Lazuli Literary Group is a platform dedicated to fostering the delight of the literary imagination through a small publishing press, writing contests, and an online/print literary journal, AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought. We are a two-person editing team with diverging tastes (one classic and one contemporary) that harmonize in a third, uncharted space. We are particularly drawn to writing that broadens the concept of "literary" to one that pulls from a global pedigree of storytelling technique. We seek authors who revel in the rhythmic possibilities of the poetic line, who contemplate the flavor, the shape, and the history of every word they use; who are so committed to the pyrotechnics of the written word that they comprehend the beauty of classical forms and yet feel compelled to constantly re-invent their craft. Our goal is to support underrepresented styles of writing, specifically within a genre that we imagined, which we call otherworld realism. We like work that generates an eclectic mix of literary, lyrical, experimental and witty reading experiences; as such, we publish works that may not be suited for mass consumption, due to their raw yet polished innovations in content and form.
Every piece published in AZURE appears alongside a customized black & white sketch that is devised and executed by our in-house illustrator, Evgenia Barsheva.
otherworld realism
[uhth -er-wurld] [ree-uh-liz-uh m]
noun
Word Origin
2017; coined by Lazuli Literary Group; first appearing in AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought, Volume One.
[uhth -er-wurld] [ree-uh-liz-uh m]
noun
- a style of literature devoted to intellectual and imaginative pursuits that point towards a potential, evolved reality.
- a genre that represents the known world in an elevated or defamiliarising way.
- 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.
- an approach illuminating a psychic space of process; a space of ambiguity, silence, and internal struggle.
- the pre-dawn.
Word Origin
2017; coined by Lazuli Literary Group; first appearing in AZURE: A Journal of Literary Thought, Volume One.
OUR FAVORITE WRITERS
We love work that is linguistically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding of the reader. We want literary fiction that grows in complexity upon each visitation; we enjoy ornate, cerebral, and voluptuous prose executed with thematic intent. Some writers whose work we admire are Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Dickens, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Milton, Aphra Behn, Herman Melville, and Italo Calvino.
WRITING WE LIKE
Here are some wise words by Zadie Smith--a delight in themselves--that gesture to the sort of writing that dazzles us:
We love work that is linguistically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding of the reader. We want literary fiction that grows in complexity upon each visitation; we enjoy ornate, cerebral, and voluptuous prose executed with thematic intent. Some writers whose work we admire are Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Dickens, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Milton, Aphra Behn, Herman Melville, and Italo Calvino.
WRITING WE LIKE
Here are some wise words by Zadie Smith--a delight in themselves--that gesture to the sort of writing that dazzles us:
"What is a cliche except language passed down by Das Mann, used and shop-soiled by so many before you, and in no way the correct jumble of language for the intimate part of your vision you meant to express? With a cliche you have pandered to a shared understanding, you have taken a short-cut, you have re-presented what was pleasing and familiar rather than risked what was true and strange. It is an aesthetic and an ethical failure: to put it very simply, you have not told the truth. When writers admit to failures they like to admit to the smallest ones - for example, in each of my novels somebody "rummages in their purse" for something because I was too lazy and thoughtless and unawake to separate "purse" from its old, persistent friend "rummage". To rummage through a purse is to sleepwalk through a sentence - a small enough betrayal of self, but a betrayal all the same. To speak personally, the very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life. But it is easy to admit that a sentence makes you wince; less easy to confront the fact that for many writers there will be paragraphs, whole characters, whole books through which one sleepwalks and for which "inauthentic" is truly the correct term." - Zadie Smith
Read our submissions guidelines for more information about contributing to AZURE.