Publishing the Unpublishable

What constitutes an unpublishable work? It could be many things: too long, too experimental, too dull; too exciting; it could be a work of juvenilia or a style you've long since discarded; it could be a work that falls far outside the range of what you're best known for; it could be a guilty pleasure or it could simply be that the world judges it to be awful, but you think is quite good. We've all got a folder full of things that would otherwise never see the light of day. 

Invited authors were invited to ponder to that question. The works found here are their responses, ranging from an 1018-page manuscript (unpublishable due to its length) to a volume of romantic high school poems written by a now-respected innovative poet. You get the idea. 

The web is a perfect place to test the limits of unpublishability. With no printing, design or distribution costs, we are free to explore that which would never have been feasible, economically and aesthetically. While this exercise began as an exploration and provocation, the resultant texts are unusually rich; what we once considered to be our trash may, after all, turn out to be our greatest treasure. 

The series will be concluded when the 100th manuscript is published. 

Publishing The Unpublishable
Edited by Kenneth Goldsmith
2007-present

57 titles have been published so far. For class on Thursday choose one and examine it closely. Read it if you can. What is going on? Describe it. What ideas does it engage? What's it all about? The only text that you cannot choose is no. 54. Be prepared to talk in class about your selected text.
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