ZEENS!

A NEW KIND OF PUBLICATION

The book is dead. Or at least, the word itself turns off more than half of the potential audience, because they associate it with word-clotted unexciting tomes packaged in volumes reeking of dust and stodginess.

Time to rethink the package– and the product itself. Which is what we do in our latest “zeen” journal/fanzine hybrid, Extreme Zeen 2. Worth a look for the adventurous. Buy it here. Try out the New– soon to be the NOW. (We’ll be surprised if upon receiving it you don’t say, “Wow!”)

Until then, read the story behind the publication, “The Story of Extreme Zeen.”

Roots Writing

Pop Fiction

ZINES AND ZEENS

Roots music pioneer Little Richard, one of the founders of the rock n roll genre, passed away the other day at age 87. Are there roots writers?

Yes! One of them self-published a print zine for many years named fishspit. We’ve published several of his short stories the past few years, and are able to offer our readers another, “Mephistopheles and Lilith,” which is about a cantankerous (but lovable?) cat. We hope you enjoy it.

As you’ll see when you read the story, zine writing is unlike anything you’ll receive from a university writing program anywhere. The writing is uninhibited and honest. No rules or codes or self-censorship adhered to. In this way it’s as natural and real– as authentic– as American roots music– blues, gospel, r & b, country, folk– was so many years ago.

She was a good woman. She did the best she could with me . . . bailing me outta jail . . . cooking healthy meals . . . and listening to my drunken reveries. She was a good woman, as far as women go. But that cat! Now that was a cat!

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WHY are we presenting the writing of a zinester at this point in time?

As a nod to New Pop Lit‘s own roots– and the roots of our new print publication, Extreme Zeen, which is like an old-fashioned zine in that it’s print and DIY and contains zine elements, yet at the same time we’ve taken those elements to an entirely new level. Inventing something never quite seen before. At least, we think we have. To know for sure you’ll have to purchase a copy and judge for yourself!

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(Art: “Dance Hall Scene” by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson.)

Defining the Future of Literature

Announcement

–of the story, the periodical, the book.

The way to do that is to transform the literary art and the presentation of that art. Which we’ve begun doing, including with our first released zeen, Extreme Zeen. Now available here to purchase.

WHY is this publication an important step in the transformation process?

Not everyone will “get” it, but the clues are in the publication itself– pointing the direction for us. And, we believe, for writing and for books themselves. Which in ten years won’t resemble what the mainstream publishes now.

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(Art: “Woman with Birds” by Alexandra Ekster.)