Hello! Today we have for you a mystery story of sorts. We think you’ll enjoy “Other People’s Clothes,” by Ron Singer. Or, the hazards of working out– the dilemmas of contemporary life. You enjoy going to the gym, you say?
Everything seemed there, and the garments had even been laundered –unfortunately, with perfumed detergent. When he checked more carefully, however, his pants knee no longer had the raspberry stain. Stranger and stranger…
Stories! We’re all about stories!
In this instance we have a story which includes stories: “Service” by Tom Ray. Most of us still communicate– for better or worse!– via stories.
Note: the title of the story may have a double (or even triple) meaning. Can you name them?
Let us know what you think about it!
“I shouldn’t be talking about this stuff. I’m a good Christian now, or I try to be. I’m trying to put all of that killing stuff behind me.”
Hello! Our main accomplishment in 2015 was surviving– given that half of our modest team left halfway through the year. We’d already taken on more than we could reasonably handle.
Not to worry! We had a few coups in our pursuit of literary notability.
Among them: two terrific interviews with establishment writers– who were candid with us as they NEVER could be in a status quo publication. See our talks with
We also continued to present terrific new writing, which is what we’re about. Our coup on that front was publishing the first story in English by renowned Belarus author Andrei Dichenko.
In all things, our mission is to showcase reader-friendly writing– including from writers too quirky, edgy, different, or real for the literary “mainstream.” We aim to expand the bounds of what’s considered good writing.
Finally, we struggled out our first print issue– available, along with other NEW POP LIT products, at our Detroit blog.
What lies ahead?
-An improved web site.
-Other books.
-Perhaps, an expanded team.
-And, at this location– exciting pop-lit writing of a kind not found anyplace else. Those writers to be featured after the New Year include: Tom Ray, Ron Singer, Joe Wilson, Jess Mize, Scott Cannon, Ian Lahey, Dave Petraglia, Kathleen Crane, among others.
PLUS, maybe a surprise or two. We have on our drawing board, in the NEW POP LIT design shop, a way to reinvent the short story– giving the public a model faster and more powerful than what’s been done.
Stay tuned! Exciting happenings are ahead.
(Image artist: Larisa Koshkina.)
Merry Christmas! As this is a season for giving, and thinking of others, we have news that one of the best spoken word poets in the country needs help. Read about it here.
What can be said about poet Michael D. Grover is that he’s an authentic undergrounder who lives his art. In the tradition of William Blake and so many others. He’s also evidence of the fact that at the grass roots level, poetry lives, propelled with energy, emotion, and power in a way it never could in the stultifying atmosphere of the ivory tower.
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After Christmas we’ll present our end-of-year wrap-up. Then, for 2016, we are lining up much strikingly original work from some of the nation’s– and world’s– most exciting writers.
Happy holidays!
We’ve published some terrific fiction, poems, interviews, and essays on this site this year– in overall ideas, innovation and quality matching any other lit site anyplace. We’ll be making improvements to this site in coming weeks, to make it the ultimate reading experience.
But we want more! Our long-term goal is to be a publishing entity taking on the big guys– competing with the moldering “Big Five” Manhattan-based book giants. NO ONE in the entire lit scene today has more indy credibility– or is better positioned with DIY background and ideas to be at the forefront of the change which is shaking up the book industry.
So, we’ve introduced our first title, NEW POP LIT #1, a collection of new writing.
IF you want to glimpse what literary change looks like, and you’re eager to support that change, you’ll be eager to purchase a copy. For now we have our NEW POP LIT shop linked at our Detroit blog. Soon we’ll be selling the issue at other places. This project’s editor was once very able at obtaining attention for lit projects– and will do so with this one.
This is an opportunity to step on board the pop lit train as it’s leaving the station– perhaps literature’s most exciting new happening. We’re only beginning. Watch what we do in 2016! Thanks.
With all of us bombarded by bad news from mainstream media on a daily basis, we at NEW POP decided it was time for some humor. After all, we advertise ourselves as the MF (More Fun) website. Sit back, turn off the world and read John Gorman’s “Rejects from the Pretzel Factory.” Humor with heart. But watch out for bad puns!
Has anyone done something so nice for you you’re mad as hell at them? You’re mad because you need to pay them back, not because they expect it, but to squish it from your conscience. After Nick ducktaped my knee at the factory he nursed me in an inexcusable way. He made my life rosier. He talked the head honchos into getting me to play Auntie Bloom, the fake founder of the pretzel franchise.
What about our Pushcart Prize nominations? Did we send in for work published in 2015 any Pushcart Prize nominations?
Absolutely! This time around we sent in three nominations of work from this website, along with three nominations from our just-released-to-the-world print version, NEW POP LIT #1. (Available for sale via our Detroit blog; soon to be offered at the “Shop” feature of this our main site.)
We had an awful lot of very good work to choose from, in both cases, journal and site. We settled on a representative sampling of each. Given that the Pushcart people receive hundreds, maybe thousands, of nominations each year, our bias went slightly toward work which might get their attention, and therefore stand an outside shot at being prize worthy. We erred on the side of uniqueness, and so, went with in one case a translation; in another, a work which could be classified as either story or essay.
The nominations are–
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From the website:
“ENERGY” by Andrei Dichenko (translated by Andrea Gregovich).
https://newpoplit.com/portfolio/energy/
“MOO-G” by David Solórzano.
https://newpoplit.com/portfolio/moo-g/
“BASEBALL IS TRUTH, TRUTH IS BASEBALL” by Tom Tolnay.
https://newpoplit.com/portfolio/baseball-is-truth-truth-is-baseball/
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From the NEW POP LIT print journal:
“DICK AND LIZA” by Alex Bernstein.
“LOS ANGELES AFTER THE QUEEN” by Robin Dunn.
“DANNY BOY” by Jessie Lynn McMains.
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Thanks to the nominees for submitting their work to us. THANKS most to all the other excellent writers who allowed us to present their work to the world, either here or in our new journal.
This is not a Thanksgiving story– not exactly anyway. It’s a story about junior high, and mothers and minivans, and other things. We think you’ll conclude after reading it that Laura Herrin’s “Minivan Vigilante” is an ideal story to read around the holidays.
There on the gym floor Bridgette Calhoun was lined up right next to Kate Carlson. Kate came home and locked herself in her room for days in a row before finally collapsing in Sue’s lap and spilling the saga of Bridgette’s cruelty.
A different take on the American Dream from our previous story is Alan Swyer’s entertaining tale, “Only in America.” The mob meets high society. Who is Whitney St. Clair anyway? What is he doing, and why is he doing it? Find out!
Despite the fact that he could never quite shake the constant fear and trembling at 3 AM that his days as Whitney St. Clair might be numbered, the weeks that followed were a rollercoaster ride the likes of which the guy formerly known as Mickey Rose would never have even dared imagine.
How many stories give a sense of living in history?
Our new tale does. Read Nathaniel Heely’s “The Serpent’s Wink,” in which main character Andrew Schulden is caught amid financial manipulations, media noise and street protests– the chaos of the contemporary world.
“I’m fucking helping people here.” Matranga’s voice interrupted, “I’m really really trying to at least and,” that was snot, flecked with snowflakes again, now tripping down his lip, “and people—my own goddamn friends—are calling me crooks! Like making money was something I did wrong!”
New Pop Lit 