I’ll Talk, You’ll Fill that Notebook

Theatrical Literature and the Internet with The Void’s Jack Allen

Fringe ArtsSara McCulloch — Published June 2, 2011

Some writers cling to every rule of John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, while others defend their adherence to the Iceberg Method – but both schools of thought overlook the fact that publishing has changed since the heyday of Gardner or Hemingway.

Just this week, Richard Nash released a self-publishing platform that would allow new writers to publish alongside popular authors. His goal is to create a community of writers who offer and receive feedback from each other.

Even the writing workshop is being thrust into the digital age. Another story from the past week put forth that magazine editors were praising Tumblr for their increased number of subscriptions. It seems as though prose, style, and psychological distance are not the only things that writers must consider today.

Jack Allen is a Creative Writing and English Major at Concordia, and is well aware of these new media and how they can help or hinder a writer. But he is also an avid believer in sharpening skills and polishing prose before submitting any writing anywhere, even on the Internet.

“My dad used to stock my bookshelf when I was a kid. Actually, he still does that today,” said Allen. “Last year, I was interested in photography, so I read Susan Sontag’s collection of essays. I mentioned this to my dad, and a couple of weeks later, he tells me he’s picked up every Sontag book he could find in the used bookstores on Yonge.”

“Do you want to be a writer?”

“I’m not planning on being a writer ‘when I grow up.’ In all honesty, I lack the heart and discipline to take writing as seriously as a lot of my peers, but it’s also something I can’t walk away from easily,” said Allen. “There are a lot of things you pick up on when you get close to writing, both as a process and as a product.”

“It can be one of the more transparent forms of expression, one that approaches psychology head-on – you learn about… people, looking at writing. What sorts of words are ‘evocative,’ or whatever,” he said. “What kinds of characters people sympathize with. How to satisfy wants. I think these sorts of insights are what make writing engaging for me, both as a process and a product.”

Throughout our discussion, Allen constantly emphasized the need for a stringent editorial process, especially in the face of blogging and self-publishing. While self-publishing can be liberating and democratizing, without an editor, it does not benefit the writer.

“Yes, self-publishing is an answer to the many frustrations a young writer experiences. Unfortunately, the thing is that their work may be unpublishable because it lacks a certain quality – not because it’s revolutionary,” he said.

“You need an editor because writing is an isolated task that can become self-serving or masturbatory if kept unwatched.”

“Incongruous Quarterly, for example, publishes more experimental work that might not appeal to a mass audience, or a regular publishing house. But they don’t just take anything — you need an editor because writing is an isolated task that can become self-serving or masturbatory if kept unwatched.”

But while books and visual art make for an interesting combination, Allen feels as though many things are still lacking at literary events, which often don’t gather a large and diverse enough crowd. He also thinks that some writers hold back during readings.

For Jack, there is a lack of emphasis on the role theatre can play in the writing community. From workshops to readings, he’s observed that many writers are conscious of delivery, but don’t necessarily consider it.

“A public reading is obviously different from what someone writes down on paper. The reception is different, and so is the reading itself. Poets, for instance, are aware of the audience’s role in the reception of their work,” said Allen.

“A reading needs to be theatrical. In fact, theatre is the closest art form to real life. The audience is just as much a part of the play, too. Playwriting, specifically the monologue, borrows its cadence from poetry, and it’s also a first-person narrative. A reading is similar to a one-man show, too.”

With all that in mind, Allen feels that collaboration between the city’s art communities could help. This does not entirely explain why people don’t attend literary events, but again Allen believes that the writing community could learn something from the theatre community, and vice versa.

“The other important thing is that The National Theatre School – one of the best theatre schools in the country – is right here in Montreal. Not many people know that,” said Allen. “ So my question is why aren’t more writers putting on more plays and performing them? I think literary events could be much more engaging. The Void never receives any submissions from playwrights, either. I don’t know why.”

Allen is the fiction editor at The Void, Concordia’s only bilingual literary and visual arts magazine. The day before our conversation, The Mirror’s “Best of Montreal” recognized the magazine with an Honourable Mention in the ‘Best Magazine/Zine’ category. It was the only university publication that made the list.

“We were all new this year, and we really needed to find out how we worked together as a group,” said Allen. “I think this really helped in reshaping the content and direction of the magazine. There were a lot of walls built up in the past, so we had to work hard to break them down this year.”

The Void doesn’t focus solely on content and visual art, it also puts on a party for every launch or fundraiser. These events not only attract attention to the magazine, but generate the extra money needed to print the issues. Why? Because funding, Allen says, is always an issue.

“It’s not like we can hand over The Void to the next group of editors with a guarantee that they’ll be able to cover printing costs,” said Allen.

“We put out three issues a year, and it costs around $1700 to print each issue, and through grants, we get maybe $2500 for the year. We eventually want to pay our contributors. We need the fundraisers.”

And so their parties don’t just draw from their list of contributors for entertainment, but from “the facets of the Montreal landscape.” There are readings first, projections from local artists, some music, and then a party.

“We want to stay true to the art,” said Allen. “We also want to draw in a crowd for the magazine and its contributors. The Matrix does with its Pilot readings: it pairs young readers with more established ones, and this exposes the young writers to a new readership. And that’s what we try to do with Void parties: gather crowds for new writers.”

And that’s not all. Many of the visual artists they have featured, like America Blasco, have also benefited from all the hard work.

“America Blasco is getting her illustrations animated in L.A. this summer,” said Allen. “I’m really happy and excited for her.”

Allen has just finished tweaking The Void’s new website, and is also working a personal project, Trapshot Archives.

“I’m working on releasing a number of chapbooks under Trapshot, and they’re being edited,” said Allen. “The Montreal artists involved are Cora Wöllenstein and Erika Altosaar. The Montreal writers are Ed McNamara, Zoe Sharpe. And nomad/photographer David Zilber – who lived here for a number of years – has also contributed.”

So with everything on his mind and all things considered, where will this literary enthusiast wind up?

“‘When I ‘grow up’ I can see myself either in publishing or advertising,” said Allen. “I’m really into digital media right now as it seems there are new things going on literally every month, and no doubt digital publishing will redefine what we think of as ‘literature.’”