I'm heading out for AWP Vancouver on Wednesday, so unless the five-minute muse strikes me when I'm there, I won't blog in until after. In the meantime, this is actually stolen from Casey's blog on NewPages. It's info and links to the incredible opening remarks we heard while at the Other Words conference in Florida. Really, if you care about literature, read what these guys had to say about it. It's incredible.
***From the NewPages Weblog***
In early March, [Casey and I] headed to Tallahassee to participate in Other Words: A Conference of Literary Magazines, Independent Publishers, and Writers. The Florida Literary Arts Coalition is planning to make Other Words an annual conference. When the opening remarks and comments were finished, we realized we had heard some amazing and important thoughts on the state of independent publishing. We asked Richard Matthews and R.M. Berry for permission to publish their comments. If you have a blog or website, please post a link to these comments. They deserve a wide readership.
Other Words by Richard Mathews. Introductory remarks, Other Words Conference. "...in the face of the myriad forces that foster mass communication, popular culture, and global media conglomerates, our coalition in support of the creation, publication, and dissemination of independent, non-commercial literary arts gains a special sense of relevance and urgency."
On Freeing Words by R.M. Berry. "Our struggle must be fought in the marketplace and the media, in private foundations, federal and regional and local arts agencies, at presses both large and small, in university English departments, at bars and bookstores, and within every writer’s soul. In the same way that no despot has ever stayed in power without the unconscious complicity of the defeated, the thoughtlessness that passes for writing today could never achieve its dominance without your and my collusion."
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