Bright-eyed readers recall my prattling on about Zoetrope, the great resource for writers provided by Francis Ford Coppola. For no discernible monetary gain or fame, the director has, for nearly a decade now, supported a free website for artists of many stripes--writers, photographers, costume designers, set designers, poets, screenwriters, songwriters, film scorers, sound designers, and, although it's technically against the rules, essayists and novelists. Somewhere in the vicinity of 80,000 people around the world have signed up. But it doesn't feel that big once you join.
In exchange for posting five reviews of others' work, you can post one of yours which then goes up for critique. Members, especially the really good writers (in whose midst, of course, I am), complain from time to time about lame reviews but generally it's a jury of peers, offering excellent and generous advice.
For me, the real gift of Zoetrope has been the hallway talk. People open "offices" (read discussion boards) on topics serious and nutty. There, members can keep up on new markets for their work, gain invaluable advice on how to pitch, and buck one another up for the inevitable bad news. As I've written elsewhere (lovvve quoting myself): writers are in the rejection acceptance business.
One very big name who's erupted out of Zoetrope is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian writer whose second novel, Half a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize this year (in very good competitive company). There are others: Roger Norman Morris's The Gentle Axe got a full-page review with picture when it came out last spring in the New York Times Book Review; Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami has been a critical success with multiple translations (proud to say I co-hosted a luncheon for her when she was in Boston to promote the book); Roy Kesey, who's got a short story in Best American Short Stories 2007 and two books in two years from Dzanc; Xujun Eberlein, who's just won the Tartt First Fiction Award for Apologies Forthcoming; and, of course, Ron Currie Jr, whom I've written about here before, given his triumphant debut with God is Dead (another book party chez nous).
All of which is a very long-winded introduction to Mississippi Review's current issue, with the theme of The Extended Family, edited by Darlin' Neal, which features nearly a full cast of Zoetropers: TJ Forrester, Liesl Jobson, Girija Tropp, Kim Chinquee, Jim Ruland, Joan Wilking, Tiff Holland, and Jeff Landon. Congrats to all.
