Red Bank site seeks to stimulate scribes
Web site collects
memories, stories
of Red Bank
By rachel van kirk
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY Jackie Corley is the Web maven behind www.redbankstories.com, a new site dedicated to fostering Red Bank’s literary scene.

ackie Corley is a webmaster, an editor, a writer, and, in her spare time, is finishing her undergraduate degree in English at Haverford College, Pa.

Those activities, however, haven’t prevented the Middletown native from starting up a new Web venture, this one with a local connection: www.redbankstories. com.

Corley, who sees Red Bank as a town with a "burgeoning arts scene," said that she had started the Web site with the intent to add a literary component to that scene. "It (the site) is an attempt to create something cohesive, to jump-start the literary scene" of Red Bank, Corley said.

"There are a lot of stories people have about Red Bank," Corley said. "I thought it would be nice to put them all together."

Redbankstories.com centers around a map of the Red Bank downtown. As users move their mouse-pointers over the map, links to stories about particular locations pop up.

The site itself is modeled after one created for New York City, www.mrbellersneighborhood.com. Like its New York counterpart, redbankstories.com centers around a map — in this case, of the Red Bank downtown. As users move their mouse-pointers to a particular place on the map — Broad Street, Marine Park, or Riverview Medical Center, for example — links to stories associated with that place pop up.

There’s also a formal "links" page, which lists other Red Bank-related sites, and an "About" page, which explains the mission of redbankstories.com. Visitors to the site are also invited to contact Corley and to submit their own stories for publication on the site.

Corley said that she welcomes first-time authors, especially young people, to submit their work.

"It’s good to get people out and get people published," she said.

She added that she considers encouragement of budding authors as one of the primary goals of redbankstories.com. In doing so, Corley said, she hopes to counteract some common myths about writing.

"I think there’s a tendency to see writing as some kind of magical thing that just happens, instead of something you have to work at," Corley said. "Literature is sometimes seen as a sort of ‘higher culture’ that supposedly doesn’t have as many loose edges. Especially with the online scene, though, I’m finding a lot of punk rock attitude toward literature that’s really interesting."

She also said that she sees the Web site as a kind of meeting place for Red Bankers who might not be able to identify with many of the new, more expensive businesses that have moved into town, many of which, she said, do not cater to a younger audience.

"I feel like many of the young people, the 15- to 16-year-olds who helped make the Red Bank arts scene, are being chased away," Corley said. She pointed out that some of outlets for youth expression, such as open mic sessions, have been canceled or the businesses that hosted them have closed. She said that she hopes that redbankstories.com will help to give local teens an outlet for creative expression.

So far, Corley said, response to the site, which was launched in August, has been slow. She added, however, that the lack of response can mostly be attributed to a lack of publicity.

Aside from a story on another Red Bank Web site, www.redbank.com, which garnered "about 10" responses for redbankstories.com, Corley said that there hasn’t been much publicity for the site.

"I’m still figuring a lot of this publicity stuff out," she said.

Plus, she said, the fact that the site is so locally centered means that the anonymity of the Internet, which may be comforting to some first-time authors, is no longer present. Corley said that she often knows the contributor or can expect to meet them in person. Plus, she pointed out, people who know the author may go to the site and read that person’s work, which can be a frightening prospect for new writers.

"A lot of the high school students who contribute to the site don’t want to reveal their real names," Corley said.

Corley added that the specificity of the site, as dealing with people who have had experiences having to do with Red Bank, also limited participation.

Redbankstories.com is not Corley’s only online venture. Besides creating and managing her own Web site, www.crazyjackie.com, she’s also the fiction editor of an online literary site, www.wordriot.org. In conjunction with her work there, she’s helping oversee the creation of a small, independent press, Word Riot Press.

Ultimately, she said, she hopes for a collection of selected stories from redbankstories.com to be published by Word Riot Press.

Corley herself has been writing since she was 15. She is currently at work on a novel, Foster O’Reilly, which she started her freshman year of college. Her work has been published online at serialtext.com and at wordriot.org.

Of her experience with online literature, Corley said, "Online publications are a lot more willing to take risks; they are independently run and don’t really have to hold back. They’re definitely edgier. They provide a way for authors to get introduced to big presses."

She believes online literature can be more interesting than that produced from well-known publishing companies because online literature "challenges stuff. It’s what people will be reading 20 years from now. James Joyce self-published; Walt Whitman self-published. It inspires me to try to get people out there."