Glad to see my alma mater USC has started a blog for their creative writing grad program — MPW, as opposed to MFA. They just love different initials.
It’s called The Gamut, and it certainly spans it — so far I’ve seen Eminem, The Muppets take Manhattan, Thoreau, Sandra Tsing Loh, and an inquiry into the linguistic origins of “blog.”
I will say, though, that the best blogs by programs or journals (e.g. institutional collectives) are guided by a singular sensibility rather than being a bric-a-brac of soapboxes.
For instance, much as I love the Ploughshares blog, sometimes the sheer variety of topics flummoxes me. Much of it seems untethered to the welter of everyday news, and more tied to personal musings on vaguely literary topics.
But defining a blog’s topic and mission comes through a few things:
- Persistance over time (you don’t figure it out right away)
- Consistency in leadership (new writers every year doesn’t provide continuity)
- A written manifesto of what shouldn’t be written about (what to avoid)
- An idea of audience (and seriously, make it narrow)
But as The Gamut is but a mere newbie on the block, I look forward to seeing how it grows. Good luck, writers, and may the blogging winds be at your backs.
2 comments
John, you make some really good points about blogs in general, not just lit journal blogs. Some blogs can get away with covering a wide range of topics, but for the most part they need to focus.
I’ve been running the blog for TriQuarterly Online, and while I would love to enlist more help, I hesitate because I don’t want to muddle the message. I’ve developed a certain voice and range of topics (mostly just the things that interest me). It seems to be working, but I also worry that I can’t keep it up forever. I guess the solution is, like you said, to have a stated plan for the blog, so that anyone else who comes on board knows the ground rules.
Matt, I think that’s the right move not to muddle the message.
The only way to enlist more help is to articulate your narrow focus extremely well to one or two other people, or to have them pitch ideas before they write it (so you can kill the off-kilter ones).
But the free-for-all some blogs practice end up leaving some blogs without an identity.