Chicago, Ep. 4

January 14, 2010—A wild finish, a wilder foursome of readers, and genius judging highlighted Literary Death Match Chicago, Ep. 4 at Fizz, in which featherproof books’ James Kennedy (The Order of Odd-Fish) outdoodled &NOW’s Davis Schneidermanin a hurried and competitive finale of Draw the Judges in 20 Seconds Or Less with Sharpies! — to take home the Literary Death Match medal and be ceremoniously crowned by Ep. 3 winner Spencer Dew. 

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Boston, Ep. 2

January 13, 2010—Literary Death Match’s return to Massachusetts for Boston, Ep. 2 to celebrate Opium9: The Mania Issue was a wild and talent-rich success that finished with a calamitous Musical Chairs finale led by one-mademoiselle-band Audrey Ryan, who plucked random tunes on her ukelele.  When the rubble settled, Handsome’s Janaka Stucky had come back from an improbable 3-1 deficit to beat out Open Letters’ Elisa Gabbert, and be crowned the latest LDM champion.

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SF, Ep. 23

San Francisco’s Literary Death Match headed back to the Elbo Room for Ep. 23, where D.W. Lichtenberg (The Ancient Book Of Hip) emerged as the night’s champion over co-finalist Charlie Haas (The Enthusiast) after a violently high-stakes game of musical chairs. 

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Portland, Ep. 1

A wild and rowdy night, filled with audience howls, joyful drunkenness, and some of the best judging in LDM history, all added up to Future Tense rep Riley Michael Parker out-fruit-smoothie making Tin House rep Arthur Bradford in a narrow 2-1 finish (as chosen by a panel of three taste-expert volunteers) to take home the Literary Death Match championship, making PDX very, very proud. 

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SF, Ep. 22

Sequins, audience members getting high on stage, and a supersized game of local-lit card shark made for Literary Death Match SF, Ep. 22. LDM regulars as well as Litquake X attendees filled Verdi Club to witness the literary merit, performance, and intangibility of four readers before James Nestor took home the gold for his drug-related genius and card-guessing skills. 

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London, Ep. 2

Last night was a historic one for the Literary Death Match: London, Ep. 2 marked our 50th-ever episode (wow!), and featured the youngest champion in the series' history, as 17-year-old Ashna Sarkar out-scribbled co-finalist Tom Chivers in a wild, hotly-contested Sharpie-based finale of Sketch-a-Judge™ to snare London's second Literary Death Match crown.

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NYC, Ep. 17

Literary Death Match NYC’s seventeenth episode had the air of a good stand-up comedy show. Each segment showcased another distinct voice and performance, each as often profound as uproarious. If its comedy club atmosphere was incidental—coincidently, three of the four readers performed without notes, which is unusual at LDMs—it was befitting for a reading series conceived by Opium.

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Seattle, Ep. 1

August 13, 2009—The Emerald City debut of the Literary Death Match at Rendezvous' Jewel Box Theater was an instant classic, as the two remaining gladiators—Ryan Boudinot (representing Monkeybicycle) and HTMLGiant's Matthew Simmons—knifed it out in a LDM original: Stab a Hole in Nebraska!™. In the end, Simmons' blade-sized penetration through northeast Arkansas was closer to Omaha than Boudinot's "knife punch" through Nevada, making Simmons the first-ever northeastern Literary Death Match champ!

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SF, Ep. 9

In the most ambitious Literary Death Match ever--an “All-Star” event featuring past SF winners, judges and hosts--Andrew Lam (the winner of SF’s Episode 7), trumped all with his blindly skilled placement of Leatherface’s body (yes, the chainsaw murderer in cardboard cut-out form) onto the oversized, two-dimensional heads of great literary figures/past LDM champs: Daniel Handler, Bucky Sinister and Rupert Estanislao. The feat was witnessed by 190 laughing fans at the Rickshaw Stop, who cheered wildly (and confusingly) at the finale.

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NYC, Ep. 4

In a battle too bloody for photographs, Opium’s annual Literary Death Match in the Park featured Opium’s own going head-to-head, as founding editor Todd Zuniga outraced executive editor Elizabeth Koch in the Trash Bag Race finale.

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