Author Archives: Eddie Kirsch

Weird, interesting, and successful(?)

I’d actually like to follow up on my post last week, “There’s an app for that?”. Another literary group doing something for the ipod is an author named Andrew Foster Altschul. I’m not sure if this is an actual app, or something else, but the brief blog entry at the One Story blog explains Altschul is producing Flash Fiction for the mobil phone.

I think Flash Fiction and digital technology could (already is?) be a matrimony made in heaven. There are right now a number of flash Journals that don’t even produce paper publications and, though not all, some do see success. I agree with Cameron that there is nothing better than reading a real book, but, at the same time, if I got a Flash Fiction piece, sent to me every morning through my phone, or my email or whatever, I would definitely take the five minutes to read it. I think the argument is best described in two words: Why not?

Well, I’ll leave that at that. I want to mention one more new literary happening before I go. I was reading Maud Newton’s blog, apparently there is this new(ish? not sure how new it is, but recently featured in huffington post) site called fictionaut As far as I can tell, skimming through the site and a couple articles, its like a collision of social networking and literary works. Also, I guess anyone can publish. Very weird, interesting and apparently successful. Check it out.

-Eddie Kirsch

There's an app for this?

I’d like to talk with uneducated speculation about market theory. This is outside my beat, but take a moment to read this Wired article. Yeah, someone is making a literary journal app for the I-phone/I-touch. Will it work? Depends how you put it.

Millions of people now own an I-phone/touch. Apps are new, and everyone is downloading them. They are cheap, easily accesible, a way to pursue your endless interests on a tiny gadget. I think there is an assumption that most people aren’t interested in reading short stories, poetry, etc. I BELIEVE, however, that this is only half-true at best, and what’s half true, is still false.

2 ideas.

1) Perhaps the reason why anyone is interested in anything is as much due to the marketing scheme than to the content of the product. Why don’t more people read literary journals? Maybe many people don’t know anything about them. This product gives more face to literary journals AND even if, out of the millions, only say 10,000 get this app. That is still twice the amount of circulation of a healthy Lit. Journal. Oh, and, they won’t pay paper costs, saving them a large sum of money.

2) It’s a no brainer that markets shift, they are ever-changing just like anything else in our world. In one of our meetings, I believe someone made a comment that Literary Journals need to be flexible. They can’t expect to survive, remaining ‘traditional’ in the way they operate. In my humble(sk) opinion, I think journals must evolve and find ways to do well, or they will constantly need to justify to the universities supporting them for why they should continue to do so.

So in conclusion: I should probably never be a wall street analyst, and props to the ‘Scarab’

-Eddie

Suspense… The meaning of life?

In our first meeting at TMR this semester, Speer Morgan, the editor here, had us read a couple stories. One of them was titled “Careful”, and it was by Ruth Hamel. We do these readings each week and Speer gets us to answer questions- what’s good about this writing and why. With Hamel’s story, which was very first one we read, Speer showed us suspense, and how incredibly important suspense is- where ever it is. (Note that it’s not always in the plot.)

I was sick for the past week and there wasn’t much to do besides: a) bemoan the large amount of work that continues to pile up, b) watch (for hours on end) Cash Cab, and c) think until complete boredom of thought (where I proceeded then to stare at the the ceiling or some desolate corner or a piece of clothing on the ground). In this era of thought I began to grow aware that suspense carries in to so many things. In so many good journalism stories, the article is designed by laying out 90 percent of the facts in the first two (or so) paragraphs, but withholding some information, making the interested reader wonder what the ending could possibly be.

I remember a music theory class and when thinking about it, even in music there is suspense: in very basic composition you don’t return to the beginning chord without playing a chord before that suspends (by which I am mean, needs resolution).

To philosophize- It’s safe to assume most people want to live long lives, and I want to ask, why is that? It may seem obvious, but answers like ‘To love’ or ‘because there is so much to enjoy’ isn’t necessarily true nor satisfactory, and beyond reasons similar to these it is hard to pin point an answer besides “people are afraid to die”, which in my mind seems too negative.

So perhaps it is the case, that suspense is what drives us to keep living, and maybe ‘the will to live’  can be rephrased as ‘the need to see what happens next’.

I like this idea. I think it gives me reason to consider that if I put myself out into situations, then anything can happen. It makes me feel that I never will be pigeon-holed if I try hard enough not to and has me believe that I don’t know necessarily any outcome before I actually see it.

I’ve noticed that people comment on our facebook page and voice their opinions when they read these articles, which is awesome. So my question this week, is what do you think? How important is suspense in relation to life?

Who doesn't love a little Hemingway?

Hello to whoever might decide to read this post.

Firstly let me bring to attention this: According to The Millions blogger, Sonya Chung, “Actress Mariel Hemingway, granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, will be producing a film adaptation of A Moveable Feast, a memoir of Hemingway’s early years as a writer in Paris”

Awesome. Hopefully it will be good. Hemingway, though not my favorite author (but he is up there), certainly had an interesting life to say the least.

Sort of going along with Hemingway-

I hate to show the same blog as I did in my previous post, but Maud Newton had a really interesting post on depression. In a nutshell, Maud explores the benefits and disadvantages to depression~ ‘one’ might ask what benefits? I encourage ‘one’ to read the post. From the blog- “some scientists are suggesting that depression — peculiarly prevalent for a mental disorder — is not a malfunction at all, but an evolutionary adaptation, a state of mind which can have debilitating effects, but also promotes highly analytical thinking.”

Anyway, the post got me thinking. Of all the books that I’ve read, and all the short stories, there always seems to be a hint of depression somewhere, be it in the tone, the plot, the dialogue or someplace else. So to whoever might read this, I’d like to challenge you to think about this question, could depression be a good thing?

Every little story.

Hello, my name is Eddie, I’m an intern here at TMR.

As being such, one of my duties is to blog about things (I believe that means current literary things), and I am prepared to take full advantage of this opportunity. This week I found an interesting entry linked to Maud Newton’s post titled “writing through failure”

A few weeks before school started, I found myself nearly completely alone- the summer semester had ended and there was a long two weeks before the fall would begin. My lease started the first day of August and I, thinking it would be a great idea to ‘look for a job’ instead of working a few more shifts at a pizza place back in Iowa, came back to Columbia as everyone else was leaving (I wanted to get out of my parents house).

There was only so much time I could spend filling out applications (though in retrospect I should have spent a little more) and without anyone around I grew bored.

So one night, I grabbed five dollars, my spare free time, and saw a movie at the independent theater. The only show playing was “Every Little Step”. If you haven’t seen this, or heard about it. I would recommend this to anyone. It is a movie about the Broadway show called A Chorus Line, which is a Broadway show about Broadway performers, the main theme being that there is a story to the characters in the story, each one if different, and peculiar in their own way.

It is the beginning of the fourth week of this internship. I have read around 65 or so submissions for publication. This is hard to think about, but this means 65 (or so) people have revealed to me what they wouldn’t to some of their closest friends and family, namely they have shown me their character. Not all stories are perfect, most don’t fit the needs of this publication, but I believe that each in each submission there is something, an expression of character, a somebody who is saying this is me and this is what I have to say. It has been an extraordinary experience to be a part of TMR and I am grateful to be where I am.

There is an incredible hammering sound that seems to be thundering from the floor below the lounge of TMR, which makes focusing a difficult task so I will leave this post short. But before I end, have you heard yet about our contest?

-Edwin Kirsch