Not Just a Grab-Bag Candy Game
Newsletter 001
Dear Switch-Lit Writers,
This is the first dispatch from our little dedicated space for collaborative storytelling located in a remote corner of the Internet, and you are its first explorers.
I am truly grateful for your early curiosity and moxie to try something unconventional, surreal, and new. It is difficult to create out of thin air (isn’t it?), which is why we hope that our first set of monthly prompts become the kindling that can unexpectedly ignite your imagination. For example, how do you like your tea in December?
In general, we are not inventing, but evolving an artistic tradition of collaborative storytelling for our age of social media, artificial intelligence, and beyond. Wherever it may take us, we will choose a direction that creatively gives power to you, your writing partners, and our collective imagination.
Toni Morrison said it better, if not best:
"I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game."
“Social media” is about due for a reboot (by
) and so why not approach it from a more specific and synonymous angle of “collaborative fiction”?Until then, we hope you’re enjoying the beta platform and as you begin to co-create worlds unimaginable by a single mind, just know that if you're writing half the time, you might as well be listening twice as much :)
Oh yeah, we're also getting our act together on Substack for future newsletters, writer connections, and your voices coming soon…
Equals in imagination,
Kenneth Chu
Executive Editor, Switch-Lit