<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Ryan Mazer <<a href="mailto:woodysinger@gmail.com">woodysinger@gmail.com</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">September 22, 2009 9:33:27 PM PDT</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><a href="mailto:chuck.whitney@ucr.edu">chuck.whitney@ucr.edu</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Cc: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Todd Zuniga <<a href="mailto:toddzuniga@gmail.com">toddzuniga@gmail.com</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>Opium Magazine and University of California at Riverside</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><font size="2">Hi, I'm writing on behalf of Todd Zuniga, creator of the Literary Death Match (<a href="http://www.literarydeathmatch.com/" target="_blank"><u>www.LiteraryDeathMatch.com</u></a></font><font size="2">) and editor of Opium Magazine (<a href="http://www.literarydeathmatch.com/" target="_blank"><u>www.OpiumMagazine.com</u></a></font><font size="2">), both constituents of Opium for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Todd is cc'ed on this email. I'm writing to introduce you to our unique brand of online and print publications and literary events, and hopefully Opium and the Literary Death Match—with our fresh and sometimes zany orientation toward the timeworn acts of reading and writing—could work together with your university. <br></font><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">We explain all kinds of things below, but we’re mainly interested in three things: <br></font> </p> <ol style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="1"><li><font size="2">To invite your creative writing students (and faculty) to submit to future issues of Opium and to our rotating contests (500-Word Memoir; 250-Word Bookmark; and 7-Line Story); </font></li><li><font size="2">To let you know about the Literary Death Match, and our goal to bring it to universities nationwide; </font></li><li><font size="2">and to invite your creative writing program to subscribe to Opium Magazine’s semi-annual print issue. </font></li></ol><font size="2"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br></span></font><font size="2">As for some background: Opium Magazine is a literary publication that boasts delightful design alongside wide-ranging content. The magazine's website has been updated daily since its debut in 2001, and the print magazine, designed by David Barringer, has been published semi-annually since August 2005. Featured artists include Etgar Keret, Aimee Bender, Chuck Close, Jack Handey, Daniel Handler, Tao Lin, Art Spiegelman and so many more. We've been featured in WIRED, on NPR, and in publications and Web sites around the world—specifically for the cover of Opium8, our infinity issue that featured Jonathon Keats' "longest story ever told." (We’re attaching some of the press, as well, not as a boast, but as a show that we work very hard to get Opium and its authors to as many readers as possible.) We feature one contest per issue, with judges in the past like Tom Perrotta, Andrew Sean Greer and soon: Amy Hempel. <br></font><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Also, we’re very interested in staging Opium's signature reading series, the Literary Death Match (LDM) at </font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#c42215" size="2">your university</font><font size="2">. The series is a genre-busting performative reading that features four writers (regardless of genre), three all-star judges, and a non-literary harebrained finale to decide the final winner. The event invites audiences, authors, actors and others to talk about literature, often with hilarious and joyful results. <br></font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Literary Death Matches are thrown monthly in both San Francisco and NYC, we were recently featured as part of the Bookworm Beijing Literary Festival (a smash literary hit that sold out very quickly), are annual headliners at San Francisco's Litquake Festival (where we set our attendance record of 370), will be part of the PEN World Voices Festival in 2010, and we hold the event semi-regularly in London, Chicago, Boston, Denver, and have Paris (September 23), Los Angeles (August 11), Seattle (August 12), and Washington DC and Baltimore (both November), on our schedule. In the past, readers like Tom Perrotta, Daniel Handler, Heidi Julavits, and judges like Ben Greenman of the New Yorker, Gawker's Richard Lawson, Project Runway's Chris March, 30 Rock's Scott Adsit and Moby have participated in the LDM. <br></font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">The LDM may sound like a circus—and that's half the point. I've long been passionate about inspecting new and innovative ways to present text on the page and off of it, and the most fascinating part about the LDM is how seriously attentive the audience is during each reading. We've called this the great literary ruse: an audacious and inviting title, a harebrained finale, but in-between the judging creates a relationship with the viewer as a judge themselves. Many times after the event we've heard people talk not only about if they liked/disliked a story, but the texture of the story—all to argue the point of whether it should have been selected a finalist or not. <br></font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">This effect of LDMs on audiences is perfectly in line with the goals of Opium's many projects and iterations. Our magazine's primary aim is to showcase work that makes writers and writing essential—not just to academic, literary types--but as a form of entertainment rivaling popular media. Reading as fun and fundamental. We aim to draw readers by providing an exciting and engaging frame for the writing we showcase, and we've found that our energy and enthusiasm has been greeted as a boon in each literary community we've entered. <br></font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Finally, our single issues sell for $12 (plus $2.75 for shipping), but our subscriptions (<a href="http://www.literarydeathmatch.com/" target="_blank"><u>http://shop.opiummagazine.com/main.sc;jsessionid=9C7CB2B8596628587F6D7C610E9F9B93.qscstrfrnt01</u></a></font><font size="2">) run $22 for one year, and $40 for two (a discount, plus we foot the shipping). <br></font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Thanks so much for taking time to read this novella, and I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you. <br></font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Todd Zuniga</font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Founding Editor, Opium Magazine <br> </font></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">--<br> -----<font size="2"> </font><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br></span></p><p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Check out Opium8: </span><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://www.opiummagazine.com/opium8" target="_blank">www.OpiumMagazine.com/opium8</a></p> <font size="2"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Todd Zuniga</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> @toddzuniga</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> 347.229.2443</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://www.OpiumMagazine.com" target="_blank">www.OpiumMagazine.com</a><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> <a style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="http://www.LiteraryDeathMatch.com" target="_blank">www.LiteraryDeathMatch.com</a></font> <font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" color="#888888" size="2"><br> </font></div><font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></font> </div><font size="2"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></font> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br> </div><br></blockquote></div></body></html>