Entropic Magazine tells stories about the collective momentum of an intellectually doomed society. We publish narrative nonfiction, graphic design and photography.
CONCEPT
The inspiration for Entropic comes from Thomas Pynchon’s short story Entropy, where Pynchon’s character Callisto restates the inevitable cosmic heat-death, predicted by thermodynamics, in social terms.
“He found in entropy or the measure of disorganization for a closed system an adequate metaphor to apply to certain phenomena in his own world. He saw, for example, the younger generation responding to Madison Avenue with the same spleen his own had once reserved for Wall Street: and in American ‘consumerism’ discovered a similar tendency from the least to the most probable, from differentiation to sameness, from ordered individuality to a kind of chaos. He found himself, in short, restating Gibbs’ prediction in social terms, and envisioned a heat-death for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would, accordingly, cease.”
In Callisto’s metaphor resides the literary realization of systems theory. Like entropy, systems theory examines seemingly isolated phenomena within a closed system of interrelated parts–biological, psychological, sociological and ecological–which together describe the consequential issues of today.
This concept informs Entropic’s stories, photos and graphics. In and of itself, Entropic is an expression of intersecting issues that call for an independent and adversarial media outlet.
WHY NARRATIVE NONFICTION?
Entropic publishes narrative nonfiction, the more dynamic cousin of generic journalism. Narrative nonfiction combines fundamental journalistic principles with literary techniques. The genre also extends beyond writing to include photography, graphic design, videography, drawing and web design.
Narrative nonfiction necessarily works for Entropic for two fundamental reasons. One, rather than reporting stories as a linear narrative, narrative nonfiction enables the writer to illustrate the systemic underpinnings informing issues. Two, while journalism attempts to mask the fact that authors have any form of bias, narrative nonfiction embraces the fact that it is written by people who are byproducts of their biopsychosocial influences.
Finally, as a subgenre of journalism, narrative nonfiction allows Entropic to hold itself to the same journalistic principles that qualify any institution as a valued source of information. When considering work for publication, we determine if the work has demonstrated the following four journalistic principles:
Does the work base information on evidence?
Does the work hold power to account?
Does the work provide helpful information?
Does the work give voice to the voiceless?
CONTRIBUTORS
Nolan Ryan Trowe
Nolan Ryan Trowe is a freelance photographer and writer based in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been a frequent contributor since helping to establish Entropic Magazine in early 2018. He has since been published in the New York Times.
Nolan Ryan Trowe
PhotographerNolan Ryan Trowe is a freelance photographer and writer based in Baltimore, Maryland.
Alyssa Monet
The creative mind behind the website’s aesthetics, Alyssa Monet creates and manages graphic content, in addition to organizing social media engagement. She is Entropic’s in-house philosopher, interested in women’s issues.
Bruce Graves
Bruce Graves is a co-founding editor and web developer at Entopic Magazine. He writes about drugs and society to provoke a more textured world view.
Entropic depends on public donations to support its contributors and operational costs. If possible, please make a donation of Bitcoin or Ethereum.
