Bloggasm

Bud Parr has been a blogger since 2003. Since then he has started Chekhov’s Mistress, a literary blog, 400 Windmills a blog devoted to a reading of Don Quixote and MetaxuCafe, a network of literary blogs with about 350 member sites. He is a Web developer by trade, a writer by temperament (so he thinks) and father and husband by heart. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, he now lives – via Virginia, Nevada and California – in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Lynn and his son Auden.

Simon Owens: What are some of the hardships of running a network like Metaxucafe? How does one become a member?

Bud Parr: I don’t think of it as a hardship. It’s difficult to find the time for it, but I don’t mind the work involved. I wish I could get everyone in the world to have a well-working, valid RSS feed (more difficult than you might think until you start dealing with them in the hundreds). I also don’t like the occasions that I have to turn down a site for membership, although really anyone with a blog who writes about books, or writes original fiction or poetry can join. All they have to do is fill out a brief form on the site and that’s it.

What I do enjoy about it is seeing all the great writing and lively conversations going on in the litblogosphere that MetaxuCafe, at least in part, facilitates.

Simon Owens: Do you think that networks like that become less needed as rss feeds become more popular?

Bud Parr: I don’t think so, because there are so many sites – we have nearly 350 blogs in MetaxuCafe and from what I can tell have only a cross-section of what’s out there – that many book lovers will want to be able to go to a central location, find what interests them and capture and perhaps even participate in the exchanges that are happening every day. I have long thought that with the growing number of blogs, people will look to group together so as not be muffled by the crowd and my aim with MetaxuCafe is to create a place to start that sort of thing.

Simon Owens: You describe yourself as a “pretentious snob.” What genres and types of books does your pretentiousness keep you from reading?

Bud Parr: Actually I said people “think” I’m a pretentious snob when they see the piles of books lying about my house, but I don’t really think I am.

I’m a compulsive reader and will peruse the fine print of a cereal box if that’s what’s around. Still, life is short and I expect a lot from the books I read and I have no interest in mass market stuff; I put a book down as soon as I see any sort of bad writing or failure in the writer’s logic. Aside from that there are no particular genres I avoid on any sort of snobbish basis; we all have our interests and I doubt mine would extend to romance or westerns, but I don’t think that can be called pretentious.

Simon Owens: What made you leave the Lit blog co-op? Do you think they were successful in their goals?

Bud Parr: I left for no other reason than the reading requirement of 20 books per year (five books per quarter) was too much for me because that’s about half of what I read in any given year and I didn’t want that much of my reading (which tends to be very random) dictated by others.

Their success is not just past tense, they are generating interest in good books and are demonstrating through their avid commentary that contemporary fiction is alive and well!

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Bud Parr: Because my reading is not concentrated on new books, I don’t follow that sort of thing too closely, although I am excited about Zbignew Herbert’s “The Collected Poems: 1956-1998″ coming out this fall. I’m also looking forward to Mark Strand’s next book because my brother-in-law commissioned some of the poems.

A new initiate in the Pynchon world, I’m also looking forward to his next book, Against the Day. Dalkey Archive has some interesting titles, including Vain Art of the Fugue by Dumitru Tsepeneag, which sounds something like Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style. Not sure what else, off the top of my head.

This may not count because I’ve already read it, but Laird Hunt’s The Exquisite is coming out in September and I hope it does well because it’s a great book.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Bud Parr: That’s a tough question because I’m really attached to so many blogs, but I can give you five (six) sites that I think are exemplary: Ed Champion (Return of the Reluctant, Bat Segundo) never ceases to amaze me; it’s clear that Jenny Davidson (Light Reading) is truly a great lover of books; Ella’s Box of Books represents in many ways exactly what a litblog should be; Michelle Lin’s site New York Brain Terrain is intelligent and vibrant; and finally (not really finally), Waggish and MadInkBeard are the two sites that I want to be when I grow up and have read every book known to man and can talk about them with uncommon intelligence.

Wendi Kaufman is responsible for the care and feeding of the Happy Booker, a literary blog with a focus on DC writers and contemporary fiction. Wendi’s fiction has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Fiction, New York Stories and Other Voices. Her stories have also been anthologized in Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops, Elements of Literature,Faultlines: Stories of Divorce, and most recently Gravity: more writing by Washington area women. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and the busy mother of two very energetic young boys. She swears Life Above Sea Level, her first story collection, is moments from completion.

Simon Owens: How did getting your MFA affect your writing skills? Do you think that you would have been as successful without it?

Wendi Kaufman: I don’t know about “successful,” but I will say that one of the best things the MFA gave me was time to write. Three years. That time was also spent in the company of people who spoke books and authors and writing as a second language—who could ask for more? My writing group grew out of the MFA program and for the past eight years the group has been a supportive and integral part of my writing life. Does every writer need an MFA? Absolutely not. But for me, taking the time to grow and develop as a writer and gaining a group of talented peers to share work with were both pretty big benefits of attending a program and certainly contributed to whatever “success” I have had.

Simon Owens: How did you begin writing for The Washington Post?

Wendi Kaufman: I was at home with a newly minted MFA, a brand new baby and no clue about what I was going to do with my writing life. I pitched an idea to the editor of Weekend— the Post’s Friday magazine-style section that covers arts and entertainment—about moms who power walk with strollers. That was 8 years ago. I have been a regular contributor ever since. I usually write cover stories or features once or twice a month. I have also reviewed for BookWorld, and written for Health and Sunday Source sections.

Simon Owens: What books have you nominated to the Lit Blog Co-op? Do you think it has been effective in its mission?

Wendi Kaufman: I nominated Mutual Life & Casualty by Elizabeth Poliner. The book was released by a small press (Permanent press) and although it had created some buzz in the DC area, garnering praise from heavy-hitting literary locals Edward Jones and Alice McDermott, it was still relatively unknown in wider circles. For an entire week the LBC discussed the book, gave it attention and offered insightful comments and postings. The author was invited to guest blog, to respond to posts and questions and to “meet” some of her readers.

This is what the LBC does best. Four times a year we bring books you may not have heard about to the front page of a collective literary blog. In addition to the postings and discussion, each blogger also mentions the book selections on their own individual blogs. The LBC raises awareness of a title, introduces new books to readers, and conducts some of the best in-depth book coverage and author interviews (and podcasts) on the net. So yes, I would say it’s very effective.

Simon Owens: Do you feel that book blogs have become big enough to influence publishing at all?

Wendi Kaufman: Yes, I really do. I think it may be hard to quantify and say how much influence, but I do know that people who come to my blog are looking for author information, some literary news and book recommendations. As Bellow said, ” we are always looking for the book it is necessary to read next.” For readers, blogs provide a valuable resource, a way to find out about that next book, and I think the publishing industry recognizes this.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Wendi Kaufman: My own! (A gal can dream, right?) Dallas Hudgens and Scott Berg from my writing group both have books coming out in the spring that you’ll be hearing about. I have seen some intriguing titles from Unbridled Press for fall—they released some great titles last year—and someone just told me about a U. of Wisconsin’s re-release of They’ll Have to Catch Me First An Artist’s Coming of Age in the Third Reich by Irene Awret.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Wendi Kaufman: Only 5? I am partial to all the blogs in the LBC— you can’t go wrong with any of those blogs. If you’re not strictly looking for a literary blog, but one with literary leanings that also draws from music, art, movies, and pop culture, here are my top 5:

Lux Lotus—Run by the fabulous Lauren Cerand, the “Window Licker” section alone is the stuff of dreams.

Large Hearted Boy—David is waaay cool, with great music downloads, compelling links and a literary “Booknotes” feature.

Home Schooled by a Cackling Jackal—personal blog of poet Reb Livingston. Poets are a feisty lot and there’s always something going on at Reb’s place.

Romancing the tome— Read the book, hated the movie. This blog is all about literary adaptation with Hollywood tidbits, book notes and movie scoops. More enjoyable than People magazine with no unpleasant aftertaste.

EWN—Emerging Writer’s Network. Okay, technically this is a litblog and also an LBC member, but it’s run by Dan Wickett who has unflagging energy and commitment to everything he does. He is a wonderful champion of literary fiction, lit journals and new writers. He’s my hero.

Traver Kauffman–proprietor of Rake’s Progress–is a husband, father, dog-tender, and an occasional book reviewer based in Denver, Colorado. His main problem is that he drinks too much and writes too little.

Simon Owens: Do you think that your MFA in fiction has affected your lit blogging at all?

Traver Kauffman: To be reductive, I’d say that the insecurity I developed from taking an MFA and then accomplishing absolutely nothing in the subsequent half-decade fueled the need for me to show off online, no matter how modest the audience or accolades.

Simon Owens: Do you approach literary works differently because of it?

Traver Kauffman: Taking that MFA, I’ve found, served to both mythologize and demythologize writers. At best, I developed a deeper appreciation for the accomplishment of individual authors; at worst, I learned it’s probably best not to try to meet your literary heroes.

Simon Owens: What are some of the blogs that originally inspired The Rake’s Progress when it first started back in 2004?

Traver Kauffman: The Minor Fall, The Major Lift (TMFTML) was my first exposure to the blog form. From there, I found Maud Newton and Mark Sarvas and Ed Champion, and I set out to earn an approving nod from them.

Simon Owens: Can popular lit bloggers make any real money from Amazon (and other book seller) affiliate programs? Most reports I’ve seen seem to indicate that they don’t produce much more than extra spare change, but lit bloggers have a more tightly niche book-reading audience.

Traver Kauffman: Not as far as I know (which ain’t that far). I understand that the bloggers in question earn a minor fraction of the sales they generate…and that the sales aren’t enough to keep a literate wag full of even the cheapest booze. But who knows? There could be someone out there making a killing.

I decided some time ago that the day I tried to chisel a couple meager bucks out of running RP—i.e., making silly quasi-literary jokes—would be the day that the lark turned very sad. So I don’t go in search of revenue, and I turn down offers of advertising (of which there have been a few, but not many).

Simon Owens: Do you think more and more book publicists will begin to contact book bloggers, after they see the promotion power they hold?

Traver Kauffman: Oh, god yes. They already do. (I get more stuff than I can read, so I can only imagine the awesome piles that people with large audiences have to deal with.) Pub people really have nothing to lose by tossing litbloggers a few review copies—insanely strident cheerleading for their title is the upshot, and there’s virtually no downside.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you most looking forward to?

Traver Kauffman: Pynchon, Pynchon, Pynchon. The next thing Jack Butler releases (which is rumored to be forthcoming). The next Steve Erickson novel, whatever it is. The next Stephen Dixon book. The new Cormac McCarthy, already out but as yet unread by your pal here. The latest dispatch from either Dalkey Archive or Coffee House Press, whatever it might be.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Traver Kauffman: I’m going to assume that everyone knows the quality lit blogs, since they have audiences several orders of magnitude beyond mine. (Hint: A few of them are listed above!) So I’ll direct your attention to some kindred spirits (who have never heard of me, so don’t ask them). First, there’s Sadly, No!, which is what RP would be if I were a political blogger and weren’t lazy. Then, there’s Fire Joe Morgan, fighting the good fight against asinine sports writing. I like Deadspin, that well-funded goof. And though he doesn’t need it, I have to plug Last Plane to Jakarta, the sporadically updated blog of John Darnielle (aka The Mountain Goats), who aside from being god’s guitar-strummin’ messenger is the most open-hearted music critic I can think of.

As for literary sites, of late I’ve been enjoying poet Bill Knott’s blog. Now there’s a blog with a tone of pure, sublime bitterness that really appeals.

Gwenda Bond is working on a novel for teenagers that she isn’t quite ready to talk about yet. She posts often about books and writing at her blog, Shaken & Stirred, writes an advice column for Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet as everyone’s Dear Aunt Gwenda, and co-edits Say… magazine with writer Christopher Rowe. She is a member of the recently formed LitBlog Co-op. She lives in Lexington with Mr. Rowe, who happens to be her spouse-type person, and their pets, Hemingway the Cat, Polydactyl, LLC, and Miss Emma the Dog-Girl, CPA.

Simon Owens: Since you focus a lot on both genre and non-genre work, do you think your blog is effective at getting readers to try genres they don’t normally read?

Gwenda Bond: That is, of course, the hope. I really started the blog to make recommendations (and to stop inundating a certain group of my friends with email links to stuff) and, as a reader, I don’t tend to draw very distinct lines in terms of genre. It troubles me that people may miss something they would love because it’s just in a section of the bookstore they’re unfamiliar with. In a glass half-full way, I tend to believe that a lot of people aren’t afraid to read different genres, they just feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed seeking those books out — this I base on every successful genre novel that’s made easier for mainstream readers to find.

I think I have a reputation as being generous with books, but that’s because I mostly don’t talk about ones I wouldn’t feel comfortable pressing on another person. I try to be as specific about my tastes as possible, so people can tell whether they might like a book I recommend or not. In my little sandbox world, I’m happy if one person reads something I recommend and really loves it — this is the joy of setting low bars: I get at least one email saying that for everything I rec. I am often troubled at how often people need to give caveats about genre books though (really, it’s GOOD!!! PROMISE!!!). A possible corollary to that old hippie phrase: If it’s good, read it.

Simon Owens: Have the other lit bloggers been pretty receptive to a genre blogger?

Gwenda Bond: Absolutely. Zebras, not horses.

Simon Owens: Has the blog helped you in promoting your Say… titles?

Gwenda Bond: Um, I’d say yes to the limited extent that I (or my partner-in-crime Christopher Rowe, the Real Editor) have tried doing so. We definitely got a lot of subscriptions during the drive we held last year. On the other hand, we’re teensy in terms of print runs. What we mostly do is try and get the magazines to those who will really enjoy it — and to the review outlets and best ofs. I don’t think I do much more on the blog than remind people that Say… exists when we drop an issue.

Simon Owens: How do you find most your literary news?

Gwenda Bond: I go to this laundromat and there’s this guy… I used to look more for “news,” but now I point to news stories I just come across and mostly link to other blog content that I want to make sure anyone who reads my site sees. Again, it’s largely to prevent me from inundating those I know with links. Any “real news” I get told about is top secret unless someone specifically tells me I can blog it. I think of myself as person/reader/writer and then blogger is somewhere way down the line. I don’t automatically feel the need to publish everything I’m told about. That just doesn’t interest me. I don’t want to be a news outlet so much.

Simon Owens: Do you get a lot of review copies from publishers? Which publishers contact you the most often?

Gwenda Bond: I get a flabbergasting amount of review copies — flabbergasting to me, anyway. I also get most of the ones I ask for, which is nice. I can’t say I actually break them down by publisher, but I will say that — for me, anyway — mainstream publishers are still way more likely to send books than genre publishers, something that I always find vaguely surprising. (This applies only to books sent to make me happy, not to books I request — I’ve actually never had any publisher turn down a request for a book yet.) Among the smaller publishers that I’ve found to be very good at judging taste and sending things proactively are Coffee House and Unbridled Books, both of which have excellent publicists. We’re also blessed with an excellent library just four blocks away, so I rely heavily on it too.

Simon Owens: Do you tend to nominate a lot of genre books to the Lit Blog Co-op?

Gwenda Bond: Well, I’ve only been a nominator once so far, and I did nominate a genre title, Jeff Ford’s The Girl in the Glass. As a nominator, I’m just looking for a book that readers of the LBC may have overlooked that I think is wonderful. Many, many genres titles are going to fit that criteria, because they are so often off the radar of all but genre readers.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Gwenda Bond: Oh dear. I never know what’s coming out when. A few books I was really looking forward to have just come out and I’m in the process of reading them — Jeff VanderMeer’s Shriek, Andrea Seigel’s To Feel Stuff, Geoff Ryman’s The King’s Last Song, Julie Phillips’ Tiptree biography. I’m very much looking forward to Cecil Castellucci’s next novel Beige , Holly Black’s Ironside and Justine Larbalestier’s Magic’s Child (oddly, all YA); there aren’t even ARCs I can covet of those yet. Of things getting ready to come out, I would recommend any of the above, plus M.T. Anderson’s Octavian Nothing: Volume 1 and John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines (more YAs). Oh, and David Levithan’s new one. I also can’t WAIT for all the original anthologies Ellen Datlow has in the works. Or for Karen Joy Fowler’s next novel (!), or John Kessel’s or Kelley Eskridge’s, for that matter–but, sadly, these don’t exactly exist yet, though I understand all are in the works. On the upside, Nicola Griffith’s next Aud novel has, according to Wiscon news, been turned in, so that one should be forthcoming (if not soon enough). I’m going to kick myself for leaving something out, I just know it.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Gwenda Bond: I think everybody reads the obvious ones (Maud Newton, Ed Rants, the Mumpsimus, Tingle Alley, etc.). I love Jeff Bryant’s Syntax of Things and Carolyn Pinkhaus’s Pinky’s Paperhaus (and both of them just joined the LBC recently). Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray and Jenny Davidson at Light Reading are two of my absolute faves. I also love Rarely Likable and wish she’d post more–and Jay Tomio’s Bodhisattva is great. But I read way too many. Please, check out the blogroll and read the cutesy tags. In case Gavin blogs consistently now that he has a real one, I’ll say him too. And the more personal blogs of Chance Morrison, Meghan McCarron, Dave Schwartz and David Moles. That’s way too many, I know. Damn. I’m such a rec-whore.

Derik A Badman is a librarian living outside Philadelphia, PA who writes the blog Madinkbeard (an anagram of his name). After about a year of focused blogging on constraint in literature (the Oulipo and related artists), he switched the focus of his blog to comics. He writes about all kinds of comics from classic comic strips to European bande dessinée (and much in between), often concentrating his attentions on the formal elements of comics and the experimental use of such elements. Maroon, his webcomic about a man stranded on a tiny island, ran from August 2005 through July 2006, using a number of constraints. His current webcomic is Things Change: The Metamorphoses Comic (started August 2006). Derik is using Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a generative device for structure as well as characters, themes, settings, or phrases. His other comics experiments include pictureless comics, comics haiku, and a comics pantoum.

Simon Owens: Any internet nerd out there could tell you that the web comics scene has become huge. As someone who both does web comics and blogs, which group do you feel more connected to? Do the two projects compliment each other?

Derik Badman: I’ll take your second part first. The two projects compliment each other wonderfully, at least for me. Part of my blogging about comics is an investigation into history and form. In that regards I think it makes my comics work better. I am a firm believer in knowing one’s forefathers and foremothers when working in art. By not only reading comics but also writing about them, I pay closer attention to the works and garner more that I can put to use (or not, in the case of negative examples) in my work.

As far as feeling connected to either bloggers or webcomickers… I don’t feel particularly connected to either. Most comic bloggers are writing a) news or b) superheroes. Even those that stray from such rarely write with similar intentions to how I see my blogging (albeit my writing is still an evolving function). That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy a lot of comics blogs (or other blogs) and learn about new comics or old comics from them, but that I don’t find a lot of compatriots (or whatever you might call them). I certainly end up getting a lot more links from non-comics bloggers than comics bloggers.

Similarly with webcomics. The majority of webcomics fall into genres which hold no interest to me (webcomics is the only place where “gamer” and “manga-esque” are prominent genres) or are sub-par brethren of print comics. Perhaps it is hubris to see my work as so much different from the rest, but I haven’t found much else that comes from a similar (perhaps literary? experimental?) angle. I’d love to find more interesting webcomics, and maybe they are just lurking below my radar. As there is a huge glut of bad webcomics, it often gets wearying to try to find ones that are worth the time. Sometimes one wonders if certain cartoonists have read much else than other comics in their genre.

Simon Owens: How hard is it for you to meet the deadlines you set for the updates on your web comic?

Derik Badman: So far the only time I missed a deadline was when I was working on a (printed) mini-comic while drawing my now completed strip Maroon. That said, for Things Change I’ve set myself a twice weekly deadline. I’ve only published five strips as of this writing, but I amassed about 10 strips before I started publishing them to give myself a head start.

I actually enjoy deadlines, which fits in with my former blogging focus of constraint. A regularl schedule forces you to work.

Simon Owens: Let’s switch gears. Does being a librarian affect your blogging at all? Do you feel like you’re close to the pulse of the book-publishing scene?

Derik Badman: I’m sure there must be a librarian influence on my blogging… my tendency to cite sources? The rare books I can get through interlibrary loan (just got a French book that performs a close reading of a Tintin book, in the same vein as Barthes’ S/Z). I don’t have any sense of the pulse of the publishing scene. I find the publishing scene predominantly uninteresting. I do manage the occasional worthy review copy, though so far not from any of the better comics publishers (Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, etc).

Simon Owens: Who are some of the main comic creators who inspire your own work?

Derik Badman: That’s a hard question, as I read so much, I’m not sure how much I’ve incorporated from others. Certainly my influences do not start or stop with comics creators. Probably the Oulipo writers, particularly Queneau and Mathews, have been huge influences on the way I work. Without them I never would have started Things Change with its use of Ovid as a generative device. The movies I’m interested in probably color my work in less obvious ways, particularly film noir and the French New Wave (Godard and Rohmer mostly).

But, to name some comic creators: Hergé (Tintin), Lewis Trondheim (Lapinot), Osamu Tezuka (Buddha), Dave Sim (Cerebus), Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets), Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie), George Herriman (Krazy Kat), John Porcellino (King Cat), and lately the Archie house style from past decades. That probably says something about my comics reading and taste, though I can’t imagine I achieve anything like what these creators have done.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Derik Badman: Curses, a collection of short works by Kevin Huizenga. Mother’s Mouth by Dash Shaw (whose work is extremely inventive if still rather undeveloped). The new volume of Kramer’s Ergot, which I usually only half like, but that one half is good enough. The new Finder collection by Carla Speed McNeil. And new reprint volumes of Gasoline Alley, Peanuts, Krazy Kat, and On Stage.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Derik Badman: I feel like the supplement blog, but…

1. Tom Spurgeons’s The Comics Reporter is the best place to go for news, commentary, and links on a regular basis. The too infrequent appearance of Bart Beaty’s pieces on Eurocomics is the icing on the cake.

2. Jog Likes Comics writes on a wider range of comics than I would read, but Jog is consistent in posting and quality. His enthusiastic writings even got me reading Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers series, a superhero book (which is a genre I do not usually pay any attention to).

3. The Comics Comics blog from Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler supplements their new Comics Comics magazine. Both write intelligently on a wide range of comics. Dan in particular is good at finding the forgotten greats.

4. du9, “le autre bande dessinée,” is a great French comics site, offering regular news and reviews. Lately they’ve been posting a long thesis on silent comics.

5. Not a blog, but Douglas Wolk’s regular comics reviews in Salon are great examples of mainstream (as in the wider public not the “mainstream” of comics (superheroes)) comics reviews.

(Related posts: Comic Book super heroes fighting the federal encroachment of George Bush, Interview with C Max Magee from the millions, Interview with jessica stockton from the written nerd, the new yorker is on fire)

Guenter Grass’s book, Peeling the Onion, is no doubt the author’s attempt to get rid of some haunting ghosts from his past, and yet many critics are accusing him of profiting off his Nazi experiences, demanding that he donate all his profits to “some charity that helps victims of the Nazis.”

Critics in Germany called Thursday on Nobel Literature laureate Guenter Grass to donate royalties from his book about his Nazi past to some charity that helps victims of the Nazis.

The German author has caused a storm with the disclosure in the self-loathing book that he spent six months with the Waffen SS, the Nazi party’s private army. The first print run of the book, Peeling the Onion, had almost sold out Thursday in just two days on sale.

Like most cases like this, the very outcry against the book is attributed to its success. It seems rather far-fetched to demand what he does with the profits. The book also claims that the author met Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) while in one of the internment camps.

‘As I was writing my book, a German was elected pope. I had heard of Cardinal Ratzinger … and I read he had been in Bad Aibling.

‘And I thought, I know this Joseph, this personality, this shyness, this stubbornness, this soft-spokenness,’ he told dpa.

The Vatican hasn’t really commented on whether or not this is true. The logic he uses to make the connection is pretty iffy.

Related posts: Interview with Kevin Holtsberry from Collected Miscellany, book bound in human skin

Matt Borondy is addicted to highways, casinos, books, and monasteries, and his grand ambition is to create a mobile home/poker room/Zen center/internet cafe that holds author readings in random cities across the world. Since his efforts to drum up venture capital for that project have mysteriously failed, he focuses instead on editing the online magazine Identity Theory, with the help of over a dozen other eclectic book junkies and failed venture capitalists. Identity Theory publishes interviews with authors and musicians, hosts a social justice blog and a book blog, and offers regular doses of original fiction, nonfiction, visual art, poetry and reviews. New stuff goes up on the site every week day, as if by magic.

Simon Owens: Identity Theory has been around since 2000, which is a long time in internet years. Did it always use a blog-type format?

Matt Borondy: I guess it depends on what you mean by blog-type format. From a technological standpoint, the overall site doesn’t function like a blog–it’s a much more static, handmade sort of thing, though we do house some actual blogs. From a content standpoint, I guess we’ve always been blog-like in the sense that we are informal and regularly published and liberal in our use of hypertext.

Simon Owens: As someone who heads one of the older literary sites, how effective do you think book blogs are at promoting books? Do you think they’ll eventually be able to create new trends in publishing?

Matt Borondy: Publishing houses seem sold on the idea of viral marketing via the Internet, so I’d assume it’s working out for them. It’s such a low-cost, high-reward medium: low cost for the Web publishers, high reward for the publishing houses. I just wish it were the other way around so that I could buy a new car. Here at Identity Theory we take advantage of the minimal overhead and vast reach of Web publishing to give serious writers a chance to talk about their craft for a countless number of pages, and to help publish and promote younger, lesser-known writers who otherwise would have great difficulty getting attention from mainstream press. That’s why I started the site and why it has continued to thrive. As far as trends in publishing, I just pray to God with whatever religious faith I have left that I never, ever come across another book that attempts to recreate what Abe Lincoln’s blog would have been like.

Simon Owens: How hard is it to work with an all-volunteer staff? Do you find it hard to keep the troops motivated?

Matt Borondy: The Identity Theory staff is a wonderfully diverse group–geographically, ethnically, and ideologically–and they’re all very cool and into our project. For me the challenge in working on the site—and this is one that they probably share—is that publishing a website involves a heavy dose of abstract and self-invented responsibility. I have to remind myself, while staring into the abyss that is this monitor, that there are real people reading the site, that the writers we’re publishing, interviewing, and reviewing are real, and that what we do has some effect on the literary community and the world in general. Anytime you work with people who are far away and work on something that is not tangible and that can be made to appear or disappear with the click of a mouse, there’s a challenge of connecting your work with your reality–if that makes sense. So, there’s always a struggle with motivation, which can typically be eliminated with a heavy dose of caffeine.

Maybe someday I’ll set Identity Theory up like Project Mayhem in “Fight Club” or like an old monastery, where I’ll make a headquarters in an abandoned house and force potential staff members to stand outside for three days without food, water, or encouragement, and then eventually let the persistent ones in and have them shave their heads and wear black all the time while reading fiction submissions and coordinating book reviews. That would ensure that everyone we get is 100% motivated from the start.

Simon Owens: How did you get the prizes for your raffle fundraiser? Were they donated?

Matt Borondy: The writers I was working with at the time of the fundraiser, people like Scott Snyder and Mia Fontaine and Toni Schlesinger as well as our own Christian Bauman, were nice enough to donate books to the raffle. Some of the other raffle prizes were totally random: while on vacation in L.A. I saw that Douglas Coupland was doing a reading in Beverly Hills, so I had him sign a book (which I accidentally walked out of Dutton’s without paying for, Winona Ryder style, but then went back in and purchased). As a last-minute thing, I thought it’d be cool to offer one of the winners a chance to be interviewed on the site, which was free. Other prizes came from my wallet and various other sources which election-year politics prevent me from mentioning. Next time around I will be more aggressive about having all the prizes donated—this particular raffle was more of a virtual party than a fundraiser, so it wasn’t entirely profit-driven.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Matt Borondy: I’m waiting for someone to give Robert Birnbaum a book deal. And I’m wondering when the heck Alex Shapiro is going to stop messing around on Pandora and finish his first book of fiction. Aside from that, I have too much of a backlog to look forward to upcoming books. Anyone who reads Identity Theory or your site should check out “The Beginning Writer’s Answer Book”, edited by the magnificent Jane Friedman.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement your own?

Matt Borondy: If I had gone to elementary school with Claire Zulkey and Maud Newton I would have chased them around the playground endlessly, leading to broken hearts and who knows what else—maybe a restraining order or two, some hours in detention. But since we’re adults living in different states I have to settle for reading their weblogs and wishing I could be as smart and tuned in as they are. Claire’s interview archive is great, and Maud has, I think, the best blog out there. Neal Pollack’s The Maelstrom is entertaining—he’s a writer who fits the medium well. And I have a lot of respect for what the people at MobyLives are doing, as well as the Bat Segundo Show, a literary podcast published on Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant. That makes five, right? Can I add one more? Go read Fungible Convictions.