Outside MFA versus New York

THERE HAVE BEEN  a spate of articles online about the latest goofy n+1 idea, now available in book form, called “MFA versus New York.” This has to be the most ridiculous statement made by any group of writers, at least since 2008, when the n+1 crowd publicly predicted “the end of oil”— right before vast new pools of oil were discovered across the globe, and new technologies created for obtaining it.

Their latest discussion is ridiculous because it ignores exciting real change in the literary realm: the rise of self-published ebooks.

At least some literary commentators recognize that both worlds of MFA workshops and New York “Big Six” publishing are in collapse, such as this article by Sonia Saraiya, “The Bleak State of American Fiction.”

http://www.avclub.com/article/bleak-state-american-fiction-201745

But even Sonia Saraiya is wearing blinders. She ignores ebooks and the DIY world, and refuses to consider new options. Namely, creating fiction which can be pop and “literary” (significant) BOTH. The future won’t be bleak for those who discover a way out.

Anyway, there’s more intelligence presented in the Comments section to Saraiya’s article than in the entirety of the new n+1 book.

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(An aside: Doesn’t n+1’s very title scream “pseudo-intellectual”? You just know these are the same kind of people to be found blatantly reading Derrida or other unreadable tome at the local overpriced hipster coffeehouse or bar.)

Two Kinds of Short Stories

I have a post up at one of my other blogs that questions a literary magazine editor's "Ten Best" short stories list. His list is made up of, not so curiously, all literary stories. See

http://americanpoplit.blogspot.com/2012/07/best-short-stories.html

Michael Nye's list exemplifies the narrow MFA mentality.

There are two kinds of short stories: pop stories and literary stories. The objectives of the two types are vastly different. For the first type, the objective is to entertain and move a general audience. For the other, to impress a hypothetical or real college professor.

For too long, literary stories have had things all their own way, lauded by critics and academia, while the pop short story has been scorned, ignored, denied. It's no accident that during this period, the position of the short story in American culture has steadily declined.

With the rise of indie ebooks, the situation between the two kinds of stories may be changing.

Are all the many college professors and MFA grads-- numbering in the hundreds of thousands-- capable of defending their style of writing? Any of them? That remains to be seen. I sent an email "heads-up" to Missouri Review about my post, inviting comments, receiving to date none. Perhaps others invested in System Lit might weigh in. I invite them to. What literature needs more than anything else is real discussion and debate about its modes, standards, and intellectual monopolies.