Megan Boyle (born October 15, 1985) is an American writer and filmmaker.
Boyle grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and rose to prominence among the Alt Lit and internet community after writing popular articles for Thought Catalog [1] and marrying writer Tao Lin. [2] Together, Boyle and Lin created several movies for their company MDMAfilms, which they began in 2010. [3] In 2011, Lin published Boyle's poetry collection, selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee, which garnered favorable reviews. [4] [5] [6]
From 2011 to 2013, Boyle wrote a column for Vice Magazine called Boyle's Brains. [7] From March to September 2013, [8] she "liveblogged", documenting her daily activities on Tumblr; the liveblog reached 350,000 words and was called a "painfully honest and raw record of a person’s life." [9] Tyrant Books released a print edition, Liveblog, on September 27, 2018. [10] [11]
Reviewing Liveblog for Bookforum , Lauren Oyler wrote, "In subject matter, Liveblog also resembles recent novels depicting female disillusionment—among them Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation , Catherine Lacey's The Answers, and Jade Sharma's Problems. But while the narrators of these tight, polished novels speak in steady tones of sly nihilism or emptied resignation, as if their authors have dressed them in large sunglasses and T-shirts that say “Nothing Matters,” Megan desperately wants to believe something does." [12]
In a review for the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, newspaper LNP titled "'Liveblog' is a masterpiece for the social media age," Mike Andrelczyk wrote: "Boyle has written perhaps the most realistic novel ever. 'Liveblog' is a journal, a joke book, a massive playlist, a meditation on the passing of time, a book about depression, loss, love, parents, friends . . . It is a celebration of life—good, bad and boring." [13]
In The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2019, Pete Tosiello wrote: "Megan Boyle’s long-simmering autofiction experiment Liveblog left readers captivated and cowering with its lengthy portrayal of the author’s everyday exploits." [14]
Boyle has been profiled by magazines such as Nylon and Elle. [15] Critic Jacob Appel has praised her work in Necessary Fiction as "a distinctive break from the past." [16]
Boyle's work has been published in places such as 3:AM Magazine , Tyrant Books (New York Tyrant Magazine), Muumuu House, Pear Noir!, and Pop Serial.
Panda Express is an American fast food restaurant chain that specializes in American Chinese cuisine. With over 2,200 locations, it is the largest Asian-segment restaurant chain in the United States, where it was founded, and is mainly located in North America and Asia. Panda Express restaurants were traditionally located in shopping mall food courts, but the chain now operates units in many other environments and formats, including stand-alone restaurants, as well as universities, casinos, airports, military bases, amusement parks and other venues.
Alternative literature is a literary movement strongly influenced by internet culture and online publishing. It includes various forms of prose, poetry, and new media. Alt-lit is characterized by self-publication and a presence on social media networks. Alternative literature brings together people with a common interest in the online publishing world.
Helen DeWitt is an American novelist. She is the author of the novels The Last Samurai (2000) and Lightning Rods (2011) and the short story collection Some Trick (2018) and, in collaboration with the Australian journalist Ilya Gridneff, has written Your Name Here. She lives in Berlin.
Tao Lin is an American novelist, poet, essayist, short-story writer, and artist. He has published four novels, a novella, two books of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a memoir, as well as an extensive assortment of online content. His third novel, Taipei, was published by Vintage on June 4, 2013. His nonfiction book Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change was published by Vintage on May 1, 2018. His fourth novel, Leave Society, was published by Vintage on August 3, 2021.
Robert Anthony Siegel is an American writer and professor. He is the author of two novels and numerous short stories and essays, and has been recognized with O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes among other awards. He is currently an instructor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Creative Writing Department.
Richard Yates is an autobiographical novel by Tao Lin, published in 2010.
Bebe Zeva is the pseudonym of Rebeccah Hershkovitz, an American fashion blogger, model, and writer.
Dave Boyle is an American director, writer, editor, and actor. He has written and directed several movies that utilize primarily Asian or Asian-American casts, including the feature films Big Dreams Little Tokyo (2006), White on Rice (2009), Surrogate Valentine (2011), Daylight Savings (2012), and Man from Reno (2014), several of which have won awards at film festivals around the world.
ScribbleLive was a content cloud provider used by brands, sports, and media companies. It was based in Toronto.
Taipei is a 2013 novel by Tao Lin. It is his third novel.
Mira Gonzalez is an American poet. Her first collection, i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together, was published by Spencer Madsen of Sorry House press on January 31, 2013. According to Liza Darwin in Nylon magazine, Gonzalez is part of a "whole new crop of cool girl poets" whose work is "clever, totally unfiltered, and peppered with twisted insight and refreshing humor." She has been published in magazines including Vice, Hobart, and Muumuu House. In 2015, Gonzalez and Tao Lin released Selected Tweets, a collaborative double-book featuring selections from three of her Twitter accounts, as well as visual art and "extras". In 2015, the singer Lily Allen posted an image of her hand above Gonzalez's i will not be beautiful enough... book of poems, which led to speculation that the singer's marriage was on shaky ground. Gonzalez has described her writing process as follows:
I will spend hours on one sentence sometimes, and if I feel that sentence isn’t expressing exactly what I want it to express, I will delete the sentence entirely. I think it takes a lot of precision and tedious work.
Marie Calloway is an American writer. Her first book, what purpose did i serve in your life?, was published by Tyrant Books and generated controversy. Part of the volume recounts the author's romantic relationship with a married journalist who she dubbed "Adrien Brody", and is reportedly based on an actual relationship with a prominent American writer. Daniel D'Addario of Salon said the article upon which the book was based "sent shockwaves through the publishing industry".
Muumuu House is an independent, small press publishing company based in Manhattan, New York that was founded by writer Tao Lin in 2008. Muumuu House publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in print and online.
Spencer Madsen is a contemporary American poet and small press publisher. He is a Brooklyn-based contemporary writer as well as the founding editor of Sorry House, an independent publishing press in New York City. Madsen is part of a genre of independent poetry that is unique in its association with the New Sincerity movement as well as its use of social media platforms as its main source of publicity. He is described by The Fader magazine as "a writer who will, with equal enthusiasm, tweet a selfie of his butt and write the sincerest, saddest line of poetry you've ever read."
Bhaskar Sunkara is an American political writer. He is the founding editor of Jacobin, the president of The Nation, and publisher of Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and London's Tribune. He is a former vice-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality as well as a columnist for The Guardian US.
Tyrant Books is an independent book publisher based in Rome, Italy and New York, New York. It was created in 2009 by Giancarlo DiTrapano as an offshoot of New York Tyrant Magazine, which was also founded by DiTrapano, in 2006.
Lauren Oyler is an American author and critic. Her debut novel, Fake Accounts, was published in February 2021.
Leave Society is a 2021 novel by Tao Lin. It is his fourth novel, and tenth book overall.
Jordan Castro is an American writer and editor. He is the author of two books of poetry and a novel, as well as assortment of stories and essays, published in Harper's, Tin House, Muumuu House, and other magazines. He was the editor of Tyrant Books online magazine from late 2016 until it closed in 2021.