Big Other will soon launch a new feature for this site: #AuthorFail. This post is an invitation for you to participate.

#AuthorFail will explore the specifics of failure in writing (or other art making), rather than the other types of failures we might experience (as partners, friends, employees, etc).

If you would like to participate, please send no more than 500 words describing a project that you have started but have *not* finished, a project you consider a failure, or one you have abandoned with no current plans to revive, etc.

This feature will focus on projects that have burned substantial resources before being abandoned. In other words, this would not be the place to write about the novel you worked for on for one week and then shelved.

Also–and while we imagine this will be hard to completely avoid–this feature is not meant to present a redemption narrative.

For example, don’t do this: “I stopped on page 600 of my unreadable novel, and after years of depression, finally wrote my best-selling screed about nothing in particular.” (Yes, this is my story, but only the first bit).

Of course, you may return to your project at any time, and who knows, you too may one day unlock a horde of deathless prose from the secrets of your ribcage, but for *this feature*, focus on failure.

Oh, and don’t make it all, or even primarily, about Samuel Beckett.

Here’s what to send:

1) send your submission an an attachment, or HTML-formatted text in the body of an email: authorfail at gmail.com
2) a short bio (200-words or fewer), with any relevant links.
3) a jpeg or image of any book cover or current/recent project you wish to promote.

Note: if you have a forthcoming book or project release you wish to time with this, let me know; I will attempt to accommodate if that release happens within the timeline of #AuthorFail. This may end with the summer or proceed through the rest of 2011, so….

Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions at the above email, and we hope you will participate.