GOW Archives: The Typist Manifesto by Tim Hall

Editor’s Note: This manifesto has been circulating the world wide web for over three years now.  I believe that it sums up the underground better than any other single piece of writing.  In other words, if someone asks what underground internet writing is like these days, it would be a good idea to direct them to this manifesto…

Excerpts from “The Typist Manifesto”:

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.” -Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac

Typism believes that literary fiction can be more powerful than bombs, but in the wrong hands it’s merely deadly

Typism does not believe genre is the answer

Typism is spontaneous

Typism is not “automatic writing”

Typism has worked through its influences and come out on the other side

Typism does not follow trends

Typism always swings for the fences

Typism is not high-brow or low-brow; it’s unibrow

Typism has met and killed the Buddha

Typism does not want to read your memoir

Typism thinks that persons are interesting, but personas are boring

Typism sees the explosion of weblogs, online journals, print on demand and other self-publishing venues as nothing less than miraculous

Typism respects any individual who is willing to tell it like it is

Typism was not your idea

You did not think of Typism first

Typism puts its money where its mouth is

Typism is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and the entire month of August

Typism believes that typing, like writing, makes people into better human beings: more engaged with their thoughts, more likely to question authority, better able to reality-test the world around them, more likely to become better neighbors

Typism is a calling, not a career choice

Typism is not anti-formalism, but anti-trickery

Typism does not flap its arms, but wonders why so many characters in literary novels do

Typism is not a consensus

Typism is willing to have no friends, if necessary

Typism knows that your cynical sneer is not a sign of intelligence, but fear

Typism is all for the Johnsons, and entirely against the Shits

Typism believes that Jack Kerouac was a Johnson, and Truman Capote was a Shit

Typism believes the course of literature over the past decade has been almost entirely directed by Shits, and not nearly enough by Johnsons.

Typism does not willfully misrepresent itself or its work

Typism is fine just the way it is

Typism believes that writers must be the conscience of the culture

Typism is all for fun and games, and experimentation in literature, except for that which only serves to promote the author and not the art form

Typism wants more type, less hype

Typism does not believe the blurbs on your dustjacket

Typism believes most literary agents would be just as happy in real estate

A Brief History of Tim Hall:

Born Gramercy Park section of New York City, 1966; moved to Long Island at age 3; graduated from public high school and attended University of Chicago; left after 2 years and moved back to NY; played in hard rock bands on the lower east side and lived in Hoboken, NJ; quit music and returned to writing; moved to Brooklyn in 1992 and became editor and creative director, NY Hangover, 1995-1999; freelance journalist, 1999-present; editor-at-large, BIGnews, 2002-2004; contributing writer, NY Press, 2000-2004; founder, Undie Press, 2004-present; currently hiding out in a remote suburb of Chicago and learning how to shoot, hunt, fish, and make taco dip.