/lit/ - Literature

Yes, pls! It is lonely here, and our releases are on different schedules.

>>4168630
We're still here and there any everywhere, d00d. Check our website. Goddamn.

>>4168862
And I'm not uncertainly in agreement with you!

>>4168857
Thank you, anon!

>>4168757
>Writes "tragedies"
>Plot spans more than one day; at times several days

And they call this drama? Literature? Weep, citizens, for the state of modern theatre.

>>4165883
DeLillo basically claimed the equivalent of this. He had a full-time job when he was younger -- he just hated working so much, he quit. To make money, he wrote fiction.

Successful writers being lazy, sheltered fucks seems to be a common trend. Why aren't you published yet, /lit/?

This seems like a good thread to ask:

What are Latin American writers worth reading? I already know about Borges. Is Latin American lit in general inclined towards magical realism?

Reading and writing is good, but why don't these bestseller authors ever mention the revision process?

That, I think, is what separates exceptional writers from the rest: to what degrees one is willing to reconstruct, butcher, and augment a work over endless drafts.

Oftentimes, the best works are those that have been refined so well, they seem to be entirely natural -- bursts of pure genius from the author. And those that don't recieve this nurturing seem lacking and underwhelming, and all the more disappointing, considering the author thought "Well, it could be better, but this is good enough for me."

>>4168795
Although your qtgf probably said the latter cuz she be slutty mang I like authors who strive for the former. Works that are aimed at a narrower audience will be held up to more detailed scrutiny than a work that is aimed at the general public. I want to reference Aristotle's Poetics so bad, but that would seem tryhard.

>>4165191
It's imperative you do your research, as >>4165258 and >>4165297 have pointed out.

I recently had the chance to ask a published author, Rob Roensch, what the initial steps of getting your name & work out there are. He says that carefully picking out litmags is a MUST.

There is one thing you should keep in mind, though: don't submit to journals based on their quality/popularity. Submit to ones you like/are interested in.

Good luck!

>>4162820

Remy's "Demonolatry" and Kramer's "Hammer of Witches" may give some useful tidbits of knowledge and branching points for further research.

>>4150787
I'm not familiar with either director, so thanks for the movie recommendations!

From what I can tell after quick Wikipedia skims, both of those directors love to play around with plot structure and such. Off the top of my head, I can think of two works you'll probably enjoy: Jesus's Son by Denis Johnson and The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (which was brought up on /lit/ in the past).

Both are comprised of interconnected short stories (the latter more-so than the former). Jesus's Son in particular is known for haphazardly riding the line between memoir and fiction.

>>4150691
What do you mean by experimental?

Many canonical works were at once considered experimental. Fielding's "The History of Tom Jones" really pushed the boundaries of the craft, as did Catullus's shifting between meters.

OP, how about you give some examples of film you consider experimental, and we can go from there?

>>4148254
http://industriallunch.tumblr.com/
http://aliterationmag.tumblr.com/

Here you go, anon!

OP, I currently have a full-time job as a technical writer for a county-wide non-profit. I go the job through networking.

I was hired by the organization as a bus-aide (also decent pay), and got in touch with middle-management in the main offices. I flaunted my credentials to them, and they had me doing an internship once a week. After a couple of months, they offered me the full-time position.

It's all about nepotism. You've just gotta find a way to make some connections.

If all else fails, work a shitty job for a bit and save up $$$ to go to trade school. (I'm serious. Blue collar jobs are in demand everywhere, at least in America).

>>4148217
Industrial Lunch is set to release their inaugural issue as well. And I'm still waiting on that issue of Aliteration, too.

I guess we can all just read and re-read Bleeding Edge for fall.

Hi folks!

TAR will not be releasing an issue for the month of October. Nor November. Wait! No! Don't start celebrating yet!

The whole journal is shifting to a quarterly publication schedule, and the next release will come out this Winter. We're still accepting submissions. If you'd like to be featured in the first new-and-improved TAR, send a submission to theaprilreader@gmail.com

Basically, we want more time to do more stuff: authors are going to receive more feedback with in-depth criticism, and readers will get thicker issues with quality works. Releases will also feature diversified pieces: editorials, essays, and a greater presence of non-fiction in general.

On the design end, the formatting will be polished, with each issue being made in desktop publishing software. Equipped with a more professional image, we'll begin expanding into other communities, feasting on more delicious readers. We'd like to give writers a modicum of pride in being published by TAR.

We'll be posting more news as we develop and implement ideas. If you have feedback or ideas for TAR, go ahead and send us an email.

>>4130526
Are you serious, dude? Anyone who thinks that publishing companies have quality literature in mind has to be insane. Editors aren't there to make great literature be able to change the world; they're there to make pleb writing be able to make money.

Can you just imagine the amount of time and effort spent on making stuff like Twilight and 50 Shades passable? It must have been completely muddled with grammatical errors and awkward sentences. The editors might as well have written half the book themselves.

And that's most likely exactly what you'll be doing if you ever get a job as an editor with decent pay: you'll be ghost-writing shit like "Mr. Darcy: Vampire" and "Wine, Wives, and White Lies."

Gaddis is a better novelist than DFW. Just sayin'.

>>4125201
It took me a while, but I think I see what you did there.

"Let's get this out here right now: I'm a 23 year old law graduate with an IQ of 155; my political beliefs are liberal and leftist, I listen to Metal and I enjoy violent movies, books and videogames, and I've been a Christian since birth."

>>4123588
Yeah. It really is about time we addressed some of our own problems.

>>4123616
I'm sorry, anon. But we'd still love to read it!
If it makes you feel better, I've been pondering the idea of mini-zines released between releases. Like a newsletter. It's just a daydream, but it wouldn't be too hard: basically the current version of TAR but a bit shorter. Whether or not we do one before our re-inagural issue is yet to be discussed, but does the concept appeal to you?

this hasnt been run by the other editors yet so me telling you this is totally scandalous

>>4123582
you didn't show us your spork

>>4123533
Most of the changes deal with how TAR works internally, but here's the stuff that's pertinent to readers and submitters:

>quarterly schedule
Fewer submissions a year justifies "fat" releases: TAR can be longer than ~40 pages now. We can also publish longer prose without being forced to serialize, and can do side stuff like creating title pages for submissions.

>more editors with more focus
Before, most of our editors just looked at every submission. Now, we have a few editors doing various genres of prose, a couple doing poetry, and a couple doing essays. As a result, submissions get accepted/rejected much faster, authors are given feedback much sooner, and readers (hopefully) get more diversified tastes in their perusal of TAR.

(We've got an opening for a poetry editor. If anyone's interested, just drop an email).

>A change of software & design
I got myself Scribus, a copy of The Elements of Typographic Style, and a copy of Grid Systems & The Geometry of Design.

Not only does this develop my hobby of design, a professional-looking layout allows published readers to feel more confident when showing off their feature in TAR.

and if i turn out to be a total sperg incapable of making anything readable and aesthetic we can find a guy to do layout i guess :(

More details will follow later in the week, but that's the jist of it. The rest is logistics stuff that I can't spin into a PR campaign, so you're just gonna have to wait and see.

>>4123504
That's a pretty insightful post.

Have this picture of post-soviet realist architecture as "thanks"!

>>4123506
>>4123521
It's pretty good, isn't it? A scene and conflict and everything: like flash fiction, but not burdened with ambiguities, and somewhat soothing.

Let's coin it with something.

>>4123502
It's hard, especially with contemporary stuff. Picking a novel released in the last several decades is a big risk, as the idea of a "canon" no longer really exists, and literature has become so diversified (finally leaving the stupor of postmodernism).

But that risk also makes it kinda fun, as picking apart a book you find shitty can be pretty enjoyable, and it builds your critical reading skills.

/lit/ has a wiki, so that's a good place to start.

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Literature_by_origin#United_States

Most nations in that list have a "contemporary" subsection or an equivalent.

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Literature_by_type#Contemporary

This is a good list as well, including several works released in the 21st century (my idea of "contemporary").

Really, though, there was some really dank shit released at the start of the 21st century. Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" and Weiss's "Honk if You Love Aphrodite" are my top two favorite novels.

Good luck and happy reading!