Father’s Day

New Pop Lit

The Great Hamlet Challenge!

Announcement

FATHERS AND SONS PART TWO

“To be or not to be.” The question is how much Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” is about the father-son relationship. Shakespeare’s son Hamnet (not making the name up) died before the play was written. The play may have been a tribute to the absent son– an imagined take on how the son would’ve turned out. Interesting that Shakespeare himself played the ghost of the father in the play’s first performances.

“Goodnight, sweet prince! And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

TO CELEBRATE Father’s Day and the father-son relationship, we’ve decided to offer–

THE GREAT HAMLET CHALLENGE!

–to see who can record for us the Best Audio Version of the most famous speech in the history of letters, which begins, “To be or not to be. That is the question.”

There WILL be a prize offered for the best recitation sent to us– a collector’s version of the book of the play. (More later on that.) ALSO, perhaps, a prize for the worst recording of it.

THE CONTEST is open to all writers, editors, spoken word poets and unsuccessful actors. New Pop Lit‘s editors may well record our own takes. We’ll try to post every speech submitted at our Open Mic. Send to newpoplitATgmailDOTcom, with “Hamlet Challenge” in the subject box.

WHO is up to the Challenge? Anyone?

We’ll find out!

New Pop Lit

(Paintings by Benjamin West and Edwin Austin Abbey.)

painting to illustrate New Pop Lit fiction

New Fiction: “Up On the Mountain”

Pop Lit Fiction

FATHERS AND SONS PART ONE

Father’s Day is less than two weeks away, so at New Pop Lit we’re marking the holiday with a small two-week celebration of relationships between fathers and sons, one of the primal relationships in our lives. In our new featured story, “Up On the Mountain,” Jack Somers captures the nuances in that relationship. Dad can be at times an embarrassment, a disappointment, a burden, or a revelation. An unavoidable shadow, good or bad, for us all.

(WRITERS: Note Somers’s ability to create atmosphere without excessive detail. You feel what it’s like to be a tourist in Athens. Photos to illustrate the story were unnecessary– but we added a few anyway.)

I had to come with him, if only to make sure he didn’t kill himself. I found myself thrust again into a role that had become all too familiar to me over the past few years: the parent of the parent. It seemed the older my father got, the more reckless and impulsive and childlike he became.

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ON OTHER FRONTS we’ll shortly have new audio at our ongoing Open Mic, as well as a review of the latest novel from one of our favorite writers. Stay tuned– much more will be happening.

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(Painting: “Greek Theatre at Taormina” by Tivader Csontvary-Kosztka.)