Literary Death Match

I will be partaking in the upcoming Literary Death Match Event in Dublin. For those of you not familiar with it have a read (taken from the website).

otherwise get your purchase on : Literary Death Match Dublin, 24th June 2011.


About Literary Death Match “Literary Death Match is the magic mushroom of Planet Lit.”
--Alan Black, author of Kick the Balls

Curated by Todd Zuniga, Alia Volz & M.G. Martin (SF),
Suzanne Azzopardi (London) and Ann Heatherington (NYC).
Contact us to participate, sponsor, co-curate in your city, or simply opine.

Literary Death Match, co-created by Opium’s founding editor, Todd Zuniga (pictured above), marries the literary and performative aspects of Def Poetry Jam, rapier-witted quips of American Idol’s judging (without any meanness), and the ridiculousness and hilarity of Double Dare.

Each episode of this competitive, humor-centric reading series features a thrilling mix of four famous and emerging authors (all representing a literary publication, press or concern — online, in print or live) who perform their most electric writing in seven minutes or less before a lively audience and a panel of three all-star judges. After each pair of readings, the judges — focused on literary merit, performance and intangibles — take turns spouting hilarious, off-the-wall commentary about each story, then select their favorite to advance to the finals.

The two finalists then compete in the Literary Death Match finale, which trades in the show’s literary sensibility for an absurd and comical climax to determine who takes home the Literary Death Match crown.

It may sound like a circus — and that's half the point. Literary Death Match is passionate about inspecting new and innovative ways to present text off the page, and the most fascinating part about the LDM is how seriously attentive the audience is during each reading. We've called this the great literary ruse: an audacious and inviting title, a harebrained finale, but in-between the judging creates a relationship with the viewer as a judge themselves.

Our ultimate goal is to perform the Literary Death Match all over the world, and to continue to showcase literature as a brilliant, unstoppable medium.