Collaborative Works

A successor to Original Content.

/lit/ has produced various collaborative works, most often in the form of books or periodicals. This page particularly pertains to those that were open to outside submissions, i.e., not exclusively the work of an individual or closed group. Books by /lit/ have been collectively written via public Google Docs, with an admin who manages revisions and sometimes edits the final book for print by services such as Lulu. Periodicals and anthologies have accepted discrete submissions by emails, threads, and websites, largely without pay but publishing the works in free PDFs.

Bibliography

Books

• The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra (2014) — PDF, print
• The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra II: Miami (2015) — PDF
• The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra 3: Tokyo Drift (2015) — PDF
• Hypersphere (2015) — PDF, print
• Pictures of DFW; or, C:\Users\Anon\Pictures\DFW (2016) — print
• Dreamscape; or, My Diary Desu (2017) — PDF
• L'Anomie ou le tumulte des tapirs (2018) — PDF
• The Complete Works of God II (2018) — PDF
• Coronameron (2020) — PDF

Anthologies and periodicals

• Zine Writers Guild (ZWG) (2010)
• The April Reader (TAR) (2011-2013)
• The Metric (2013-2014)
• Pinecone (2015)
• Ideology (2015-2016)
• The Lit Quarterly (2019-2020)
• Flash Fiction Anthology (2021), a.k.a. FFA
• &amp (2021-2023, 2025)
• Magnum (2024) — PDF

Compilations

• A Short Fiction Anthology (February 2024), selected from the three FFA releases — print
• &amp: the best of issues 001-014 (November 2024) — PDF, print, site

Miscellaneous

• Moby-Dick: A /lit/ Annotated Classic (2020) — PDF, print
• Lit Writing Contest (/lwc/) fka /lit/ Short Story Writing Contest (2024-)

Unfinished works

Works that at least collected material or received submissions but never saw a true release.

• The Quagga Project (2015)
• &non (2023)
• For (you) (2024)
• The Lit Book of Cocktails (2023-2024)
• Picturesque: or, Meeting the Masters (2024)

Notable Works

The April Reader

The most prolific, publishing 30 total issues on a bi-monthly schedule, and from issue 8 onward offered a cash prize ($10 from each editor, for a total between $20 and $40) to a single author from each release. The magazine was hosted from two websites: https://www.theaprilreader.org/ between issues 11 and 16, and https://theaprilreader.wordpress.com/ from issue 17 on. The magazine had a Twitter presence since the second issue, and a Tumblr pressence since the 22nd.

The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra

Per the Lulu blurb:

/lit/ Approved Epic Fantasy

As featured in: Harold Bloom’s Shiterary Canon - The Best and Worst of Postmodernist Literature Donetsk Times Best Selling Author

An insight into the spook-conscious

Enter the toxic post-ironic internet culture of /lit/

Included in the Library of Artistic Print on Demand, with the collection being moved to the Bavarian State Library in November 2023. A series of unfinished recordings of readings from the book was made.

Hypersphere

Per the Lulu blurb:

Hypersphere, written by Anonymous with the help of the 4chan board /lit/ (of The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra fame) is an epic tale spanning over 700 pages.

A postmodern collaborative writing effort containing Slavoj Žižek erotica, top secret Donald Trump emails, poetry, repair instructions for future cars, a history of bottles in the Ottoman empire; actually, it contains everything since it takes place in the Hypersphere, and the Hypersphere is a big place; really big in fact.

Included in the Library of the Print Web,; the Museum of Modern Art Library acquired this collection in January 2017, and a copy of Hypersphere remains available there.

The Lit Quarterly

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 3

Issue 4

Issue 5

The only /lit/ magazine to offer payment for every accepted submission, at $100 each, and the only to charge for digital copies, at $5, with limited-run print copies available by inquiry. After the third release an influx of submissions from outside /lit/ began, overwhelming the editors and diluting the presence of writing from /lit/.

The Flash Fiction Anthologies

Gifts Evil and Good

Rags and Bones

Simian Deluxe

Each piece is based on a prompt in an OP, forming the titles as they appear within the anthologies, with entries coming via thread replies. Beyond adhering to a prompt, the requirements were generally:

1,000-word maximum. No porn, extreme abuse or gore, anything that would cause the book to be taken down, etc. Original fiction written for the anthology.

Posters were also encouraged to provide new prompts.

A Short Fiction Anthology (FFA compilation)

Selected from the three FFA releases, presumably by the original editor, with the original releases being removed from print. From the release thread:

Forty stories from those anthologies have been selected, re-edited, and formatted for paperback purchase at the lowest possible no-profit price. It was done because the stories are excellent and worthy of fresh publication.

The table of contents was not posted in the release thread, and the compilation is available only in print.

&amp: the best of issues 001-014

An unofficial compilation selected broadly by consensus on /lit/ following the release of &amp issues 014, organized and edited by a former submitter to the magazine. From the website:

Over fifty pieces of writing were winnowed down from the span of &amp, selected based on their calibre as well as for their representation of the magazine and the board. For their appearance in the best-of, these pieces of writing have been fully edited and re-illustrated, stripped back from their original presentation in &amp to appear here in austere greyscale.