Electric Literature – Single Sentence Animations

Electric Literature’s mission is to use new media and innovative distribution to return the short story to a place of prominence in popular culture.

We’re tired of hearing that literary fiction is doomed. Everywhere we look, people are reading—whether it be paperbooks, eBooks, blogs, tweets, or text messages. So, before we write the epitaph for the literary age, we thought, let’s try it this way first: select stories with a strong voice that capture our readers and lead them somewhere exciting, unexpected, and meaningful. Publish everywhere, every way: paperbacks, Kindles, iPhones, eBooks, and audiobooks. Make it inexpensive and accessible. Streamline it: just five great stories in each issue. Be entertaining without sacrificing depth. In short, create the thing we wish existed.

People of our generation—with one foot in the past and one in the future—must make sure that the media gap is bridged in a way that preserves and honors literature. We don’t want to be sentimental old folks in a world where literary fiction is only read by an esoteric few.

Single Sentence Animations are creative collaborations. The writer selects a favorite sentence from his or her work and the animator creates a short film in response. via Andy Hunter & Scott Lindenbaum, editors @ Electric Literature

Below Dustin Grella animates a sentence from “Where We Missed Was Everywhere” by Mary Otis, from Electric Literature no. 6. The sentence: “We shake as hard as we can, dancing without moving, as if the lady is coming and she’ll save us for free.”

Check out some of Electric Literature’s Single Sentence animations here.