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The Future of Newspapers is Paved with Code

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Double Octuple Newspaper Press

Innovation tends to create new niches, rather than refill those that already exist. So technologies may become marginal, but they rarely go extinct.

—“Only the digital dies,” The Economist, January 26, 2013

Earlier this January, I posited the publishing industry would not stop printing books, or at least not hardbacks. Indeed, the lesson of history and technology history is not that technologies die, but that demand for technologies realign.

If my prognostications about publishing are correct, the old-style printing presses — now being sold for pennies — may come back into fashion. The cheapest forms of book publication — once paperback books, now ebooks — may be in direct competition for reader’s hands, but keepsakes like hardbacks should become only more expensive and important in the marketplace.

Where does that leave newspapers? Unlike magazines, which are printed full color on glossy paper and on a longer schedule, newspapers churn out their cheap-ink-on-recycled-paper product daily. The newspaper, for ages, was the cheapest form of news transmission. And though many blame internet news for killing it’s physical-news brother, the internet merely has dealt the death blow — or perhaps knockout punch. But we must remember, the first act of violence began with the radio.

History Without Fiction?

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How many people can say the 1993 slaying of Fulbright scholar, Amy Biel, in South Africa, is an event that has remained fresh in their memory? And for those too young to have been exposed to such brutal news, how many can say they have, in recent years, heard it talked about or written about in the press? Not many, is my guess. You might argue, and understandably so, that it’s been so long – 1993 – that’s a lifetime ago! Maybe so, especially because equally horrendous crimes have continued to make headlines.

This post, though, is not about the Biel tragedy, for the Biel tragedy is merely a fraction of the countless moments in our course of existence that recede to the rearmost space of our collective consciousness. This post is about art — fiction, in particular. It’s about how, long after news headlines have turned their attention to the next moment’s happenings, fiction grabs hold of that moment, immortalizes it, so not only do the “facts” endure, but the moment never runs out of breath — it remains in the present tense, ever living and breathing.

Amy Biel’s murder, for instance, has struck me anew. It feels raw again because I’m reading Sindiwe Magona’s book, Mother to Mother, in which a fictitious mother of one of Amy’s killers ventures to write a letter to Amy’s mother explaining the root of her son’s violent act in the hope that this, according to the author, “might ease [her own] and the other mother’s pain … if a little.”

This event, now interlaced with fictitious characters whose humanity you and I can relate to, and scenes so photographic you’d swear the author had to have witnessed the event firsthand or at least known Amy or the young murderer’s mother intimately, no longer remains only about the murder. Now, it becomes an occasion for self-examination. We ask, “How do we see ourselves in this story?” “How are we to react to it?” And because we discuss fiction in the present tense, Amy Biel’s story lives to the end of time.

So Now You’re a Writer

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You’ve read Bukowski’s “So You Want to be a Writer?” and in spite of it all, though your stillness is in fact a kind of madness, it nonetheless “doesn’t come bursting out of you.”  Not the way it comes bursting out of Bukowski.

“How to Become a Writer Or, Have You Earned This Cliche?” by Lorrie Moore says it in a voice a lot like the way you wish your voice could be, a voice you want so badly to steal. You like how she talks about failure. Failure is more your speed.

Still, you have no clue how to be a great writer. But you do finally know how to be a writer, and it has nothing to do with saying you’re a writer, planning to write, dreaming about one day being a writer, outlining projects, telling your bartender the plot of a project you’ve outlined, hanging out in coffee shops and bookstores, reading poems and essays about the fact that you want to be a writer, or getting a subscription to The New York Times so you can read poems and essays about the fact that you want to be a writer.

Of course you’ve always been eager to learn the craft, embrace your art and celebrate literature. But you’ve found these tactics impotent without the single vestige that, despite your many failings, has allowed you to meekly proclaim yourself a writer:

Writing.

Benefits of the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing

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The following list is a quick outline of why you should consider the low-residency option for your master of fine arts in creative writing. This is not meant to be an exhaustive argument for or against the MFACW. Instead, consider these points, one student’s reasons why the degree has not been a bad decision.

  1. Community—the low res MFA allows students the opportunity to form connections with other writers. Students meet other amateurs and learn from professionals.
  2. Solitude—the time away from the program gives freedom to students to explore the solitude necessary to produce writing.
  3. Time—the convenience of meeting twice a year for ten days at a time allows parents and the already-employed to study writing without leaving the family or the job, as the case may be. Even for singles and those without children, the option of meeting every six months or so may be attractive.
  4. Travel—for those with jobs or kids, the chance to get away for ten days may seem like a vacation rather than work.
  5. Audience—though the cliché is for writers to find a voice, perhaps the most important reason to consider the low res MFA is the chance to find an audience. Students work with a mentor who reads their writing, and they workshop with classmates, perhaps five or six others in a group. The feedback from these readers is invaluable and worth the cost.
  6. Mentor—one of the most valuable components is the one-on-one interaction with an established writer. After the workshops during the ten day residency, the student submits up to 100 pages or more to the mentor over the course of four months. The mentor provides detailed feedback and annotations. This is, perhaps, an extension of the chance to find an audience.

A colleague of mine says, “MFA, schmem-FA.” He questions the degree, like others, and feels that creativity cannot be taught. He is right, of course, but certain moves and strategies can be taught. More than that, writers can learn to write better in an MFA program by sharing with an audience who can help teach the writer to become a better reader of his/her own work. The low res option may not be best for all, but for many, the benefits are substantial.

Waccamaw and the Wheel

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Waccamaw Journal is a favorite online literary site edited by Dan Albergotti and Joe Oestreich, supported by Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. Waccamaw takes its name from the Waccamaw River, which wanders through Conway on its way to the sea. Albergotti has a collection of poems called The Boatloads that you must read if you haven’t already, and Oestreich’s memoir, Hitless Wonder,  published earlier this year, chronicles the plight of Oestreich’s band, Watershed, and is a great read. Albergotti and Oestreich have a current feature called “Nine More Gates” which highlights an essay by University of Tampa MFA faculty poet Erica Dawson called “John Donne is My Pusherman.” In it she claims, “Writing is a gateway drug.” Like Dawson’s essay, the eight others featured on the site consider the topic of “poetry and gateways.”

Another creative feature of Waccamaw Journal is Jason Ockert’s Waccamaw Interview Wheel. Here’s what Ockert says about the concept of the interview wheel:

In an effort to reinvent the traditional author interview, I invited ten of today’s best fiction writers to participate in an experiment. After randomly selecting names, I encouraged each author to both ask and answer questions posed by their peers. There were no stipulations…

Ockert recently won a short story collection contest by Dzanc, who will publish the collection of fiction in 2013; it will be called Neighbors of Nothing. Ockert has also published a highly recommended, surreal collection of fiction called Rabbit Punches.

For those looking for fine fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, Waccamaw Journal offers plenty. Albergotti, Oestreich, and Ockert have created a repository of literature that is sure to please.