What's the root of the ever rising successes that literary magazines are having these days? Strangely, the internet.
From a piece in the Guardian...
Technology has enabled literary magazines to solve the two problems holding them back: print and distribution costs, and marketing. The internet solved the first and social networking is fixing the second. Five Dials – which has grown from 1,000 to 10,000 subscribers – has both a Facebook page and Twitter account. Despite the lo-fi appearance, Taylor welcomes new technology. "We're not Amish in our approach."
These days, the process of "deep reading" – that is, entering into a trance-like state and becoming mentally and emotionally consumed in another world – often seems like a huge effort, especially when the cheap thrill of Twitter or a blog is just a tap away. However, people are starting to suspect that the internet connives against us. It sells us the lie that it's better to click or flick in idle spare time than it is to read a book. But after half an hour – after you've exhausted your regular websites and blogs, and everyone on Twitter and Facebook is in bed – you get the same feeling as you do from eating chocolate all day.
Could we be in a place now where technology has brought us full circle? Where that which took us away from stories is now set to bring us back to them?
"The short story is an essential art form again," says Shukla.
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