Bloggasm

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.