Champaign, Ep. 1

For our rip-roaring Champaign debut, Literary Death Match teamed with The Pygmalion Festival for a brilliance-filled night at The Accord that saw C. Russell Price outduel Lindsey Gates-Markel in a blazing game of Lone Star Lit II to win Price the LDM Champaign, Ep. 1 championship and literary immortality to go with it.

Here is the full lineup from the night of:

JUDGES:
Literary Merit: Neil Steinberg, columnist for Chicago Sun-Times, author of Out of the Wreck I Rise
Performance: Elizabeth Ellen, Pushcart Prize-winning writer and author of Fast Machine
Intangibles: Mother Nature, hip-hop duo behind the Mother Nature EP

READERS:
* Tyehimba Jess, National Poetry Series-winning poet and Cave Canem fellow behind Olio and Leadbelly
* Maggie Smith, 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal-winning poet of Disasterology
* Lindsey Gates-Markel, storySouth Million Writers Award-nominated essayist and actor
* C. Russell Price, Lambda Fellow in Poetry; author of Tonight, We Fuck The Trailer Park Out Of Each Other

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga. Produced by Caleb Curtiss.