Smoke, ash, and an eerie light are constant reminders of the devastating fires just North of San Francisco. Our hearts go out to all those affected, and we’ll be looking for ways to help. To begin, 7×7 has a list of local relief efforts that we can contribute to, including food donations and fundraising socials, while KQED highlights ways to help animals that are affected by the Northern California wildfires. In addition, the compassionate crowdfunding site YouCare is raising funds for fire victims in the Santa Rosa community. Please feel free to share links to similar relief efforts in the Comments section. […]
Category: News
ZYZZYVA news.
Celebrate Labor Day Weekend with Our Nifty Subscription/Pins Combo
by editor
As you take time to enjoy the long weekend ahead, we’d like you to consider something that might make the barbecues and binge-watching that much more enjoyable. For only today through Tuesday, September 5, we’re shipping a free set of our brand new ZYZZYVA pins with every purchase of a subscription or a subscription renewal. You’ll be able to get the pins (stylish, no?) on our shop page soon enough. But why not get them sooner by simply renewing or subscribing to ZYZZYVA this weekend? So subscribe to ZYZZYVA and be prepared to wear those pins proudly! […]
In the Fall Issue
by ZYZZYVA
In this issue: Interview: City Lights Books bookseller Paul Yamazaki in conversation with Point Reyes Books owner Stephen Sparks about the responsibilities of bookselling (“For me, it boils down to conversation”) and the Bay Area’s literary community (“I forget sometimes how lucky we are”). Nonfiction: Jesse Nathan on the perhaps the most impressive tool behind Bob Dylan’s artistry: his singular voice. Peter Orner on the final brief moments of a couple slain on an isolated beach. Fiction: Arrival and Immigration: stories from Michael Jaime-Becerra (“¡Dale, Dale, Dale!”), E.C. Osundu (“Alien Visitors”), Christine Ma Kellems (“The Children of Dissidents”) and Greg […]
It’s Official: Zyzzyva Is the Last Word, So Let’s Celebrate with a Special Offer!
by me
What’s worth up to 73 points in Scrabble and is now officially the last word in the Oxford English Dictionary? We are! As “zyzzyva” makes its overdue arrival in the OED, recent articles from The Washington Post and USA Today are helping to spread the word as to what the word even means (a tropical weevil, of course, as our readers already know), but also shed some light on why a San Francisco literary journal in 1985 would have chosen the word for its name. As the Oxford English Dictionary’s blog notes, “[The word] Zyzzyva owes much of its currency […]
In the Spring Issue
by ZYZZYVA
In this issue: Interview: Acclaimed poet and critic W.S. Di Piero in conversation: on Shakespeare, the art of translation (the translator inhabits “The house of a language, an imagination, a culture.”), and on being a good citizen. Nonfiction: Sallie Tisdale’s essay “The Hinge”: “My worst regrets,” she writes, “are not big and dramatic; they are as tiny and sharp as glass ground into my palm.” Fiction: Nick Lane’s “So You’re Thinking of Becoming a Despot”: It’s easier than you think (and it’s a great way of getting that one village girl to finally notice you). Louis B. Jones’ “Ever Since […]
Home Story Delivery Service
by Regan McMahon
On a cool weekday night, I rushed home from my job in San Francisco to my Oakland bungalow to quickly arrange chairs and put out cookies and wine before the guests arrived. They weren’t coming to see me, but rather were going to be there for a reading by an author/actor they had heard me rave about. I copyedited John Mercer’s 2013 collection of memoir pieces, Swearing in English: Tall Tales from Shotgun (a reference to Shotgun Players, the Berkeley theater company he belonged to for 10 years), and his second, The Long Arm of Lunacy: More Swearing in English, […]
Notes on the First 30 Days
by Laura Cogan
On the morning of Inauguration Day, I met up with a friend in midtown Manhattan, where we rented a car and set out for Washington, D.C. Our plan was to make the drive before nightfall, have a quick dinner, finish making our signs, and get a good night’s rest before the Women’s March. Not only was it less expensive to rent a car than to fly or take a train, but our road-trip had the added benefit of keeping us away from TV all day—a serendipitous media blackout for which we were both grateful. We didn’t turn on the radio, […]
‘Three Wishes’ by Rolf Yngve, ZYZZYVA No. 108, Winter Issue
by me
Rolf Yngve’s short fiction has recently appeared in Kenyon Review, Fifth Wednesday, Glimmer Train, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Coronado, California. His somewhat holiday-themed story—a lone traveller driving along snowy roads—”Three Wishes” appears in the new issue of ZYZZYVA.
In “Three Wishes,” the aforementioned traveller stops to pick up a stranded motorist and her dog. As they drive along, the protagonists’s cell phone may or may not be guiding the trio in ways beyond simply giving directions. The following is an excerpt, but you can read the story in its entirety by getting a copy here.
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‘The Urban Forest’ by Ella Martinsen Gorham, ZYZZYVA No. 108, Winter Issue
by me
Ella Martinsen Gorham is writer in Los Angeles and is at work on a collection of stories. “The Urban Forest,” which appears in the new issue of ZYZZYVA, is her first work in print.
Dan, the protagonist, is a young single man who tries to keep his life as orderly as possible. His efforts to stay in control are challenged when he buys a house and realizes the tree that comes with it constantly splatters his property with “rank-smelling berries.” The huge tree is also home to the neighborhood’s feral parrots. The following in an excerpt of “The Urban Forest.” You can read it in its entirety in Issue No. 108, which you can get here. (Ella Martinsen Gorham will also be reading with Matthew Zapruder, Kathleen Alcott, and Scott O’Connor at ZYZZYVA’s Winter Issue Celebration at Diesel in Oakland on Thursday, January 26.)
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‘Flood Control’ by Rebecca Thomas, ZYZZYVA No. 108, Winter Issue
by me
Rebecca Thomas, who is currently working on a novel, has had her work appear in Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Gulf Stream and other publications. Her essay, “Flood Control,” appears in the new issue of ZYZZYVA.
An English instructor at West Virginia University, Thomas grew up in Orange County. Though known as a region afflicted by drought, Southern California has long had to contended with deluge, too. “Flood Control” is Thomas’s examination—personal and historical—of a place’s fraught relationship with water. The following in an excerpt but you can read the essay in its entirety by getting a copy here.
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Letter From the Editor
by Laura Cogan
The following Letter from the Editor appears in the Winter issue. It was originally written a few days before Election Day. “What is essential is the intense presence of the viewer in the intense presence of the art.”—Edward Albee Dear Readers, For eight years I lived in New York, and during that time I took in a reasonable amount of theater, on, off, and off-off Broadway, whenever and wherever I could get tickets. There was, as you can imagine, a great deal of serious and experimental work to choose from, which was particularly fortuitous because my graduate work was in part […]
Donald Trump Reviews Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’
by Andrew David King
Stars: 10/10 Bergman. You know, people said he wasn’t as good as Dreyer. They said it. They said he couldn’t do it. He did it, though. He really went and did it. I mean, people are worried about death. Capital-D Death. They want answers, they’re dying, they’re not happy. So this guy, big handsome-looking Norwegian guy, European guy, you know, he plays chess with Death. Death doesn’t know what to do, he’s like, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” It’s true, folks. Never before—no one’s ever seen this before. They keep playing, they’re on a beach, it’s great. There’s […]