The Holiday in Cambodia project is going along quite well, I must say, but just to give it a good kick in the pants for the sake of pants-kicking, I’ve decided I’m going to match all the funds raised by the Holiday in Cambodia project. That’s right. From my own pocket. So far we’ve got something like $70. Which brings us to a grand total of $140. That’s $140 that goes to teaching young Cambodian women how to make zines. You are a simpleton if you do not think that is cool thing. So start submitting today and put me in the poor house!

We were so damn exited about the Holiday in Cambodia project that we just had to relay it to you, the public, as soon as we could. We knew you were hungry for this sort of thing, for an opportunity to save the world and tell your story all at once.

What we didn’t take into account was that everyone is very busy binge eating/drinking/working/crying/laughing/screaming/shopping to worry about a December 31st deadline for a zine. So we are extending the deadline to January 15th, 2010. Hopefully this will give you enough time to process all the fucked up shit that happened to you in these last few months and exorcise it from you consciousness in a healthy way by putting it into words on a page.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here.

Contributor Tim Jones-Yelvington was kind enough to include me on “Ten (of the) Best Indie Lit Editors of 2009,” which, of course, I’m proud to be a part of. Read my “found” bio here.

In the winter of 2007 editor, author, and activist Anne Elizabeth Moore was invited to live to Phnom Penh to teach Cambodian young women how to make zines. She plans to return December 24th to continue her ongoing project. We think this is awesome. We want to help her out and hope you do too.

Everyone has drama happening around the holidays and we all know drama makes for good stories. Send us your true stories of familial (or otherwise) conflict taking place around the holidays and we will then choose the best ones for publication in zine format entitled “Holiday in Cambodia: a Collection of Holiday Stories for a Good Cause”. There will be an open fee for submissions, meaning submitters are encouraged to send whatever they think is a fair submission fee. Could be zero dollars, could be $100. Yup, just like the Radiohead thing. This book will be available to purchase for $10 on January 31st, 2010 at annalemma.net. All proceeds from sales, as well as submission fees, will go directly to Anne’s amazing work with young Cambodian women.

UPDATE: I, Chris Heavener, hereby proclaim that I will match all funds generated by this project. Out of pocket.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Please keep the stories under 3000 words. Only one submission per person. True stories only. If you have to change names or bend the truth here and there to make for a better story then that’s cool but we don’t want any Santa’s or Frosty’s or Hanukkah Harry’s showing up to the party.

Deadline is January 15th, 2010.

SUBMISSION PROCESS: Login to Paypal.com and click the “Send Money” tab. Payment of your chosen submission fee should be sent to holiday@annalemma.net

Once paid, email your submission to holiday@annalemma.net (in Word or .rtf format) from the same email address associated with your Paypal account, or from a different account clarifying who you are and what email address the payment went through. Then kick your heels up by the fireplace, sip some eggnog and wait to hear back from us.

If you’re interested in donating directly to Anne’s project click here.

Anne Elizabeth Moore’s book, Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity (The New Press, 2007), received favorable reviews from Forbes, The LA Times, and The Guardian. Co-editor and publisher of now-defunct Punk Planet, founding editor of the popular Best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin, Moore’s work has been the subject of films, college lectures, and police investigations. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. anneelizabethmoore.com

For more information on her work in Cambodia, click here.

For more info on “Cambodian Grrl: Self Publishing in Phnom Penh”, a 36 page collection of essays concerning Moore’s previous experiences teaching a large group of young Khmer women self-publishing in Cambodia, click here.

Recently, Publisher’s Weekly released the list of best books of ’09. Recently after that, Women in Letters and Literary Arts (WILLA) raised a bit of hell that there were no lady writers in the top ten. Even more recently than that, Issue Five contributor Amelia Gray wrote a lucid essay over at the Huff Post, which sorts the whole mess out in a level-headed, thought provoking manner.

Why are there more men than women on the PW list? Simply because there are more men submitting to publishers. Read the piece here.

Thanks HTMLGiant for the heads up.

Thanks Plan59 for the image.

What have you ever sacrificed? Whatever you gave up, what was the reason? Was it worth it? What has someone sacrificed for you? Was there ever a moment in your life where you had a chance to risk your safety, your stability, everything for someone or something you believed in, and you didn’t?

The theme for Issue Six is sacrifice. We’re putting out the call for stories of people putting others before themselves, the reasons why and the ramifications of their actions.

Send in your stories of sacrifice, fiction and nonfiction. We will still be reading work not pertaining to the theme. However, any work that does not deal with the theme will be considered exclusively for online publication.

A message from our new intern!:

Dear reader, my name is Janelle Luce and I’m the newest addition to Annalemma Magazine. I’ll be reading and editing submissions. For the blog, I’ll be sharing, commenting, and giving you behind-the-scenes glimpses. I’m your gal, basically, and I’m putting it all out there, no bullshit. Some famous person once wrote that calling yourself a writer is like calling yourself a breather since it’s just something you do. So, I’m not a writer. I’m me. And I’m here for you, dear reader.

Welcome to the team Janelle!

Small press power house Matt Bell just put up the newest issue of The Collagist, an online lit quarterly. As always, Matt’s discriminating tastes yields some choice words. Personal fave: Amazing Peter by Chad Benson. Chad’s got a funny, commanding voice and shows his characters clearly and simply. Also, it contains this line: It won’t be the fanciest party, but we’re not exactly talking Fishstick Tuesday, here, either.

So, kind of a winner in my book.

From Facebook:

I’m relaying a message from eric graf and Rae, CT’s mom. CT is in a hospital and called his mom from there; eric is driving to the hospital to see CT. So this is really good news – CT is safe.

We’ll let you know more information as soon as we have it – for now, thank you thank you thank you to everyone.

Orlando people: don’t forget tonight. Stephen Elliott reads from his new memoir The Adderall Diaries at 9pm at Stardust. This event is free and open to the public. Come out! I promise you will not want to miss this!

Read the reviews:

San Francisco Chronicle

Bookslut

Time Out New York

Washington Post

Boston Globe

HTMLGIANT

Fanzine