The Death of Fiction and its Counterpart

2 takes of the current literary scene:

"The Death of Fiction?" as experienced by the university-funded editor of 'Virginia Quarterly Review' with replies from indie editors. here's a bit:

"I'm saying that writers need to venture out from under the protective wing of academia, to put themselves and their work on the line. Stop being so damned dainty and polite. Treat writing like your lifeblood instead of your livelihood. And for Christ's sake, write something we might want to read. ..
With so many newspapers and magazines closing, with so many commercial publishers looking to nonprofit models, a few bold university presidents could save American literature, reshape journalism, and maybe even rescue public discourse from the cable shout shows and the blogosphere."

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the other article is from New Pages:
"The Two-Year College Literary Magazine: Just Plain Good"

here a bit, both passages are quotes from John Dermot Woods, faculty advisor for Luna, the student-run literary magazine published at Nassau Community College in New York:

"Community college students are non-traditional – so you have this whole crop of writers from incredibly diverse backgrounds. The possibility of finding something there, something raw, something that isn’t out of a polished school of literature or thinking, is a really wonderful thing. ... Some of the submissions we get really blow my mind. People on the inside [of the literary establishment] wouldn’t dare submit some of this stuff, and it’s unfortunate that you don’t see more of it.”

"Who’s ever in the past decade read a New Yorker poem?” he asks. “We’re seeing the end of commercial publishing, which I think is an exciting thing, and what we’re doing at the community college is the splintering of this literary scene. Harper’s is no longer the pace setter."

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