I'm obsessed with literature and the creation of it-- only on the page
can people create as fully, and possibly in the demiurgical poetic
spirit of Blake & Rimbaud, a more beautiful world than we've
been presented with. And in the same way, only in literature can
we denegrate everything that destroys the beauty of life and still
glorify the beauty that already exists. Most of my time lately
has gone into writing both fiction, poetry, and non-fiction as well as
studying literature and philosophy.
In Walden,
Thoreau wrote, "Shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book?
As if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him, my next
neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wisdom of his
words." I try to approach my study of literature with
Thoreau's attitude, trying to continually take in as much as possible.
Today, classic literature is accessible to everyone
-- particularly assisted by the advent of the Internet, as seen
in Project
Gutenberg and Bartleby.
Virtually all major, canonical works of literature are
available online, along non-canonical and counter-culture literature.
Why not soak up as much of this as possible? This is the
information overload age, but eventually our accessibility to the
greatest ideas and philosophies of generations before us will give us
the knowledge necessary to create a society where freedom &
peace can exist. If Bush and his cronies don't fuck it up by
killing tens of thousands, destroying individual rights, before other
people find out about "the Google." It may be too late for that,
but it's time to start a civil disobedience through the arts.
As far as fiction goes, I’m really
fascinated by
so-called canonical literature, but my interests lie outside of that
too. The Beat Generation writers have been a huge influence on me, from
Jack Kerouac to Allen Ginsberg to William S. Burroughs. I’m
also
interested in the transcendentalist movement (Thoreau and Emerson),
Nietzsche, the deconstructionist school of literary criticism,
specifically Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, and Ken Kesey, Hunter
S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and other counter-cultural writers. I also
really appreciate J.D. Salinger, Goethe, Neruda, and tons of other
people. Non-fiction: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, all sorts of biographers, and pretty much any
dissidents.
Online writing
Most of my writing is done in personal notebooks, but I've
posted a good portion of it online. I completed my first
novel in November entitled Dirty
Blvd., which is going through extensive editing.
I have also been compiling a collection of poetry and short
stories, Simulacra.
Other writing (some of it really old & embarassing) can be
found on my LiveJournal.
Below are some of the pieces I've written. The number of
works will increase as I continue to format and upload them.
Projects
Currently, I am working on a number of different fiction
and hypertext literary projects. Some of the projects incorporate
multimedia, such as video games and music, and others will be purely
text.
The Revelation of St. Lucifer on
the Golden Isle:
A hypertext novel I've worked on over the past two years
critiquing
the fundamentalist Christian church. The experiences are
filtered
through the eyes of an incredibly precocious girl, Sarah Dobson, and
her psychologist. I am still working on ways of developing
the story
and am considering a few different multimedia formats. If you
are
interested in helping develop the project, please contact me. Children of God:
I've been fascinated with the Children
of Godcult
for the past few months, and I'm working on a project about a
recovering former member of the cult.
Shiner:
I'm also working on a novel entitled Shiner about a
shoeshiner on Wall Street. I'm early in progress on the project, so it
still hasn't taken shape yet, but I have a few ideas about the
storyline.
ZZT Zen:
I've been working on this novel since about January of last
year.
The piece is a non-fiction college retrospective combined with
all
the ridiculous and incredible events of a trip to Fort Collins.
It's a multilayered project which may take a while to
complete but will be great to work on.
Adrian Leverkuhn:
Working title. I'm planning on a multimedia project
(hopefully including comics, music, video, and hypertext) about a young
Faustian character. Development is in progress.
September Sky: Project
about a music journalist who becomes obsessed with a small record label
called Knowthing and his writing about the way the label dramatically
affects his life, musically and personally. Planned for NaNoWriMo 2007.
In Waiting: A progressive
journal of the arts, published online and in 'zine form, focusing on
poetry, fiction, visual art, and political writing. Fiction
Of A
Ritualistic Bud Inhibition is a story about a revolt
against Christianity at an indeterminate time in the past.
The story involves pagan rituals as a means of battling the
fascistic undertones of Christianity and a Nietzschean attitude towards
philosophy and religion, along with entheogens and the occult.
New Takes On Old Folk Songs
is about a post-rock band playing a show in a venue not made for them.
Contains plenty of pretension, hipster humor, and a
simultaneous glorification and satire of the indie scene.
Bennies
is a section of Dirty
Blvd. which I may release as a separate story.
The story is about Benny Hinn, a Nietzschean druggy.
The story is mostly focused on ennui and reaction to it in
today's world.
I am currently editing two
manuscripts in hopes of eventual publication. If you are a
publisher interested in my work, or if you have any comments about the
site, please feel free to contact me at kevinandrewcarter@gmail.com.