Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘lit and tech’

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Thursday Morning Candy: Fogged Clarity

by Celeste Ng

Founded in 2009, Fogged Clarity is an online, non-profit arts review that incorporates visual art and music in addition to fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, reviews, and original multimedia content. The “Fogged Clarity Sessions,” for instance, feature musicians visiting the studio to record several tracks, mostly acoustic. Writes executive editor Ben Evans: I have always believed that the most important thing a human being can do is create, and if creation is the whispering of personal truths into the commotion of existence, then I established Fogged Clarity to make those whispers a little more audible. The combination of visual art, music, […]


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Baudelaire, $2.45?

by Celeste Ng

I really like vending machines. There’s something very cool about peering through the glass and scoping out what’s there, putting in your money and typing in the right code, then watching your treat slowly tumble down into the chute. I also enjoy seeing what weird things people decide to sell via machine. while ago, to my great delight, I spotted an iPod vending machine at Logan Airport. A mall near me has a ProActiv vending machine—for those times when you must treat your acne on the go, I guess. Now Polk County, Florida, has introduced a vending machine I’d love […]


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Evolution or Devolution: Where is literature taking us?

The following guest post is by Josie Keenan, an FWR intern and second-year student at the University of Michigan. More and more these days, I find myself bemoaning the fate of books. As Lee discussed in her recent blog “Let’s get digital”, downloadable books have been available for some time now. Digitization is one aspect of the way literature is changing, but what we are reading is also changing. Where novels were once belabored, deeply considered works in which every word of every sentence was deliberately placed, today it seems a more manufacturable task. One can write a novel just […]


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The Story Behind Storyville

Don’t call Paul Vidich the Mayor of Storyville. He prefers Matchmaker. That’s because Storyville is less about Vidich, its creator, than his application’s ambitious plan to “bring together writers and readers.” As you might imagine, Storyville is focused solely on the short story. Exclusive to owners of iPhones and iPads, the application promises to deliver one story every week, for which subscribers must pay $4.99 for a six-month subscription. In the end, this means Storyville’s residents will end up paying less than a quarter per story. Vidich promises they won’t be just any stories. The Storyville editorial team is focused […]


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Under the Covers

by Lee Thomas

For all of you readers who love new technology, but remain bookish at heart, how about an iPad/Kindle/Nook cover that marries the two? We’ve rounded up a few of our favorite trompe l’oeil covers, so you can have your cake … but dress it up like a book. Or give a bibliophile friend a lovely gift. 1. Leather bound by Pad and Quill 2. Hans Christian Andersen by Vintage Covers 3. Hardback Cloth BOOK by Nedrelow 4. By the Numbers Moleskine-style by RightBrainy 5. Classic black Dodocase 6. Horses (I can’t help but think about Patti Smith with this one) […]


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The new look of MQR

by Lee Thomas

Sometimes a fresh coat of paint and general sprucing up is all that’s needed to reinvigorate a literary journal’s true offering: knockout writing. Michigan Quarterly Review (MQR) has done just that with their website – redesigned as a clean, sleek affair in easy-on-the-eyes serifs and shades of charcoal and leafy green. Check out their new aesthetic here: michiganquarterlyreview.com Last year Jonathan Freedman assumed the role of Editor, taking over for Larry Goldstein, who ran MQR for more than three decades. In addition to welcoming on several Associate Editors – Michael Byers, who is on sabbatical this year, as well as […]


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Robot Assistants: 2010 Edition

by Celeste Ng

Much has been said about what technology is doing to literature from the reading side. But what can technology do for those on the writing side? Several programs have recently been released to make the writer’s difficult task easier—or at least more manageable. Here’s a roundup, just in time for the start of NaNoWriMo: First, to help remove distractions, FocusWriter gives writers with a pared-down word processor that fills the entire screen, theoretically minimizing the temptation to waste time on the internet instead of writing. Unlike other stripped-down word processors, though, FocusWriter still provides basic features like word, paragraph, and […]


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Which are greener: paper books or ebooks?

by Celeste Ng

On Slate, Brian Palmer asks that very question: Think of an e-reader as the cloth diaper of books. Sure, producing one Kindle is tougher on the environment than printing a single copy of Pride and Prejudice. But every time you download and read an electronic book, rather than purchasing a new pile of paper, you’re paying back a little bit of the carbon dioxide and water deficit. The actual operation of an e-reader represents a small percentage of its total environmental impact, so if you run your device into the ground, you’ll end up paying back that debt many times […]


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The Future of the Book? Try Futures.

by Celeste Ng

As Barnes and Noble looks to sell itself, chatter about the “future of the book” has grown. But would “futures” be more appropriate? NPR investigates: Dan Visel, a founder of the appropriately named Institute for the Future of the Book, points out that, first of all, a “book” can mean many things: A cookbook, a comic book, a history book and an electronic book are all animals of different stripes. “It would be a mistake to think that these various forms have a single, unified future,” Visel says. “Rather, I think it’s more appropriate to say that there are futures […]


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"It's A Book."

by Celeste Ng

With all the discussion of ebooks and social networking and iThis and iThat, are you worried that the children of the future won’t recognize a book when they see it? Fear not. Author and illustrator Lane Smith’s new picture book, It’s a Book, explores the merits of a good old-fashioned paper book. It provides a valuable and tongue-in-cheek lesson for kids of the future and Kids These Days. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Smith discusses the genesis of the book and why he’s actually not anti-technology: What do you think of the concept of e-books or reading […]




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