In the Winter Issue

“If you care about contemporary fiction, if you want to know the future of the American literary scene, you need to be reading ZYZZYVA.”—Adam Johnson

“Zyzzyva is a snouted beetle, as any dictionary kid knows. It’s a word that nearly can’t be played in Scrabble, on account of all the Z’s. But those are novelty uses. The real meaning is this superb literary journal, which has real meaning. If you want to learn the things that literature can do with language, read it.” —Ben Greenman

The newest issue of ZYZZYVA offers the same engaging mix of compelling writing and art you’ve come to expect—but with a twist. For the Winter issue, we offer a section of Noir stories (and one especially menacing and dark poem), set among the barrenness around Barstow to the suburbs of the Bay Area.

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Here’s what’s inside:

Stories about finding some truth, and a true friend, in Hollywood (Ron Carlson), on a mother looking to rid herself of all her beliefs (Vanessa Veselka), on a family man adrift in his chilly small town (Earle McCartney), on a teen boy and his father, wounded in different ways (Jennifer duBois), and about two brothers on a long walk through the fields, death on their minds (Bruce McKay).

Verse from John W. Evans, Carolyn Miller, Marci Vogel, Elyse Fenton, CM Davidson, and Jane Wong.

Rick Barot’s essay on the particular power of Giorgio Morandi’s painting “Natura Morta,” and artist Wendy MacNaughton’s pen-and-ink history of a pier in San Francisco and the neighborhood that’s formed around it.

Noir from E.G. Willy (paranoia and gangbanging settles over the old neighborhood—in the suburbs), Dawna Kemper (a woman and a baby race into the desert night, but to what end?), Andy Stewart (a petty, envious music instructor is baffled by a charming, good-hearted peer in ways he couldn’t have anticipated), and Lucas Howell (bloody treachery befalls the coyote).

And introducing Chaney Kwak—and what might be the best Christmas story you’ve read in ages (complete with over-the-top holiday decorations, furtive roadside sex, and a precocious would-be hustler).

Get your four-issue subscription to ZYZZYVA now and start with the Winter issue. (Copies are limited.)

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