What constitutes an unpublishable work? It could be many things: too long, too experimental, too dull; too exciting; it could be a work of juvenilia or a style you’ve long since discarded; it could be a work that falls far outside the range of what you’re best known for; it could be a guilty pleasure or it could simply be that the world judges it to be awful, but you think is quite good.

Like Kenneth Goldsmith says: We’ve all got a folder full of things that would otherwise never see the light of day. Yes, we do!

Invited authors were invited to ponder to that question on UbuWeb.com. The works available online are their responses, ranging from an 1018-page manuscript (unpublishable due to its length) to a volume of romantic high school poems written by a now-respected innovative poet.

Publishing The Unpublishable
Edited by Kenneth Goldsmith
2007