Jamie Allen
Climbing aboard new fiction in Atlanta
On June 13, 2002, I launched my chapbook of short stories, The Horrible Humour & Other Stories (published by So New Media in Austin, TX), with the Very First Atlanta Double-Decker Bus Book Tour.
It worked like this: I loaded up 45 of my closest friends onto a red, double-decker bus, situated at the Dark Horse Tavern in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta. I gave them beer and prizes and copies of my book. I had a friend play "The Star Spangled Banner" on his saxophone, and then I played CDs for the passengers. Kelly Daniels, a creative writing instructor at Georgia State, gave a State of Fiction address. I had an actor read a piece from my book. All this, while we drove around Atlanta¹s traffic-addled streets.
At one point, early in the trip, we passed the Margaret Mitchell House on Peachtree.
"Margaret Mitchell House on your left," I said into the P.A. "Margaret Mitchell House on your left."
We passed it without stopping, and headed straight up Peachtree.
I'm sure I was the only one who took satisfaction from this painfully obvious symbolic gesture. I wanted to acknowledge the past—the Margaret Mitchell House, of course, represents an overwhelming stereotype of southern literature and the great writers who followed. But I also wanted everyone on board to leave it behind.
The Horrible Humour & Other Stories, you see, isn't in tune with the Old South or southern literature. It's more like a mix between a sitcom, a short story collection, a play, and a Zagat Survey. Just one of the five stories, "Triflegate," is based in the South—and it¹s set far in the future. The title story is based in the Northeast, and another piece, "The Four Stages of Writing a Novel," is based in New York.
Not that there's anything wrong with southern literature. I just don't buy the idea that if you live in the south and write in the south, you must produce something that drips with molasses from the hollow and grandpop's moonshine. As for the bus ride, I just want people to have fun when they're forced into being subjected to my work.
I'm not alone. There is something fresh happening in fiction—and that something includes the tradition-obsessed South. It stems from the popularity of the Internet, which rarely sees a border it can¹t cross. Even the Mason-Dixon.
storySouth.com, McSweeneys.net, Uber.nu, SerialText.com, SweetFancyMoses.com, and Eyeshot.net are just some of the sites that have become a breeding ground for a new fiction, one that speaks to a relatively young and culture-savvy generation of readers (Gen-X and Gen-Y, if you accept those terms), one that readily mixes writers and readers from all corners of the U.S. and the globe. Regions are falling away, whether we like it or not.
McSweeney's, in particular, has used its site and print quarterly to fantastic acclaim, launching the careers of several new writers. It has become so popular that established writers are fighting for a place in each issue. One reason for this: its creators don't confine themselves to one region, one style, one voice. The writers speak to a wide audience, and a wide audience listens.
So, why hasn¹t something like that happened in Atlanta, the hub of the South, a city of four million people and quite a few writers? The city has made strides to bill itself as an international destination; CNN is just one international company based here, and Atlanta was the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics.
It only makes sense that the art that comes from a self-proclaimed "international" outpost caters to a larger audience than the region from which it springs.
It's with this in mind, and with my double-decker bus book tour still choking the already-hazardous Atlanta air with its fumes, that we're taking a new step to re-build the Atlanta literary community (which was recently chastised in Atlanta magazine). Starting in July, I'm working with some truly capable people to launch a fiction salon series in Atlanta. It will be a multimedia affair that aims to entertain as well as enlighten.
We will offer music, art, short films, games, prizes, and, yes, fiction. We will not offer traditional southern literature, though I'm trying to convince my colleagues that we need to feature at one of the readings a southern goat, for petting purposes. I mean, how often do you get the chance to pet a southern goat, especially when it symbolically represents, in my mind, the Old South?
These sideshow additives are important. Ultimately, we're competing for people¹s time as they choose to attend movies, watch television, drink away happy hours, surf the Internet, or listen to us.
Every fiction writer, from Seattle to Miami, is competing with these new world circumstances. Here in Atlanta, southern literature has its place. But the new fiction is available, too. In the New South, we're inviting everyone on board this ongoing double-decker fiction tour, as we head up Peachtree and beyond.
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Jamie Allen grew up in Tampa, FL. He spent five years writing for CNN.com. He lives in the Atlanta area with his wife and two children.
