ABOUT

Sign up above, and stay up to date on all of LPZ's goings-on, plus possible chats, workshops, and other interactivity—now, isn't that a pleasant, plump, and healthy new media carrot to dangle in front of you? C'mon, sign up! We won't bug you that often!

Click here for a link to a reprint-excerpt Amy Reiter's Nothing Personal column's mention of LPZ #5 on Salon.com.

Click here for the press release announcing publication of LPZ #5.

In the beginning, a burning bush appeared to Mike Neff, editor and publisher at Web Del Sol. He'd had a long day, scouring the web for poems that were actually good, stories or scenes that strayed from the formatic middle class boilerplate.

He wasn't surprised by the burning bush. It had been out there the previous week, convening with Klansman and having a general colloquia on front yard pyrotecnics. Nonetheless, on this day, Mike Neff took a deep breath, and looked outside his window in Virginia, and the bush spake to him.

"Mike," the bush said.

"Yes," Mike replied.

"Mike, I have an idea," the bush said. "We need to have another webzine, one with a mascot of a guy who looks like he's from a new wave band, such as Gene Loves Jezebel, a guy who wears a checkerboard top hat and looks vaguely French. This mascot will never look at you—instead, he will only show you the top of his hat, pouting a bit, showing off his new wave lipstick." The accent will be wrong on the letter A on the first splash page, prompting French teachers from around the world to send well-meaning messages to change it.

Time passed, and, with a few more flickers of the bush, the contracts were hammered out, the .jpg computer image of the pouty, top hat-wearing new wave guy was found, and another web-based literary mag was born. And Mike saw that it was good.

Various messages were sent in: this time, instead of the Toni Basil lookalike, we should have a graphic that is a younger brother of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Sixth Day. Both graphics will break the fourth wall, staring right at the reader as he or she peruses each issue, as if to say, "Is this any good? Should this person have gotten an MFA, or is this drivel, an indulgence?"

The yellow-and-orange color scheme came later, with the pagan holiday of hallow's eve as the inspiration this time, and with the bush's approval, the colors were adopted.

Five issues later, La Petite Zine is still going strong, keeping alive the notion that writing can be immediate, mystical, cheeky, high-maintenance, life-changing, and full of whimsy. And unafraid to break the fourth wall.

But enough of our yakkin'. Let's boogie!