Two Tales by Yoav Fisher

WE RETURN TO FICTION! Short fiction that is, with two tales by Israeli writer Yoav Fisher.

Last week we encountered the mass output of NaNoWriMo authors. One individual at our discussion has written a 330,000-word(!) work. (He’s since sent us excerpts– we’ll be interested to look at what he’s doing.) The other side of the coin of exciting new literary happenings is the flash fiction movement.

Fisher’s two tales exemplify what flash fiction is about. Yoav Fisher has a Hemingway-like ability to convey more with less– to give the reader the minimum information possible yet create a strong, even devastating emotional impact. We look for writing that hits us between the eyes. Yoav Fisher has done that.

The helmet landed squarely above the ear with an audible thud. Edward surprised himself from the speed and severity. At five foot eight and doughy since middle school, agility and strength were never Edward’s strong points.

New Pop Lit Speaks

Announcement, Events, News

Attention All Writers!

Especially if you live in the Detroit area. New Pop Lit editors Karl Wenclas and Kathleen Crane will be doing a presentation for NaNoWriMo at the Troy Public Library on 11/17. Details at our News page here.

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ALSO, we’re still promoting our Fun Pop Poetry feature. We have several cat poems coming up and we’re shy at least one good cat photo. Send your candidates in .jpg format to funpoppoetry@gmail.com. Thanks!

(Cat photo c/o Scott Cannon– same cat to be featured in a new poem.)

Breathe

Pop Lit Fiction

The struggles of being an artist! We at New Pop Lit are down with that struggle. It’s never easy. Today we present a short story, “Breathe,” by David R. Gwyn, which examines the struggle for artistic expression and meaning with a simple but moving profile of a man who has returned to his art after many years away from it.

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This is an apt tale to run during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) when thousands of persons across the country take up the challenge of art and struggle to express themselves, with words. We’ll be doing a presentation on November 17th at the Troy Public Library in suburban Detroit in connection with NaNoMoWri. Stay tuned for more details! (In the meantime, enjoy David Gwyn’s story.)

The artist sits, hunched, watching the masses navigate the streets. The colorful fall day contradicts the pale stone structures of Rittenhouse Square. Like the others, this month has come and passed and still he sold nothing. With winter on its way, the season of possible sales closes rapidly.

Four Poems by Timmy Chong

Poetry

WE’VE BEEN primarily promoting poetry the previous few weeks, particularly with our Fun Pop Poetry feature. Pushing the parameters of what acceptable poetry looks like. Some might say we’ve gone too far with that! But in addition to having fun, we also look for more serious verse, written in what we consider to be a “pop” style.

Which means, we look for a poet who uses at least some rhythm or rhyme. Who has a sense, consciously or instinctively, of euphony. Which means poems that are pleasing to recite or read– not in some ethereal never-never land but part of today. Poems which create images of this world. Of now.

Most of all we look for the elusive quality “talent”– a quality once highly valued in the literary realm, but which in our postmodern age of no standards or reality has largely been pushed to the side. Not here!

We believe we’ve discovered a young poet of striking talent in Timmy Chong. Read his poetry here and see if you agree.

they call us corrupt
because we travel in packs—
newfound adults in
pastel shorts and
backwards hats,
they say our brotherhood
bleeds mob mentality,
that we are aggressive
in our privilege
and childish for
buying the same brands,
spitting off of sidewalks,
stumbling at dawn, and
singing too loud our
chapter’s songs,

Two Stories by Andrew Sacks

flash fiction

The world is changing, and the worlds of fiction and poetry are changing with it.

With scores of other kinds of media now in existence, other options for the individual, reading needs to be quickly accessible. Upon being read, the story or poem should give the reader a quick high or kick. It’s the only way the literary art can compete.

Among the innovations coming from new writers and websites are short shorts and flash fiction. Stories shorter than the traditional story. Instead of 5,000 words, 500. Or 150. When done well, the new works become more compressed, more powerful, more impactful– ending at times with modernist abruptness.

Today we present two such works by Andrew Sacks, who’s as adept at the form as any writer out there. We hope you enjoy them.

Now a more “serious” engagement presented itself, in the mutual celebration of her birthday. David knew something special had to be done. There would have to be a gift, and a meaningful one. Chosen wisely. Chosen for a woman of taste and a certain obvious refinement.

Review of Undone

book review

OUR CHIEF INTEREST is in finding writing which pushes against the acceptable boundaries of the establishment literary/publishing world– and which blurs the lines between the “literary” and “pop.” Toward that end we’ve published work by new writers like Andrea Gregovich, and interviewed more established authors like John Colapinto, if their artistic interests in some way converge with ours.

With our new feature we bring both tracks together, as Andrea Gregovich reviews John Colapinto’s controversial novel Undone. Offbeat personality reviewing a different kind of offbeat personality? It’s a feature not to be missed.

Here’s the thing about the much-maligned male gaze, though: every now and again it hits upon something real.

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(Remember to stay current with our Fun Pop Poetry feature.)

Interview with Anne Leigh Parrish

Interview

Literary change is coming!

New genres, new styles, and most important, a wave of newly-prominent writers pumping talent, energy, and emotion into a previously moribund art form.

Among the best of them is Anne Leigh Parrish, who’s published terrific work with us and with other upstart literary outfits. As well as penned one novel and two short story collections. Read our Interview with her, also linked at our “Hype” page. (Anne also participated in our recent can’t miss Hemingway discussion.)

Motivation is something I’m very curious about. I’m also fascinated with the stories people tell themselves to get themselves off the hook, or to process a traumatic event.

Happy Hemingway Day!

Feature

Today is July 21, birthday of the person who remains America’s most famous writer (counter-arguments invited): Ernest Hemingway. The man was born in 1899– he was a millennial of a different kind. If alive today he’d be 117 years old. His words remain very alive, so we hope you’ll join us in celebration.

First, read the Answers to our big Hemingway Question. Respondents include a few literary critics and a score of outstanding writers.

Next, scroll down the New Pop Lit home page and see what else we’ve done to honor the big guy the last few weeks. If you’re a fan of reading and literature, you’ll enjoy all of it.

Keep up on the day’s activities via our twitter account, @NewPopLit

(Go easy on the absinthe. Don’t overdo the partying!)

Diminutives

Pop Lit Fiction

(“Premonition” by Walter Nessler copyright Royal Air Force Museum.)

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Our month-long Hemingway celebration continues with a striking new story by Samuel Stevens, “Diminutives,” whose setting of Paris is a nod to Ernest Hemingway and the Lost Generation. But so is its style. Few writers understand what Ernest Hemingway was fully up to when he revolutionized writing. Stevens is one of them.

Note how Stevens’ story is like a Modernist painting– a collage of parts expressing the fragmentation of our time. As if helplessly riding a bus about to crash, we’re replaying– reliving– that broken insane world Hemingway experienced. Around us is a sense of foreboding. Imminence. Chaos.

Stevens’ story is simple but at the same time it’s a mix of impressions and ideas. A splash of confusion, or a slap in the face. The story is there in front of us, like a painting. Right there. It’s very short, but there’s enough in it to like or dislike. Or hate.

Provocative and topical.

But what do you think?

There were no subjects to write about any more, either in America or here; the world was too mixed up to really stop and look at it.

Two Stories by Anne Leigh Parrish

Pop Lit Fiction

The world is changing swiftly, faster than we can keep up with.

This applies to literature.

Technological change leads inevitably to artistic change. For instance, in the 1950’s the introduction of 45 rpm discs and of cheap portable record players led to the creation of rock n’ roll– fast-paced, short songs appealing to teenagers. Soon appealing to everybody.

Over the past ten years the way people receive their literature– the way they read– has changed. As often as not it’s done on electronic devices, with various-sized screens. Some quite small.

Which means that long, dense text is obsolete.

Note that Wikipedia now offers entries in “simple English.” It’s not that people are becoming more stupid. (Some would argue that case!) It’s that most young people read on small devices. Most people today period lead busier lives than previously.

The literary art HAS to change, or die.

Does this account for the popularity of flash fiction?

Here at New Pop Lit we push fiction that’s simple but packed with emotion and meaning. We seek the best of the new fiction creators. One of them without question is Anne Leigh Parrish, who’s appeared here before. Today she gives us two flash fiction pieces. Each different. Each powerful in its own way. New literary art. We hope you enjoy them.

Let us know what you think!

Your big sister hates you, because she’s only five foot four. On those three inches – the ones you have and she lacks – is written the twisted history of your relationship.