Coming Attractions

What’s up? Been having a dynamite summer?

We have! Among the writing we’ve published here has been baseball pop, noir pop, experimental pop, creepy pop, political pop (same thing), pop poetry, plus an interview with one of North America’s best and most controversial writers.

We promise that more exciting fiction and poetry will follow. We’ve lined up many weeks of terrific work. Our only criteria is that the writing be readable and good– so sometimes we receive amazing writing which no one else will touch. That’s our mission, if truth be told.

We’re also lining up more provocative interviews. We’ll also do much more to promote pop writers and we continue to search for outstanding pop writers.

What of our publishing endeavors, you ask?

They’re moving along, at snail’s pace maybe, but they’re moving. The first real printing of NEW POP LIT The Print Version aka Issue #1 will happen. Target date is before October 1. We thank those writers and artists included for their patience. We’ll be selling the issue and other publications– and future publications– at our website and through other venues.

In the meantime we’ll have remaining copies of our “Sneak Preview” printing of NEW POP LIT #1 for sale at Detroit’s biggest street fair September 12– along with zines, t-shirts, and books. Stay tuned for more news about that.

Before all this takes place, please explore this site– especially our Coffee House page, where we have links to:

-Fun stuff at New Pop Lit Interactive. Currently we’re asking, “Who’s the Greatest Pop Personality of All Time?” (Not the biggest. The greatest.)

-Lit-world news at our News page. At the moment we ask questions regarding the promotion of Jonathan Franzen’s well-hyped new novel. Read our report and stay current!

-A Detroit literary blog which will track our attempts to build new publishing in this tough but opportunistic town. We deal here in big ideas only.

Which could be the theme of this entire project.

-Karl Wenclas

The Caseworker

Pop Lit Fiction

Bureaucrats! Washington bureaucrats! Bureaucrats and more bureaucrats!

Politics has been much in the news of late, with scores of candidates– of every egregious personality type– hustling for public attention. But what’s inside-the Beltway, inside-D.C. really like?

Far be it from NEW POP LIT to miss a trend. We have the scoop in the form of a story, “The Caseworker,” by Tom Ray. Lobbyists; legislative assistants; administrators; American apparatchiks; congressmen and their mistresses– Tom Ray gives you all of it in a tightly-wound little tale. Get educated! Read how the political machine operates.

Madison was a legislative assistant in the office. She’d been having an affair with the Congressman for several months, which Warner hadn’t figured out yet. “So, who will they fire?”

Two Pop Poems by Lara Dolphin

Poetry

We’ve published some terrific writing of late. For instance, these two pop poems by Lara Dolphin. They exemplify pop lit: readable, witty, and entertaining. This is poetry for the people– for everybody.

No way will we ever publish bland, meaningless, inscrutable, unmusical, New Yorker-style poetry. Give us Lara Dolphin poems instead!

Finally, toss in

chopped up raw peanuts to make the product impossible

to spread without ripping a hole in your bread.

Call Me When You Get Home

Pop Lit Fiction

Today we hit readers with a definite change-of-pace from previous stories. “Call Me When You Get Home” by Eric Lutz is a different kind of mystery– a different kind of story. Like a tale from Hemingway, this narrative is most impactful for what it leaves out of the story. For what’s offstage. Unsaid. There’s a tone to the story of impending– what?

It’s highly readable but it’s also a story which begs to be re-read– at least once– and thought about. We ask YOU to read it here. Then, if you’ve figured it out, please let us know what you think!

In another world where everything’s fine, you and I live on the second floor of a three story walk-up. We get along with the neighbors, and in the summer we entertain on the deck out back.

Speech Therapy

Pop Fiction

Zombies!

A zombie story?

It was inevitable that at some point we would publish a zombie story. We want to be at the epicenter of the culture. Zombies are very “pop” right now. Very in. Far be it from NEW POP LIT to miss out on a trend!

“Speech Therapy” by Heidi Nibbelink might be the strangest story we’ve ever presented. It might be the most hilarious. (Speech therapy for zombies?) You the reader must judge. Plunge into the story here. But be cautious! Be forewarned. Be sure to wear latex gloves as you take the narrative journey.

Soon my schedule was booked for nine hours a day with all-zombie clients. I started running evening conversation groups two nights a week where those who graduated from my ten-week course could continue practicing and refining their skills. And the money!

The Double

Pop Fiction

Hello! We’re back to posting short fiction, which is our main purpose. We seek to present stories that are readable, compelling, and well-written. We have one! The question you must ask yourself about this tale is this: is it genre or is it literature? (This is a question John Colapinto addressed for us in his recent interview.) We’re of a mind that fiction can and should be both. Doppelgangers in particular have been used in fiction by talented pop-lit writers from Edgar Allan Poe to Fyodor Dostoevsky to Joseph Conrad. (Do we believe Nels Hanson is in sterling company? Yes.)

Read Mr. Hanson’s deep, noirish tale “The Double” and see what you think.

I was dead. I lay on the cold pebbles. The water flowed over me. With drowned eyes I saw the stars flicker like wet candles past the dark surface of the creek.

EXCLUSIVE JOHN COLAPINTO INTERVIEW

Controversy

John Colapinto has written a novel he’d like to have published in the United States. Undone is its title. Despite being an excellent writer and on the staff of the esteemed The New Yorker magazine; despite having an impressive resume; despite having been published by book giant Harper-Collins previously– forty U.S. publishers have declined to publish Undone because of its potentially offensive plotline. Even though the novel is well written and entertaining.

What’s happening? Have we entered a new Victorian Age?

Is John Colapinto a latter-day D.H. Lawrence, Allen Ginsberg, or James Joyce?

NEW POP LIT’s Karl Wenclas interviews Mr. Colapinto in an attempt to understand the controversy. Read the interview here.

THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN TODAY’S PUBLISHING SCENE.

Whispers in the Wood

Pop Fiction

What’s up with those crazy Tiki statues anyway?

Why does her husband collect them?

We’ve decided– enough of complacently relaxing baseball stories! What readers really want is a good mystery story. And we have one! Kristi Petersen Schoonover gives us “Whispers in the Wood.”

Just don’t look too closely at those Polynesian statues!

Something caught her eye in the corner—another of Bruce’s Tiki statues. This one wore a peculiar, asymmetrical grin and, as she got closer, had lines, almost like the wrinkles of a furrowed brow, on its forehead. Its eyes looked closed, as though it were sleeping.

Dropping the vase, she fled the room and slammed the door shut behind her, raced to the couch, clutched the over-sized atlas to her chest.

Baseball Is Truth, Truth Is Baseball

Uncategorized

Hello! To celebrate the classic American summer sport of baseball– and the All-Star Game on July 14th– we present to readers what may well be a modern classic by Tom Tolnay, “Baseball Is Truth, Truth Is Baseball.”

Is it a story?

Is it an essay?

Read it and decide. We believe you’ll find in the tale a great deal of insight and meaning.

What I’m saying is this: Baseball’s a thinking fan’s game, and understanding its subtleties requires an upper-deck level of intelligence as opposed to, say, eyeballing a horde of foul-ball twits (or should I say “twitters”) in leggings kicking an air-pumped ball hither and thither.

Spring Break and Other Poems

Poetry

NEW POP LIT is back! At least we think we are. We kick off things again with three striking poems from Howard Winn. Read ’em and think about ’em. We hope you like them! https://newpoplit.com/portfolio/spring-break-and-other-poems/

“The lemmings throng at the dormitory exits,
gathering to go south
for sun, fun, and games,
not to mention various
intoxicants, uppers and downers,
pills, liquids, needles, and just
stimulation or its converse,
some tranquil state,
and careful and casual intimacy,”