Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Check this out. It's a riot.

In fact, it is Riot Lit.

What is it, exactly? It's a collective of writers, both commercially published and self-published, who have joined forces to make a simple point: It's all about the writing. These are authors of important books and definitive styles, with varying backgrounds, who have come together from the fringe (as it were) to shed light on some great writing, on works that fall between the immense cracks in the publishing industry. I, as a writer, was fortunate to find an editor and publisher who were willing to label my books in a way that are bookstore friendly. But what about all those books that aren't? Well, unless you're new here, you already know that the POD/self-pub world is picking up the slack--and sadly, most are going unnoticed.

Riot Lit is the closest thing (finally!) to "indie lit" I have ever seen, and the coolest band of writers to come along since the Memoirists Collective. Indie rock is considered so cool and hip that some folks (including some friends of mine) won't buy anything produced by major labels anymore. Why should literature be any different? (I know--a heap of horribly-written self-published books is why.) My point (and what I've been trying to prove for a year and a half now) is that indie lit does exist; it's just wicked-hard to find.

Well, Riot Lit is changing their little corner of the literary world, and absolutely worth checking out. Even if you are not into the types of material listed on the site, it's worth perusing for no other reason than it's one of the coolest websites I've seen.

But most of all (and I swear on my grandmother's grave this is merely coincidence) no less than three authors of books I have selected are part of the collective (Jeremy Robert Johnson, N. Frank Daniels, and the newly-inducted Daniel Scott Buck.)

But hey, this post is not merely a plug for their collective. I'm putting my money where my mouth is; I just ordered a copy of Brad Listi's ATTENTION. DEFICIT. DISORDER. and pre-ordered a copy of Kate Holden's IN MY SKIN.

So there.