Dear Reader,
Electric Literature is leaving Twitter today. Back in 2009, we made our grand entrance serializing a short story by Rick Moody, written in 180-character segments specifically for the platform. We were the first to publish a story to Twitter (three years later, The New Yorker followed suit), and the experiment was covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, Entertainment Weekly, and PBS.
Moody’s story holds up. In honor of our exodus, we’ve republished “Some Contemporary Characters,” which was previously only available in Issue No. 3 of the original Electric Literature quarterly. We will also be sharing it on Bluesky over the next few days. It’s difficult to imagine literary invention taking place on X today, let alone the media covering it. But those were the heady days of the late aughts, when social media was going to democratize the internet and put publications, politicians, and celebrities in direct conversation with their audiences.
Sixteen years later, X is a dystopian shadow of itself, a vanity project of a destructive, dangerous billionaire—and a very bad place for literature (and most everything else). As a staff, we’ve been talking about leaving for months, but as of last year, 11% of EL readers were still finding our articles there, so we opted to stick around. But when Lit Hub reached out to suggest we leave together, it was an easy invitation to accept.
Electric Literature has the luxury of making this choice because we don’t rely solely on traffic-driven advertising to fund our work. Our traffic may take a hit by ditching X, but it’s a risk we are willing to take. In 2024, 12% of our income came from advertising, and 28% came from individual donations. Members, who make regular, tax-deductible contributions, ensure Electric Literature has true editorial independence, a gift that is increasingly rare and powerful. Please consider safeguarding our freedom by becoming a member today.
I am happy for Electric Literature to outlive Twitter. You can still find us on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram, but social media is not where the future of literature lies. The best way to connect with the writers and work we publish is the “old-fashioned” way—by getting our emails and regularly visiting our home page, electricliterature.com, which is updated every weekday.
See you there,
Halimah Marcus
Executive Director, Electric Literature
