[CW-Grad] Fwd: Opium Magazine and University of California at Riverside

[D Charles Whitney]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ryan Mazer <woodysinger at gmail.com>
> Date: September 22, 2009 9:33:27 PM PDT
> To: chuck.whitney at ucr.edu
> Cc: Todd Zuniga <toddzuniga at gmail.com>
> Subject: Opium Magazine and University of California at Riverside
>
> Hi, I'm writing on behalf of Todd Zuniga, creator of the Literary  
> Death Match (www.LiteraryDeathMatch.com) and editor of Opium  
> Magazine (www.OpiumMagazine.com), 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.
> We explain all kinds of things below, but we’re mainly interested  
> in three things:
>
> 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);
> To let you know about the Literary Death Match, and our goal to  
> bring it to universities nationwide;
> and to invite your creative writing program to subscribe to Opium  
> Magazine’s semi-annual print issue.
>
> 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.
> Also, we’re very interested in staging Opium's signature reading  
> series, the Literary Death Match (LDM) at your university. 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Finally, our single issues sell for $12 (plus $2.75 for shipping),  
> but our subscriptions (http://shop.opiummagazine.com/ 
> main.sc;jsessionid=9C7CB2B8596628587F6D7C610E9F9B93.qscstrfrnt01)  
> run $22 for one year, and $40 for two (a discount, plus we foot the  
> shipping).
>
> Thanks so much for taking time to read this novella, and I'm very  
> much looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> Todd Zuniga
>
> Founding Editor, Opium Magazine
>
>
>
> --
> -----
>
> Check out Opium8: www.OpiumMagazine.com/opium8
>
> Todd Zuniga
> @toddzuniga
> 347.229.2443
> www.OpiumMagazine.com
> www.LiteraryDeathMatch.com
>
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