(The Reinvention of) Electric Literature
“We want to reach readers, not just writers,” Andy Hunter, one of the founding editors of this Fort Greene lit mag, told us when its first quarterly issue was released in late 2009. Pointedly challenging other little magazines to aim beyond the Creative Writing-Industrial Complex, the Brooklyn College MFAs behind Electric Lit run one-sentence-and-you’re-hooked short fiction from big names (Lydia Davis! Javier Marias! The inevitable Rick Moody!); make each vividly designed issue available for mobile devices and eReaders as well as in print; produce short, artsy viral-video adaptations of the stories they run; and invite readers into the community, with their literary gossip blog, The Dish, in which lively, camera-toting correspondents camp out at literary events, waiting for the next Richard Ford to spit on the next Colson Whitehead.