual World

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RECENTLY I read an article about famed film director Stanley Kubrick’s “cool precision.” Not long after, I read about the conflicts Kubrick had with actor Marlon Brando during the filming of the 1961 Western, “One-Eyed Jacks,” which resulted in Stanley Kubrick leaving and Brando taking over as director of the project. Which started me thinking about approaches to writing, and to art in general.

Kubrick, like Hitchcock, Spielberg, and other well-known movie auteurs, was a control freak who saw every shot beforehand, down to the actor’s lines and expression, in his head. Brando wanted a more spontaneous, instinctive approach. We have no idea how Stanley Kubrick’s version of the film would’ve turned out– but we do know that Brando pulled career-best performances from the cast, from Karl Malden, Pina Pellicer, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens and others, by not asking them to follow perfectly the script, but instead to bring something of themselves to their roles. My thought: That in this robotic age, perhaps in literature as well as in cinema, we need to emphasize the human aspect of life and art.

Which brings us to our new feature, “The Wrong Crowd” by Lyn Michele Stevens. Focus is on the humanity of the two characters, who appear to us as characters, in both senses of the word. Fully-rounded, flawed, real, with back stories which reveal how they came to this point in life. Distinctive, all-too-human personalities which pop out to us from the page. Maybe just a little out of control, not following perfectly an intended script. -KW

Sex aside, the rush of freedom was exhilarating. Everything was a dare. Allie landed a job as a receptionist. Pete played open mics all over town. High on weed and booze, they went to concerts on the pier, museums, the zoo. Anything for free. A year later her body turned on itself. Bladder dysfunction, numbness in her legs. The vertigo was the worst, this wild pulsating city spinning out of control. Pete stayed on, blending protein shakes and snorting coke laced with speed but once she started using the chair because her balance was so unpredictable, the disease took over life.

End of Summer 2025

Pop Lit Fiction

LATE SUMMER! Post-Labor Day. A time of earlier sunsets, cooling nights, and poignant melancholy accompanying the end of summer’s carefree days. A time of change, wistfulness, memories.

Our new feature short story, “Big Lagoon” by Thomas Thonson is a tale about summer experiences and memories, of present merging with past– with persons from the past– an artistic blend of setting and personality, of experience that jumps out at you. With a hint of a surprise which calls into question our narrator, or at minimum, our opinion of him. Or a taste of another dimension. An example of what the fictional literary art can accomplish when all elements work harmoniously together.

A summer story. But is it the best short story of this 2025 summer? We think so!

Going out in that storm was the kind of idea only Marcel would’ve come up with. He was the daredevil, and I was his willing accomplice. He was also a talker––a voluminous, non-stop, wildly imaginative talker. His words could fill you with a sense of expectation, of worlds you hadn’t even dreamed of.

(ALSO stay up to date with everything happening at our Fast Pop Lit site, where everything happens fast, and will get faster.)

Men and Women

Pop Lit Fiction

IN OUR CURRENT social media-dominated environment, there’s much talk throughout the culture about the widening divide between men and women, their minds more-and-more running at cross purposes. On different communication wavelengths. Generated in part by political differences and different perceived individual needs.

Into this maelstrom of disconnection we drop an excellent new feature story, “On the Dance Floor” by Leah Browning, which through the art of fiction artfully and subtly addresses the question– leaving at the end a small ray of optimism? That’s for you the reader to judge.

At dinner one night, listening to his girlfriend ramble endlessly about some reality show nonsense, not even bothering to swallow a mouthful of food before she went on about this drivel, he made the decision, as he had many times before, to break it off with her.