New Literary Journal Is Published In Matchstick Boxes

By Peter Lavelle

28 June 2010 12:03 GMT
Source: Mercurynews.com
Image: Sevell.com

To challenge shortening attention spans, Santa Cruz resident Kyle Peterson has launched a literary journal containing short stories housed in matchboxes.

She's not surfing the internet, but this woman clearly has problems.

Conventional wisdom has it that the internet has caused people's attention spans to shorten, while publishers have been complaining for some time about diminishing sales. Fortunately then, one Santa Cruz resident has found a way to compensate for both these problems: by releasing literary journals written in matchboxes.

Kyle Peterson has been publishing Matchbook Story since earlier this year, featuring stories only 48 words long. He received seventy entries during the March-June submission period for the second edition, which was released last week. Printing 2,500 copies of Matchbook Story costs only $250 using a local Santa Cruz printer.

Copies of Matchbook Story are available in book stores and even bars across South California. Passerbys can buy copies of the journal placed in bowls on bartops or information desks.

Editor Peterson explained his reasons for publishing Matchbook Story to the Santa Cruz Sentinel recently. He said: “The publishing industry is really brutal right now. People are reading less and less and print and publishers are feeling that.”

Meanwhile Bookshop Santa Cruz employee Seana Graham said: "People take them because they're free, and tourists take them as (souvenir) matches, but a lot of people take them with the idea that they might submit.'

Comment

Publishers of Matchbook Story Kyle Peterson has a point about diminishing attention spans. The BBC published an article eight years ago acknowledging the internet's harmful effect on our capacity to focus: according to the article, the surfeit of information available on the internet encourages users to skip rapidly between sites, adversely affecting concentration.

Importantly though, I featured Matchbook Story on this blog not because I think the journal will improve attention spans, but because it's interesting. To the contrary, I'm afraid Peterson's journal will exacerbate the attention span problem. Here's why:

• By publishing stories only fifty words long, Peterson is pandering to people whose attention spans are already diminished. His logic seems: “Get people to read something, anything!” Instead, if Peterson really wished to improve attention spans, he'd launch a campaign encouraging people to read actual books. He would not publish toward existing standards but encourage people to challenge themselves.
  

Of course Peterson himself notes that increasing membership rates is not his only motive for publishing Matchbook Story. He notes too the precarious position of the publishing industry, especially in an internet age. Hence it is his responsibility as a businessman, interested in his economic survival, not to challenge his customers but cater to their preferences. This means:

• The short length of stories in Matchbook Story is inevitable in a climate where people switch off after fifty words.
• Matchbook Story's potential lies most in helping the publishing industry survive in a digital age. Notably, 'survive' rather than 'flourish' is the important word.
  

It is of course tragic that Matchbook Story exists at all in some senses. In an ideal world the internet would not have a detrimental effect on attention spans, but fulfil its potential as font of information. Further, in an ideal world the detrimental effect of the internet on people's minds would not cripple the output of the publishing industry.

On the other hand, Peterson's intentions are obviously good. It is unfortunate that the potential of Matchbook Story amounts to: “Get people to read something, anything.” Peterson would probably agree though that this, finally, is better than nothing.

Sources

Anonymous, 'Santa Cruz Writer Publishes Literary Journal On Matchbooks,' MercuryNews.com, 27 June 2010.
Anonymous, 'Turning Into Digital Goldfish?' BBC.co.uk, 22 February 2002.