“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 latest issue of ZYZZYVA adds another dimension to the journal’s mission of spotlighting the West Coast’s best writers and artists. This Fall we present “Expats,” a selection of new work by John Freeman, Dagoberto Gilb, Edie Meidav, and Luis Alberto Urrea: authors with deep roots in the region, who have now made their homes elsewhere.
Here’s what inside:
- Fiction from Gilad Elbom (on an Israeli brother and sister getting by on vinyl records and training for a swim competition), Karl Taro Greenfeld (on a father’s unsettling surveillance of his adolescent daughter in the midst of the mortgage meltdown), Tomas Gonzalez (on a haunted man killing time at a gloomy boardwalk before his flight), and stories from R.T. Jamison and Jennie Lin.
- Poetry from Jesse Nathan, Judy Halebsky, Darin Ciccotelli, Wendy Willis, John Freeman, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Brendan Constantine, Kathlene Postma, Dan O’Brien, Ryan Ragan, and John Olivares Espinoza.
- Also in Fiction: Jane Gillette’s timely tale of the mysterious appeal of Ayn Rand, and the puzzling relationship between a newly rich Russian man and an elegant older woman from the States, Tatjana Soli’s retelling of the My Lai massacre, and introducing Brian Boies, with his affecting story of lost souls on a day trip away from the Mission District.
- Nonfiction from Dagoberto Gilb (a meditation on his “first fiction-writer role model”: a bigger-than-life, debauched man perhaps best known as the subject of a Sheryl Crow song), Edie Meidav (navigating Cuba, with family in tow and a slippery landlord lurking about), and Luis Alberto Urrea on the early job that made him a writer (you might never eat another donut).
- And featuring a portfolio from acclaimed photographer Lucas Foglia, along with the artist’s notes on the series, titled “Frontcountry,” which looks at the struggling mining, farming and ranching communities of the western United States.
Get your four-issue subscription to ZYZZYVA now and start with the Fall issue. (Copies are limited.)