'Slate' Dabbles in Internet Fiction

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/17/2006

It's been done before but, according to the folks at Slate, never like this. The "it" in question is Internet fiction and the online news and culture magazine is hoping to bring the genre to new heights (and new readers) with The Unbinding, a serialized novel by Walter Kirn. On Monday the site launched its first installment of the piece, which will appear in biweekly segments and is hoped to be part of a new fiction section. Dubbed by the publication as a "dark comedy set in the near future," Kirn's novel is intended to make inventive use of its format while ruminating on how the Internet shapes our culture. As such, the unfolding story is being presented as a series of found documents with links to Web sites, e-mails and other digital mediums.

According to Meghan O'Rourke, Slate's culture editor, the idea for the project had been incubating at the publication for about a year. Dedicated to presenting fiction in a way that couldn't be done in print, O'Rourke wanted to do something distinctive. "I think it's an experiment, but what we very much wanted was not to serialize something that could have appeared in, say, The Atlantic Monthly." While other authors (most famously Stephen King) have dabbled in the area, O'Rourke is hoping Slate's approach will offer readers a regular place to find serious fiction online.