The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
Roxane Gay’s on HTML Giant talking about the covers of chick-lit novels and the stigma attached to their formulaic visual coding, though the feminization of book covers is taking over more than just the chick-lit genre. It’s unfortunate that women writers have to consciously avoid being pigeonholed into chick-lit genre or are marketed via book cover designs as such.
...moreA few weeks ago, I argued that the Internet age was uniquely well suited to selling short story collections. A few commenters did not agree with what seemed to be implicit in my argument: the idea that the “short attention span” or “ADD” culture is in fact better for short stories.
...moreAre marketing departments running the major publishing houses? Do editors and agents know what they’re doing? Are small presses the future of literature? Is everything a crapshoot? What’s a first-time novelist to do?
...moreWhen we say pop culture, what do we mean? John Story, in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, discusses six definitions. Do we mean culture that is popular, like Shakespeare or Dickens?
Or do we mean mass produced commercial culture, celebrity memoirs, pre-packaged music that intentionally sounds like music you’ve heard 1,000 times before, music you’ve already memorized?
...more