Two Literary Worlds

WHY ARE PRIVILEGED WRITERS WHINING?

Our friend Keith Gessen at New York’s most chic literary journal, n+1, has been on a campaign of late identifying his journal with the downtrodden. See this post at NEW POP LIT’s Interactive blog:

http://newpoplitinteractive.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/the-most-privileged-writers-in-america-are-whining/

Was this posture a result of an essay I wrote back in 2011 or so, at the now-defunct “Voice of Anyone” iNewp website, about the defunct Underground Literary Alliance? The essay was titled “A Tale of Two Literary Worlds,” contrasting the fate of two literary groups; one at the center of the literary establishment, with all that entails, and one not.

Keith Gessen misses not having the street cred of a bottom-up, populist literary organization. One not so highly placed; not backed by the rich and the powerful. He generously wishes to change places with a fledgling outfit—to go from top to bottom, and allow someone else to move to the forefront.

You know what? We at NEW POP LIT are going to do everything in our power to help Gessen accomplish this goal!

Ed Champion and Tao Lin: Double Standard?

I’m not a fan of either individual. Their styles of attack are different. Ed Champion goes after you with a mallet, Tao Lin, a stiletto. One is crude, the other subtle.

Still, the question has to be asked: Why are many literary insiders defending Tao Lin and not Ed Champion?

Is it because several publishing concerns have invested heavily in Tao Lin? I speak of Random House, Melville House, and the lit journal n+1. They’ll likely try to salvage the guy, if possible.


It’s curious that women writers, such as Sheila Heti, or Champion’s antagonist Emily Gould, are defending Tao Lin on twitter. Regarding Ed Champion, there’s been widespread agreement that he should be blackballed. Yet Ed Champion, to my knowledge, didn’t physically assault anybody. By all accounts, he had a good relationship with his girlfriend Sarah Weinman. He did write an insulting and crude review, and threatened a woman writer via twitter—threatened her not physically, but that he would publish nude photos of her. Bad enough—but Tao Lin and his fellow “Alt Lit” writer Stephen Tully Dierkes are accused of something more.

Champion has been tagged with the label of ambition—but who’s been more ambitious than Tao Lin?

Tao was one of the cool kids. Ed clearly was not. In the final analysis, do charm and glamour win out?

I have no answers regarding the two of them—am trying to figure out the mind of the established literary world, which still carries clout. I’ll say this: the problem may be that literary culture is centered in a single town. Which creates a hive mindset; in which nonconforming individuals are continually ostracized, and the everpresent thought is: Who’s In and Who’s Out?

(Read more about his issue at http://newpoplitinteractive.wordpress.com/)

NEW POP LIT is the better alternative.