There There Kid gets promoted in an interview

Mayra Calvani, author of The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, recently interviewed me as part of her Slippery Art of Book Reviewing series at Blogcritics.org.

The interview mainly focused on the ins and outs of what makes a good book review, but I did get a chance to plug There There Kid along the way:

You also keep a blog, There There Kid. Tell us about it.

There There Kid is a new experiment of mine that I've enjoyed putting together over the past few months. I call it a "weblog of mixed media plus cultural criticism with a literary bent" because I believe that book reviewing (and art in general) doesn't happen within a bubble - it is one way in which we try to connect the seemingly random and absurd aspects of human nature into some form of coherence. There There Kid's essays try to find connections between works of art, such as a book and a CD, that have similarities in theme. It's basically a blog that takes the cultural studies approach to literary criticism and doesn't try to partition art into different categories, which is how I've always approached my own book reviewing.

And, in reference to my work as an editor at Blogcritics:

For our Books section, we are interested in reviewers who write more than just bland plot summary or tip-of-the-iceberg analysis. The best reviews are the ones that dig deep and take on new approaches, and even though every review should give the reader a sense of what the book is like, it should also reveal new and profound insights into how the book influenced the reviewer. In my opinion, most people who read book reviews want to know more than just what happens in the book; they want to know how it all connects personally and culturally.

The same is true for what we expect at There There Kid. We are not out to promote anything in our reviews, but we do want to review the stuff that interests us.

If you're reading this blog for the first time, perhaps you'd like to join us. I've always said that this community cannot thrive without participation, and we are finally starting to see some semblance of participation here on the site.

If you want to write for There There Kid, read our submission guidelines. We're particularly interested in writers who want to write shorter reviews, as described in the submission guidelines section.