There are two ways, theoretically, to start a blog (or Twitter account, or heck, real-life chat): in medias res, or with an introduction. Most people choose the latter. (It’s why we usually start conversations with the word “Hi.”) Who are we to buck the trend?

I’m your de facto host, Leah, Smart Pop series editor—and this is the new Smart Pop Books.

I wanted to use this inaugural entry to give you a feel for the site: what we’re aiming to be, and what kind of content we’re trying to provide.

Overview

First and foremost, you’ll find essays we’ve published in our Smart Pop series—a new free essay every day.

Over the past six years we’ve put out nearly 50 anthologies, each with an average of 18 to 20 essays—a huge amount of content.  Starting today, we’ll be putting up the full text of a new essay from one of those anthologies every day, Monday through Friday, and leaving it up for a full week before letting it disappear back into the ether. (The links will still work after that week; they’ll just take you to a shorter excerpt.)

Second, you’ll find this blog. As we go forward we’ll be blogging once or twice a week ourselves, and inviting our past Smart Pop writers to do some guest blogging.

Our goal, at least for the moment, is not to review episodes or books or movies (there are already plenty of places you can find smart people doing a fabulous job at that) so much as it is to talk about both the minutiae and the big picture—to make comparisons across series and across mediums, to talk about pop culture in a way that’s hopefully thoughtful and creative. We’ll give a peek behind the scenes of the Smart Pop series and keep you updated on books in progress.

Also, you’ll be able to browse through and search all our past Smart Pop anthologies and their essays; see what other essays writers you like have written for us; and of course, buy the books.

What You Can Look Forward To in the Next Few Months

Excerpts for all the rest of our essays. We’ve got that “BETA” up there in the header for a reason: we’re still testing things out, and getting content loaded in. But over the next few weeks, those “Essay excerpt to come!” lines will quickly start being replaced.

The ability to rate and comment on individual essays. Because what are our Smart Pop titles, really, if not a printed discussion of tv shows, books, and movies we’re passionate about? And it’s a discussion we want you to be able to join.

Links to purchase e-books and individual essays. It seems unfair to tease you with an excerpt if we aren’t going to follow through. You won’t be able to get every essay, but we’re working with our authors to make as many available as we can.

Stay in Touch!

Over on the right are plenty of ways to keep up with us:

1. Twitter and Facebook. We’ll tweet/post whenever a new essay or blog post goes up, in addition to offering book discounts, passing on links we like, and making the occasional 140 character observation of our own.
2. RSS. We’ve set up separate feeds for our essays and our blog—subscribe to either, or both.
3. Our weekly email. Every Friday we’ll send you an email with links to the essays we’ve posted over the past five days. It’s an easy way to make sure you didn’t miss anything, and since the next essay won’t go up until Monday, you have the weekend to read at your leisure.

And please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment and let us know what you think: of the site, of our books, of my sorry attempts at spicing up a long introductory post. We’re always looking for feedback!

Thanks for stopping by—hope we’ll see you again soon!

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