The prolific doctor turned author Michael Crichton died yesterday. Though perhaps not the most “literary” of writers, his work was suspenseful and thought-provoking.

We’re living in an increasingly consumer-driven society–Youtube is replacing network television, musicians can remix their favorite artists’ music, and Time named “You” as Person of the Year in 2006.

Now, even the rules of literature are being rewritten: collaborative, web-based novels, written by a diverse group of writers (most average web-users, not writers) are becoming more and more prevalent. In 2007, Penguin launched the ground-breaking “One Million Penguins” Project, a wiki novel project in which the submission period spanned five weeks, but the wiki is still open to edits. Though some would contend that a user-driven collaborative novel cannot succeed, the form remains.

The University of Chicago has piloted a new project, EndOfThisWorld, a collaborative novel focused around the hypothetical end of the world. This novel uses voter input to determine which submissions will be published as part of the overall story. Submissions are open for the 5th chapter of the novel–check it out, and get writing!

It’s another rainy weekend in Boston, but the gray sky and pervasive damp are only part of the reason for the grim pall–late last night, news broke of David Foster Wallace’s untimely death at the age of 46. DFW is best-known as a writer of satire, absurdism, and the eccentricities of contemporary American life. He made a splash in the literary scene from his very first post-modernist novel, “The Broom of the System” (1987) and continued to build up steam, and a cult following, with story collections, journalistic articles, and books of essays, before publishing what is largely considered his masterpiece, the novel “Infinite Jest” in 1996.

As I can’t speak to the influence or genius of these novels, I will defer to those who know. What I can say is that Wallace was the kind of writer who challenged the restraints of popular literature and consistently produced the kind of writing that made people question what they thought they knew; the kind of writer who took a Gourmet magazine assignment to cover the 2003 Maine Lobster Festival and turned it into a sprawling rumination on not only the lobster’s place in the “pop food industry” and American tourism, but also how the... more »

Oh summer in Boston–the subways crowded with boisterous Red Sox fans, the Common swarming with nocturnal creatures, humidity fogging up sidewalks and street corners from downtown to the ‘burbs. Don’t get me wrong–Summer is my favorite time of year. I’ve already begun to dread the winter as each deliciously simmering summer afternoon slides into night. Summer is the time for sundresses, the beach, ice cream, cookouts, and outdoor concerts.

Though I’m happy to bask in the Boston sunshine in the tiny park behind my apartment, I’ve got a serious case of wanderlust, and it’s not helping that every time I check my Facebook account, I’m bombarded with notifications that so-and-so has added pictures from their vacation to Paris, or Rome, or Greece, or Mexico. Several of my good friends are having wild summer adventures–one is interning in Ghana, another is writing about the Olympics in Beijing, one is getting married and honeymooning in Tahiti, another is traveling the country doing lord knows what. I love getting caught up on their travels. I love seeing their pictures. I enjoy the postcards. But it’s hard not to feel even more pent-up than I do during the rough New England winters.

I picked... more »

Every time I blink these days, it seems a friend or acquaintance has created a blog. Whether it be a blog about meat, a blog about a summer in Ghana, or a blog about fashion, everyone’s got something to say. And this isn’t a phenomenon striking a small literary group in Boston–no, this new craze is spreading across the globe.

Celebrities like Kanye West and Michael Ian Black update their blogs daily, while writers like Tao Lin and Felicia Sullivan have built a strong reader base thanks to blogging. This somewhat indulgent NY Times Magazine piece attempts to break down the public’s fascination with the lives and musings of complete strangers.

Is it that we’re a generation obsessed with…ourselves? Or is it just that we’re so excited to have a platform where we can broadcast our opinions to the world (ostensibly), no rejections or censors or boundaries to hold us back?

We breached the blogging discussion at a party I attended several weeks ago. A few friends expressed the sentiment that they wanted to start blogs of their own, but were “afraid people would read it.” One friend even went so far as to start a blog, and then delete it when she thought too many... more »

I used to think “senioritis,” that affliction commonly associated with spring time and general procrastination, was only a problem for college students eager to join the “real world” and college-bound high school kids. As a grad student in her mid-twenties who works full-time and has been out of college for more years than she cares to think about, I thought all of that youthful restlessness was a thing of the past.

I was mistaken. Though most of my classmates have finished their final final papers, projects, and theses, and are preparing for graduation and planning for moves to New York or epic job searches, I am still one summer class shy of completing my master’s degree. I’m not even done with my spring semester yet–a problem compounded by a pretty severe (and somewhat premature) case of senioritis. One final project (to build a web site) stands between me and a 3-week break before summer classes begin. Though I have been aware of this project for some months, I underestimated the difficulty it would present to me. After all, I know how to blog, I’m pretty familiar with HTML, how hard could it be? Turns out, building a web site is... more »

We live in a consumer culture. This is a problem. But what does it mean when you obsessively begin to consume culture? I love to read. I love to watch movies. I love music. I am one of those people who is obsessive about discovering new bands, reading as many books as possible, and watching any movies someone tells me I will like, in an attempt to somehow be aware of everything and anything that is…well, I hate to say it, but cool. I’m that guy. Which means that the I simultaneously love and loathe the Internet.

Every day, I am inundated with thousands of new articles, blog posts, and recommendations. I am constantly consuming, trying to organize this information for myself, and also to share it with those whom I think would also appreciate it. My Netflix queue is almost 200 movies long, and I’ve had the same two discs for over a month now because I just don’t have time to devote two uninterrupted hours to a movie. But every time I read a movie review or hear someone talking about a new movie they’ve just seen, I click over and add it to my queue. It’s the same... more »

This weekend, I made the journey to the Kendall Square Theater to see Persepolis.
Since Kendall is the only theater in Boston showing the movie right now, it was packed, forcing me to the second row, where I slumped as down low in my seat as I could and craned my neck to watch. Luckily, it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Persepolis, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, tells the story of Marjane Satrapi, a young Iranian woman. Based on the graphic novel written by Satrapi, the film details Marji’s coming of age as her country dissolves into revolution and war with Iraq. Marji’s story doesn’t need lush color or flashy animation–the film is almost entirely in black and white stark graphics, true to the graphic novel format. Though Marji is forced to wear a veil and cannot be seen consorting with men, drinking alcohol, or listening to music, she somehow manages to remain fiercely independent. The film is charged with humor (watch out for the Marji’s rousing rendition of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”) and grace, even while people are executed and the country is bombed. I don’t know much... more »

Last night, I was lucky enough to be part of the audience for a taping of a segment for “The People Speak,” a new production based on historian and social activist Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States. An impressive cast of actors, writers, and musicians are involved with the project, which takes various speeches, poems, songs, and articles written by ordinary people and historic figures, and gives them new life. The miniseries will be split into four parts, according to the themes of class, gender, war, and race.

The War portion of the series featured Josh Brolin reading from Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 book Johnny Got His Gun, David Strathairn as Henry David Thoreau, the poet Staceyann Chin as a Hiroshima survivor, Viggo Mortenson singing a stirring a capella version of Bob Dylan’s “Master’s of War,” and Danny Glover reading a Martin Luther King Jr. speech denouncing Vietnam. And those were just a part of the evening. Marisa Tomei gave one of the best performances, as a convincing and heartbreaking Cindy Sheehan, railing against her son’s death in Iraq.

The night not only shed light on a less familiar side of historic icons (who knew Mark Twain was an outspoken... more »

With all you’ve probably been hearing about Facebook lately, you’d think the entire world is being taken over by an evil empire, intent on sucking out our souls, wasting our time, and invading our privacy. But maybe something good has come out of everyone’s favorite social networking site.

The Facebook Review is the first literary magazine that seeks to use Facebook as its platform to publish members’ creative work. Set up as a group, users can join and then read and comment on the work. Submissions for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and reviews are all accepted and decided upon by an editorial board consisting of the last issue’s contributors, which is a pretty nifty system (called an “editorial train”). Submissions are made by sending a facebook message to the managing editor, and issues are posted as “news updates,” with new installments going up daily.

Issue 2 features a pretty amazing short story titled “The Vegan Muffin” by Tao Lin, an up and coming writer who will be reading at Fringe’s own “Dirty Water” reading on December 16 at Grub St, 160 Boylston St, Boston. Check it out!

As this is my first official post, allow myself to introduce…myself. Ok, no more lame jokes. I’m a student at Emerson College in Boston, pursuing my Masters in Publishing and Writing. Emerson is a far-cry from Holy Cross , the small liberal-arts college in Worcester where I got my Bachelor’s degree. For example, I don’t think anyone with pink hair or sleeve tatoos attended Holy Cross (at least while I was there…). That’s not where the differences end.

The Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy held its annual conference at Holy Cross, the oldest Catholic college in New England, on October 24. Though no students or faculty were involved in the Conference, the move sparked an outcry from alumni and the Catholic community. The College’s President, Michael McFarland, SJ, defended the College’s decision to rent space to the organization. In an official statement, McFarland said, “It is the College’s position that providing rented meeting space to a conference of professionals from a variety of Massachusetts organizations discussing the safety and care of at-risk teenagers does not represent a disregard of Catholic teaching.”

While Holy Cross, as a Catholic institution, is officially opposed to abortion and contraception (I was surprised to find open distribution of condoms on... more »

This is the tenth of a many-part series written by the staff and editors of Fringe Magazine, who will be reviewing books from the Pool as part of the 25 Books Project.

There’s something about reading a book by someone you see on a regular basis—something that makes the book somehow more personal, more complex, more relevant to your own daily life than it would be had it been written by a complete stranger. This is how I felt, at least, when reading Jump at the Sun, the newest novel by Emerson Writer-in-Residence Kim McLarin. With each page, heroine Grace Jefferson’s story seemed entwined with my own.

Except that Grace Jefferson is an affluent, married, African-American mother of two—demographics I know nothing about. Also, though McLarin is a familiar face around Emerson, I have never had her as a professor or really even spoken to her. So why was reading this book such a personal experience? McLarin’s writing is so visceral and her characters so real that we, as readers, are drawn inside the book.

Jump at the Sun tells Grace’s story from her own point of view, with flashbacks woven in throughout telling the stories of her grandmother and mother. As this triumvirate... more »

This is the sixth of a many-part series written by the staff and editors of Fringe Magazine, who will be reviewing books from the Pool as part of the 25 Books Project.

After having read Jeffrey Eugenides’ first novel, The Virgin Suicides, I was prepared for his sophomore effort, Middlesex. However, this delightful, titillating, sprawling saga of “the rollercoaster ride of a single gene through time” still managed to surprise me.

Middlesex tells the story of the Stephanides family, beginning in the mountains of Greece and spanning the globe — the narrative jumps from Detroit to Berlin to San Francisco and back again. Our narrator and tour guide for this slightly fantastical journey is one Cal Stephanides, a fastidious and mysterious man in his early forties. Though he hides his past from those in his life, he is frank with the reader from the first sentence, “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”

From that astonishing opening, Cal spins the tale of his former self, Calliope Helen Stephanides, her eccentric Greek family, and her... more »

This is the second of a many-part series written by the staff and editors of Fringe Magazine, who will be reviewing books from the Pool as part of the 25 Books Project.

I read Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club for a nonfiction writing workshop – it was so good that I’ve since all but given up trying to write memoir.

Karr refers to the memoir as “a love letter to my less-than-perfect clan” in the introduction to the tenth anniversary edition—perhaps a bit of an understatement. Liars’ Club opens with Karr’s mother brandishing a kitchen knife at her two young daughters and continues to unfold as Karr lays bare every detail of her shocking childhood—from rape to alcoholism to mental illness, it’s all here.

What’s most astonishing about Liars’ Club is the tenderness that infuses these incredible tales: Karr paints her family with a love that manages to surpass the gun-wielding, alcohol-soaked craziness that defined her young life. Instead of condemning this wild family, the reader comes away with an awe and respect for characters portrayed so honestly that we can’t help but feel as if we know them.

The book gets its name from the group of fishing buddies that would gather to tell... more »