How does an up-and-coming digital literature impressario arrive for a downtown lunch?
If the destination is Mani Osteria & Bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the guest is Doug Lance, creator of eFiction Magazine, you’ll see him arrive on an orange-wheeled skateboard. Doug is 22 years old and has been living on the Internet since about the age of seven. He’s also a recent graduate of Western Michigan University and was my guest for TKC 194. For our drive from Denver to Cambridge, Mass., I arranged to meet Doug for lunch yesterday en route to our hotel here in Dearborn.
I was glad to hear that his appearance on the podcast generated some new subscriptions and that Doug is pressing ahead to expand the magazine’s reach. He will soon have subscriptions available for the Nook, which will add another good slice of digital readers. You can check out his eclectic mix of crowd-curated fiction and poetry with a free two-week Kindle subscription, which will cost $1.99 a month thereafter. I was so impressed with his project that I purchased a lifetime subscription for $100.
“You look healthy,” I told Doug as we sat down for designer pizzas at Mani’s. “I hope you are eating well and working out, so that my lifetime subscription turns out to be a good investment!” He did, in fact, look fit and lit up with his work of creating a literary magazine from scratch. Darlene took the photo of us after lunch, standing in front of the original Border’s store, now sadly closed and empty.
But as one door closes, another opens in Ann Arbor. I like to imagine looking back decades hence to memories of our lunch yesterday, to consider all that one young man with a dream and cheap transportation can accomplish in digital America.
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