THE FIRST PUBLIC showing of the 3–D Short Story— the historic date– has been announced at our NPL News page.
THE RELEASE of a completed multi-dimensional story will provide a window into the limitless possibilities of the form. The potential of new art. A starting point.
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We’ve announced our nominations for the 2017 Pushcart Prize. Read about our choices and reasons here at our News blog.
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ALSO read our latest book review at our book review feature– this of a collection of short fiction by award-winning author Kelly Cherry.
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A new feature story is upcoming.
“House pets” may be too strong a term to refer to the twenty-one American novelists featured in Granta magazine’s new issue. BUT, with one potential exception, none of the twenty-one is out to shock the literary establishment with contrary viewpoints– or with new ways of looking at the literary art. That’s left for upstart outfits like ourselves.
The London/New York literary establishments have marshaled their resources to stress the importance of this Granta issue. In the U.S., Slate, The Millions, The Center for Fiction, Library Journal, L.A. Times, Lit Hug; Lucas Wittmann, Laura Miller, Nick Moran, Barbara Hoffert, Michael Schaub, Carolyn Kellogg, Emily Temple; all the usual critical advocates– to the prestigious Guardian newspaper in the U.K. WE alone present the other side of things.
The key in this world is seeing issues and subjects three-dimensionally. One should never accept without question a flat presentation. What the mandarins of culture wish you to see. You might miss what’s really happening.
And so, at our News blog, our perspective on the Granta issue. Worth a look.
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Also, please consider your candidates for the All-Time American Writers Tournament. Who’s your choice? If you have one, or several, email us with a name or names, reasons, or rationalizations. We’re at newpoplit AT gmail.com.
Thanks!
(Cat photo c/o Jamie Lockhart.)
The first task of any upstart literary outfit is to survive. We’ve accomplished this for another year– but we want more. In 2017 we plan to give you more. A lot more.
In the meantime, read our year-end review News Report of our 2016 activities at our News blog.
Also be sure to read our final Fun Pop Poem of 2016, “Exploitation of Subtlety” by multi-talented artist/writer Dan Nielsen.
Thanks to one and all!
We’re serious about moving in a strong way into the genre of poetry. The classic art has been marginalized by the academy; kept alive by hip-hop and open mics. As always, we aim for a fusion of the two types.
POETRY YESTERDAY
October 17 is the birthday of Sylvia Plath, whose dark vision in its mix of craft and passion in the last years of her life was a high point of American poetry. After her death, the form abandoned its sense of music and euphony.
An exception to this abandonment happened in Liverpool, England in the early 1960’s. We’ve discovered a pop poetry movement centered in that industrial city– at the same time a group of moptop musicians began making waves with a unique brand of pop music. We’ll have a report on this, upcoming.
POETRY TODAY
At our News blog, we take an entertaining glance at the five poets named last week as finalists for the National Book Award for Poetry. In fact, we grade them.
What’s our reaction to the Nobel Prize for Literature award to Bob Dylan? To us, it shows the failure of today’s poets to connect meaningfully with the general public– creating a vacuum which has been filled the past fifty years by popular troubadors like Bob Dylan. We say, give us not Bob Dylan but another Dylan Thomas!
POETRY TOMORROW
Our fledgling Fun Pop Poetry feature is a beginning, only that, to a true poetry revival– making the art accessible to everybody.
For a more serious version of pop poetry, in one week we’ll feature several poems from one of the best young poets we’ve seen– proving to us the future of poetry is very bright. Stay tuned to this literary station!
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
New Pop Lit 