About

Writer’s Ritual

 

Joseph Campbell defines “ritual” as “participating in the myth.”  For a writer, the rite of writing is participation in the myth of mythmaking – an act that goes back millennia: from the first storytellers, shamans, bards and rhetors, the mythopoetic creators of epics and peoples, playwrights, poets, tellers of fables, fairytales, folktales, folklore, to the wordsmiths and metamagicians of the modern day.  It all began with a word.  To write is to participate in the continuing creation, revelation, and redemption of the world in, by, and through, language.  Be it a tall-tale told by your local barfly, or the self-enclosed world of words about language itself fabricated by metafictional-logo-lovers, writing is the Holy Communion.

 

The Metafictional Club is a virtual space in which writers, critics, and readers can exchange ideas on fictional narrative.  The title is a play on “The Metaphysical Club” of the late 18th century (also the novel by Louis Menand of the same name).  It is also a play on the term meta-fiction – the self-referential style of many modern and post-modern novels in which the fictional narrative consciously reflects upon itself.  Lastly, the club is primarily meant to be a place for fiction writers to discuss the various aspects of their art.