There’s one new literary magazine start-up that is helping take literature into the future. The quarterly publication is called Electric Literature Magazine. They are using more than just ebooks to help sell literature to a wider and more diverse audience.

What makes Electric Literature Magazine so unique? It’s not just the ebooks, which they make available on every platform possible, like the Kindle and the iPhone. According to this New York Times article, the magazine goes far beyond selling ebooks:

…they allow readers to enjoy the magazine any way they like: on paper, Kindle, e-book, iPhone and, starting next month, as an audiobook. YouTube videos feature collaborations among their writers and visual artists and musicians. Starting next month, Rick Moody will tweet a story over three days.

The article goes on to explain that this kind of new marketing has created quite the online buzz. This buzz has given the magazine a lot of exposure, and not just on the blogosphere:

With a debut issue in June and an autumn issue out last week, each consisting of five stories, the magazine has racked up complimentary reviews everywhere from The Washington Post to a blogger on Destructive Anachronism, who wrote, “High quality content + innovative marketing + multimedia could just equal the new model for literature, post-print.”

‘Post-print’ is a good term, and one we will likely hear more and more in the coming years.

A new age for short fiction

Electric Literature Magazine publishes short fiction (one of my favorite literary forms). It wasn’t that long ago when everyone wrote the short story off as a dead form. Magazines were only paying pennies on the dollar for a short story. And forget about getting a collection of stories printed by a large publishing house. In other words, the short story had been laid to rest in the grave and the literary world was throwing dirt on its casket.

Not anymore. I, along with a lot of others, have claimed that short fiction is making a renaissance because of the ebook. Short fiction is more accessible than ever before and authors are self-publishing their own works on websites like Smashwords, thus reaping more profits.

For example, I’m downloading short fiction onto my Sony Reader Pocket Edition from sites like Smashwords. The experience is great. I get a chance to read a diverse range of authors who write a very diverse range of fiction while not paying for an expensive print publication or anthology of short fiction. And more importantly, I’m still supporting these authors by paying the prices they set for their work.

Electric Literature Magazine – making literature exciting again

I’ve always found that literature is exciting. That’s just me. But in an era of incredibly short attention spans due to television, video games, and yes even the internet, it is hard to get people to sit down and enjoy a work of fiction with all these other distractions. By relying on multiple forms of media like YouTube videos, the Electric Literature Magazine is taking the ‘homework’ feel out of reading:

One thing Electric Literature seems good at is getting people to read serious literature, making it less like homework. As Sara Nelson, the books director of O, the Oprah Magazine, and former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, said, “Anything that takes the starch out — go for it.”

Some might say this is somehow cheapening literature. I tend to think like Sara Nelson from the above quote, anything that gets people reading and away from the television is a great thing.

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You can stream the interview directly from your browser via the BlogTalkRadio website here. Or, for all you Apple fanboys (and girls) out there, you can listen in iTunes here (opens in iTunes).

Here’s what the interview focused on:

- Some more personal information about myself, more than you’ll find on this blog’s about page. How my love affair with literature began. My writing and so forth.

- Using Twitter to promote my blog. My experience using Twitter and how it has helped my blog.

- Literacy and ways everyone can help those around the world who are illiterate. A little on how technology can also help with this.

- Self publishing and how authors can get their work out there in a more personal way than traditional publishing.

I had a fun time doing this interview. It’s a half hour long so I encourage everyone to give it a listen. Also, check out Mr. Webb’s other interview shows. He has very interesting guests on and many published authors. He is also a big advocate of literacy in America and around the world.

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Like every other art form out there, literature goes through phases of what’s popular and selling, and what’s not. For a while now it has been books featuring vampires and vampire-like characters. For this we can thank Stephanie Meyer and her incredibly popular Twilight series that is described as a young adult vampire-romance mash-up that appeals mostly to teen girls (but I know adults who love the series as well). Never mind that books like Bram Stoker’s Dracula (aff link) have been around since the 1800s.

The newest fad in literature has appeared to take hold, and it’s filled with zombies. Ever since the strangely popular Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (aff link), the market is becoming (or will soon become) filled with zombies invading popular characters (both real and fictional). And according to this article from the Examiner, seems to confirm the zombie trend in literature:

Last month, deputy publisher Anthony Ziccardi announced that the company will be publishing seven zombie books in conjunction with the small horror publisher Permuted Press. Ziccardi was quoted as saying that Pocket believes the horror genre, especially zombie themed horror, “will be a growing category at retail.”

This just goes to show that, like any other business, publishers are always on the lookout for the next big thing. Of course, this is always a gamble. The zombie craze can die a quick death, leaving publishers with multiple titles that won’t sell. Or, they could find a gold mine with zombies and we might see zombie-related books hitting the shelves for the next few years.

One book I’m particularly looking forward to is a planned book about Beatles and zombies:

Pocket Books has announced that it has purchased the publishing rights to Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion by Alan Goldsher. The book, which portrays all the Beatles as zombies and Yoko Ono as an eighth level Ninja Lord, will be published here in the United States in June 2010.

Sounds pretty cool to me!

What has been your favorite literary fad in the past? What would you like to see in the future? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

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You might recall that on July 1, an injunction was ordered by a judge that prevented the publication of the sequel by Swedish author Fredrik Colting called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Since that ruling, groups ranging from free speech advocates, librarians, the Associated Press and others have been filing briefs with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to get the injunction lifted. The appeals court will start hearing arguments on September 3.

An article from Publishers Weekly, Groups urge Injunction to be Vacated in Salinger Case, details the arguments the various groups are making on behalf of the Swedish author. It’s interesting to note that some of these groups are not saying that Mr. Colting did anything wrong by writing and then trying to publish his sequel to Catcher in the Rye. What they do say, however, is that an all-out ban on publication is overly harsh.

Here’s what the brief said that was filed on behalf of several media organizations:

“In the interest of free speech we don’t ban ruinous, libelous communication, we assess monetary damages,” the brief notes. “It belies logic to conclude that authorial dignity deserves greater protection.”

The major library associations filed a brief that said, in part:

“Prior restraints are strongly disfavored precisely because they have the potential to cause grave damage to free speech rights,” the library brief asserts. Indeed, Colting’s book may be an infringement, the brief concedes, but “the question of whether to ban publication pending that determination demands a more careful balancing of the important interests at stake.”

It is also important to note that the article states that Salinger did not register his novel’s main character, Holden Caulfield, for copyright protection. I’m not a lawyer, but I think that fictional characters still fall under the same copyright protection as the written work they appear in. That said, Salinger probably has every right to challenge Mr. Colting and his 60 Years Later follow-up. However, an outright banning the book from publication leads us down a slippery path and sets a dangerous precedent.

This will be an interesting case to follow and see how it plays out. Honestly, if I were Mr. Salinger, I’d be flattered that someone would even want to write a sequel to one of novels. I’d at least want to read the manuscript before it were to be published.

What are your thoughts on this case? Should the courts allow the sequel to be published, with the author only paying monetary damages for copyright infringement? Or should it be banned from publication? If you are a lawyer or have good knowledge of copyright law, I’d be very interested in hearing from you (of course, comments from all are still welcome). Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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In this particular case, Scribner is going to be publishing and shipping a modified version of Hemingway’s book A Moveable Feast to bookstores around the country (and probably the world). I haven’t seen this new version yet in my local bookstore, though I’m keeping my eyes open.

The changes made to the book are the result of one of Hemingway’s grandsons who did not like the way the novel portrayed his grandmother:

The grandson has removed several sections of the book’s final chapter and replaced them with other writing of Hemingway’s that the grandson feels paints his grandma in a more sympathetic light. Ten other chapters that roused the grandson’s displeasure have been relegated to an appendix, thereby, according to the grandson, creating “a truer representation of the book my grandfather intended to publish.”

This brings up a whole host of ethical questions for the publishing world. Can and/or should a publisher really do this? Even the person wanting the changes holds the copyright to the work, shouldn’t they have to publish a separate book instead of forever changing the original?

While those aren’t easy questions to answer, they are questions that need to be addressed, especially today where digital content has thrown a wrench in the copyright machine.

A Moveable Feast was first published by Scribner in 1964, after Hemingway died. By all accounts, the manuscript was pretty much complete and Hemingway intended it for publication. So why would Scribner want to change Hemingway’s work in such a dramatic fashion? And, as the NYT OpEd points out, what happens if family of other prominent people mentioned in the book (think: F. Scott Fitzgerald) don’t like the way their own family member is portrayed?

As an author, I am concerned by Scribner’s involvement in this “restored edition.” With this reworking as a precedent, what will Scribner do, for instance, if a descendant of F. Scott Fitzgerald demands the removal of the chapter in “A Moveable Feast” about the size of Fitzgerald’s penis, or if Ford Madox Ford’s grandson wants to delete references to his ancestor’s body odor.

I’d be concerned too. And I’d certainly hope that anything I have written would be preserved ‘as is’ for publication, even after my death. Okay, maybe the publisher could clean up my writing and correct the occasional spelling error or typo, but I definitely wouldn’t want any major re-writing to be done in the name of sparing someone’s feelings. Publishers, after all, have a responsibility to the authors they publish, and then to the readers:

All publishers, Scribner included, are guardians of the books that authors entrust to them. Someone who inherits an author’s copyright is not entitled to amend his work. There is always the possibility that the inheritor could write his own book offering his own corrections.

I totally agree with the above assessment. If the grandson does not like the way A Moveable Feast depicts his grandmother, then write a new book offering the new corrections. Scribner needs to leave the original alone.

Do you think Scribner should be allowed to make these changes to Hemingway’s work? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

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People get all sorts of stuff tattooed on their bodies: Everything from animals, dragons, names/pictures of children and various symbols that hold special meaning for the wearer. I even have a tattoo on my arm that I got over a decade ago when I was in the US Navy. Back then, and even now, I never considered a ‘literary’ tattoo.

According to this LA Times Book Blog article, Justin Taylor and Eva Talmadge from HTMLGiant are asking for submissions from anyone with a literary-related tattoo on his/her body:

We are seeking high quality photographs of your literary tattoos for an upcoming book. Send us your ink! …All images must include the name (or pseudonym) of the tattoo bearer, city and state or country, and a transcription of the text itself, along with its source. For portraits or illustrations, please include the name of the author or book on which it’s based. We’d also like to read a few words about the tattoo’s meaning to you — why you chose it, when you first read that poem or book, or how its meaning has evolved over time. How much (or how little) you choose to say about your tattoo is up to you, but a paragraph or two should do the trick.Please send clear digital images of the highest print quality possible to tattoolit@gmail.com.

I don’t think I’ll be running out to the nearest tattoo parlor anytime soon to have my favorite Emily Dickinson poem enshrined on my skin. Once the anthology is published, however, it will be very interesting to see the diverse number of tattoos and literary references that people have chosen to be permanently inked on their bodies.

Would you ever get a tattoo of a line from your favorite poem or novel tattooed on your body? And if you already have one, please share your experience with the rest of us by leaving a comment below.

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Adam Roberts, a science fiction author himself, is not happy with finalists for this year’s Hugo award. And he let his voice be heard in this article from the Guardian:

“What do these lists say about SF to the multitude in the world – to the people who don’t know any better? It says that SF is old-fashioned, an aesthetically, stylistically and formally small-c conservative thing. It says that SF fans do not like works that are too challenging, or unnerving; that they prefer to stay inside their comfort zone,” Roberts writes, before going on to criticise the five-strong shortlist for this year’s best novel award.

Ouch! Talk about biting the hands that feed you. However, I generally agree with the premise that science fiction (especially science fiction) needs to be challenging and push the boundaries of literature and creativity.  This is why I love sci-fi so much.

Whether or not Adam should have been so vocal with his criticism is a whole different question. Since the finalists were picked by science fiction fans themselves, he risks (and probably has to some extent) insulting their intelligence and making them mad at him. At least one fan shot back:

One fan takes offence: “Having been insulted by you, since I voted for the Hugos this year, I don’t think I’ll be picking up anything with your name on it in the bookstore in the future,” he tells Roberts. “I have friends, we all like SF books of various stripes and genres, and we can put our combined money behind authors who don’t engage in petty flailing on the internet.” Take that, Roberts!

Maybe Adam should have stayed a little more quiet about this issue, especially since he was directing his criticism at the very people who buy his books. Certainly he has the right to say what he wants, but at what cost? And when someone criticizes award results like this, I can’t help but wonder if they are doing so, in part, because their own work didn’t make the cut.

The larger question still remains: Who should decide what books receive these literary awards? When you let a large fan base decide, you are going to get more mainstream results. If a small body of experts decide, the results will be a little more obscure. I don’t know if one is better than the other.

And in the name of full disclosure, I have not read any of the books on the Hugo award shortlist for this year, so I can’t make a judgment about the individual titles. Nor have I read anything by Adam, so I can’t comment about the merits of his work either. That means I come to this argument with no real bias either way.

Who do you think should decide who wins these literary awards: Experts or fans? What’s your reason? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. I’m interested to see what others think about this issue.

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However, could we be seeing a revival of the short story, due in large part, to the internet and digital distribution? While short fiction still doesn’t come close to the popularity of the novel, in the next few years that might begin to change.

My hypothesis rests on the idea that a lot of short fiction can now be found and purchased on many websites dedicated to ebooks (and some stand-alone sites as well). For example, online ebook retailer Fictionwise has a section dedicated to short stories. And sites like Smashwords and Feedbooks also have a healthy stock of short fiction to chose from.

These sites and many more provide a lot more venues for writers to publish their work and for readers to find something good to read. One who writes short fiction no longer has to pin their hopes on small literary magazines or contests in order to find an audience.

Short stories are made for ebook reading devices

This is especially true if you have an iPhone/iPod Touch, where you can use a program like Stanza, download a story or two that can be read in a short amount of time – like in the waiting room at the doctors office, or while waiting for your flight to board at the airport.

Even with devices like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, short stories are still perfect. They allow you to digest a perfectly satisfying literary experience without the time commitment of a novel. In today’s time-strapped society, I can see how the short story will catch on again and possibly regain its former glory.

Now it’s becoming possible to buy individual short stories for about the same price you’d buy a song on iTunes. Whether or not $0.99 will become the de facto price for short fiction on the web remains to be seen. Websites like Fictionwise charge more for a short story, often in the $2+ range for most stories – which is a little on the high side for me.

Good news for unpublished writers

The ability to publish and sell your short stories online and distribute them as a digital file means that unpublished writers can ‘test the waters’ and see how readers respond to their work. The type of feedback that is possible from this can be invaluable and help a writer really hone their craft so they can move on to bigger and better things.

Have you published and distributed your own short fiction online through sites like Smashwords? If so, leave a comment and share your experience.

Note: Stay tuned on July 20 (Monday), as I’ll be posting a very interesting and inspiring interview from an author who has really taken publishing short stories on the web to a whole new level!

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I’m reading the book right now and find it very funny. But I should also admit that I haven’t read the original Pride and Prejudice, so I might be missing out on some of nuances of the story. Nevertheless I’m still being thoroughly entertained. You can bet that when I’m finished, I’ll write a more detailed book review here.

When I first saw the book, with its disturbing cover, at my local bookstore, I instantly wondered how the author came about combining to a classic novel with zombies. Did he have a thing for Jane Austen? Or was this something that just seemed like a good idea? A quick Google search gave me my answer.

I came across this short interview with Seth from Entertainment Weekly. In it, he gives a glimpse as to the inspiration behind his novel:

My editor at Quirk had wanted to do a mash-up of some type for a long time. He had all these lists of public domain titles and lists of modern literary devices. The robot phenomenon. The vampire phenomenon. And zombies. And we arrived at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because, when you take a look at the original book, it’s almost as if, subconsciously, Jane Austen is laying out the perfect groundwork for an ultraviolent bone-crushing zombie massacre to take place. For instance, there’s a regiment of soldiers camped out near the Bennett household. In the book, they’re just there for characters to flirt with. But it’s not that big a leap to say, Okay, they’re there because the countryside has been overrun with what they call the “unmentionable menace.”

And readers are lapping this up. As I write this the book is currently #28 on Amazon. I also recall that when the book first hit the stores, it was sold out for a while.

Good exercise for aspiring writers

If you are an aspiring writer, taking a classic novel and re-working it might be a good exercise. All the “hard work” has already been done: There’s already a plot, characters, setting, etc. You just have to change things around and add your own personal touch. You can either stay true to the original plot, or go totally off course and try to be original as possible.

It might be a good idea to do this with the classics – works that are in the public domain so you don’t have to worry about copyright infringement. This is especially true if you plan to get your re-working of a classic published.

Of course, you can do this with pretty much any novel or short story if you don’t plan on publishing and just want to do it for your own creative good. In fact there’s a fairly large community that does this for fun. It’s called fan fiction.

What classic piece of literature would you like to see re-written? What element would you add to spice it up? Zombies? Aliens? Robots? Monsters? Leave a comment below with your answers. I really look forward to seeing what you come up with.

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Justice Stevens, who dropped out of graduate study in English to join the Navy in 1941, is an Oxfordian — that is, he believes the works ascribed to William Shakespeare actually were written by the 17th earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

This old argument is nothing new, even on this blog, where I wrote this post a while back that garnered some interesting comments (worth your time to read!).

The argument that Shakespeare didn’t write any of those plays is based on the idea that he was from a lower class family, did not have the right schooling, etc. In other words, it’s typical class warfare. But Shakespearean scholars and academics alike have pretty much debunked that myth. The fact that this same argument is coming from Justice Stevens, isn’t that surprising according to this article from the NY Daily News:

Like most of those who espouse such foolishness, Justice Stevens’ arguments rely essentially on a kind of snobbish thinking one does not want to acknowledge in a Supreme Court Justice. It assumes writers of genius must be "our kind of people," not a bumpkin from Stratford.

p>Of course, people like Justice Steven will never come right out and say Shakespeare didn’t write all those works. Shakespearean conspiracy theorists typically use other ways to make their point. The WSJ article has a quote from Justice Stevens that proves this point:

"Where are the books? You can’t be a scholar of that depth and not have any books in your home," Justice Stevens says. "He never had any correspondence with his contemporaries, he never was shown to be present at any major event — the coronation of James or any of that stuff. I think the evidence that he was not the author is beyond a reasonable doubt."

This argument that Justice Stevens gives fails because it assumes that the literary world Shakespeare lived in was similar to our own. During his time Shakespeare was never considered a scholar. He was a playwright, an actor, a shareholder in the theater company – in other words, Shakespeare was a working man.

And the argument Justice Stevens gives about there not being any letters Shakespeare wrote to contemporaries is just crazy. Did it ever occur to him that letters might not have survived the last 400 years? Shakespeare was not the literary icon during his day that he is now. Yes, his plays were famous, but he wasn’t. Anyone receiving a letter from him would have little impetus to save and preserve any letter that Shakespeare wrote.

The rebuttals I’m giving are also echoed in the Daily News article. There’s also hundreds, if not thousands, of books devoted to this subject. So it’s not worth it for me to reinvent the wheel and pick apart every argument people like Justice Stevens makes.

Justice Stevens should stick to U.S. law and leave Shakespearean scholarship, well, to the scholars.

What’s my own theory about Shakespeare? I think he did write all those plays and poems. He might have had the help of those he worked with, but I think the works are basically his.

What’s your theory? Did Shakespeare write all those plays, or should credit go to someone else? Give us your opinion in the comments.

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