What if Edgar Allen Poe Was a Blogger?

Posted on June 20, 2005

Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and his new book, Haunted ponders blogging and media freedom in an interview with Chris Atchison of Metro Toronto. Palahniuk said that when he sat down to write Haunted, he wondered what Edgar Allen Poe would have written if he had access to blogs and the media freedom that he says writers have today.

As he sat down to write the book, Palahniuk wondered if the great Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, how or what would he depict in this writings? How would he push boundaries and shock his audiences? More importantly, how would Poe address everyday horror and death given the freedoms of contemporary media?

With Haunted, the author uses a series of 23 short stories and poems, ranging from hilarious to horrifying, as the structure through which he attempts to answer those questions. "I think right now maybe the biggest unacknowledged crisis of our time is the battle for credibility," Palahniuk told Metro. "Technology has made everybody a media outlet.Everybody can have a blog or a website. So many people can get on talk radio or publish anything. It has sort of levelled the playing field for media, but at the same time destroyed credibility because now everybody has the technology to look credible and to make a real strong case and reach an audience."

"We're at a point in society where most people are educated enough to tell a really elegant, correct, accurate story," Palahniuk says. "And so those kinds of stories are not heard as well. If everybody can tell a story the right way, then the person who can tell it slightly the wrong way is going to get heard."

Rumor has it that on his book tour, when the author read one of the short stories from Haunted entitled "Guts," the audience was so grossed out that many ran for the exits. Now that's what we call getting a visceral reaction from your readers.

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