The Other Way

IF I BELIEVED for half-a-minute that the only choices for writers and American literature was that of MFA writing versus conglomerate New York City, I'd abandon all interest in contemporary lit and spend my time instead reading Dumas and watching baseball. Established literature is oppressively mediocre. There's no life to it in any of its aspects, from the refined-to-the-point-of-constipation MFA prose and poetry, to the unintelligent and watered down popular novels which are like buildings of bland steel superstructures with nothing else; no floors, walls, coverings, furnishings-- no artistic design. (MFA prose is all furnishings, dropped loosely in a heap in the middle of the street.)

The New Writer will go beyond the current to create a synthesis of past and present; a better model to return excitement to reading. Those who are right now attempting this are artistic pioneers, trailblazers willing to set out on a lonely path in hopes of discovering a glorious new uninhabited spot upon which to recreate the literary art.