January 15, 2010 is the launch date of Grassroots Literature, an iPhone app designed to bring short fiction, poetry and articles to the masses.

The seeds of this idea came to me back in October 2008 when my husband who was launching a series of travel apps on a whim created a (free) app that featured a couple of my stories. The app was entitled, Spice and was one of the first literary apps out in the App Store. In the span of a year Spice got 30,000 downloads. We are currently up to approximately 40,000 downloads. Bear in mind this was with absolutely no marketing or advertising at all.

I still did not realize the significance of this until June 2009 when I was invited to be a panelist at the Kriti Writing Festival in Chicago (where I was participating in the marketing panel).  We were discussing using online tools to market yourself. The reaction of the panelists and audience to the concept of app based literature and the breadth of its reach was my first real clue that I was really on to something.

It was not until August 2009 with the support of both friends and colleagues did I endeavor to start this project, send out a call for submission and start putting together the fist couple issues of Grassroots Literature.  The debut issue of Grassroots Literature will finally be released on January 15.