Rauan Klassnik—

over at her Tumblr Thais Benoit, answering a call from Alt Lit Press, offers up a kind of manifesto of thoughts about and definitions for Alt Lit:

“Writing that is happening outside of traditional publishing, mostly online and in digital forms.”  

“Alt Lit fits in perfectly with historical literature context.  Alt Lit is challenging the norms of the past, and can be compared/contrasted easily to the Beat movement of the 60s. We see authors using their lives as the set of their writing.  Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac did things (many of which seemed taboo or ‘wild’ or eccentric) and then wrote about them, and they wrote about them in a way that was real to their readers at the time.  Please compare Taipei to On The Road: it’s fun.”

“More than anything else, Alt Lit fills a hole created by the commercial publishing industry. ” 

“works by authors such as Jonathan Franzen and Zadie Smith, do not connect with many readers today. . .

WE DO NOT IDENTIFY.

WE DO NOT IDENTIFY.

WE DO NOT IDENTIFY.”

read Thais’ entire post here