FOR US, that’s the big question, as we’re a forward-looking literary project out to decipher how the literary art will change– how it must change to retain any place in this crazy noisy society. Or in any society. (One criterion we look for in new fiction is universality: Is it enough of a tale to appeal to anyone anyplace?)

We’ll take, in our mad quest, pieces of ideas from anytime in the past– if we believe they’ll work with readers today. For instance: the yarn. The kind of Mark Twain Bret Harte Jack London story told at night around a campfire, or under an urban streetlamp, or in a dorm room. Something maybe over-the-top, often imaginative, and definitely so compelling you couldn’t stop listening– or reading– if you tried. Three months ago, New Pop Lit’s two editors (we hope to add others) were sitting around a coffee shop discussing this very notion. We’d presented several terrific tales in the past, but we wanted more. Give us stories! we shouted (not really), but wanted to, whether propelled by the love of literature and art or from too much caffeine. Lo and behold, arriving into our Inbox that very day was a wild story– definitely a yarn– set in New York City, that maddest, wildest, most ambitious of all cities. The story: “Give the People Guns” by Bela Seitz. Please click on the title and read.

Bela Seitz anyway seems wildly talented. Perhaps one of a phalanx of new prodigies prepared to bring fresh imagination and excitement into today’s literary game? One never knows. Idealists that we are, we hope so. We also hope you enjoy the story.

Grey billowing clouds rushed across the sky, as though someone had a high-powered fan propelling them across the vast blue expanse so that the weather could match the demeanor of the collected reporters. They used to have passion in their eyes, but now their faces were taut, stretched with the gravity of the situation and an innate understanding that the news was no longer something to look at on your phone and laugh about – but was something to be taken seriously.