Joyland is not alone in the universe. In our first year we’ve met a few fellow travelers in the world of digital fiction. Most notable is Dan Sinker’s CellStories who is now sourcing Joyland stories for its daily stream of stories and essays delivered to your mobile device. Publisher Richard Nash, my sometime debate partner, is currently developing a project called Cursor, an attempt at integrating all facets of publishing (editorial, production, distribution, marketing) into one independent beast. For Joyland’s New York debut we decided to invite CellStories, Richard Nash, and ex-pat publisher Martha Sharpe of Radio Press to the party. With much hard work from Joyland’s New York editor, Janine Armin, the event hosted at East Village lit bar KGB coalesced into something called The Fiction Feed.
Was it, as I brazenly deemed it in the press release, the Port Huron Statement of publishing 2.0?
Outside of hyperbole, it’s just not for me to judge but the room was packed and the general consensus was that there are not enough events like it -- intimate free wheeling debates between authors and publishing professionals. Emily and I started the night with our readings. Since most of my fiction is set in my true spiritual homeland of suburban Detroit these days, an American audience for the first time in a few months, one who got my congress jokes, felt good.
Dan Sinker couldn’t be there so I read a prepared statement from the laptop, which brought the house down (reproduced in full below). Los Angeles author and publisher Vanessa Place was in town for a conference and did a beautiful, brief reading of her Joyland contribution. Another Canadian-Brooklyn transplant, Jennifer McCartney, author of Afloat, did a full-blooded reading from her new novel in progress, The Man With the Divided Back.
As for the panel that I moderated, Nash and Sharpe (I know, it sounds like a great cop show) kept the ideas flowing with force and insight. After Nash dropped a Walter Benjamin quote, I declared, “Okay, now it’s a panel discussion.”
We only had enough time to scratch the surface of their projects and the issues at hand but the crowd took the ideas off and running. Much discussion and email exchanging ensued.
After the event Janine Armin helped us end our NYC leg of the tour the right way: with tacos.
Next: Chicago and Kingston
Dan Sinker’s CellStories Manifesto:
Here Be Monsters: Thoughts on the future of words on a page
by Daniel Sinker
Possibly my very favorite moment in music happens at the end of Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet. Right before the end of the record, you hear someone ask "What's the future of Public Enemy?" and then you hear the reply: “The future of Public Enemy's gotta...” And then the record's over. The future is left unsaid.
It was probably for the best -- the future's a funny thing, it so rarely turns out the way you think. Back in 1989 when they were making that record could anyone have predicted Flavor of Love? I mean, seriously.
And yet we can't stop thinking about it, can we? The one thing that we can't control -- we have the luxury of living in the present and of being able to reframe the past -- is the one thing that we want to control most of all. This is especially true at times like this, times when clear paths forward become suddenly murky.
