Opium's Network of Writers Experiment continues in Opium9. How does it work? You send us a quote told to you by another writer, about writing to our inbox. If we dig it, we'll feature it in Opium9 on one of our wildly-designed (thanks to David Barringer) pages. An example of quotes from Opium8, for inspiration, is below.

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A record-setting amount of entries graced our inbox for Opium9's 250-Word Bookmark Contest judged by Andrew Sean Greer, and we're thrilled to report the 15 finalists who managed, ever so narrowly, to outshine the rest. The winner and nine other stories from this list will appear in Opium9, while the others will be featured on Opium's site. Congrats to the champs, and to the other competitors who didn't quite make this list: you wrote some brilliant stories (which we'll be featuring on the site in the coming weeks).

Clark Hays, Trench Fight
Sean Murphy, Funny
Kyle Davis, An Aeronautical End
F.J. Bergmann, Synecdoche
MK Chavez, The Mandrake
Aimee Mepham, Excuse Me
Lydia Fitzpatrick, When His Parents Came to Visit
Eileen G'Sell, Closure
Je Banach, A Different Animal
Kevin Leahy, Beachcombers
Lisa A. Levy, After the Breakdown
Chris West, Young Karl Marx
Brett Rosenblatt, Ugly People
Daniel Grandbois, Boxes
M.E. Brown, The Divorce  

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Literary Death Match Paris, Ep. 1 
The first-ever non-English Literary Death Match debuts Wednesday at Le Reservoir, featuring award-winning writers Frédéric Beigbeder and Philippe Jaenada, along with a staggeringly talented lineup of judges. Check the full lineup and details here: www.LiteraryDeathMatch.com.

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Literary Death Match: Litquake Edition, Oct. 15, 2009

As good as the Literary Death Match can be, there's no question in our minds that none can rival the energy, talent and wild crowds that show up every year for our Litquake edition. Before we release the tickets to the masses, we're giving our mailing listers a chance to pre-order first. Act now, or soon, as this event sells out (sometimes rather quickly).

As for who will be participating: actress/poet Amber Tamblyn, artist Paul Madonna, non-fictioneer Frances Dinkelspiel and scribe Tod Goldberg...and more!

For the tickets, the full lineup, and details click here.

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Opium's iPhone App is Coming!

Opium's "Quick Fix with Jiggle Technology" for the iPhone and iPod Touch will land on iTunes on Oct. 15th. More details to come, including commercials, and stories from some of the best writers on the planet.