Back in college, probably under the influence of drugs (just kidding mom!), I was fascinated with the idea of using a typewriter to create stories where I would write the first part and then pass it along to a colleague roommate whomever happened to be flopping in the house at the time.

The best part about the experiment is how seriously or unseriously people would take the endeavor and especially once you got the story back and realized that at some point your detective noir thriller somehow turned into a post-apocalyptic zombie survival story and the main character was killed off in chapter three and existed in corporeal form only. (Yes, I’m looking at you Elias Christeas)

I’m glad I’m not the only one out there that finds this form of collective story telling enjoyable, exciting, and nay, a bit dangerous. For the characters, not so much for the authors involved.

Underland Press is taking that concept and has created the “wovel” - a web-novel - in which the author creates a short installment, published on Monday, with some suggestions for where the story could go (that might have helped me avoid zombies and the death of the main character); readers then vote on the direction through Thursday; and the author creates the next installment to be published on the following Monday. At its heart, this is serialized storytelling, in the vein of Charles Dickens or other authors from a century ago.

The first wovel, The Living by Kealan Patrick Burke is certainly worth reading. You know if you like zombies, which ordinarily I do, just not when they show up in a detective noir and eat the main character. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Below is the first page of the first chapter of The Living. The entirety so far is eight-pages. FYI, I voted green when I got to the end.

The night was a symphony of whistles and gunshots.

Inside the dimly lit apartment, the old man stood by the door. He was not old enough to have lived through a war, and didn’t expect to live through this one. Though he didn’t count courage among his virtues, he had accepted the notion of his imminent death with curious calm. For what was there to fear? This was not a world he recognized. It hadn’t been for some time. Instead it had mutated into a kind of hellish garden in which neither God nor nature prevailed. When the time came, he would be glad to leave it.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Whines and pained whimpers from the bed behind him.

In the dim glow from the lantern the man’s face was a thousand years old, appearing to be more rock than flesh. The thin shadows on his sunken cheeks were like spilled ink running from his eyes. He turned and said, “Hush, Maddy.”

Behind him, the keening faded to a whisper.

A gentle knock on the door, little more than the brush of a knuckle against the surface. The old man put his cheek to the cold wood. Listened.

“Joseph?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” came the reply. “Open up.”

Relieved, the old man did.

Not to be outdone by the wovel is Rootclip. This is video storytelling, voted on by readers. So far there are three chapters completed our of six. If you’re video is selected for the final chapter, you’ll win $500 and go to the Traverse City Film Festival to meet Michael Moore. If your video is selected as a chapter you’ll also get $500 Visa gift card but no Michael Moore.

Submissions should be about 60 seconds long. Below is chapter one.

Apparently everyone in NY media thinks this is a must read. And for certain circles, yes it is.

But if you don’t particularly care about Gawker or Emily Gould or what it’s like working in NYC media or the blogging world or becoming a micro-celebrity, then this NY Times magazine article probably isn’t worth reading.

I found it to be well-written, and she is maybe a bit harsh on herself. One surprise is that this wasn’t a mudslinging piece, which I assumed it would be.

She deserves lots of credit for not dragging her coworkers, specifically Josh Stein (read the article and you’ll know what I mean, the two had an office fling and he wrote a magazine article basically tearing her a new one for sharing too much), into the mucky muck. It’s always refreshing to see someone take the high road.

At my old job, it would have taken me years to advance to a place where I would no longer have to humor the whims of important people who I thought were idiots or relics or phonies. But at Gawker, it was my responsibility to expose the foibles of the undeserving elite. I felt liberated — finally, a job where I could really be myself! Never again would I have to censor my office-inappropriate sentiments or shop the sale racks at Club Monaco for office-appropriate outfits. But at the same time, I wasn’t quite convinced that the system of apprenticeship and gradual promotion that I’d left behind when I left book publishing was as flawed as establishment-attacking Gawker made it out to be. I’d been lucky enough, in my publishing job, to have the kind of boss who actually cared about my future. At Gawker, I barely had a boss, and my future was always in jeopardy. In my old job, I’d been able to slowly, steadily learn the ropes, but now I was judged solely on what I produced every day. I had a kind of power, sure, but it was only as much power as my last post made it seem like I deserved.

Sometimes I worried that I’d been chosen not in spite of my inexperience but because of it. Hiring women in their early 20s with little or no background in journalism was a tactic that worked for the site’s owner twice before, and I expected to be a victim of the same kind of hazing my predecessors were subjected to as they learned how to do their jobs — and how to navigate New York — in public. I’d once heard someone refer to us as “sacrificial virgins,” which didn’t seem too far off.

Also, the comments are worth reading since they really bring out the venom.

[The New York Times - Exposed]

The author of Harry Potter was picked for Harvard’s 2008 Commencement speech, but some students aren’t sold on the muggle. Some of them feel that the bajillionaire is, get this, beneath them. Oh, and there’s the usual hangups about witchcraft, the devil and homosexuals.

“Our commencement speaker tricked parents into letting their kids read books filled with sex, murder, and homosexual role models,” said Adam Goldenberg, a Canadian student who writes for the Harvard Crimson, the daily newspaper at the university.

“Harvard seniors have every right to demand a Harvard-calibre speaker. Harry Potter – and JK Rowling – is just a flash in the pan. Writing bedtime stories is lame – just ask Tolkien and CS Lewis. The class of 2008 has been royally screwed by Harvard. A petty pop culture personality of questionable permanence will send us on our merry way, while figures of real substance wait in the wings.”

I would hardly call Tolkein or CS Lewis mere bedtime story tellers and like those two heavyweights, Rowling elevates mere fantasy/mythology to a grandeur unseen in most literature.

To balance off the slight of author J.K. Rowling, Harvard students enlisted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to speak on Class Day. Obviously, it goes without saying that Robin Williams is available for commencement. Seems like he might be “highbrow” enough for all those smaht kids.

Author James Frey gives his first interview to Vanity Fair since Oprah tore him a new one on her show after The Smoking Gun dug up the “truth” of his memoir A Million Little Pieces. So yeah, the new issue of Vanity Fair has more going for it that semi-nude Miley Cyrus photos.

Of course he is out to promote his new book, but the mere fact that he picked himself up yet again, well I guess his resiliency is worth applauding.

This isn’t to say that Frey isn’t tough. He was tough enough to kick a five-year drug-and-alcohol addiction. He proved his resilience again by surviving the past two years, after his bad-boy aspirations became too real and bit him on the ass. Oprah, the very arbiter of correct human behavior, destroyed him in public, and the walls came crumbling down around him.

The book world dumped him. Friends deserted him. He was stalked by the tabloids as if he were a Britney Spears–size train wreck. Readers told him they hoped he’d burn in hell, get hit by a bus, get “ass cancer.”

“I was a pariah,” he says today. “I was under no illusion that I was anything but that.” Each morning brought a crash of emotions—rage, bewilderment, panic, and shame—and Frey came close to drinking again. Instead, he did something shocking. He wrote another book—and not a lame apologia/self-justification such as The Fabulist, by Stephen Glass, or Burning Down My Masters’ House, by Jayson Blair.

Bright Shiny Morning is a sprawling, ambitious novel about Los Angeles, written with all the broad-stroke energy that was so irresistible to readers in A Million Little Pieces. By turns satirical, tense, and surprisingly touching, it is a portrait of a city onto which so many millions have projected so many dreams. Frey tells his story using four main narratives: a young, midwestern couple who have come to escape the cruelty and small-mindedness of their families; a Mexican-American housekeeper struggling to find self-worth; a Venice boardwalk drunk attempting to do something heroic; a vain, closeted movie star willing to do anything to get the man he loves. Interwoven with these compelling, cinematic tales is the story of just about everyone else. Compulsively, obsessively, Frey churns out sketch after sketch of L.A.’s every historical moment, every demographic, every institution, every neighborhood, from Skid Row to the Fashion District. He gives us gang members, porn-industry types, Asian sex slaves, artists, art collectors, gossip bloggers. He gives us lists of real L.A. facts and “facts” that are just made-up nonsense. At times, the randomness feels distracting—you wish Frey could rein himself in and return to the central narratives. But when the book works, it achieves the very essence of Los Angeles’s fractured, unpredictable, loopy nature. The stakes couldn’t be higher for him. It will test to what extent the public is willing to read James Frey the writer, and not, as he puts it, “James Frey the asshole.”

Strangely enough it was author Norman Mailer who helped him get back. Fascinating article all around.

Maybe this only interests me, or those of you who enjoy the works of author J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey). There’s an auction going on at Ebay right now where you can take home the above letter written by the author in 1981 to Janet Eagleson, whom the author carried on an affair with.

The bidding starts at $1,250 and the letter is estimated to be worth between $2,500-$3,000. So it’s not cheap but not expensive either.

However, the real news hear is that the author slags on of the greatest films ever in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“…The sight of summer in full swing has put me off ever since I can remember. Oddly, I work nicely or at least normally amidst all the greening and flowering and burgeoning. But correspondence falls off, goes to pot…on top of everything, the woodshed crew…have been here…leaving me rattly and pale, but with a shelter of sorts for some twenty cords of wood. As ugly a structure as any I’ve seen, with lots of shitty little space-filling fancy scroll-y crosspieces, said to be ‘functional’. No doubt it will take an esthetic turn for the better with a couple of good hard winters. I took the morning bus into Boston…to do what I almost never do…went to see some particular pictures in a gallery. The Pissarro exhibit…Have seen no good movies, except The Last Metro…I got hooked into seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, which might be excused for its unwitty, unfunny awful socko-ness if it had been put together by Harvard Lampoon seniors…Hope to see yez [sic] one of these limbo summer days…”

Boldness by us for emphasis. He closes the letter with the very emo-esque: “Have been in New York (I am the Man, I suffered, I was There.)”

Seriously though, how do you hate on Raiders? Everything I ever felt for the author is now gone. He is dead to me, even though I assumed he had been dead for the past thirty years.

Wouldn’t it be kind of cool though if J.D. Salinger had a movie blog and no one new it was him or it was one of those secrets that everyone knows about but no one will admit it? Especially the author in question. I don’t know why, but I like the image of him just writing for the simple pleasure of it alone in a house somewhere in the Vermont or New Hampshire woods.

As compiled by the UK’s Telegraph. They’re not too clear on what they consider a “cult book.” Often times it’s hard to differentiate these types of books from say, bestsellers or classics. Also, cult books vary significantly from cult movies. Cult movies tend to be trashy or bad in a way that makes them pleasurably good. But that isn’t the case with cult books. Cult books tend to change our lives in one way or another. They’re the type of books you go clamoring on to your friends about that they have to read it.

“In compiling our list, we were looking for the sort of book that people wear like a leather jacket or carry around like a totem. The book that rewires your head: that turns you on to psychedelics; makes you want to move to Greece; makes you a pacifist; gives you a way of thinking about yourself as a woman, or a voice in your head that makes it feel okay to be a teenager; conjures into being a character who becomes a permanent inhabitant of your mental flophouse.

We were able to agree, finally, on one thing: you know a cult book when you see one. And people have passionate feelings on both sides: our appeal for suggestions yielded enough for a list at least three times as long as this one,” they wrote.

Among the books they’ve included are: Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, Baby and Child Care by Doctor Spock, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Beaty Myth by Naomi Wolf, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and many more.

It reads like a who’s who of important literature, so much so that many of these novels are considered classics and I would be hesitant to call them cult books. I guess, I wish there were more books on here that were unknowns instead of some obvious choices. Still, you could do worse than reading the books on this list, which works as a fantastic literary primer.

Full list after the jump. We’ve left the original authors’s notes because they indicate a personal attachment to the books, which is sometimes the best endorsement. MORE »

I don’t know why but this Popmatters interview with mass-market novelist David Baldacci made me laugh. It’s probably because I’ve never read a single book of his, probably because I’ve assumed his books come off like a poor man’s John Grisham, and also I know next to nothing about the man.

However, after this interview, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want to read at least one of his books, or at least hope he writes something more personal and less-lawyerly.

Baldacci has written 16 best-sellers since 1996, so part of my previous aversion was strickly jealously. He can honestly introduce himself to people at parties as “Hi! I’m rich bitch!” But that’s besides the point. And yes, he’s a former DC lawyer. Boo! Hiss! Shame him!

Star Trek or Star Wars?
Star Trek. I heard somewhere that the entire flight deck of the Starship Enterprise was made of cardboard. That even added to the allure for me. Kirk and Spock saved the universe with cardboard. Imagine what they could have done with, say, plastic or even aluminum foil. It does give one pause.

Stress management: hit man, spa vacation or Prozac?
Depending on the source of the stress, definitely a hit man. They’re professionals. You pay your money and get what you paid for. I think the world would be a much more civilized place if hit men were legalized. I could see them flying through the fine suburbs in the soccer vans loaned to them by their clients, windows down, lead flying, obnoxious Yuppies going down hard on their well-manicured lawns.

Essential to life: coffee, vodka, cigarettes, chocolate, or . . .?
Hallucinogens. Because I find that coffee, nicotine and even Prozac have their limits. Seriously, what would any of us do without friends and family? They’re the calm harbor in the storms. Without that, you’re zip.

Funny man that David Baldacci. Next time I’m at the airport I’ll pick up one of your books.

George Orwell’s seminal novels 1984 and Animal Farm get redesigned covers courtesy of artist Shepard Fairey [OBEY]. If these covers don’t make kids want to read the books, I don’t know what will. Other than teachers forcers them to read them and love them and take umbrage against the state.

From the Penguin Blog:

This edition is not the Penguin Modern Classics edition. This edition is the one we want to get into the hands of school kids, to grab their short attention spans. So yes, putting the key words - Big Brother, Thought Police, Room 101, Ministry of Truth - in there is important, but that is no reason to leave the story or the characters out. The great thing about Nineteen Eighty-Four is that it is so unsettling, it is so terrifying and bleak (and not much fun as satire, either). To get that across we need to know what’s at stake - what Big Brother is opposed to. We need Winston and Julia, their hopes and love, their humanity. Without Winston and Julia there is no tension, no story.

[via]

This might be the most beautiful rendering of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road put to paper. Stephanie Posavec has managed to represent the book in every way imaginable with graphs and renderings as an array of flowers, with petals and blossoms accurately reflecting the word and paragraph count of each chapter. Colors are assigned based on the subject of each section, like cyan for ‘Dean Moriarty,’ & tan for ‘Parties, drinking, & drugs.’

As a fan of the book, it’s pretty mind blowing to see it excavated in a manner I would never have considered. Clearly she’s done her work. Needless to say, the mapping of the novel was on display at a Sheffield, UK museum. And yes, this is true obsessive artistry.

More pictures can be found here. Check them out it’ll make your day, especially the sentence drawings. [via]

British author Sebastian Horsley, whose book Dandy in the Underworld, was denied entry into the United States after arriving to promote the Harper Collins US publication of his hit British book.

Seems like this is straight outta the 1920’s when the US government banned James Joyce’s Ulysses. What is it they say, the more we change the more it stays the same? Anyway, in terms of PR, however, Horley hit it big time. I hadn’t ever heard of this book until I came across the article on CNN. Now, though, I’m intrigued enough to go out and pick up a copy of it.

The book recounts Horely’s life of “sex, drugs and finely tailored clothes.”

Horsley said he was questioned for eight hours Tuesday by border officials at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey before being denied entry on grounds of “moral turpitude.”

The 45-year-old author was traveling to New York for the U.S. launch of “Dandy in the Underworld,” his account of a life dedicated to sex, drugs and finely tailored clothes.

“I was dressed flamboyantly — top hat, long velvet coat, gloves,” Horsley said. “My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish. I thought that would get me through.”

According to Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Horsley was traveling under the CBP’s visa waiver program, which entitles citizens of some countries — mostly in the European Union — to enter the United States for business or leisure without applying for a visa. Travelers can be refused entry if they admit on a customs form to being convicted of a crime or to being addicted to narcotics, Cirillo said.

She declined to specify what responses Horsley listed on the form.

“They knew more about me than I did,” Horsley said Thursday in an interview from his London home. “They said, ‘We know you’re a heroin addict, we know you’re a crack addict, we know you’re involved in prostitution.’”

Horsley’s book — billed as an “unauthorized autobiography” — vividly recounts years of heavy drug use and frequent visits to prostitutes. He says he has been drug-free for three years.

So what happens when you’re a photojournalist in Colombia and you fall in love with a girl? Hijinks. And possibly some shenanigans. This is a pretty amazing first person acount of love under duress. Someone in Hollywood should snap up the rights to this story. Via: Kottke

The Beginning

I had been in Colombia for a few months to learn how to become a photojournalist. Not by attending some theoretical university course, or taking portraits in a cozy studio, but by pitching myself in at the deep end.

Times of peace have been rare in the country’s history. For the past 40 years or so, a Marxist-inspired rebel group known as the Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) have been at war with the government, funding their growing army by kidnapping and extortion, and taxing the illegal cocaine trade. Right-wing death squads known as “self-defence forces” have sprung up as a response to the Farc’s kidnapping of wealthy landowners and drug-lords. Under the umbrella of an organisation called the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) these private militias, or paramilitaries (known locally as “paras”), are secretly supported by those high in the government and military, who back their dirty war against the Farc rebels.

Then he meets a girl…

En route, I began talking with a fellow passenger, a beautiful Colombian girl called Marylin who told me she was returning from a clothes-buying trip in one of the big cities. I explained my purpose in visiting the region, and Marylin told me she had friends in both the paramilitaries and the military, so would be able to help. She invited me to stay with her family, who had a roadside store and bar on the outskirts of town. I was attracted to Marylin, but had no idea how close we would become and how our future would unfold.

The lovers quarrel

She then hit me with a confession that would both thrill and confuse me. She explained that in the months that I had been away in Iraq her role within the AUC had changed; she had joined the urban militia and become an assassin. Her job was now to eliminate informers and traitors. So far, she told me, she had killed at least 10 people in the area. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, Marylin looked at me through the smoke as I exhaled, waiting to see how I would respond to what she had just told me.

For the rest of the thrilling story, you’ll have to read the whole thing. It is, as I said, very riveting.