Ephemera

R.I.P. Kindle Vella 2021-2025

Kindle Vella , a platform for serialized storytelling, is winding down its service this month, after only a few years of existence. Despite its promise to revolutionize the reading experience with bite-sized episodes unlocked via tokens, Vella has failed. Why?

Embracing Discord: A Digital Haven for Literary Gatherings

Discord has evolved into a versatile communication platform, offering a unique avenue for hosting online literary events. Discord has the potential to become a conduit for enriching literary experiences.

I’m a YouTube Beginner

Starting a YouTube channel has been an exciting and challenging journey for me. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the experience so far.

Multiverse Writing

Language models like GPT-3 have advanced to a level where they can work together with humans to write content. In a recent article, two authors suggest creating interfaces that allow humans to collaborate with AI to generate and understand nonlinear stories.

How to Write with AI: Tips, Tricks, and Observations for Writers using ChatGPT

Artificial intelligence (AI) can make it easier to work more efficiently with text. With tools like ChatGPT, writers can save time and focus on more creative tasks.

Imagining a Hypertextual Metaverse

Combining immersive VR and interactive hypertext could make for new and unique forms of storytelling. We could think of this as ‘Experiential Storytelling.’

Spelunking Through Video Game History with Colossal Cave

The recent release of a new version of Colossal Cave Adventure, reimagined for the 21st century and even playable in virtual reality, offers a glimpse into the potential of text adventure games in the modern age. But does it deliver on that promise?

Browser Extensions for Focused Reading

If you want to stay focused while reading online, these Chrome extensions can be a game-changer.

Repurpose an Old Kindle or E-Reader Tablet

If you have an old Kindle or e-reader tablet that you no longer use, here are some ideas for repurposing it.

Poetry in Virtual Reality: The Aesthetic Potential of VR Experiences

As poets and poetry lovers, we are always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to experience and engage with poetry. With the rise of virtual reality (VR) technology, it’s clear that the potential for immersive, experiential poetry experiences is vast.

Best Video Game Narrative 2022

The Video Game Awards are out for Best Narrative. Here’s a quick summary of the nominees and winners, and some discussion.

Hello World: Trying A New YouTube Channel

Introducing ‘No Categories’ a YouTube channel about the intersection of writing and technology.

1000 Blog Posts

This blog is now 18 years old, with nearly 1,000 posts. I’ve learned a lot along the way, made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve had a lot of fun. What’s happend? What’s next?

My New/Used Next/First Camera

After a difficult summer, and searching for something to cheer me up, I got a new camera to see if a reunion with photography could let some light in.

Starting a Lens Collection

A review of the Voking 25mm F1.7. lens, used with the sony a6000 camera, as a webcam.

Doing Real Work in Virtual Reality

The idea of working in VR is late for work.

Digital Storytelling Awards

Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab has announced the 2022 Breakthroughs in Storytelling Awards.

Testing Digital Highlighters

You can highlight key passages while you read online. Here’s my review of several options.

A New Scanner for Books

Unboxing the CZUR Shine Ultra

Text Adventures that Go Beyond

One of these text adventures takes a new approach to the old experience, and another pushes the medium towards a limit that could suggest its future direction. "

Nattarive Conversational Interfaces

A look at two hypertexts: one game and one visual novel, that tell their stories in a conversational way."

Bandersnatch, Hypertext, and the State of Interactive Stories

Interest in non-linear storytelling is rekindling. Two months ago, the Black Mirror studio released an interactive, non-linear movie called Bandersnatch on Netflix. The choices aren’t merely about what should happen next, but also about the mood, style, and even the meaning of the story that unfolds.

Aleatory Writing Experiment

An experiment, after Bernadette Mayer, to systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from a piece of writing.

Chapbooks, Zines, and Rare Books from the Early 2000s

These book reviews describe the works of poets and publishers at a time right before the web became ubiquitous, so they are a useful archive as well as an enjoyable read.

Litblog Roundup 58

Do grade-school kids still have to write or speak about what they did during summer vacation? I’m not a kid, so I don’t get to take the summer off, but I did anyway. At least, I took a break from some things, and the roundup was one of them. I’m back for now. If there are enough readers, I’ll keep going. Let me know if you’d like more of this, or if you have any thoughts at all, in the comments below.

Litblog Roundup 57

This roundup begins with a roundup, followed by another roundup, making it a roundup of roundups and offering the opportunity to say “roundup” many times, in a sentence about roundups. Ok I’ll stop.

Litblog Roundup 56

This edition of the litblog roundup offers up an entire buffet of food for thought, sourced from corners of the literary internet far and wide. Bon appétit !

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Any questions? Yeah, plenty! This edition of the litblog roundup is written in the form of mostly twitter-worthy questions. Each one contains a link to something that’s been making the rounds lately across the literary internet. This way you get even more links, in less time. Enjoy!

Litblog Roundup 54

The litblog roundup offers a summary of the topics of conversation lately on the literary internet. With stolen books, other crimes, and a whole lot to say about money, there’s sure to be something to intrigue you this time.

Litblog Roundup 53

I do my best to write the Litblog Roundup on a bi-weekly basis. This time around, I think to myself: well holy shit could any pair of two weeks possibly be any more different from each other! I’ll do my best to recap, but I can’t promise to be apolitical. It simply wasn’t an apolitical pair of weeks.

Litblog Roundup 52

One of the rules I set for myself, as I crawl the literary Internet for this column is that I’ll write about the interesting highlights. Some things, I’ve decided, don’t make the cut. They’re not highlights because they’re too frequent and they’re not interesting for that same reason. So I don’t pay attention to literary awards for the most part. I don’t pay attention to anything related to Neil Gaiman or Harry Potter. I don’t mention obituaries. I’m going to break one of those rules now.

Litblog Roundup 51

It’s the end of 2016. Everyone says “good riddance!” but before we kick this year into the bin of history, let’s do a roundup of it.

Litblog Roundup 50

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. In this roundup: the politics of naming, a mysterious manuscript, adjectives and more.

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November 8, 2016 was Election Day here in the United States. November 9 was strange. It was then that the literary internet began to question: what happened? what’s going to happen? what do we do? Here’s a roundup of that conversation.

a list of ways to destroy failed drawings

austinkleon : A list of ways to destroy failed drawings by Tucker Nichols and his students

Spoken Word

Here is a colelction of information about the literature of spoken word, from oral traditions to slam poetry, and beyond. Know something that should be here? Please share it in the comments.

Litblog Roundup 48

Show Don’t Tell If you’ve ever taken a writing class, you’ve probably head the old adage, “how don’t tell.” It means you should prefer a visual description over a more verbal one in your prose. But why is this the preference? Namatra Poddar explores the issue in an essay, “Is ‘Show Don’t Tell’ a Universal Truth or a Colonial Relic? ” In the essay you’ll find:

Litblog Roundup 47

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Seven years ago, Seth Grahame-Smith concocted a book called “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” You still don’t have a copy? I think you can find it in one of those stores that sells lumberjack soap and framed pictures of bacon. If you’re looking for his new book, well I’m afraid he’s had some trouble “writing” it .

Litblog Roundup 46

In a series about the intersection between literary culture and online life, every so often I’m tempted to stray into writing exclusively about one of those areas. It is one of those occasions, because this week marks the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web . (It is not, however, the birthday of the Internet , which booted up in 1969.) This week also marks what some might consider to be a historic milestone: the end of Gawker’s blog-based media empire .

Litblog Roundup 45

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. This roundup features an oompa-loompa, messing with fonts, a moment of zen, and more.

Litblog Roundup 44

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. This roundup features door-to-door poetry, books delivered quickly to your house, an obligatory reference to Pokemon Go, and more.

Fluxus Scores: works that writing cannot contain or control.

In many ways, most Fluxus ‘scores’ (for music or other kinds of performance and/or composition) are fairly legible as scripts for performance/enactment; i.e. the text comes first and the performance after (if at all). Certainly, one of the interventions (and charms) of Fluxus scores were the openness of the scores, where interpretation and chance were much more important than following the letter of the law, as one might in traditional sheet music, for example. As such, reading Fluxus scores as performance texts allows us to see how writing can activate art/life works that writing cannot contain or control.

the author and performer

once the author and performer become separate entities, the work begins to read more like a script than an action —Performing Between Action and Script

Litblog Roundup 43

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. This roundup gathers together some new ways to look at books, with a Netflix for books, a Rotten Tomatoes for books, and more.

Litblog Roundup 42

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. In this roundup: the very first work of science fiction, reading tons of magazines, and more.

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Would You Know an Allegory if You Saw One? Laura Miller, writing for Slate, says no, you might not know an allegory when you saw one . First of all, it’s not a very common form. Second, the word “allegory” is misused so frequently, and so often confused for “metaphor” as to render it meaningless.

Litblog Roundup 40

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. In this roundup: a look at subjective things like loneliness, authenticity, and more.

Litblog Roundup 39

For this edition of the Litblog Roundup, let’s look across the literary Internet for commentary about several different literary topics. Poems Lithub has an impressive roundup of 30 Poets You Should Be Reading . It’s a thoughtful roundup with commentary that introduces a list of contemporary poets to read for National Poetry Month.

Litblog Roundup 38

The Litblog Roundup took a break for Easter. Now I’m back, with a roundup of recently popular items from across the literary Internet. In this roundup: the new book critics in Los Angeles, and speaking of Los Angeles what’s up with that big writers conference that just happened there?

Litblog Roundup 37

A posthumous publication from Allen Gisnberg, smuggling short stories out of North Korea, computer-text analysis, and more from the Litblog Roundup: topics, trends, and highlights from writers, readers, and publishers throughout the literary Internet.

Visual Poetry Artists

list of artists on tumblr working with text, who have been featured on visual-poetry before: brandon alvarado gary barwin olfa breuning derek beaulieu marc bijl olaf breuning hart broudy t=NjUyODAwMGYxMjQ0MWNiZDU2YzZiOTljZjExMGMzMjI3Y2JiYjVkMSxXZ1p4Uk1rNg%3D%3D) francesca capone ben carrick calvin ross carl aldo chaparro zach collins a. l. crego nathan crothers elle dioguardi dave dyment amanda earl geraint edwards john fekner john fekner peter fend manuela fersen nikita gale bethany goodwill pia habekost don hepster geof huth emma king austin kleon anatol knotek márton koppány natalie lauchlan woody leslie micah lexier t=NDJhMTIwZDM1MTZiOTE2MTI3NGRiNDgyM2M4MDE5ZWYwMGFjOTcyZCxXZ1p4Uk1rNg%3D%3D) daan lievense natalya lobanova wendy macnaughton mark mcevoy kristin mciver misjko troy passey t=N2NkY2NkZjUyY2Y5MmQ1NzhiOWVhNjA4MmE3OTEwOWJjOGIxYjU3NCxXZ1p4Uk1rNg%3D%3D) michael pederson jörg piringer pixie pravda alyson provax fatima queiroz tabitha jayne richardson valerie roybal stoph sauter petra schulze-wollgast ines seidel victoria siemer trevor h smith ian stevenson daniel temkin michael tino cecil touchon anton unai zach urbina andré vallias liu yao-chung youdhisthir maharjan via: visual-poetry

david markson the last novel the fourth and

austinkleon : David Markson, The Last Novel The fourth and final book, after Reader’s Block , This Is Not A Novel , and Vanishing Point , in Markson’s last four books of “nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like” anti-novels.

Keep Blogging. We Read You: A Huge List of Literary Blogs

I like to think, though, that all these bloggers need is some encouragement. I’m sharing this list, not to call out these hundreds of bloggers for being slackers, but to offer up some encouragement. For the readers out there: take a look at this list, see if anything strikes your fancy, and go post a comment to get a conversation started. For the writers of these blogs: take heart, keep blogging. We read you."

‘Great idea: Turning art supply tests into standalone works of art’

via austinkleon : I like these pieces from “Test Me ,” an exhibit by @chrisormitch (Chris Maddux) on display at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery’s Image Lab , the interdisciplinary work space run by @thenearsightedmonkey (Lynda Barry)

Book Cover Breakdowns

Book cover breakdowns. Images are replaced with diagonal lines and text is replaced with bars of colour. Ongoing project since 2011. (via Readings : Jan Avendano )

Litblog Roundup 36

Shortlists The superbowl is over. Baseball season hasn’t started yet. A lull of noncompetitive peace would fall over the land… No. There are some book competitions to pay attention to. The Shortlist for the 2016 PEN Literary Awards has been published. It’s one of the most important literary awards . Like any contest or award, it definately has the attention of many people. The Morning News’s Tournament of Books may not be as old or prestigious, but it looks like fun. Members of a Goodreads group can read and judge the books on the list of nominees .

Litblog Roundup 35

What do you get when you combine prominent politicians with bullshit detectors? The new Litblog Roundup, that’s what! Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet.

Litblog Roundup 34

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. In this roundup: it’s a tumultuous time for electronic writing, how many kinds of stories are there, David Bowie and more.

Bowie’s copy of Oblique Strategies

David Bowie’s (well used) copy of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies. via artistsbooksandmultiples

hang on by anatol knotek homepage tumblr

anatolknotek: »hang on« by anatol knotek [ homepage | tumblr | twitter ]

visual poetry by christian bök

visual-poetry: by christian bök (+)

Litblog Roundup 33

It’s the end of the year, time for looking back, for bucket lists, and yes even for roundups of roundups. To put it another way, here’s a roundup of the big events of 2015 on the literary Internet. They’re in no particular order.

Litblog Roundup 32

Why do companies pretend to invent the very things that they work so hard to make obsolete? Now, from the creators of the amazon.com website that you may have heard of, it’s a bookstore. Is it the Apple Store of bookstores or just the Barnes and Noble of Amazon Stores? It’s in Seattle. The books are all shelved with their covers facing out, with little cards to show the Amazon reviews. Online reviews are printed out on the shelves of a store. Other than that, it’s a bookstore, but it has raised so many questions.

Litblog Roundup 31

What’s going on with blogs and forums? Are they worse a worse place for serious conversation than established publications? All this and more in the Litblog Roundup, a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet.

When ‘It Just Works’ Doesn’t Work

Downloads, updates, logins, alerts, updates, logins, downloads… when do we ever get to just do what we came to do?

Litblog Roundup 30

Do writers get picky about music? Are E-books sufficiently advanced? What’s up with the new line of books coming out? All this and more in a new installment of the Litblog Roundup, a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet.

everything will be taken away by adrian piper

visual-poetry : »everything will be taken away« by adrian piper at the 2015 venice biennale

Litblog Roundup 29

Is twitter a form of literature? What do you think about banned books week? All this, dead oysters, and more in the Litblog Roundup. The Deal with Blurbs You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover. You’re supposed to judge it by its blurb. But how are we to judge the blurbs themselves? Lately, that judgement has been a popular topic. First, there was the piece on “blurbspeak ” a while ago. Now, NPR asks “Forget The Book, Have You Read This Irresistible Story On Blurbs? ” One of the payloads of this discussion is that they’ve unearthed what appears to be the very first blurb, and the book for which it was written. If that’s not enough blurb action for you, Real Pants has you covered with free blurbs for your book .

Litblog Roundup 28

What happens when a white man pretends to be a member of another ethnicity in order to get published? Let’s survey the fallout in this edition of Litblog Roundup, a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. (You could think of this as a cross-over post, because it’s already been mentioned recently here at Real Pants in Mike Young’s roundup , but there’s more so I’ll keep going.)

Litblog Roundup 27

Is there such a thing as a writer that’s too prolific? What’s it like to work at Amazon? What does the CIA have to do with literary magazines? All this and more in this edition of Litblog Roundup, a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet.

Litblog Roundup 26

In this roundup: Patti Smith, the crap they write on book jackets, and more. Our Capacity for “Serious Noticing” Complex literary works demand an effort from the reader that is becoming harder to justify, given the sink-or-swim pressures to make profitable products for a global marketplace. Who can blame writers for spending more time ornamenting their Facebook page than revising their manuscript? — Joanna Scott

if time is money i have no time by olivia steele

visual-poetry: »if time is money i have no time« by olivia steele

Litblog Roundup 25

Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. In this roundup: literary maps, writing about not writing, hip-hop poetics, and more.

Litblog Roundup 24

Harper Lee’s new/old book, rejection letters, the poetics of information overload, and more.

A Guide to Literary Podcasts

In honor of Real Pants’ new foray into podcasting, this roundup offers an overview of the wide world of literary podcasting. Podcasting! It’s the hip new thing. It’s more than ten years old, but nevermind that, podcasting is the hip new thing again!

Litblog Roundup 22

how to host a literary reading, the poetics of failure, and an assortment of creepy children.

Litblog Roundup 21

Another important conceptual writer is accused of racially charged appropriation. Here’s what happened.

Litblog Roundup 20

some greatly exaggerated rumors about Mark Twain, the value of paragraphs, and more.

How I Made a Repository of my Writings, and Why

If you have a lifetime of writings, it can get difficult to sort through it all. I’d like to describe a the system I use to keep track of what I’ve written. Suggestions for improvement are welcome!

Litblog Roundup 19

a massive digital archive of literary recordings, and also the question: are there too many books?"

Litblog Roundup 18

No, it’s the litblog roundup. No, really. Litblog Roundup is a bi-weekly overview of topics, trends and highlights from the literary Internet. No, totally.

Litblog Roundup 17

In this roundup: there’s a push for a better critical vocabulary to use when we talk about books, reading and writing. Boring is Boring Weird Sister is a blog about the intersections of feminism, literature and pop culture. Caolan Madden has a new post there, on the word boring:

Composing with Words like John Cage

In about two days, I plan to get on stage to perform a written work in front of a live audience and read, not from a script, but from something more like a score. I’m not the only person engaging in this literary experiment. There are about a dozen of us. What are we doing?

Litblog Roundup 16

fragments of ancient poetry, writing of the future, and more.

Last of the Typewriter Men

If you have a laptop that quits working, you can take it to one of the many computer repair shops all over the country to have it repaired — for a while, until it becomes obsolete in just a few years. If you have a typewriter and it’s a good one, it should last 100 years or so, but where can you take it for repair? Typewriter repair is a dying art.

Marginalia Exhibition

If you like to write notes, jokes, or insults into the margins of the books you read, you may be interested to know that you’re part of a centuries-long tradition. With recent commentary by the New York Review of Books, there is a new exhibition at the New York Society Library “explores the practice of reading through the many handwritten notes left in the margins of books”

New Sherlock Holmes

There’s a recently rediscovered short story about Sherlock Holmes that may have been written by Arthur Conan Doyle , or maybe not . With so many (re)discovered manuscripts already this year, it seems to be a trend. They’ve even unearthed a new Dr. Seuss book .

The Print Preferences of Digital Natives

Aa recent study suggests that college students prefer to read textbooks in print , as opposed to reading them electronically. Some responses to this finding have pointed out that this preference have more to do with resale value than with media preferences.

Writing Instructor Rants

A few days ago Ryan Boudinot’s published “Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs Now That I No Longer Teach in One .” It includes a few incendiary remarks. For example: “if you didn’t decide to take writing seriously by the time you were a teenager, you’re probably not going to make it.” In addition to the original post’s 90+ comments, rebuttal posts are popping up on The Digital Reader and terribleminds .

Net Neutrality in a Nutshell

Everybody knows that the government is really good at the Internet, right? Al Gore invented the Internet, right ? That new healthcare website worked just as well as Google and Facebook, right out of the box, right ? The government we trust to protect the freedom of the press and of speech has zero interest monitoring our every single communication, right ? We’re fucked, right? Well, maybe the giant corporations can better serve our interests, while using our money to keep those government bozos from meddling with our affairs. Surely those good, American corporations want us to see whatever we want on the Internet, whenever we want, right? No, it’s called blocking . Surely since we’re paying them for the quality of their products, they would never intentionally reduce that quality? No, it’s called throttling . Certainly, since there’s a freedom of information in this great land of ours, everyone’s Internet is the same Internet? No, there’s a better Internet that you may not have, called the fast lane . We’re pretty much fucked. Last week, new rules were created by the United States’ Federal Communications Commission. No, they’re not regulations about when you can or can not drop the F bomb . These are some additional regulations intended to protect something called Net Neutrality. Let’s take a look at all that, shall we? Let’s see whether it can un-fuck any of this mess.

Litblog Roundup 15

a new novel from Harper Lee, the upcoming launch of the Lit Hub website, why Americans don’t read foreign fiction, the killing of the creative class, and more

A Place to Make Poetry

Does it help to understand the working conditions of a writer? Does it change the meaning or value of their work to know about such conditions? What was their space like? How did they use their time? A new book explores what it must have been like in Geoffrey Chaucer’s apartment, and The Spectator has a review .

Best Books of the Century

The BBC asked a group of critics to identify the best books written during this century . The Art of Fiction describes the list that resulted as “anglo-centric” and the Literary Saloon described it as “shockingly monoglot.” If you would like to see a list of good, non-English books published recently, Entropy’s recent list of the top 93 poetry books in translation of 2014 might be a great place to start.

Follow the Money

One of the most popular topics of conversation in the literary Internet recently has been a post on Salon entitled, “‘Sponsored’ by my husband: Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from. ” There are long threads comment threads about it on Reddit , Metafilter and The Passive Voice .

Scholarly Book Blogs?

During a recent twitter conversation among scholars of Victorian literature, a long-standing question came up again: what is the role of blogging when it comes to the scholarly discussion of literature ? In a similar vein, the Millions has an excellent overview of the active book culture on Tumblr .

The Library is On Fire

If we’re to regard the Internet as analogous in any way to “publishing” then the Internet will need to have something like a library, so that the published work can be kept safe. Some of the first books ever printed some 500 years ago are kept safe and are still usable. Will the early Internet be around in 500 years time? If it will be available by then, it may be thanks in part to projects like the Internet Archive, which is described in detail in a recent New Yorker article .

A Day’s Work

The Telegraph has a piece this week that declares “These days, writing isn’t a career. It’s a rich man’s hobby. ” with conversation and rebuttal at The Passive Voice .

Culture or Content

Maria Popova has a post at Brain Pickings this week that considers Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Against Interpretation” in lights of today’s culture, where the Internet is full of interpretations, increasingly mere reactions, in response to a body of material that is frequently understood as “content” rather than as experience or art. It seems impossible to take anything at face value when anything can instantly become the subject of a conversation involving thousands of people. What would Susan Sontag say to all of this, or would she say anything?

Free Expression

Satire, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press have become contentious topics during the past few weeks, throughout the literary Internet, and the media in general.

Proto-Hipsterism

Was J. Alfred Prufrock a hipster , before it was cool to be a hipster, before the word hipster had even been coined? If so, does that make him some sort of great, grand hipster? Maybe not, but the author of J. Alfred Prufrock is credited with the first printed use of the word bullshit.

Towards a Safer Reading

The Rah! Rah! Roundup has an overview of a conversation that began recently at the Poetry Project in New York City. The Poetry Project hosted a panel discussion . The topic was “What is a reading? What should it be? What is read there? And to whom?” During the discussion of literary readings, their culture, etc., poet Eileen Myles described “personal instances of assault and harassment,” according to one of the other panelists, Jennifer Tamayo.

Submission Strategy Review

If you submit more writings, you get published more often. It’s simple. Here’s how I keep track of it all.

Announcing Baltimore’s Newest Reading Series

Infinity's Kitchen reading series is a monthly literary event designed to highlight the work of new and interesting writers from Baltimore and beyond. The readings will be held at Sidebar in Baltimore, Maryland. Infinity's Kitchen reading series will also include discussions of the performers and their work, in a format that resembles a late night talk show. There may even be some fun gags thrown in, for good measure. This is not an open-mic event but submissions are open.

Had Enough of Tolkien?

With the recent release of the new Hobbit movie, we’ve reached the conclusion of Peter Jackson’s cinematic saga based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. But have we had enough of Tolkein? Author Michael Moorcock has had enough of Tolkein, as explained by a recent New Yorker article :

Litblog Roundup 14

Writers and Editors on their Literary Resolutions Benjamin Samuel at electric literature asked 19 writers’ resolutions for the new year . Naturally, many writers resolved to have new relationships with books. Some would write books by hand. Others would read more books, or more books in translation. Others resolved not to buy new books until reading the ones they already have.

Litblog Roundup 2014-12-20

For the final Litblog Roundup of 2014, I have an exciting announcement to make.

Litblog Roundup 2014-12-08

The New, New Republic, NaNoWriMo Wrap-up, and highlights from the world of literary blogs.

Litblog Roundup 2014-11-30

Literary obituaries, the ongoing saga of David and Goliath, literary scenes, and more highlights from literary Internet.

Litblog Roundup 2014-11-23

Ursula Le Guin’s speech, Toni Morrison’s interview, 21st Century libraries, rejection letters and more highlights from the world of literary blogs. "

Guide to the Literary Internet

a guide to writers, readers, publishers and more to follow on Medium, Tumblr, and Twitter

Litblog Roundup 2014-11-06

The history of punctuation, the history of book chapters, what makes a book, what makes a good open mic, and more

Litblog Roundup 2014-10-28

A blog blackout, but still some posts anyway.

Litblog Roundup 2014-10-20

The weekly liblog roundup features the latest highlights from the world of literary blogs. If you spend as much time reading litblogs as I do, there are two things you see frequently: obituaries and awards announcements. I’ll skip the obituaries.

Litblog Roundup 2014-10-12

This week’s litblog roundup features the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversy in the Alt Lit community, and more.

LitBlog Roundup 2014-10-04

This week for the LitBlog Roundup, I’ve discovered a whole new litblog community called Book Tube. Also, some stuff about essays, typography, and more.

Litblog Roundup 2014-09-28

The Spritz reading app, Amtrak’s writer’s residency, crowdsourced book editing, and more.

Litblog Roundup 2014-09-21

I am an avid reader of litblogs. Here are some recent, interesting posts from the third week of September, 2014.

Litblog Roundup 2014-09-14

I am an avid reader of literary blogs. Here are some recent posts that I found interesting.

So Many Publishing Platforms, So Little Time

Here’s a run-down of just a few of the publishing platforms to get your writing online fast and easy.

More Things Not To Do At A Literary Reading

Cliché has no place in poetry, because it isn’t artful.

Git and the Writer

Imagine if your editors and beta readers could send for your review through a freely distributed application where each participant can work independently.

The Death of the Novel, Again

If novels are dying, should we mourn? What are we parting with, exactly? How can we make sure not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, if we move on from books?

Ten Things Not to Do at a Literary Reading

Literary events, like any live performance, are bound to have some glitches here and there. Some of those glitches are easily avoided.

The bird of hermes

Index of First Lines

It’s easy to create an index of first lines. If each of your poems is a separate text file, then a handy command line trick will produce an index of first lines. If you have all your poems in a single Microsoft Word document, you can use the index feature.

Novel Approach: A Coincidental Mailart Assemblage

Novel Approach: A Coincidental Mailart Assemblage A mail art novel with works from 115 contributors from around the world. Originally published in 1990 by Xexoxial Editions and Plaster Cramp Press, this has long been out of print. Contributions are numbered with a key at the end of the book.

Following Silliman’s Blogroll

Literary blogs are a vibrant and enjoyable treasure trove. You can still subscribe to them all and join the conversation. I’ve created a tool to help.

Visual and Concrete Poetry Exhibition

Visual and Concrete Poetry Exhibition

Visual Poetry Exhibition In Vienna

visual poetry exhibition in vienna a visual and digital poetic view on the globe by 100 artists exhibition | performance | readings | lectures | concert | film

Erased and Altered Pages

ERASURE Erased and altered pages © Ania Wawrzkowicz 2012 (more Ambiguous Documents) via ultrazswound

ianbrooks nothing lasts forever by anatol

ianbrooks : Nothing Lasts Forever by Anatol Knotek Hey, even the Mona Lisa’s falling apart. Artist: Website (via: My Modern Met )

’new from No Press: TWO FOM UKRAINE'

new from No Press: TWO FOM UKRAINE No Press is proud to announce the publication of a rare opportunity to gain insight in to the range of visual poetry produced in Ukraine. rarely seen in North America, these authors seek dialogue w…

Leaving Microsoft Word Behind

I have amassed a collection of files: .doc files, .docx files, .rtf files, .html files, but I set out to convert them all to plain text files."

Scrivener, Git and Version Control for Writers

Scrivener projects are laid out as application bundles with the .scriv extension, and, as it turns out, are amenable to Git version control.

Apps For Writers with Version Control

The way I see it, there are two ways to add Version Control abilities to your writing workflow. One would be to use a word processor specifically built for the task. The other would be to use the word processor you already have, and to use a separate app to handle the version control features.

Useful Features of Version Control Software

Version control for writers, and why it’s useful.

Version Control for Writers

Authors, editors, literary scholars, archivists: all eventually have to do work with multiple versions of a text.

The Sound of Silence

Free Radicals - A History of Experimental Film

Free Radicals - A History of Experimental Film (2010) (by REVOIRVIDEO)

Craig Dworkin’s No Medium

Reading the “Nothings that Are”: Craig Dworkin’s “No Medium” Infinity's Kitchen contributor Michael Leong just published a review-essay of Craig Dworkin's No Medium on Hyperallergic.

2 4get her by anatol knotek handmade book 50

»2 4get her« handmade book by anatol knotek »2 4get her« handmade book by anatol knotek »2 4get her« handmade book by anatol knotek »a bra« by anatol knotek »where is all the time that heals?« by anatol knotek »2 4get her« by anatol knotek handmade book, 50 typewriter-poems, limited edition: 250 books,

Every Book Deserves a Great Cover

Recovering the Classics Recovering the Classics is a crowdsourced collection of original covers for great works in the public domain where anyone can contribute. Why? Sadly, many of the greatest classics in the public domain are left with poorly designed or auto-generated covers that fail to capture what makes these books exciting and inspiring to us. So we invited illustrators, typographers, and designers of all stripes to create new covers for 100 of the greatest works in the public domain.

Ambient, Slowed-Down Theme for Windows 95

Here’s Brian Eno’s famous composition “Windows 95 Startup Sound” (yeah he wrote that), but it has been stretched way out. When you take his micro-music and stretch it out to two and a half minutes, it becomes suspiciously like the music we hear on his ambient albums - slow, ethereal, moody, beautiful in a very different way. So listen to it (this is a Windows 95 ad that an enterprising YouTuber slowed way down).

An Evening of Innovative New Writing!

Infinity’s Kitchen magazine will host a release party in Brooklyn, New York at The Old American Can Factory. The party will celebrate the magazine’s sixth issue of experimental literature, on the evening of June 13, 2013.

visual poetry so so billboard by anatol

visual-poetry : »so so« billboard by anatol knotek exhibited at the international billboard festival »art moves«

The Supa Stupa Project

The Supa Stupa Project matches bodhisattvaeques with conceptual art lovers. (by Gary Heidt )

Vito Acconci’s 1971 instructions in case he should die in a plane crash

Vito Acconci’s 1971 instructions in case he should die in a plane crash - Boing Boing

Annual Chicago Show of Typographic Allstars

Typeforce Catalogue for the Annual Chicago Show of Typographic Allstars (via Typeforce Exhibition Catalogue on Behance)

No Medium

Dworkin considers works predicated on blank sheets of paper, from a fictional collection of poems in Jean Cocteau’s Orphée to the actual publication of a ream of typing paper as a book of poetry; he compares Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased De Kooning Drawing to the artist Nick Thurston’s erased copy of Maurice Blanchot’s The Space of Literature (in which only Thurston’s marginalia were visible); and he scrutinizes the sexual politics of photographic representation and the implications of obscured or obliterated subjects of photographs.

No Medium

In No Medium , Craig Dworkin looks at works that are blank, erased, clear, or silent, writing critically and substantively about works for which there would seem to be not only nothing to see but nothing to say. Examined closely, these ostensibly contentless works of art, literature, and music point to a new understanding of media and the limits of the artistic object.

The Personality of Parisian Neighborhoods Expressed Through Typography

via The Personality of Parisian Neighborhoods Expressed Through Typography

A Duet for Leaves and Turntable

All bass, kick and snare sounds heard in the video were made by alternating the leaf type, angle, pressure as it was applied against the turntable.

the following are excerpts from the end of oulipo

The following are excerpts from The End of Oulipo? An Attempt at Exhausting a Movement. Released by Zero Books (via An Attempt at Exhausting a Movement - The New Inquiry)

The Most Commercially Successful Work of Experimental Fiction Ever Written

The Most Commercially Successful Work of Experimental Fiction Ever Written Of course, I'm describing The Lord of the Rings, and, with that description, contending that Tolkien's novel is simply the most popular work of experimental fiction ever written. Need more proof its experimental?

visual poetry by pete spence from the book 10

visual-poetry : by pete spence from the book »10 poems« (free download )

My Grandmother’s Writings Part Two: File Cabinets and Beer Boxes

the writings were carefully removed from their original file cabinet and transferred into a set of brown cardboard boxes emblazoned with the irrelevant phrases “Bud Ice” and “Corona” where they remained, stored in the basement, for about 20 years.

visual poetry screen by noah wardrip fruin

visual-poetry : “screen” by noah wardrip-fruin (via »new poetry forms «)

My Grandmother’s Writings Part One: ‘Look at all this paper!’

In October of 2012, my dad gave me the entire collected writings by my Grandmother, Elizabeth Kinnett. I’m going to catalog, annotate and digitize these writings. Along the way, I’ll blog about the work I do.

There are No Categories for Music Genre

I know it’s becoming unfashionable to actually own a digital copy of music anymore, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have several thousand songs that I have collected over the years. Lately I’ve become interested in cleaning up the information about my music library, the metadata tags that describe the music’s genre, in particular. I’d like to be able to kick back with my iphone or whatever and quickly scroll through a list of genres. I’d like for that list to help me easily answer the question “what kind of music do I want to listen to right now”. Sadly, nearly all the music in my collection has a genre tag that is way too general “alternative” or way too specific “pre-punk indie rock” to be very good.

visual poetry by kim rugg

visual-poetry: by kim rugg

‘Dadadodomax: An App for Word Collages’

Dadadodomax: An App for Word Collages Dadadodomax is an app for making text-collages, or cut-ups, out of the text you feed it. It analyses texts for word probabilities, and then generates random sentences based on that. Sometimes these sentences are nonsense; but sometimes they cut right through to the heart of the matter, and reveal hidden meanings.

A collection of “broken media”

a collection of “broken media”

Generative Writing Cut-Up Tools

DadaDodo is a program that analyses texts for word probabilities, and then generates random sentences based on that. Sometimes these sentences are nonsense; but sometimes they cut right through to the heart of the matter, and reveal hidden meanings.

neocronica: a novel adhered to a wall

neocronica is a novel written on adhesive text over a wall by Sérgio Tavares Filho. From the author: on the difficulty of knowing the truth behind the computer: one character seeks another who suddenly disappears from their everyday computer-mediated routine. Searching through an ocean of information, his challenge is to find her. I decided to release it on one page only, making it more difficult for the reader to follow the investigation (as it was difficult for the character to dig through all the information). As the character, one must have time and resistance, or then leave the mystery unsolved and go for the next attraction/distraction.

Mark Danielewski is here to answer your questions about The Fifty-Year Sword

Mark Danielewski is here to answer your questions about The Fifty-Year Sword Mark Z. Danielewski is famous for experimental, challenging novels like House of Leaves andOnly Revolutions. Now he's back with The Fifty-Year Sword, a strange novella that was originally released in a tiny print run from a Dutch publisher and is now coming out in a 75,000 copy print run. There's also a snazzy limited edition.

visual poetry film by ernst jandl

visual-poetry: "film" by ernst jandl

Gearing up for Sound

I’ve decided to tinker with audio some more. I’ve put together a cheap and functional setup over the last few days. Here are some details about what gear I chose.

this is a poem by gastão de magalhães (1975)

this is a poem by gastão de magalhães (1975) via visual-poetry :

How I Do My Word Processing

‘I am both a “computer person” and a writer. You might be interested to know: how do I combine the two? Here are some thoughts on how I do my word processing, most of the time.’

When to Abandon a Creative Project

My list of ongoing creative projects is too complicated. I’m declaring creative bankruptcy, so to speak. I’ve had too many irons in the fire for too long. Why so many? It seems I have trouble bringing an end to some projects. "

A Surrealist for the Digital Age

“i will not make any more boring art” by John Baldessari (1971) have a look at “a brief history of john baldessari” narrated by tom waits:

Me and My Visual Similar Friends

Presumably, Niko Princen began from a self-photo and then generated a set of visually similar images to produce _Me and My Visual Similar Friends .

foodmosh pizza

foodmosh:

silent but surplus letters

someone has visually demonstrated all of the matter that these silent but surplus letters visually make when printed in three different languages. (via Letterology: The Silence Experiment )

international exchange for poetic invention

international exchange for poetic invention International Exchange for Poetic Invention is a multilanguage weblog with links and information on poetic invention - our term for exploratory / investigative / experimental / radical / conceptual poetry. We hope the site will serve as an international point of contact for the exchange of information among those interested.

Flarf and the prospect of open source poetry

Before we had a word for copypasta , there was a poetics of copypasta. Flarf was invented to explore the possibilities of digital text, copying, pasting, collaborating, and changing, to create new writings.

New Cut Paper Correspondence

New Cut Paper Correspondence The handwriting and the lines support the structure of the cut paper, keeping it strong and sculptural, despite its apparent fragility. In these paper cutouts, I focus on the text, structure, and emotion of the letter

The Noun Project

The Noun Project The Noun Project is a seemingly infinite collection of black-and-white symbols put into the public domain. As the founders put it, it is an attempt to organize the world’s visual language into one online database.

Graphic Text Readings

Graphic Text Readings This reading list offeres a survey of various different kinds of "graphic texts" in all senses of the world. The author of this reading list asks "What "graphic texts" have you encountered and might like to share with others?"

underscribble

A collaboration between choreographer Jonah Bokaer, and video artist Michael Cole that has been animated, choreographed, and performed by the artists through the use of digital choreographic software. The movement was designed by Bokaer through the use of 3D animation program DanceForms 1.0. This particular work addresses the multiplication of the moving human body, while erasing its presence.

from veil 1976 by charles bernstein available

from Veil (1976) by Charles Bernstein. Available as a .pdf—>

Artist book by Liz Mathews

Artist book by Liz Mathews featuring poetry by Muriel Rukeyeser via poetsorg

It matters little if the deformed word becomes ambiguous. It will marry itself to the onomatopoetic harmonies, or the noise-summaries, and will permit us soon to reach the onomatopoetic psychic harmony, the sonorous but abstract expression of an emotion or a pure thought.

It matters little if the deformed word becomes ambiguous. It will marry itself to the onomatopoetic harmonies, or the noise-summaries, and will permit us soon to reach the onomatopoetic psychic harmony, the sonorous but abstract expression of an emotion or a pure thought.

crickets

(via ECLIPSE - ARAM SAROYAN)

so sorry by anatol knotek

“so sorry” by anatol knotek »find more concrete and visual poetry here « via visual-poetry :

Typographic Music Video

This video, by Tamara Connolly was done for a motion graphics class in the SVA MFA Design program. The assignment was to create a music video using just type and typographic elements in black and white.

Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature

Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature The Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature is now one hundred years old. Is it still futuristic?

Blogging Changes Quickly

It has been an incredible five years for blogging and the history of the internet. I only hope that the self-hosted website doesn’t lose out to ease-of-use and widespread compatibility.

The Death of Hypertext?

Does anyone write literary hypertexts anymore? Are the existing tests future-proof?

Welcome to the Copycat

My former home, the Copycat Building , is the subject of a new film . Elsewhere, an NPR blog post about the Copycat Building . Does this mean the rent will increase?

Outpost Journal Kickstarter Video

Enjoy. Cast: Outpost Journal

Typotranslation

On more than one occasion, the artist Marcel Duchamp published some unusual written works. Rather than to write and produce a book, the artist chose to produce, in limited edition, a box full of reproductions of small handwritten and drawn notes, not unlike a database, or a file-share of an artist’s hard drive. Rather than being a completed creative work, the notes are ideas for, or about, creative work. The translation of these notes, from French to English, and from box to book, proved to be a difficult endeavor, a task for which a new name was coined: “typotranslation”.

False Start by Jonah Bokaer

Jonah Bokaer is a choreographer who experiments with computer models of the human body. By simulating iterations of movements until they verge upon the impossible, he is able to find new movements that are possible, with training.

Erik Spiekermann – Putting Back the Face into Typeface

Typographer, graphic designer and businessman Erik Spiekermann has created timeless, influential and, yes, Meta-physical work over the past three decades.

My Favorite Notebook

My favorite notebook is full. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to make these anymore. Where can I find one like it?

Scriptwriting Software

I sampled the various software apps that are designed to help a writer to produce a stage play

Traumgedanken

The book Traumgedanken (“Thoughts on dreams”) contains a collection of literary, philosophical, psychological and scientifical texts which provide an insight into different dream theories. To ease the access to the elusive topic, the book is designed as a model of a dream about dreaming. Analogue to a dream, where pieces of reality are assembled to build a story, it brings different text excerpts together. They are connected by threads which tie in with certain key words. The threads visualise the confusion and fragileness of dreams.

Writing with Audio

When it comes to audio equipment for spoken word performances: what works and what doesn’t? How can I impprove my sound, on the smallest possible budget?

Forbidden Planet

Hipsterssss iiiiiin Spaaaaace!

More daft, less punk.

Space is the Place

Sun Ra had registered as a conscientious objector when drafted to fight in the Second World War, citing the absence of African-Americans on the draft board as his reason.

A Flamboyance of Flamingos

update: This show was a disaster. The management double-booked a reading with a moustache competition, which would have been fine except for the noise. It was impossible to hear the reading over that noise, and the obscene heckling didn’t help either. Frazier’s is not a literary venue, nor was it a welcoming one on this occasion. At least the proceeds went to a goodTcause.

textsound

Textsound is a bi-annual online journal of experimental soundworks. It is like a combined publication and mixtape. The tenth and latest issue of Textsound is called the Michyou Issue and features the work of poets who love in Michigan. The editor says that many of these poets come from an academic environment where experimental approaches are taken on a regular basis.

Ten Reasons Why I (don’t really) Love Lists.

With a list, you can quickly fill up the page without having to actually write very much. It’s kind of like using a really big typeface to get out of writing a long book report.

More Generative Writing Exercises

A while ago, I published a list of generative writing exercises . They seem to be quite popular and so I submit to you, even more generative writing exercises .

Altered Text

I’ll call it altered text, although for the thing I have in mind there are actually many things, many names, from many times and places. My notion of “destroyed text” is somewhat unique, but not really. I’ll show you some examples of a family ideas I think the idea is descended from. I’ll try to give you explanations, citations and examples for each.

Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text

Google Books has a preview copy of Futurist typography and the liberated text By Alan Bartram In the early decades of the twentieth century, European artists, poets and designers called for the destruction of outdated assumptions about vision and language. Numerous manifestos resulted, demanding new artistic forms. None of these manifestos was more aggressive and poetic, or wider in scope than Filippo Tomasso Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto of 1909. Painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, theatre, cinema, and music were all caught up in its net. Typography"“until then a distant relative in the arts"“also played a major role in Marinetti’s program. Written by leading design scholar Alan Bartram, this fascinating book examines the rise and evolution of the Futurists’ approach to typography and graphic design, placing it within the context of contemporary artistic and literary movements. The volume features examples of some eighty Futurist books or other designs for print, many of them relatively unknown or previously unpublished, accompanied by new translations of over twenty of the featured texts. Bartram illuminates the complicated meanings of the Futurist designers’ graphic works in order to provide a new understanding of their extraordinary and influential visual language.

5 Oulipo Constraints

Oulipo, or Workshop of Potential Literature, is a group of writers and thinkers interested in the notion of “constraint”. You can think of constraint as something like the rules of a generative writing game. For example, the rules of the sonnet game result in the creation of a sonnet. The rules of the short story game result in the creation of a short story. Are there other rules? New games? New things to create? By asking those questions, the Oulipo has become a workshop of potential literature.

One Hour of Television

One Hour of Television is a bleeding, screaming, literary freak-beast adventure novel created by new Canadian voice-sensation Kristina Born. Told in poetic-micro-burst segments, Born transcribes a filthy world of wicked science, consumerism, bomb building, and Texas hold em. From a boiled pot of Gary Lutz, Andy Kaufman, and pure human fear, One Hour of Television is a story of mad consumption that will, through its paper, consume you. In a recent interview with The Faster Times , Kristina Born the author has some interesting things to say about how the book was created, and what sort of style it is written in.

Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.

An new exhibition of concrete poetry is on display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The exhibition is titled "Poor. Old. Tired. Horse." gets its name from a periodical by that name that championed new works of visual poetry in the 1960's.

Interactive DVD Novel

"The Imaginary 20th Century" is a historical science-fiction novel takes the form of a large-scale projection, which is an interactive work that includes 2,200 images culled from different visual archives. The story focuses on the whimsical adventures of a woman in the year 1901 who has four different suitors, each with their own vision for the new century. Existing not only as an art installation, but also as a book and a DVD-ROM, The Imaginary 20th Century proposes a new approach to narrative.

Vorticism

Vorticism was a short lived British art movement of the early 20th century. It is considered to be the only significant British movement of the early 20th century but lasted fewer than three years.

A Piano Made of Telephones

This is a Fluxus score. Fluxus is a type of performance art. A Fluxus score, like a musical score, is a sort of recipe for a performance. For more information, read The Fluxus Performance Workbook.

Asemic Writing

Asemic Magazine explains the concept of Asemic Writing . It looks like writing, but we can’t quite read it. I call works like this “asemic writing”. Asemic writing seems to be a gigantic, unexplored territory. Asemic writing has been made by poets, writers, painters, calligraphers, children, and scribblers, all around the world. Most people make asemic writing at some time, possibly when testing a new pen. Educators talk about children going through distinct stages of “mock letters”, “pseudowriting” and so on, when they’re learning to write. Many of us made asemic writing before we were able to write words.

Second Land at Pyramid Atlantic

An experimental music performance by Second Land. My musical instrument was a short wave radio, and I performed spoken word through a delay petal at low volume.

Des Imagistes: Some Imagist Poems

The first anthology of the Imagism movement was titled “Des Imagistes.” Imagism was conceived by Ezra Pound, H.D. and Richard Aldington in 1912. Finally, this very rare book has been published online for all to read.

Algorithmic Avant-Garde

There’s this new, controversial anthology of nearly 4,000 poems, entitled Issue 1 . It is large enough to defy the limits of traditional bookbinding, with its 3,785 pages. It defies another assumption about books, too. This anthology was compiled by editors Stephen McLaughlin, Gregory Laynor & Vladimir and Aleksandrovich Zykov, but its contents weren’t exactly “written”. An article in Poetry Magazine’s blog describes exactly how the text was compiled . Suffice it to say that the book was generated, not written. Issue 1 features the names of several thousand people, living and dead, poets and not. With each name is a poem, or at least what looks like a poem. These texts were not written by the people whose names accompany the texts. Instead, some of the texts appear to have been algorithmically generated by a computer program named Erica T. Carter.

Roulette TV: New and Experimental Music

Infinity’s Kitchen dabbles, ever so slightly, with experimental music, as well as literature. The opening release party for our publication featured several musical acts. If you like that sort of stuff, check out Roulette TV.

Anderbo

Anderbo.com is one of an increasing number of online literary journals. The magazine publishes three issues online and one print issue annually. It features poetry, fiction and “fact” writings. Here’s a clip from the journal’s facebook page .

Link is Dead. Long Live Locus!

A "wake" was held for Baltimore's defunct arts magazine, Link: A Critical Arts Journal in Baltimore and the World (1996-2006). For ten years or so, Link was a preeminent authority on the subject of "" you guessed it "" arts in Baltimore and the World. Notable contributors to the publication included Yoko Ono, in the final issue.

Experimental Writing Conference

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, and you read Infinity’s Kitchen, then you should definitely check out the “Untitled” conference. If anything cool goes online, as a result of this conference, we’ll be sure to mention it here. Here’s the skinny on this year’s conference.

Live From the High Zero Music Festival

Baltimore's critically acclaimed High Zero is perhaps the most unusual festival of new music in the country, mixing no-holds barred experimentation on a large scale with all new, spontaneous collaborations between some of the most interesting musicians on the planet. Since 1999, the festival has inspired radical methods and brought utopian intentions to hundreds of varied performances, on stage and on the street.

Learning to Write Art Criticism

Ever since I met with Physicalism, I’ve been curious about what its like to be an art critic. I decided to try being an art critic first hand. I put together a sample of my writing and submitted it so that I could be considered for the 23rd Annual Critics’ Residency Program at the Maryland Art Place.

Meaning and Experience

There are two types of sense that a work of art can make. It can have meaning. It can also be experienced. Of course, it has both qualities and they blend. It is important to be aware of both senses, and to be able to tell them apart, because we make these different senses in different ways.

What is Oulipo?

OULIPO is the “Workshop of Potential Literature”. For this group of writers and mathematicians, the goal is not to create new literature, but to invent new forms of literature. These short videos should give a good introduction.

A History of the Future of Narrative

A History of the Future of Narrative: Robert Coover. Novelist Robert Coover's keynote address at the Electronic Literature in Europe seminar (elitineurope.net), September 13th, 2008. Introduced by Scott Rettberg.

Experimental Literature & Artists’ Books

There will be an exhibition of Jack Kerouac’s original manuscript for “On the Road” , at Columbia College in Chicago this fall. (Hopefully, this one will allow photographs .)

Digital Fever: Archiving Art and Poetry Online

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about the state-of-the-art, when it comes to digitally archiving artworks and poetry on the internet, here’s a treat for you. “Digital Fever: Archiving Art and Poetry Online” is a critically-oriented (lengthy) discussion of digital media and the future of archiving, featuring alternating models for poetry and visual media currently operating online.

Generative Writing Exercises

Generative writing uses a system, such as a set of rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedure, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy resulting in a completed work of art.

Poetry on the Broad Side of a Barn

The poem is by John Donne, entitled "The Sun Rising." Source: dbqp: visualizing poetics

Illuminated Manuscript

At a show called Documenta 2002 in Kassel, Germany, an unusual kind of electronic book was featured. It was called “The Illuminated Manuscript .” As the author describes the book:

The Validity of Experimenal Literature

In 2002, there was a big debate over the validity of experimental literature. It was sparked by an article in the New Yorker, September 30 2002, where “Jonathan Franzen writes about the career of William Gaddis, one of the most imposing modern novelists, and considers the question of whether a novel’s difficulty is related to its quality as literature ”. In the online interview that accompanied the article, Franzen raised a few concerns about what he calls “difficult literature”.

Radical Small-Press Writing

via: TOOTHPICK Aside from the Modernist Journals Project , it can be difficult to see online copies of the small-press publications where much of the experimental literature has happened over the past century or so. That’s why Eclipse is a useful web site.

Dreaming Methods’ Digital Storytelling

Dreaming Methods is a website that features some of the best digital storytelling on the internet. With an archive of more than 20 works of interactive literature , it is a great place to learn about digital literature. The site began its life on Amiga Public Domain during mid 1990s, as an archive of many of the projects created during that time.

Vispo in The World

Repugno Selects is a new blogzine for visual poetry / word art / text objects "" as they intervene in the world. Each issue, Repugno the editor, gives us an interesting collection of graffiti, and things like graffiti to enjoy. His criteria: the visual poetry cannot appear on a page. Instead, the art featured ere is printed on brick walls, tacked onto phone booths, and discovered in alleyways. Repugno calls this kind of stuff “Vispo in the World”. (Vispo, of course, is short for “visual poetry”.) The criteria for Repugno Selects also serves as a good definition of what is meant by “Vispo in the World”. Read on.

The First Ever Flux-Olympiad at the Tate Modern

In honor of the Olympics this summer, we bring you this amusing tidbit, The Flux-Olympiad. Founding Fluxus artist George Maciunas (1931 "" 1978) conceived the idea of a Flux-Olympiad in the 1960s but this event was never realized until Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall housed the first ever Flux-Olympiad, a series of flux-sports events over the three-day arts festival on the 23-26 May, 2008. Artist, sportsman and Fluxus expert Tom Russotti commentated on the Fluxxus Olympiad for the Tate Modern’s podcast.

Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection

Recently, The Avant Writing Collection has published a catalog of visual poetry, Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection . It includes many samples from the collection, along with critical writing.

Approaches to the New Poetics

Ron Silliman is afraid of getting into trouble for saying it, but he done said it anyhow. He sees some interesting parallels between the new poetry today and the poetry that was new in the 1950’s . In addition to those parallels, he is happy to see that there are actually different approaches to new modes of poetry, for a change.

National Poetry Slam 2008

Poets and spoken word performers from all over the United States are getting ready for the National Poetry Slam this August. Among them, Baltimore’s own slam poetry team, from the Slamicide poetry slam. This year’s team will be coaxed toward victory by SlamMaster Chris August, whose slam poem appears in the latest issue of Infinity’s Kitchen, by the way. If you can’t make it to the National Poetry Slam, then check out a slam in your town. In our town, Baltimore, the slam is in a new night this year, in a new location. Cheer them on! National Poetry Slam

Spoken Word from the Bending Corners Podcast

Check out this recorded mix from the Bending Corners Podcast : an exploration of poetry, scat, spoken word, cadence, and even rap in jazz-n-groove. From jazz scat and spoken word to reggae, afro-funk and early jazz rap in the 70’s right on thru to the modern phusion of jazz, cadence, and electronics. Word to your mother!

Submission Tracking for Writers

One of the most important business skills a writer needs is the ability to track the submission process. There’s a maxim out there, variously attributed, which says: “serious writers should keep their work in circulation until it either sells or the ink wears off”.

The Ed Schrader Show

The new Metro Gallery opened this month, and hosted Baltimore’s favorite talk show: The Ed Schrader Show.

Copies of Town’s First Zine Donated to Museum

My old zine made the local news again. I do miss making a zine.

Book Companion Websites

A survey of websites designed to promote books, authors, and publishers. How are they designed? How do they work?

Building a Writing Studio

I’ve written this entry to outline the ideas I have for a new writing studio. Along the way I found photos of famous writing studios, some feng shui tips for a workspace, and some ideas for how to organize a writing studio.

Gentlemanly Lecturer

Bally excerpted from a 1903 book entitled “On The Road with the Circus”… In the authors words, “It is interesting as a truthful reproduction of a style of unique oratory which prevails nowhere else.”

Spoken Word, Recorded Poetry, and Hip-Hop

The creative challenge here is to find a way to take my favorite elements of each of these groups, and go my own way with them.

The Format and Availability of Electronic Books

a lot has changed in the world of digital books, since I wrote this post in 2005. Devices like the Kindle and the Nook and the iPad have changed the way we read digital books, and have fanned the fire for the debate about their format(s).

Spoken Word and Live Music

This is the flyer for my next reading, in Shepherdstown at Reynolds Hall on Saturday, 9 PM. The performance will also be broadcast on 89.7 WSHC FM.

The Legend of Alexandre The Savage Gnome

a carnival atmosphere of human oddity and depravity, inexplicable beauty in the strangest places

Evaluating Hypertexts

A site whose author is “teaching a small course in media aesthetics next term, “Jerz’s Literacy Weblog has posted a link to an article by George Landow, , a key thinker in the field of hypertext theory.

Technology: It Doesn’t Work Yet

Technology, as the computer scientist Bran Ferren memorably defined it, is stuff that doesn’t work yet. We no longer think of chairs as technology. They’re just chairs.

Ergodic Literature

It’s odd. there’s a way to mass-produce something like a toy castle, complete with catapult, court and cavelier–but they won’t make books in boxes.

I’m going to be on TV!

It was one week, to the hour, since my arrival in boston. I had just completed a poetry reading. It was the third reading I have attended this week. You wouldn’t believe the lunacy I’ve seen, passed off as poetry, or maybe you would, in which case you have my sympathy. This reading was not so fraught with lunacy, and so I decided to read some poems.

Poetry Reading by Thomas Raine Crowe

Look out! I don't mean the window, I mean the helicopters overhead, the buzz on the phone, and the police at the door. Achtung! The sky is falling from the atoms they have taken from the air. The trees cut to build temples to oil. The brown water no longer fit for fish. Look out! When freedom is just another word for what we have lost. When peace is another brand of bomb. When the national animal is no longer an eagle, but a sheep. I attended a poetry reading this evening by Thomas Rain Crowe , with whom I had the honor of sharing my lunch today earlier today. He’s a real bona-fide beatnik, drinking buddy to the stars: Ginsberg and company themselves. That alone was impressive, I suppose. He shared with us some selections of his fiction and his poetry. He told us about his rock band . and his first volume of translations of the poems of the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz , ( Hafiz )According to his bio: “Following six years as Editor-at-Large for the Asheville Poetry Review, he is currently writing a memoir in the style of Thoreau’s Walden based on four years of self-sufficient living in the wilderness environment in the woods of western North Carolina from 1979 to 1982. He currently resides in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. His literary archives have been purchased by and are collected at the Duke University Special Collections Library in Durham, North Carolina.”

Meaning and Being-in-the-(Modern)-World: a Response to Heidegger

a Response to Heidegger