ZYZZYVASPEAKS

To Assuage Loneliness

In a Luna Digest moment on the Fictonaut blog, Luna Park editor Travis Kurowski took note of Fall/Winter: "always working to assuage loneliness." [scroll down a bit]

NaNoWriMo

We're more than half way through the 11th annual National Novel Writing Month, in which you try to write a 50,000-word novel in a month.

Last year, 120,000 writers took a shot, with 20,000 actually filling their quota.

So far this month, 1.4 billion novel-words have been uploaded.

And participants have contributed $257,357 to help the cause.

I'm particularly impressed with the suggestion that writers who are too broke to contribute money should get sponsored.

Bring the Troops Home

I recently received this e-mail from one of our troops in Iraq:

Greetting!

We are team (THREE IN NUMBER) of American troops writing from Baghdad Victory outskirts , Iraq , we are urgently seeking for your willingness to secure the below consignment. The goods consist of huge amount of money in sealed boxes.

At this moment, we have already ship these goods (money) outside Iraq for safekeeping through a very strong security company but due to law and restriction order we are unable to transport the goods to America ; the security company now shipped it to SPAIN for safety in their vault warehouse. That is the reason we are soliciting for your interest to assist us in receiving the goods on our behalf. Out of the US$29.5 million in cash, we are only ready to relinquish US$5.5 million to you if you can assist us secure this money in your country or any safe place.

We will appreciate your effort to reach us through email confirming your interest to our proposal. As soon as we receive your positive reply we will give you the contact of the trusted security company as the owner of the consignments. The only telephone access we have is radio message which is for our general use and is being monitored therefore all communication will be via email till we finish our assignment here and fly straight to your country to meet you.

Remember is very important you keep it confidential.

Thank God that the new President - Elect, Barack Obama whose keen interest is to call us back home soon.

Yours truly,
SGT.STEV OLIVER AND TEAM .

Yiyun Li's First

Yiyun Li sent me an e-mail appeal yesterday on behalf of A Public Space, whose editor had published her first story [for some of ZYZZYVA's firsts, click here]:

One of the questions I have been asked most often by aspiring writers is how I began publishing. Like many young writers, I sent stories out to literary magazines and received rejection slips back, all recorded diligently and dishearteningly in a spreadsheet.

The journey of one particular story—“Immortality,” which was the first story I wrote—especially frustrated me: for two years, it traveled around in the mail and gathered some of the kindest rejection letters I have ever received.

In the spring of 2003, I got a phone call from Brigid Hughes, then at The Paris Review, asking if “Immortality”—sent to the slush pile with a one-sentence cover letter—was still available.

The story was soon in print, and that, along with a few other pieces published in 2003, started my career—I was signed up by an agent, and at the end of the year sold my first two books.

When the story was awarded the inaugural Plimpton Prize, for a while it became the center of a controversy, as it seemed improbable that a story from the slush pile, unaccompanied by a recommendation from an established author or a series of pressing phone calls from an agent, could see itself in print.

But it is not impossible—that is my answer—if your story finds the right reader and editor....

Of course it is a business to run an independent literary magazine—a most challenging business when calamities and doom seem to be the perennial topics about the publishing industry, and universities cut budgets and close established literary magazines. It is especially crucial, at this moment, for A Public Space to receive support from readers and lovers of great literature, as it is not the business people in the business, in the end, who make a difference in nurturing young writers and curating great literature, but people who love reading and care about the future of literature.

I sincerely hope you will support A Public Space, by subscribing to the magazine, making a donation, or simply spreading the word to other readers. Thank you.

Renew Now

If you haven't renewed your subscription to ZYZZYVA, please do so now.

Or sign up from scratch.

For a real deal, however, try The New Yorker.

Although Rozanne's sub doesn't expire until 7 Feb 2011, which is like years from now, she just got an offer:

cover price: $234
her renewal: $29.95

The trick is that since subscribers are what publishers sell to advertisers, they (subscribers) are worth a lot.

And for free—that is, as a promotion to maybe lure you into subscribing—you can listen to The New Yorker fiction podcasts, which are excellent.

Lauren DiCioccio

Lauren DiCioccio's first solo, at Jack Fischer, thru 31 Dec., is thrilling. [click on images to enlarge; seriously, you can't see the magic—and fragility—of her work unless you do]

Drawing from trompe, Pop, and fabric art (as in these painted thread spools),

DiCioccio "investigates mass-produced media-objects resting on the cusp of obsolescence."

To put it another way, she "nostalgically examines the intimacy of our relationships with these objects by celebrating their familiarity through tedious handiwork."

She makes Oldenburg look like a klutz.

She does for thread what Richard Shaw does for clay, except that her gossamer transubstantiations never deceive.

They defy the potential of sewing & weaving; they deflate, aerate, reframe, and delight; they occupy a curious zone of virtuosity, somewhere between cute and pathetic.

Northern SF Art

The Northern reaches of the San Francisco art scene may be said to begin with the Paul Thiebaud Gallery on Chestnut, off Columbus; on the sidewalk outside, an inscription from an almost forgotten era: "BIRD LIVES."

At the SF Art Institute, also on Chestnut, Jeremy Morgan's life drawing class, faced with a no-show model, sketched a former, that is to say, a defunct model who had passed on. [click on image to enlarge]