Year-End Report

Announcement

Hello! Our main accomplishment in 2015 was surviving– given that half of our modest team left halfway through the year. We’d already taken on more than we could reasonably handle.

Not to worry! We had a few coups in our pursuit of literary notability.

Among them: two terrific interviews with establishment writers– who were candid with us as they NEVER could be in a status quo publication. See our talks with

John Colapinto

Tom LeClair

We also continued to present terrific new writing, which is what we’re about. Our coup on that front was publishing the first story in English by renowned Belarus author Andrei Dichenko.

“Energy”

In all things, our mission is to showcase reader-friendly writing– including from writers too quirky, edgy, different, or real for the literary “mainstream.” We aim to expand the bounds of what’s considered good writing.

Finally, we struggled out our first print issue– available, along with other NEW POP LIT products, at our Detroit blog.

What lies ahead?

-An improved web site.

-Other books.

-Perhaps, an expanded team.

-And, at this location– exciting pop-lit writing of a kind not found anyplace else. Those writers to be featured after the New Year include: Tom Ray, Ron Singer, Joe Wilson, Jess Mize, Scott Cannon, Ian Lahey, Dave Petraglia, Kathleen Crane, among others.

PLUS, maybe a surprise or two. We have on our drawing board, in the NEW POP LIT design shop, a way to reinvent the short story– giving the public a model faster and more powerful than what’s been done.

Stay tuned! Exciting happenings are ahead.

(Image artist: Larisa Koshkina.)

LECLAIR ON FRANZEN

Interview

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. . . .