I’ve been debating digitizing my library and reading electronically. There is difficulty and frustration involved in making space for a sizable collection of physical books. Yes, the dream is the big room lined with mahogany shelves stocked with beautifully-bound leather volumes, but let’s get real: that’s a long way off, for me.
Originally, I was going to throw a together a lighthearted commentary outlining a few of the reasons we’re rejecting stories from our magazine. I’m not good at that sort of thing, however, and it came out sounding like ivory-tower jackassery aimed at changing what you put on your pages. I mean, spell stuff right and build interesting sentences, be surprising, push boundaries, yes, all of those things. But do all that in your own way, not the way anyone else says you should. Shit. I’m prescribing again.
Instead of continuing in that vein, I think I’d like to just talk about some books I’ve read recently that exemplify what we’d like to see in the pages of Automata.