GOSSIP: Week of May 19 + NEW PAID SUBSCRIBER PERK: Monthly Zooms

Introducing Zona Motel’s New Paid Subscriber Perk: Monthly Zoom Sessions

Starting this month, Zona Motel paid subscribers are invited to join exclusive Zoom sessions led by our editors and contributors. Each session will follow a unique format.

Upcoming events include:

• Close readings of poems

• Meditation and writing workshops

• Movie watch-alongs and discussions

• Publishing and book promotion workshops

• Author readings

• And more— whatever our genius Brotherhood dreams up!

Can’t make it live? All sessions will be recorded and shared with subscribers.

First Up: Mesha Maren on the Oulipo Movement

Tuesday, May 27, 12:30pm ET

Ouli Who? or Only Constraints Will Set You Free

Come spend an hour with the words of the Oulipo, a brotherhood not unlike our own, founded by poet Raymond Queneau and mathematician François Le Lionnais in 1960. The members of Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, approximately translated “Workshop for Potential Literature”) found inspiration at the intersection of mathematics, literary constraints, and the freedom to break form. As a collective, Oulipo sought both literary potential and exhaustion, meaning literature that doesn’t yet exist and literature that can be produced or attempted in exponential quantities. As Queneau described, the Oulipo were “rats who construct the labyrinth from which they plan to escape.” We will look at examples of classic Oulipo texts and try our own hand at writing constraints such as the lipogram, N+1, and others! Join Mesha to find out what literature might be, rather than what it is.

RSVP to the event here.

The Zoom info and then the recording will also be sent to the chat.

Not a paid subscriber to Zona Motel? You can change that! Paid subscribers get access to the gossip column, archives, chat, and Zoom meetings. All funds generated go directly to our authors.

~*~NOW ONTO THIS WEEK’S HOT GOSSIP~*~

U.S. bids on Harriet Armstrong’s debut. writers_life_tips. Our founder’s young love.