Enter the Skirmish?

Skirmish is a new fiction-only literary journal that accepts submissions from its users online, but the twist is that users are also the editors. The users give ratings to the stories and the top-voted pieces will be published in its print version. The project is still in beta and there are only eleven stories in the queue, but this idea of user editing could be revolution in small press ideology.

Bringing the democratic process to publishing, like the Digg or YouTube of fiction, is a huge middle finger to the current system. The process gets rid of the editors at the content gates, and enables an almost pure democracy. In theory the best content should bubble to the top, but as the internet has shown us before, the highest quality work doesn't always come to the top. This may be especially true in terms of one publishing cycle. The submission system has a top rated stories section, which serves to push the most viewed stories up higher, while not giving newly submitted stories the chance to build the same momentum. Unless the Skrimish team can figure out some kind of incentive to get all stories read evenly, then only the older stories may stand a chance of being voted into print.

One of my favorite parts about reading various literary journals has been the different styles of stories that get chosen by the editors. I fear that the communities that form around Skirmish could choose stories that are bland and homogenized. If the same users again and again choose to vote for similar stories the whole idea behind the enterprise will be defeated. It will be up to the site controllers to make the site have some kind of interesting challenges, and help create a community around the journal.

Hacking is also a possible problem that could threaten the journal's integrity. Considering that the Times top 100 vote was hacked last year just for the lulz and that the registration process for the website does not even have a captcha, a group of malicious hackers or someone who wishes to vote up their own story could make an automated registration if they felt it was worth their time.

The journal does aim to keep transparency front and center which is crucial in gaining the trust of the users. They have promised to put their entire budget into the journal, and to donate the majority of revenue to the contributors.

Skirmish is currently an interesting experiment, and it will be up to the users and creators of the site to make it something amazing. To submit please visit http://jointheskirmish.com/guidelines/.

Poetry and New Media: A User’s Guide

by Elizabyth Hiscox

The Poetry Foundation’s newly-created Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, described as “a sort of think tank for poetry,” is a forum that’s all about fostering discussion. What’s fresh about it: its first project focuses on the practical. In poetry? Indeed.

The project deals with poetry in new media and the final report of the initial meeting-of-the-minds, a select group of writers and scholars, is weighty at 74 pages, but readable. A lot of the work of the initial group and focus-groups seems to have centered on fair use and copyright issues. While not the most lyrical discussion, it is timely.

The report is interesting, in part, because it parses out the implications of some of those apocryphal stories of The Great Poets' work being cloistered away that are apparently not apocryphal at all but entirely true. Yes, the lucrative deal for T.S. Eliot’s verse being adapted into a purring Broadway musical. And poor, dear Auden.

The report is also interesting in that it clearly states the case for poetry’s particular peccadilloes. One of the recommendations of the report is to “Reproduce the Original Work Faithfully.” The concept is detailed in the copyright and fair use portion: “This desire for accurate reproduction is especially intense for poets because an unusual level of attention to linguistic detail and discipline is inherent in the art of poetry. Poets meticulously consider punctuation, line breaks, syntax at the smallest level, and even spelling in the construction of poems, so they are unusually concerned that their poems be reproduced not nearly as they appear but precisely as they appear.” Damn straight.

The report also deals with new media, as the name implies, from Kindle to podcasts and beyond. It deals with them quite a bit, but in the context of issues that transcend media formats. If you have a particular beef or concern with a new media outlet, I’d scroll the report to see how they’ve addressed it.

The report’s second section, “The Lifeline of Poetry: Creating Opportunities for Access to and a Lifelong Engagement with the Pleasures of Poetry” moves beyond the legal barriers and ramifications to spell out a plan to deal with various barriers to folks getting access to and spending time with poetry. Namely to create a national study group “to develop a flexible, modular set of guides meant to help people of all ages engage with poetry in a variety of settings ….” Ambitious? Yes. Flawed? Perhaps. But scanning the list of goals for what the guide might do, I’m not going to argue with “model ways of reading poems that do not focus on coming up with ‘correct’ and testable readings but rather encourage engagement, discourse, pleasure, and critical thinking.” Nor am I ready to scoff at the aim to “provide parents with tools for reading and experiencing poetry with their children.” Sounds gravy to me.

And, lest you think it was just a bunch of suits talking shop about stanzas, check the list of the Poetry and New Media Working Group Members: Michael Collier, Wyn Cooper, Rita Dove, Cornelius Eady, David Fenza, Kate Gale, Kimiko Hahn, Lewis Hyde, Fiona McCrae, Robert Pinsky, Claudia Rankine, Alberto Rios, Don Selby, Rick Stevens, Jennifer Urban, Monica Youn. I think the poet’s voice might have gotten heard at that table, don’t you?

The report doesn’t pretend to speak for everyone, but honestly raises some questions about use that are in need of some, yes, “creative” answers. It deals with the stuff that many of us wish was already in place. The safeguards that might allow us to get down to the business of being creative already. The infrastructure that allows the next generation (and the previous) to access poetry with the passion and ease that we might. It’s a project that’s overdue, and while it may be a somewhat dry read it could just whet your appetite to change the world.

Printing = Keeping People From Reading Good Writing?

There's an interesting post and conversation going on over at the Identity Theory blog entitled, "The End of the Small Print Journal. Please."

The author says, "The mission of journals, as I now see it, is to contribute to and nurture conversation around good writing. To be experts without excluding. To offer literary context without condescension. To carve out space for literature. At heart that mission isn't any different than it was eighty years ago. But in the digital era, that means making good writing easily, more freely available.

To do that, small journals don't need to--and shouldn't--print a bound volume..."

I completely understand the author's call for a more substantial and active presence online for small journals, though I'm not sure why he sees a print edition of these journals as opposing that. Check out his whole argument and reader reactions here.

Best of the Web 2009 Internet Invasion Day!

Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2009 is exploding all over the internet today. Some of the authors in the anthology have written guest posts for a variety of literary blogs, including Keyhole Magazine, PANK, and The Short Review. For the full list of bloggers and where they're appearing in the blogosphere, go here. You can purchase the anthology, edited by Lee K. Abbot, directly from Dzanc for $18, or in a bundle with Best of the Web 2008 for $30. Or, if you're into the technology, you can read it online. Either way, check it out. There's a ton of great writing inside.

Million Writers Award

The finalists for the 2009 storySouth Million Writers Award have been announced, and the public vote for best online story of the year is now open. The award was created by Jason Sanford as a way to address the problem of various "best of" anthologies ignoring the work published by online-only journals. The top ten stories are:

"The Whale Hunter" by Steinur Bell (Agni)
"Intertropical Convergence Zone" by Nadia Bulkin (ChiZine)
"No Bullets in the House" by Geronimo Madrid (Drunken Boat)
"Fuckbuddy" by Roderic Crooks (Eyeshot)
"The Fisherman's Wife" by Jenny Williams (LitNImage)
"Every Earth is Fit for Burial" by Cyn Kitchen (Menda City Review)
"Interview With A Moron" by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Narrative Magazine)
"The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" by Peter S. Beagle (OSC's Intergalactic Medicine Show)
"Grief Mongers" by Sefi Atta (Per Contra Fiction)
"Nine Sundays in a Row" by Kris Dikeman (Strange Horizons)

To read the stories, vote for your favorite, or find out more about the award, please go here. Voting is open through June 17. Happy reading!

Frank Norris & the fate of the novel

After his death in 1902, novelist Frank Norris's critical essays were published in The Responsibilities of the Novelist. The title essay argues that novelists have a greater responsibility to their audience than even a newspaper editor or a minister. While celebrating the form, Norris acknowledges how different eras appreciate different genres. He writes:

"Today is the day of the novel. In no other day and by no other vehicle is contemporaneous life so adequately expressed; and the critics of the twenty-second century, reviewing our times, striving to reconstruct our civilization, will look not to the painters, not to the architects nor dramatists, but to the novelists to find our idiosyncrasy.
"I think this is true. [...] There is no doubt the novel will in time 'go out' of popular favour as irrevocably as the long poem has gone, and for the reason that it is no longer the right mode of expression." [for the full text of the collection visit: http://www.archive.org/details/responsibilities00norriala]

Certainly, the novel is facing its greatest threat since Norris first declared it his choice genre of the American century. The economy threatens to freeze the publishing industry. Money to acquire and market novelists is drying up, editors are being laid off and the survivors are asked to do more work they don't have time for. Authors face shrinking advances and lower royalties thanks to fewer booksales (given the choice between groceries and books, people tend to pick groceries. Unless they are in graduate school and can live on Ramen noodles.)

The shift from print material to digital material has rapidly begun with the development of e-readers, Google's great book scanning project, and the growing sophistication of web developers and web users. The economy has pressured the industry to embrace this untested arena faster than anyone expected. Web-only journals have done some initial work, managing to spread quickly thanks to lower operating costs and the satisfaction of near-instant publication. (The time it takes to respond to stories has decreased thanks to online submissions, but reading a 5,000 word story still seems to take the same amount of time.)

It's possible the short story will have a stronger presence as web-publishing gets sorted out. But the printed novel faces a the kind of marginalization that poetry currently suffers. The printed readership will decrease, albeit slower than proponents of online reading will suggest since novelists will continue to work in the medium. It will take a few commercially viable web-novelists to help convince casual readers to get on board. (Stephen King has already tried, if I'm not mistaken.) While there will always be an argument for the portability and low-cost of mass market books (who wants to take their e-book to the beach or risk leaving it behind on the subway?), the tech-savvy members of current and upcoming generations will celebrate the advantages of e-readers.

The serial publication may be the best way to encourage online or e-book reading. It certainly worked with early novels in England and in the 19th century, though the initial reason was due more to the limitation of printing and the amount of money people had to spend on books. The growth in storyline continuity since the 1990s in television suggests a greater openness to serial publishing. Daytime soap operas and comic books have used this stategy for decades. Serial films, too, tapped into an audiences desire for a perpetual storyline.

Writers can use this strategy to lure their readers in with monthly or bi-weekly chapters or short stories. And, while the hypertext revolution didn't immediately catch on with readers, writers who become/work with webpage designers have the option to lure readers/surfers in and get them to spend an hour or more exploring a story on a website -- creating a new form where the once unseen material becomes accessbile or visual material enhances the reader's understanding of the story. Think of it as a director's cut or a special-features online novel where character sketches, alternate endings, character journals, etc. give the reader a fuller experience. Aside from that approach, a novelist could easily create a graphic-novel world with visual and audio elements that correspond with the text. The footnotes of David Foster Wallace would seem quaint or groundbreaking in this world. (For some idea of the potential of the website-as-novel, consider sites that allow readers to follow rabbit holes in the text like some older iterations of the band website Radiohead.com or the site for the film Donnie Darko). The phrase getting lost in a book can easily become getting lost in a webpage-novel.

In this setup, publishers would still have plenty of revenue opportunities (and thus writers would still get paid for their labor). Imagine reading a book that has a musical reference and being able to play the song along with the scene? Or go off to buy the song? Imagine a publisher with 4 authors -- each author publishes a new chapter each week on the website. (or 30 authors, each publishing a chapter a day!) Readers could pay for access to the entire site or the specific author's work. Want to download to an e-book reader? It's no harder than downloading from iTunes or the Amazon MP3 store. Maybe there's a fee or maybe it's included in the website membership. I'll leave the captilism to the experts, but the novelist would not have to fear a complete loss of financial stability because of the change.

The greatest change might be to the reading experience, and not necessarily the composition. The internet doesn't encourage long reading periods both because of the physical limitation of reading things onscreen as well as the lack of interest people might have spending time online after working on a computer all day. True, printed novels are only slightly easier on the eyes, and if you've ever sat in bed reading a long novel all day you know that the neck, the hands, and elbows all ache. But the technological aspect of reading, along with the physical connection so many readers love to have with their novels, will change no matter what. The price of printing, the environmental impact of so much paper used (and so much wasted), the price of storage, etc. mean that reading digitally will become the norm regardless of the merits of the printed novel.

Publishing is going to become digital. The initial generation of writers who have access to more sophisticated technology and online distribution will try very hard to push the "novel" forward. We may see monstrocities that don't deserve our reading time. There will be pieces that later readers will say was "ahead of its time." There may even be a few commercially successful books (if publishers can convince already-proven writers to given online writing a shot and not simply paste a novel on a website.)

Frank Norris (among others) will be both right and wrong. The novel as a printed object will go out of favor. But the novel as a genre, a form, will carry on. If the novel, at its core, is a detailed story involving characters and conflict, subplots, related scenes, cause and effect, and the moral obsessions of all art, then it will be the manifestation of the genre that goes out of favor, not the novel form itself. Like the long, narrative poem, the printed novel will become an artifact, making way for a different (not necessarily better or worse) form. Most assuredly, what we'll see online will not resemble the books that line my well-stocked IKEA bookshelves. What I read onscreen or download to some device will still be called a novel, but it won't resemble its printed cousin closely, just as e.e. cummings and The Odyssey are both related but vastly different.

Still, as long as there is a story and character and sentences that make the hairs on my arms prickle with electricity, I'll be happy.

EDIT: Found this on Endgadget today: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/03/v-books-the-future/

The Direction of Lit? Here's a Clue...

Literature has made quite a journey. With the many technological advancements in the last hundred years, it’s feels like some kind of miracle any time kids find ink on a piece of paper entertaining. Perhaps that’s why The 39 Clues is making its way to the public today with such a splash.

As reading literature has fallen out of style with the younger generation, publishers and writers have struggled to recapture their audience. The Harry Potter series, written by J.K. Rowling, achieved magic, with millions of children unable to contain their excitement about getting the next HP installment. But, since the publication of the seventh and last book, the reading surge seems in dire straits. Now the same publishers of Harry Potter have created its next project aimed at re-inspiring the youth: The 39 Clues. Rather than trying to compete with the appeal of internet gaming, Scholastic has decided the best strategy might be fighting with - rather than against - the internet’s hold.

39 Clues will be the first of its kind: an interactive reading experience. The ten book series will be loaded with opportunities for kids (target ages 8-12) to try and solve the mystery along with the main characters. Amy and Dan Cahill are the child protagonists whose recently deceased grandmother has left them with the option of taking one million dollars or 39 clues that would unlock their family’s secret, and ultimate power hidden within their incredible lineage. Every reader will actually be able to participate in Amy and Dan’s mystery through a number of games, collecting cards, and prizes. These online activities are enjoyable all on their own, but young readers who have read the books will have a huge advantage over those who have not.

Such a groundbreaking idea poses a huge risk for all those involved—Scholastic, the readers, the 10 different authors chosen to write the series, and even Steven Spielberg who has signed on to movie rights for the films of the series—and failure could be a huge problem. But what consequences could we see from its success? If 39 Clues becomes just the beginning of these hybrid books, how many more will follow suit? It’s possible that children’s literature will be transformed by this idea. Once those children raised on hybrid books grow up, will adolescent and adult literature have to adapt and change as well? Could we be walking into a future where interactive literature is the norm and simple ink-on-paper books are merely an archaic art form?

To see more on-screen talk about on-screen lit, check out this article from The New York Times, and this one from the American Booksellers Association.

Website of the Week - MagCloud

MagCloud very well may be the future of magazine publishing. As the publisher of a print journal, it's hard to say for sure whether I find this exciting or terrifying. Possibly both?

Reacting to the idea that "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one" (a quote from A.J. Liebling), MagCloud puts the power of magazine publishing in everyone's hands. Let's say you've designed a magazine that you're quite proud of. MagCloud accepts a PDF upload of your magazine for free. Readers then browse through selections of the online magazines (searchable by category) on the site including, hopefully, yours. To order a copy of your magazine, reader pays MagCloud $.20 per page, then MagCloud prints the copy and sends it off. You spend your time worrying about design and content, and MagCloud takes care of the rest. Revolutionary, no?

I can't say for sure if people are actually ordering print versions of these magazines, but I can say that the online choices are really fun to look through. Though I must admit that I approach the reading of them with the same kind of "looking-for-the-next-thing-to-click-on" tendency that characterizes much of my online reading. I am trying in earnest to fight this! I am embracing the future!

Take a look at MagCloud. I'd love to hear what you think.

Go Ahead, Ask a Poet

No question is too small for the new "Ask A Poet" advice column from Drexel University's online rag, The Smart Set. In her first column, professional poet Kristen Hoggett tackles everything from whether poets believe in miracles to their bathing habits. Trouble with your love life? Not sure how to choose the right melon? Kristen's putting the verse into versatile. (Yeah, I just wrote that.)

Meta-Blog, Part II

There's lots of interesting things being written lately about the nature of reading online, whether it counts as "reading," whether all the technology is making us dumber, and whether kids - who increasingly choose to sit in front of their computers instead of picking up a book - will suffer the consequences of all the non-linear jumping around they do online.

The New York Times published today "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?," an article that explores the differences between reading a book and reading on the web, from both sides. In this month's issue of The Atlantic, Nicholas Carr responds to "the uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with [his] brain," by asking "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" And Sven Birkerts recently wrote "Lost in the blogosphere: why literary blogging won't save our literary culture" for the Boston Globe, where he argues that the blogosphere is "exciting" as a "supplement," but "is too fluid in its nature ever to focus our widely diverging cultural energies." Fascinating reading, all of it.

In an email interview I'm working on for another blog, I've been asked the question: "What prompted your decision to create an HFR blog?" The immediate answer, to echo Birkerts, is that we thought it would be a way to supplement the work of our printed issues, a place to talk to our contributors and learn more about their work. We wanted to both deepen our readers' experiences with what we publish, and broaden the reach of our contributors. And since our mission is to support emerging artists, the blog would give us a chance to do more of that: to talk about writing and visual art more. The implication is that the reach of the printed copies of HFR is limited. This is, of course, true. We are not only limited by our ability to find our readers out in the world, but also by the number of copies we can afford to print. The blog, ideally, helps us find more readers for our printed issues, and furthers the whole of our mission.

I was also recently asked, "What is the difference between print and online journals? Why do you keep printing when so much is changing?" It is a complicated question, to be sure. The primary answer (one that doesn't exactly address the question) is that is what we've always done. It is, still, the preferred format of most literary journals. In order to get the work to agents, to be considered by editors of anthologies and contests, we need a physical journal. That's a fact. Online journals struggle for the same legitimacy as print ones (see this post, this Utne article). Whether that is "right" is certainly debatable, and may be changing. But for now, we continue. Another answer is that we conceive of each issue as a work of art, a thing to be held in physical space, an object whose order is defined (in other words, linear), not a series of links. We are readers who prefer this method of reading. It is the same reason you pick up a book rather than a Kindle (Um, or do you pick up your Kindle?). For all of those reasons that the articles above describe, the printed story is approached differently than a block of text online. I can say, personally, that it is hard for me to read a story on the web. My attention wanders more easily, I lose concentration. A personal failing? Perhaps, but true.

Also, consider this complication: Print journals can't take anything back, even a mistake. Once the printed stuff is out in the world, it's gone forever. That can obviously be a bad thing. But online journals and blogs must deal with another problem. What if a writer changes his/her mind about what s/he said last year? What if s/he is applying for a new job, and wants a story or poem removed from a website's archives? What's more important - the writer's well-being, or the integrity and preservation of the literature created? And if we know we can - at least to a certain extent - take back or delete what we've put forth online, does it change the seriousness with which we submit it?

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

Meta-Blog

I wonder: How many blogs contain blog posts about blogging? It's a definite adjustment, the blogging lifestyle. I haven't blogged at all before the creation of this HFR blog, and now here I am, a few weeks into it, and I'm in somewhat of a tizzy (flabloggergasted?) about how much of myself I want to put online. This isn't my personal blog, after all, but the blogs I enjoy reading the most are ones where the writers let their personalities in, where their struggles and ponderings come from a real place of concern or questioning. Ideally, a blog for a literary journal supplements the work in print - and I hope the content of this blog so far is doing that. But when you ask a bunch of writers to start blogging, questions are bound to be raised about the form and function of blogging.

When I posted my previous(/first, real) blog about the slush pile and my/HFR's relationship to it, I woke up the next morning feeling suddenly afraid. Had I spelled everything correctly? Had I said anything offensive? Had I said exactly what I meant to say? It all happened so quickly: I typed, and then there it was, for anyone to see. Someone, somewhere could be disagreeing with me wholeheartedly, and sharing that disapproval out loud. Or online! Paranoia set in, even though what I had written was hardly personal, and wasn't the kind of thing that would excite controversy. (Also, I might be paranoid by nature.)

Perhaps this is how memoirists have felt for years. I took a class in creative nonfiction once, and it felt like we spent ninety percent of class discussion time talking about how not to offend our loved ones. "Write the truth and be prepared to deal with the consequences, or don't write at all," was my teacher's response. And it seemed like good advice to me. Memoirists, of course, have the added benefit/torture of hindsight. They can take as long as they want to decide how a certain life-event should be revealed. Blogging, on the other hand, gains most of its power and authority from being immediate. We get the bloggers' feelings in the moment, before too much time and perspective have had a chance to interfere. I have a blogging friend who experienced a life-changing tragedy. Reading back over her blog (though part of me felt bad for having this kind of curiosity) was fascinating. There was a distinct "before" and "after" the event. You could see the difference in the writing. It was like reading someone's diary. Her emotions were there, day to day, unfolding.

For all of these reasons, blogging presents interesting options for the fiction writer. A student in my class last semester, wanting to experiment with form, wrote a story as one big post in an online chat room. During workshop, members of the class suggested breaking it up. "What if you wrote it as a blog?" someone said. The class perked up. The characters' emotions during each post would be more immediate, my students realized, instead of reported in an after-the-fact monotone. The story's events would also gain suspense. In first person past tense we know our narrator has lived to tell the tale, so suspense is always stunted to a certain extent. A blog-story affords the opportunity for reflection missing in present-tense, but lends an unpredictability not usually available in past tense; each post would occur after a major event but before the next one. And writing a story blog-style is a great exercise for the writer -- it asks him/her to live first person in the character's skin through various distinct moments in time. Our blog conversation was a lesson and exercise in point of view.

The world has already seen its first contribution to "Google-lit" (read this great entry from the Kenyon Review's blog); is blog-lit already out there, too?

Website of the Week - Million Writers Award

The fifth annual Million Writers Award is now accepting your votes for best online short story of the year. The award is hosted by storySouth, the online journal that "aims to prove that the internet is not just a medium of flash and style; that excellent writing can attract attention without programming gimmicks and hard-to-read fonts."

The award was created by editor and publisher Jason Sanford in response to an attitude he kept running into: "that online publishing isn't as legitimate as anything that is printed on actual paper." The award was born from the idea that the internet is powerful enough to create a broad and far-reaching readership of the winning story, larger than the readership of the Best American Short Stories anthologies, whose editors ignore web-published stories.  

In his quest to identify the best short story of 2007, Sanford accepted story nominations from readers, writers and editors. With the help of preliminary judges, Sanford then narrowed down the nominees to the top 100, which he identifies as the Notable Stories of the year.  Sanford alone chose the top ten stories from that list, and then the internet-reading public (that means you!) picks the best story of the year.

Voting is open until July 17, so click on over and get reading.

This website was our runner-up.