[-empyre-] the future

[Jim Andrews]

here's an interesting little news story:

http://www.timescolonist.com/News/Literary+publishers+protest+cuts/1376737/story.html
The headline is "Malahat Review among smaller periodicals facing loss of 
funding"

in it we read of what are likely to be funding cuts to some of canada's 
long-standing print periodicals. the malahat review, for instance, is the 
crown of the university of victoria's literary machine, has been around for 
forty years. it was started by robin skelton and has been edited 
subsequently by people such as constance rooke, derk wynand, possibly 
stephen scobie, marlene cookshaw, and is now edited by john barton. most of 
them poets.

the article quotes the gov as saying "The way in which support to Canadian 
periodicals is delivered will be reformed to maximize value for money and to 
seize opportunities in today's global, technological environment."

now, the malahat review, like pretty much all canadian literary periodicals, 
has low circulation. they sell fewer than 5000 copies per year. and they 
really haven't done anything significant on the net, if you look at their 
site at http://web.uvic.ca/malahat

they are looking somewhat dinosaurical.

and have for eons, actually, but have been sustained by the fading pomp of 
thoroughly print-minded literary rhetoric whereby they tout themselves as 
the or one of the leading lights of the canadian literary world etc and so 
forth harumph.

eventually there will come a point where they will have to do something 
significant on the net or perish. that's just the way it's going.

and the same is true of other literary periodicals elsewhere.

at first they will interpret 'significant' in a thoroughly print-minded way. 
but it will fail because of that.

you know, whatever animosities exist between the print-minded literati and 
the digital writers, we are all in this horrible little word boat together.

ja
http://vispo.com