We haven’t posted an Op-Ed in a while. Is there a better day for it than one of the more contentious days in American history?
We contend this commentary from New Pop Lit editor Karl Wenclas is an objective look at events, in the context of a realistic view of American history. Feel free to disagree!
Making noise and screaming for the benefit of television cameras is who we are.
New ideas.
Our mission here at New Pop Lit is to present exciting new ideas. No, we’re not a stale-and-stodgy business-as-usual literary site. We exist to CHANGE the literary scene. Change is inevitable. Change is sweeping. Change is part of nature and people. Constant. Onrushing.
Meanwhile, established literature operates as if it were still in the early 19th century. Tops-down, insular and clubby, promoting a literary art which changes at a turtle’s pace. (We give established literati enough credit not to call them snails.)
Where is literature going?
In our quest for answers we interview up-and-coming writer Samuel Stevens for our Hype page. Part of our showcasing the nation’s best new writers.
If you want to stay current on the future of books, publishing, and writing you have to read this site! As always, we welcome your feedback.
There’s definitely a shift in the zeitgeist. It’s just a very long battle. It’s not just “liberals” who limit free speech, you also have major corporations–the same ones mainstream conservatism loves to defend–love to push the same message.
Spring is here! Time for a fresh start, a new attitude.
What’s coming at New Pop Lit?
A lot! A mix of prose, poetry, and hype profiles.
First: stories. You want stories? We have stories! By some of the best short story writers in the English-speaking world, if not the entire universe. This includes tales by James Guthrie and Joshua Isard. It includes terrific new work by Anne Leigh Parrish and Scott Cannon, who’ve both appeared here before. Their talent is off the boards. We’re amazed we’re still able to obtain work from them– in different ways they exemplify a dawning new golden age of the American short story art. Would that these writers become as recognized as Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald– but that’s our job!
Toward that end, we have a hype interview planned for Ms. Parrish– not before we post a profile of Jessie Lynn McMains and an interview with Samuel Stevens.
Finally, there’s poetry. We don’t publish a lot of poetry, but we received striking work from two very different poets, John Grochalski and Erin Knowles Chapman. Their work was too good to ignore.
If we get a chance to squeeze in another “Question of the Month,” we’ll do so. The first one was spectacularly successful.
Thanks for staying up on us. Our readers are all.
-K.W.
WE NOTICE as we circle around town in our Poplitmobile that there are sales everywhere. No business is NOT having a sale. Far be it from us to miss a trend– PLUS, we exist to compete. Not solely with other literary people. Therefore, we introduce to the world our first
MID-WINTER SALE
offering 25% off (you heard it right) everything in our New Pop Lit shop. That is, if you use the correct promo code, which for the moment is
POPLIT16
See our shop, accessible via this link:
http://www.detroitliterary.blogspot.com/2015/12/new-pop-lit-1-is-on-sale.html
The sale may last a few weeks. It may last a day– so order your exclusive NEW POP LIT books or “Aloha from Detroit” t-shirts immediately.
OTHER FRONTS
On other fronts, we will be doing much more to hype our writers– in every possible way. The foundation of this new P.T. Barnum noise will be our “HYPE” page. We are going to turn writers into rock stars– so stay up to date on everything we’re doing. Thanks!
The topic of conversation this week in the established literary world is the publication of Jonathan Franzen’s latest big novel, Purity— one of those sporadic books meant to justify the existence of said literary world. No American novelist over the past fifteen years has received the same level of critical attention combined with media hype.
Is the hype justified?
To answer that question, NEW POP LIT’s Karl Wenclas questions the esteemed author and book reviewer Tom LeClair, who reviewed Franzen’s novel last week at The Daily Beast. Now LeClair amplifies his thoughts; holding nothing back as he examines Franzen, other reviewers, and the current state of American literature and publishing. Read our exclusive interview with him now!
–the critics who go along with Time’s assertion that Franzen is a “Great American Novelist” will be found out and mocked. . . .
New Pop Lit 