Lazuli Literary Group
home of Otherworld Realism

​Lazuli Literary Group is a platform dedicated to fostering the delight of the literary imagination. It began in 2015 with AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought, a project conceived with the goal of supporting a literary genre that is under-represented in the esteemed literary journals of our day: otherworld realism. We coined this term to describe a genre adjacent to but distinct from magical realism. Otherworld realism shows us the known, often mundane world in an elevated or defamiliarizing way through the use of linguistic craft, innovative language, or experimental structure. Our tastes skew towards the Woolfian, the Dickensian, and the Borgesian--dense, philosophical, lyrical, and fanciful craft-conscious creations.

In the years since AZURE launched, we have evolved into a full-fledged literary group with a small publishing press, writing contests, and literary courses, along with our online/print literary journal, AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought. For more about Lazuli’s aesthetic and philosophy, click here. For more about our founders and staff, click here.

Lazuli Literary Group Writing Contest

​$500 + publication in AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought

AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought
(a project of Lazuli Literary Group)

Currently online: Volume Eight

We will continue to post pieces from Volume 8 as they become available, so please check back, or subscribe (for free) to receive the works in your inbox along with relevant suggested reading!

otherworld realism
[uhth -er-wurld] [ree-uh-liz-uh m]
​
noun
  1. a style of literature devoted to intellectual and imaginative pursuits that point towards a potential, evolved reality.
  2. a genre that represents the known, often mundane world in an elevated or defamiliarising way through the use of linguistic craft, innovative language, or experimental structure; contrast with magical realism, which integrates choice plot elements into a conventionally accepted reality.
  3. art and literature that evokes the space before clarity in which one must navigate the logic of intuition and instinct, alongside the duplicity of fact.
  4. an approach illuminating a psychic space of process; a space of ambiguity, silence, and internal struggle.
  5. the pre-dawn.

Word Origin
2017; coined by Lazuli Literary Group; first appearing in AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought, Volume One. ​

Introducing the...
​
Lazuli Reading Series
A Curated Reading Experience

Each Lazuli Reading Series book pairs one contemporary work with carefully curated pieces of classic literature that enhance the flavor, texture, and emotional resonance of the feature work; the aim is to offer an alternative to the prevailing convention that non-fiction scholarly texts are the only worthy appendices to a work of poetry or fiction. We are excited to announce that the first book in this series is now available for purchase!
Read Laylage Courie's poetic drama Intimate Things alongside classic pieces that inform the traditions among which it lives. Medieval, Renaissance, and Modernist writings weave a glittering firefly net--a ripe imaginative palate for Courie's meditation on the legendary romance of Heloise and Abelard. Includes select literary pairings curated by Lazuli Literary Group drawn from the writings of Judith Madan, William Shakespeare, W.H. Auden, Oscar Wilde, Aphra Behn, Alexander Pope, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Chidiock Tichborne, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Wallace Stevens, and W.B. Yeats.​
Support us for free!

Signing up for our free newsletter gives us your silent nod of support, which makes both us and our writers feel good. They like to know that there are a substantial number of eyes looking at the work they have so tirelessly created, and we take heart in knowing that all the time we invest in Lazuli means something to somebody.

​Keeping intelligent and delightfully experimental literature afloat is very important to us, and we appreciate your support! 

Help us build a literary village WITHOUT social media

We don't post much--and we don't plan to. Although the path feels narrower and narrower, we do believe an alternative still exists. We would like for people to come to know of us through word-of-mouth: the organic, individualized transmission of our journal from those who have been meaningfully affected by it to those who might be. It is our ironclad belief our writers are talented and the quality of their work is its own advertisement—if we at least did not think so, we certainly wouldn’t have published it.

  • You can help by discussing (in-person) or forwarding links (free!) to AZURE stories that either meant something profound to you or gave you a hearty chuckle. 
  • You can keep a print copy of AZURE on your coffee table for your guests to flip through and discuss on the spot. Perhaps you can meet for one Sunday morning every year to discuss the new volume over brunch & lattes…
  • If they strike you as worthy of thought, you can use AZURE stories for your workshops, classes, or book clubs. Almost all of our stories are available for free online.
  • If your finances allow, we’d love for you to buy our print volumes, as we consider those our true art objects.
  • We humbly entreat you to subscribe to our Substack newsletter. We don’t send too many emails, but this is a way of showing that you are part of our “circulation number” and provides us a silent nod of support. Simply put, it makes us feel really good that all our efforts are not being subsumed into a black hole.
Subscribe to our free newsletter to receive AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought and other literary things in your inbox. 
© Lazuli Literary Group 2025  |  [email protected]  |  847.970.2506 
​  Illustrations & Logo by Evgenia Barsheva 

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