Most contributors, it would seem via FB—because that’s how I get a lot of my non-news news—of the Best of the Web 2010 anthology have gotten their contributor copies. I have not yet, so I can’t make any testaments to how great or not great it is. I’m pretty sure, given that Kathy Fish and Matt Bell are the editors, that it’s a stunning collection of writing originally published on the web.
This past week, Time Out Chicago reviewed BoTW 2010. Though quite brief, Jonathan Messinger gave it a positive review, noting how difficult anthologies are and the unimaginable task of combing through the seemingly self-exponentiating number of things published on the web. He ended with this:
Of course, we all know the Internet is home to just about anything our brains can Google. But what Best of the Web does—aside from doing the work of finding great writing so we don’t have to—is make a case for it as an ideal literary medium.
And this is where I question things. I have a story in BoTW. I publish on the web. I like publishing on the web, I really do. But I also like paper. Yummm, wasteful unsustainable paper: I can’t get enough of it. I love to print out manuscripts. I love to mark up manuscripts. I even love how heavy it is in my bag, how much space it takes up, and on and on. I love books published on paper, bound in paper, I probably don’t need to go on. Needless to say, I’m not as “with the times” as Nick.
[Regular readers might recall that back in March, Ariana Reines was trying to raise some money to send herself to Haiti as a translator for a group of trauma clinicians. 
