Alt Lit for Beginners
an introductory guide
Hopefully, if you’re reading this it means you have some level of interest in literature generally and want to learn more about the phenomenon known as “alt lit.” This is a guide for people who have very little knowledge of alt lit and want a basic overview. Much of this article is my subjective opinion. There is a fair amount of editorializing but please keep in mind this is all just me writing stuff.
So who am I? My name is Wallace Barker and I’m a longtime reader and admirer of alt lit. I also write poetry and essays/reviews about alt lit. At best, I’m a low-level participant in the alt lit community but I try to follow it closely. I’m not an expert but you probably don’t care and would prefer I just tell you about alt lit.
Alt lit is a youth-led literary movement much like the Lost Generation or the Beats. Whenever I say something like that people react with “HA! ALT LIT ISN’T WORTHY OF BEING CONSIDERED ALONGSIDE SUCH LITERARY GIANTS!!!” And that’s a fine reaction but just keep in mind old folks and traditionalists had the exact same reaction to the Lost Generation, the Beats, and just about every other youth-led literary movement in history.
Alt lit is typically published and discussed through the internet and social media. However, I think commentators make a mistake when they treat this as a key characteristic. Alt lit’s dependence on these tools shouldn’t be viewed as a defining feature any more than the typewriter was a defining feature of the Beats. Although some alt lit does deal with the internet or the way human relations are mediated by the internet, this topic is not any more pervasive within alt lit than it is in the wider world of literature and media.
Like any literary movement, alt lit is also a scene full of minor celebrities, rival factions, wannabes, groupies, fans, and even haters. Like any scene, by the time you learn about alt lit, it will already be considered “dead” by many of the primary participants. So keep in mind that internet-savvy literary people may think you are soooooo 2012 if you discuss alt lit and many prominent people in the alt lit scene don’t like to be labeled alt lit.
The Basic Categories
Alt lit can be divided into two basic categories, although the categories are not absolute and there is a fair amount of cross-over. For convenience, I am going to refer to the two categories as “Muumuu School” and “Lief School.”
Muumuu School
Muumuu House is a hugely influential publishing company in the alt lit community. It was founded by novelist Tao Lin to promote and publish writers selected by Lin. It’s basically the standard-bearer for a New York-based brand of alt lit notable for the highly minimalist writing style popularized by Lin. Heavy drug use is a prominent feature of the Muumuu School of alt lit, as is depression, existentialism, and moodiness in general. There’s lots of understated absurdity here— everyone is too cool for goofball antics but the general pointlessness of existence is highlighted by seemingly random acts and observations. Here are the major players:
Tao Lin is the godfather and patron saint of alt lit. His most recent novel “Taipei” is the only thing that can conceivably be called alt lit published by a major publishing company (Vintage Books). Taipei received strong reviews and Lin is widely considered to be alt lit’s most talented writer. Much of the future prominence of alt lit will depend on his success or failure in the mainstream literary world. If you don’t “get” Tao Lin or otherwise dislike him, you can pretty much give up on the genre altogether.
Megan Boyle is a poet and blogger who rose to prominence when she married Tao Lin in something of a whirlwind romance/publicity stunt. The courtship and marriage are the primary events covered in Lin’s “Taipei.” Boyle’s collection of poems and vignettes entitled “Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee” was published by Muumuu House and she has lately been notable for her (currently stalled) attempt to liveblog her entire life. Her articles for Vice are fantastic and her Thought Catalog essay “Everyone I’ve Had Sex With” was a major breakthrough. She is probably the wittiest writer from the Muumuu School so her work is highly recommended for those who prefer their existential despair tempered with a bit of comedy.
Jordan Castro is another writer who has been featured many times by Muumuu House. Something of a bad boy heartthrob, Jordan can be understood as Neal Cassady to Tao Lin’s Jack Kerouac. Although Jordan is a talented poet whose most recent collection “if i really wanted to feel happy i would feel happy already” was well-received within the scene, he is most known for appearing as a character in several of Lin’s books and also for his personal antics. He once posted a video of himself “earnestly trying to rip his penis off” which sparked a bit of a comment shitstorm over at HTMLGiant (HTMLGiant is a literature blog that sometimes covers alt lit). Jordan is from Ohio and part of a strange nexus between alt lit and Ohio that is beyond the scope of this article.
Mira Gonzalez is the scion of punk royalty (her stepfather is the bass player for Black Flag) who also came onto the scene through an association with Tao Lin and Muumuu House. Her excellent poetry collection “i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together” was published by Sorry House, a publishing company founded by alt lit notable Spencer Madsen which functions as something of a junior varsity to Muumuu House. Although Mira’s book is quite sincere and even a bit depressed, Mira is well-known for her entertaining twitter accounts. Interestingly, Mira and Megan Boyle were *ahem* close friends who are currently engaged in a public feud, apparently over the affections of underground alt lit hero Zachary German.
Lief School
The Lief School of alt lit is in many ways the polar opposite of the Muumuu School. Based around the “live my lief” project of Steve Roggenbuck, the Lief School is focused on positivity and an almost manic appreciation for life in general. Much more so than the Muumuu School, the Lief School incorporates alternative media and forms such as the image macro (an image with text overlaid), gifs and videos. The Lief School is more geographically diverse than the Muumuu School (which is pretty much confined to NYC), although there has historically been something of a Chicago bias. The Lief School is also more varied and inclusive than the Muumuu School because it is less driven by a single personality. Here are the major players:
Steve Roggenbuck is the crown prince of alt lit and center of the Lief School, much as the Muumuu School orbits Tao Lin. He is a multimedia artist and human meme known for touring the United States and giving free-wheeling poetry performances. Steve has published several poetry collections (his latest collection is “if u dont love the moon your an asshole: poems and selfies”) and his poetry is full of intentional misspellings, internet ephemera and YOLO sentiment. Steve is well-known for his wacky/inspiring videos which range from motivational to heartfelt. Steve has popularized numerous memes and catchphrases, most notably his slogan “boost” which is used as a general term of encouragement. Steve is vegan and straightedge (drug-free) and deeply committed to anti-oppression activism through his co-op project boost house.
Gabby Bess is a poet and short story writer who is a good example of the cross-over between the Muumuu School and the Lief School. She is based in NYC and her work is not positivity-focused like the Lief School. Her writing is more akin to the existential angst of the Muumuu School, although she does work with image macros and other alternative media more popular within the Lief School. Because she does not fit neatly into either alt lit category, I struggled with whether to include her here, but it would have been a major oversight to omit her from this discussion given her ferocious talent and widespread influence within the community. Gabby is the co-founder of Illuminati Girl Gang, a literary journal for female expression and her work frequently incorporates a feminist perspective. Her collection “Alone with Other People” was greeted with widespread praise.
Crispin Best is a London-based poet and writer known for his “punny” twitter updates and deceptively childlike poetry. “Childlike” is a fairly apt way to describe his writing in general but the facade of innocence functions as a literary device highlighting more complex sentiments lurking beneath. Crispin works very much within the uplifting and goofy framework of the Lief School. A recurring theme of his image macros is a sort of bizarrely naive and humorous commentary on sexuality and love.
Ana Carrete is a poet and artist from San Diego by way of Tijuana. Although she had long been present on the alt lit scene via her influential poetry site “New Wave Vomit,” she first came to the attention of many alt lit readers with her e-chapbook “pinky promise me this.” Her full length collection “Baby Babe” cemented her place as one of alt lit’s most original talents. Ana utilizes various media in her work such as selfies, image macros, gifs and videos which often feature her silently eating food and staring at the camera. Her style is hard to pinpoint— there is something very gothic about her overall presentation but in a sort of sunny, SoCal anomie kind-of-way. She’s avant-garde in the best sense of the word.
The Tastemakers
Now that you are familiar with the basic alt lit categories and the key writers within them, the last step is understanding the gatekeepers who define and redefine alt lit on a daily basis via curation of influential aggregation sites.
Stephen Tully Dierks is the force behind Pop Serial, which is both an alt lit magazine and a tumblr aggregation site. As a literary magazine, inclusion in Pop Serial represents one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon an alt lit writer (perhaps short of being published by Muumuu House). The magazine is not open to submissions and only collects work that has been personally solicited by Stephen Tully Dierks (or “Tully” as he is affectionately called). As a website, Pop Serial is updated with astonishing frequency and is required daily reading for anyone interested in keeping up with alt lit style. Tully is unabashed about promoting the work of his friends, which is sometimes controversial, but his tastes effectively define the boundaries of alt lit. It would be hard to imagine alt lit without him.
Frank Hinton is an anonymous writer and blogger who runs Alt Lit Gossip, the primary source for breaking news about alt lit. Photos of Frank always depict an attractive female, usually with her face obscured, but it is not clear whether Frank is a male or female or even one person at all. She is an accomplished fiction writer and her novel “Action Figure” is a pillar of the genre but she is best known for curating the online journal Metazen and overseeing Alt Lit Gossip. Less of a unified aesthetic than Pop Serial and more of a pure aggregator, Alt Lit Gossip functions as the first stop for hardcore followers of alt lit seeking the latest updates.
Well, there you go folks. If you made it all the way through this article, you now have a basic understanding of the alt lit landscape. This discussion is a mere glimpse at the dazzling constellation that is alt lit, but it should give you the working knowledge necessary to either confidently dismiss alt lit or go forth and explore it further. The kids are alright!
***UPDATE***
It appears the kids are NOT alright.
