About Opium’s Literary Death Match

“Opium’s LDM is the magic mushroom of Planet Lit.”

--Alan Black, author of Kick the Balls

Curated by Elissa Bassist in SF, and Todd Zuniga in NYC (and elsewhere).
Contact us to participate, sponsor, co-curate in your city, or simply opine.

Opium’s Literary Death Match, co-created by Opium’s founding editor, Todd Zuniga (pictured above), Elizabeth Koch & Dennis DiClaudio (also 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--either online or in print) 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. Opium and the Literary Death Match have long been passionate about inspecting new and innovative ways to present text on the page and off of it, 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.

LDM Contacts:

NYC and New Cities: Todd Zuniga

San Francisco: Elissa Bassist

Denver: Jody Reale