NEW YORK ― It started with a story for a magazine. In 2008, during a trip to Japan, New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear decided to write about cellphone novels, a phenomenon ― involving young women writing largely for young women, posting fiction from their phones to media-sharing websites ― that was then shaking up Japanese publishing.

“It seemed like a great way to explore the literary culture,” she remembers, although by the time she got home, the parameters had shifted, with the effects of the global economic crisis rippling through the American book industry. “I began to wonder whether this might offer a sliver of hope for American publishers, although more interesting was the notion that these young women were creating an independent literary community. What would the features of an American version be? What would that have been like for me?”

These questions ― along with the related issue of how we engage as writers and readers in a digital culture ― reside at the heart of Figment, a literary site for teens that Goodyear and former New Yorker and Portfolio managing editor Jacob Lewis launched in December 2010. The idea is simple: to create a space for young writers to share work and get feedback, all as part of a community. “Figment,” explains Lewis, “is a user-generated platform. It’s essential that our users feel a sense of ownership.” Such a sensibility begins with the site’s slogan, which can be read as both an invitation and a gentle challenge: “Write yourself in.”

I visited Lewis on a blustery March morning in Manhattan, not long after he’d been notified that Figment would receive the Innovator’s Award at this year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prizes on April 20 at USC. As CEO, Lewis handles the day-to-day running of the operation, keeping track of an increasingly widespread network of young writers as they seek to participate in a conversation that appears quite literally to have no bounds.

It’s been a heady 15 months since Figment launched its website, and its offices reflect this; a basement floor-through in an East Side brownstone, the space is open, active and comfortably cluttered, a hive of activity, virtual and otherwise. It feels like the center of an expanding universe ― which, in fact, is what it is. In February 2011, Figment was selected as a winning start-up at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. Three months later, it received $1 million in angel funding. In December, the site marked its first anniversary by publishing a print book, words on paper: Blake Nelson’s “Dream School,” a sequel to his 1990s novel “Girl,” and a project initially developed as a Figment serial.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Lewis says over a cup of coffee as his face stretches into a grin behind a salt and pepper beard. “We have more than 200,000 users, 350,000 pieces on the site. That’s probably too much content. We add 1,000 new pieces a day.”

“Too much content” is a good problem to have, the kind that means Figment is working, that its primary message ― this is a literary outlet ― has been received. “Young writers want a place to experiment, to take a risk and get a response,” observes Goodyear, “to have that daring feeling of putting themselves out there.” Because of this, she adds, it’s key that Figment function as part of “their creative lives” ― a telling choice of phrase that suggests the credit the site gives its users, the faith that they are serious about their work. This in itself is a radical concept, in a culture that tends to think of teenagers in terms of market share.

By David L. Ulin

(Los Angeles Times)

(MCT Information Services)