My quest for global domination continues this month with the release of Opium 6: Go Green! (But Save Me First). The sixth installment of Opium, a damn fine literary humor magazine, will feature a new piece by yours truly titled “The.” It is an obituary for Amélie Prouveaux, an avant-garde writer who decided that words were the enemy of literature. This the first Bully-esque thing I’ve written since shutting down my own magazine and it was nice to flex the humor muscles a bit. You can either hound your favorite bookshop to get your hands on Opium 6 or you can order it here.
(and now cue the Sarah McLachlan sad-sack, save-the-animals music)
But whatever you do, go out an pick up an issue. Or even better, buy a subscription. As this open letter from editor Todd Zuniga details, while Opium is now on issue six, they’re trying to keep the magazine on sound financial footing. The graveyard of literary magazines has been filling up rather quickly over the past few years and it would be shame if Opium went the way of Story, Small Spiral Notebook, and others. Keeping a non-academic literary magazine afloat is like juggling elephants on a life raft, only at least with the juggling-elephants-life-raft thing, you can assure yourself that you are saving elephants. The point is running a litmag is a thankless job.
I discovered Opium the old-fashioned way: I walked into the St. Mark’s Bookshop and was caught by the eye-catching cover design. After flipping through a few of the articles and laughing out loud in the bookstore, I was more than happy to pluck down my $10. The whole approach is inventive, the pieces are extremely well crafted, and the humor is whip-smart. How often do you actually get to laugh with a literary magazine (as opposed to at it)? So do what you can — buy an issue, buy a subscription, or send cans of food or warm blankets to the editors.
If you do, we’ll be able to film a television commercial where I cradle a sad-looking Todd Zuniga and say, “Every day, more and more literary magazines are dying. These magazines are looking for someone like… YOU. Won’t you please give.”
