“Lit!” is what writer and publisher Mallory Smart says more often than not. I don’t always know what she means, but I think it’s a good thing.
I first heard of Smart when she interviewed Giacomo Pope (the founder of the literary website Neutral Spaces) for her podcast. Smart’s podcast is called Textual Healing, which makes me laugh, but Smart tells me few listeners or guests get the Marvin Gaye pun. She was inspired to start the show to allow fellow writers to talk about how music inspires their work. Smart herself says she either has headphones in or a record on most of the time she’s awake. After listening to all the episodes, I reached out, and a week later Smart and her boyfriend, Bulent Mourad (who co-runs Maudlin House), were at my door to pick up some books ahead of my appearance on her show.
The host of 1storypod asks his guests regularly whether books have a future and whether they’ll survive. It’s up to young people like Smart and her friends to find out. They think the dinosaurs in New York and Los Angeles won’t keep books, music, and movies alive, because they worry too much about their bank accounts and whom they’re seen by at dinosaur parties. Splintering and niche environments wrought by the Internet make the idea of universal acclaim or even common experience laughable. The things that break through to whatever passes as top tier now are inevitably generic, crude, and quickly forgotten in favor of the next portion or serving. The Marvel universe and competing reality-show conglomerates are all empty calories.
Available in August 2021 from Trident Press
RMaudlin Housemaudlinhouse.net
