A new chapter for ZYZZYVA

by ZYZZYVA

Dear ZYZZYVA readers, After more than a decade as editor, Laura Cogan is handing over the duties of her role to Oscar Villalon, the journal’s managing editor. Laura will stay on as editor at large. Oscar is now only the journal’s third editor since its founding in 1985. During Laura’s tenure, work published in the journal was regularly acknowledged and reprinted in the Best American series and in the Pushcart Prize and O. Henry Prize anthologies. ZYZZYVA was also awarded the Council of Literary Magazine and Presses’ Firecracker Award in 2019 for Best Magazine, General Excellence, and in 2022 was […]

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Announcing our next Writers’ Workshop: Lori Ostlund on 3rd-Person Close Perspective

by ZYZZYVA

We’re pleased to announce our next Writers’ Workshop: Lori Ostlund on 3rd-Person Close Perspective. This Zoom-based Writers’ Workshop will take place on April 22nd from 11am to 2pm PST. Purchase your ticket today (and please feel free to spread the word to any of your writer friends!). “I’ve found that often people think that 3rd-close is just a variation on 1st-person, or that widening the distance from the character means that the narrator becomes invisible or neutral, even bland,” says instructor Lori Ostlund, “but I think of 3rd-person close as a way to have the best of both worlds: to […]

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Watch our City Lights Bookstore Event for Issue 123: The Poetry Issue

by ZYZZYVA Staff

In case you missed it: you can now watch our recent remote event celebrating the release of Issue 123, our Poetry Issue, with iconic San Francisco bookstore City Lights! Enjoy readings by contributors Maggie Millner, Victoria, Adukwei Bulley, Ruth Madievsky, Chris Carosi, and Joan Baranow. The event was emceed by Zyzzyva’s Managing Editor, Oscar Villalon. You can watch it via the embedded video below. […]

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Deadline Approaching for our next Workshop: Writing Across Cultures with Vanessa Hua

by ZYZZYVA

Our next remote Writers’ Workshop is Writing Across Cultures with Vanessa Hua on September 17th, 2022. (11am to 2pm PST via ZOOM). The deadline to purchase a ticket is September 15th. “Can I write about that?” The question of cultural appropriation is a complicated one, and so too its answers. In this discussion-based Writers’ Workshop, students will examine strategies for researching and portraying lives unlike our own, that reflect social and historical context and the fullness of a character’s humanity. Students will work on writing exercises and discuss texts by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Toni Morrison, Elaine Castillo, among others, along with […]

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Watch Our Booksmith Event for Issue 123: The Poetry Issue

by ZYZZYVA Staff

In case you missed it: you can now watch our recorded live event with The Booksmith from last week! This event celebrated the launch of Issue 123, the Poetry Issue. Enjoy readings by contributors Colin Winnette, Heather Altfeld, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Troy Jollimore, and Victoria Chang. The event was emceed by Zyzzyva’s Managing Editor, Oscar Villalon. You can watch it via the embedded video below. […]

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The Whiting Literary Magazine Prize

by ZYZZYVA Staff

Dear Readers, We are elated to announce that ZYZZYVA has received the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The Prize is a major validation of the journal’s decades-long work to showcase the most exciting poets, writers, and artists from our home region, as well as from across the country and beyond. “ZYZZYVA has for years been a shepherd to a capacious community of West Coast writers,” the judges’s citation states. “Masterfully edited and sharply cerebral, this place-based journal dazzles readers with formal innovation and an appetite for adventure, diving deeply into its regionality while ushering the world onto its pages. As a […]

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Watch our Booksmith Virtual Event for Issue 120: The Technology Issue

by ZYZZYVA Staff

In case you missed it: you can now watch our Virtual Reading event with The Booksmith from last week! This event celebrated the launch of Issue 120, the Technology Issue. Enjoy readings by contributors Juhea Kim, Troy Jollimore, Lee Conell, and William Brewer, and a reading by Alex Torres of Anthony Veasna So’s story “Generational Differences,” which also appears in the issue. The event was emceed by Zyzzyva’s Managing Editor, Oscar Villalon. You can watch it via the embedded video below. […]

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The Golden State Bundle, Now Available

by ZYZZYVA

ZYZZYVA Golden State Bundle: No. 117 & No. 119

Within the realm of literature, there is no need to choose one region over the other. Get the Bay Area Issue and the Los Angeles Issue in our Golden State Bundle and enjoy the work of some of the best poets and writers that California has to offer. Together, the issues in the Golden State Bundle boast many of the West Coast’s finest writers, with fiction by Charlie Jane Anders, Jonathan Escoffery, Rita Bullwinkel, Michelle Latiolais, Chia-Chia Lin, Perry Janes, Ingrid Rojas Contreras; essays by Tom Bissell, Lydia Kiesling, and Wendy C. Ortiz; poetry by sam sax, Victoria Chang, Meg […]

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The L.A. Issue

by ZYZZYVA

ZYZZYVA Volume 36, #2, Fall–Winter 2020 (No. 119) - Day and Night Versions

The L.A. Issue. Fiction: Ray Bradbury, Siel Ju, Jonathan Escoffery, Perry Janes, Francisco González, Andrés Reconco, Kathleen Mackay, and Michelle Latiolais. Nonfiction: A. Kendra Greene, Wendy C. Ortiz, Steve Ryfle, and David L. Ulin. Interview: Steve Ryfle talks to the late Wanda Coleman. Poetry: Victoria Chang, David Hernandez, Genevieve Kaplan, Douglas Manuel, Dan Murphy, and Mary Otis. Art: Henry Lara. You can purchase a copy of No. 119 here, or order a subscription to ZYZZYVA now. […]

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