CHALLENGE! The ULA has CHALLENGED the faculty of the Yale English Department to debate the condition and future of American literature. To date, only one professor has deigned to respond, one Nigel Alderman, who set a condition: that we first read the books he designates; in other words, that we accept his premises; that we receive his indoctrination; that we THINK in roughly the same way he thinks--which would defeat the entire point. We say, meet us some place on stage, there to discuss our differences, and what we might have in common. We won't enter the encounter with preconceptions. We don't view the world through the prism of others' regurgitated opinions; opinions which have failed American literature, have placed it inside a dusty closet in the house of American culture, leaving it irrelevant to the lives of ordinary people, unable to address this society and those who lead it at a time of the imposition of Empire and of grossly mendacious political and economic games. What is the ULA? We're the hottest new literary movement in the country. We're grass roots, do-it-yourself publishers and writers who were spawned in the zeen scene of the 1990's. We've staged exciting events. We've exposed corruption in the literary world. We've stood up for writers who've been lied-to and cheated. We're bringing literature back to the populace in direct ways. We ask that those who presume to speak for literature join us in reclaiming the position of letters in this noisy society. Will any of the brilliant Yale faculty pick up the thrown gauntlet? We'll see. . . . ---King Wenclas