Requiem for a Blog
This is the last official post for Niggerati Manor. As of today, I am ending the niggeratimanor.com run.
I started this blog last year for several reasons: I wanted to explore issues of African American literature in an environment unlike the predominantly white one I was teaching the subject in, I wanted to explore the idea of an online community, I was on sabbatical and had the time. Since then, my life has changed rather dramatically: I no longer live in the isolated Hudson Valley, I'm teaching at one of the most vibrant MFA programs in the country, and my personal life needs more of my focus in this period of transition.
It was my hope to put myself out there online as a lure to talk about lit issues, not to use lit issues as a lure to talk about me. My posts have moved slowly away from literary concerns and more towards personal essay, and that tells me it's time to call it quits. I don't want to be one of those literary opportunists who spends more time promoting themselves than creating work worth talking about. So I'm off to write more books.
Overall, it's been a successful experiment. When I first started I was ecstatic to get 17 visits a day, and almost 100 in the first week. Now the site averages 273 hits a day, with over 31,000 unique hits to the blog alone this year.
I don't think blogs should be forever, rather that you come, you explore a theme, and then when you get what you need from it you move on. I did about as much writing and thinking about this blog as I would have on a novel, and that's about as much as I can give. I doubt this will be my last blog in the years ahead; I'm looking forward to coming back to the form as a veteran when the feeling hits. I wasn't kidding about my idea for a black lit fiction site, and hope to get that going with other people writing and editing that sometime in the future. I already have plans for another personal blog as well, a mulatto themed blog which I'll probably get up in 2009. I'll put a link for that here if it happens.
Thank you for coming along with me, for sharing your ideas and thoughts. I will put up a Book Tour section on the main site. I should have books out in 2008, 2009 and beyond and would love to meet you in person then.
I'm Out Like Jean Toomer.
Peace,
Mat Johnson
September 9, 2007
Old Sixth Ward
Houston, TX
posted by Mat Johnson at 10:05 AM
18 Comments:
Are you really shutting down this blog because your anonymous admirer figured out that you're secretly gay?
Thank you for giving, for sharing so much of your self, MJ. With or without Niggerati Manor, I'm with you in the struggle to end the conspiracy of black mediocrity. You've taught me so much, not just about writing, but that there's far more than one microsopic way to see the world.
Cheers!
ahh! i just got here too! but understood, understood. hope to see you back around some time.
So very sorry to see you go! Hope that the archives will still be available. Very best wishes to you and yours...I've had a great time being one of your regular visitors
Enjoyed it, brother. Looking forward to the lit site down the road.
missing you already. all the best and i, along w/everyone else, will be waiting for more of your work. thanks much.
Well, you will be missed. But welcome to my neck of the woods!
NiggeratiManor, I hardly knew ye...
Seriously, Mat, cyber-meeting Meera led me to your blog which led me to Hurston-Wright which led to...well, many great things now and yet to come.
Asante sana!!!!!
...and all the best,
~Deesha
This post has been removed by the author.
So sorry to see you go.
Shedding real tears...Say it ain't so, Mat. Say it ain't so.
Aw, damn! I've truly enjoyed the blog, Mat. It's one of the few places in the blogosphere--or elsewhere, for that matter--that I've found interesting, provocative, and informative. Good luck and skill with your books! I look forward to reading them, and to your eventual return to the blog.
Darryl
Mat, this is your secret admirer.
I was just joking when I said
that. Sorry to see you go!
You are a VERY talented writer
and I know now who Victor is.
Victor is Victor LaValle who
wrote Slapboxing with Jesus,
which I'm reading now. Kind
of reminds me of Junot Diaz.
Don't forget to write that
book on writing called
The Niggarati Writer!
I have really enjoyed your blog and will miss it.
Good luck with your new teaching position.
bummer. i'll miss your blog. it was refreshing.
good luck.
drew
Tis a sad day in the blogosphere, however, I understand, as I too have brought an end to InkNoire to finally complete all the other creative projects that have been pending for the last two years. Sigh!
You were one of my original links. I'm glad to have read you. I hope to one day meet you on book tour or something.
Peace my brother.
Mat I would never have met you if it weren't for your blog. Wait a minute, I still haven't met you. Who knows when our paths will cross (I'm on a panel at AWP 08) and there's that thing you wrote me about, but I will miss your online presence. I understand though. I'm committed to writing my blog for a while—well at least until I get all I need to get off my chest, but I do believe that blogs likes ours are for a reason or a purpose and if we are doing things right, we one day grow beyond it. That's not a bad thing even though it's an ending. E-mail me your digits, man.
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