I mostly pay attention to fashion blogs so hear are some examples in that genre:
Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist and his book of the same title. He earned little credit until Vogue picked him up, and even more credit when he published his book, which was pretty much his blog printed out on shiny paper.
Ivan Rodic of The Face Hunter and his book of the same title. Same deal as above in terms of acceptance in his field.
Brooke Mahnanti of Belle De Jour: Secret Diary of a London Call Girl. She then went on to publish her adventures in book form and finally as a television show. It was highly speculated that the blog was made up and fictional but once published as a non-fiction book her audience now believed. Goes to show that we dont yet trust blogs but we do trust literature genres.
Any other examples? Any thoughts on why this is? And any predictions to how society and literature will adapt?
I will be interested to see if, in 30 years or so, The Norton Anthology contains literature that was first published on a blog....
ReplyDeleteThere is a certain freedom associated with blogs that (hopefully) won't transform what we think of as literature that we can study and appreciate in a class like this or any English class. But maybe just give writers another outlet of marketing their work.
For example we can read a blog about:
the latest happenings in Foggy Bottom: http://www.foboblo.com/
food suggestions from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/all-we-can-eat/
the Dumbest Stuff People Do: http://blog.trutv.com/dumb_as_a_blog/
I don't read the blogs listed above, I just searched them on google, but the list could go on and on and seems everlasting; fashion, politics, school systems, sports, you name it - there is a blog. While blogs such as those written from the perspective of someone's dog (I found one...it was weird...) hopefully don't enter the realm of literature, those who aspire to become the next great American writer do have a blog ( http://emergingwriters.typepad.com/ ), which I'm sure is not the only one of its kind. With enough publicity, who knows, The Emerging Writers blog might lead to someone's next big break.
I guess we should also think about the publishing process. No doubt they get millions of submissions but the editors narrow it down. Sometimes I wish there was an editor for the greater blog community...
ReplyDeleteHoly Cow did it take me a long time to track down this posting that addresses Alison's question. That's (at least) one problem with blogging: So much text, so difficult to track it down.
ReplyDeleteAnother intern at work told me about a book she is reading. It's about a girl who had an internship on the hill. She wrote about her "sexploits" in an online blog. Eventually this blog got around and the girl was fired, but she managed to get a book deal out of it! The book is called "The Washingtonienne", if youre interested.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of reminds me of Sex and the City and how Carrie, the main character, writes columns that are eventually turned into a book. I think blogging is becoming, or already has become, the jumping off point for most novels these days.
I agree it would be interesting to see if, in the future, The Norton has blogs in it!
I've read 'The Washingtonienne" and it's a quick, fun, enjoyable read, especially because you will recognize many of the places and events that take place, being that we all go to school in DC!
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