new American writers

Art and the Actual World

Pop Lit Fiction

INSTITUTIONS MOVE SLOWLY, including those of the established literary world, while super-plutocrats like Elon Musk are able to move at lightning speed. Coming technological changes are upon us designed to make the human animal, including writers and artists, obsolete.

HOW do we oppose this?

For starters, with better art– art which emphasizes humans and the human and our interactions with the natural world around us.

WE HAVE such example in our new feature story, “The Slow Pace of Pardon” by Christopher Laurence, set in a cabin in the woods, concerning possible wolves, a dog, a family, a mysterious reappearance, and unwanted interlopers. Atmospheric and well-written– making for terrific reading.

“So, looks like this’s what’s been making those tracks.” he thought. He felt a kind of relief knowing he could remove from his deposit of worries the vision of a rabid, snarling wolf bounding up his path. It was just a poor dog some sad bastard must have let free at the start of winter, when he decided he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be feeding it anymore. He could tell it was thin, and hunger must have finally forced it to put fear aside and come out into the open, where its energy failed it finally, and dropped it on their doorstep.

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IN THE NEW YEAR we intend to do more to forestall our replacement by artificial devices concocted by diabolical billionaires bent on constructing an artificial cyber world of robots, brain implants, fake realities and other nightmares.


ALSO: Speaking of real-world reality, we’ll be releasing within days an alternate version of our latest “zeen” print publication. We’re calling it Fun Pop Poetry Special Edition. The zeen is a mere sample of what we’re gearing up to achieve: actual custom-made publications with countless combinations of colors and styles, to fit the reader’s personality. Is any other publisher large or small offering this? (Are any even imagining such a thing?) We’re determined to lead the world in literary innovation.

Halloween 2018

Pop Lit Fiction

WHAT MAKES A GOOD HALLOWEEN STORY?

A good Halloween story should be truly scary– or at the least, disturbing. Something which climbs inside your head to unsettle your dreams. Or magnify your nightmares.

Our Halloween presentation for 2018, “God, the Machine” by Travis Simpson, does not involve pumpkins, demons or goblins. The story features instead that most frightening of nature-or-God’s creations, the human mind. Set in a futuristic world swiftly becoming contemporary and real.

She imagines the room filling with water, their bodies floating inside, spilling whatever blood is still loose inside them free in billowing clouds, a little like the nebulous entity outside the craft. This is the will of God, who moves through all dimensions and put this plan in her life from the moment she was conceived.

rivera controller of the universe

(Art: “The Headless Horseman” by Ichabod Crane; “Controller of the Universe” by Diego Rivera.)

Fiction: Life in High School Now

Pop Lit Fiction

THE NEW GENERATION

WHAT are the kids doing, thinking experiencing? HOW are their lives different from ours? What’s changed? What burdens, obstacles, expectations and insanities are they going through– beyond those which we who’ve been around longer have already faced?

HAS there ever been a more connected yet more alienated generation?

WILL they soon simply proclaim in one voice “Enough!” and be done with all of it, and with us?

QUESTIONS which are raised by our new feature story by recent high school student A.K. Riddle, “Now All the Kids Are Making Noise Just Because It’s Something to Do.”

Experience? A.K. gives us a ton of it, along with the emotion and confusion of being young– of being human. Along with exceptional writing. Plus, a structure which doesn’t fit a predictable mold– which one would expect and want from an artistically fresh and talented young writer.

There’s a lot going on in this story. We hope you like it.

I wished I could play with them and laugh along to their jokes and sing along to their rap. But, as I looked to the clear sky and opened the door a little to feel the cold air, I remembered that I was just a poet. I was just there to tell their stories, not be like them. I don’t know if I liked it that way, but that’s just the way things were.

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(Painting: “The Dance of Life” by Edvard Munch.)

New Stars of Literature

Poetry, Pop Lit Fiction

At New Pop Lit we’re continually on the lookout for new talent combined with striking personality– recognizing that talent is often if not always the expression of personality.

WE’RE AWARE and we’ve been aware for some time that the literary scene needs “stars.” It needs personas, BIG, bigger-than-Hemingway personalities, dramatic figures crafting unorthodox unpredictable fictions or poems taking the literary art in new directions, to new heights.

IN THIS ongoing search we have today two possible future literary earthshakers.

Our new featured fiction, “The Hunting Cabin,” is by Brian Eckert, one of the best independent short story writers on today’s scene– independent in the sense of not writing to please take-no-chances Manhattan magazine editors, or even paint-by-the-numbers university professors. Eckert writes for the unseen artistic conscience. His story is three-dimensionally honest. More rounded, with more depth– puzzles and questions– than usual literary fare.

WE ALSO have, along with Brian’s perspective, an equally powerful but quite different viewpoint from talented poet Kristin Garth, who’s been getting much attention lately across the internet, and who has kindly offered New Pop Lit a short recording for our ongoing Open Mic. Her poem is called “Kristins.” We believe you’ll find it striking.

We try to be a window on new literature!

Robert_Delaunay_-_Window_with_Orange_Curtains_-_1912_-_Private_collection

(Paintings: “Matterhorn” by Edward Theodore Compton; “Window with Orange Curtains” by Robert Delaunay.)