View your shopping cart.
A bi-lingual writer and poet, Lina Zeldovich, grew up on the classics of Russian literature and started writing at age five. Her short stories appeared in Murder New York Style and three Deadly Ink anthologies. She is a recipient of two Writer’s Digest Fiction Awards, the second one for an excerpt from her most recently finished novel, Death by Scheherazade’s Veil, a belly dance murder mystery. She won The Deadly Ink Short Story Contest 2008 and was a finalist at The SleuthFest 2009 Competition. Her poetry chapbook, Little Harlot, was published in Russia a few years ago. When she is not plotting yet another murder, she writes plays, produces independent films and reads her works at open mikes in New York City . Her other passions are traveling off-the-beaten-path, all things poisonous, and, of course, belly dancing!
Filmmaker Gavin White explores the past and present of London's Speakers' Corner, dubbed "the single best known place for free speech on the planet." A native Australian, White has just moved from Melbourne to London to work as a producer on "The Media Report", a show for European Business News when he discovered the Speakers' Corner phenomena. 
“Do you need help?” Eve asked the restaurant manager, her dark-blue eyes glowing with hope that bordered on desperation.
The Ellis Island refugees and the new millennium off-the-Boeings immigrants had one thing in common. They came looking for work. Exploring the labyrinths of New York streets they knocked on the doors of stores and restaurants asking the same question over and over again, in broken English. “Do you need help?” Half the minimum wage would do.
“No,” the manager answered with the same reply. His eyes traveled up and down Eve’s body. “And we have a sign in the window that says so. If you could read English.”
Freaky Friday, Trading Places and the old classic Prince and Pauper get a make-over in Susan Shapiro's Overexposed. Rachel Solomon, an aspiring shutterbug from a Midwestern Jewish doctor's family, escapes suburban paradise for the bohemia of New York City , much to her kin's dismay. She gets a job at Vision magazine, replacing the previous art assistant, Elizabeth Mann, a daughter of a famous photographer. Little does Rachel know, the tall gangly brunette with looks not unlike her own, would replace her in her mother's family album and even in the antique wedding gown that should've been hers. When Elizabeth speed-marries Rachel's brother, she blissfully abandons her high heels for nursing bras - and the Solomons suddenly acquire a daughter they know how to love.
A Michigan girl who had come to New York to get her MFA from NYU, Shapiro wrote for the New York Times, Village Voice, Newsweek, The Forward, People, More, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan. She is a New School journalism professor, who lives in Greenwich Village and an author of five non-fiction books.
Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourself for a long rich ethnic story which will surprise you with its unexpected twists and turns like a modern suspense thriller. Written by German playwright and anti-war activist Bertolt Brecht and directed by Adjunct Professor at the Tisch School of Arts Anya Saffir, the play will keep you guessing, among other things, about its name. Really, why the chalk circle?
The play opens with a dispute between two Soviet communes, the Galinsk goat farm and the Rosa Luxemburg collective, over who is to own a piece of land after the end of the Nazi's occupation. But then a group of actors and singers arrive, and, like the famous Arabic classic A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, in which one fable tells another, the play drops us into medieval Gruzinia (Georgia), in the midst of a mutiny and armed conflict. Prince Kazbeki, backed by the Ironshirts, murders the governor, Georgi Abashvili, whose fleeing wife Natella is more concerned with picking out her wardrobe than packing her baby son - and so little Michael gets left behind. Grusha, a young maid, who had just gotten engaged to Simon the soldier, finds the baby and runs away with him, saving the boy from the Ironshirts, as her fiancé leaves to fight the war.
My dear fellow Earthlings – can we stop Amtrak?
No, I don’t mean repeating Anna Karenina and throwing ourselves in front of the train, although I was tempted to confront their tree-chopping equipment the other day. Amtrak is cutting every tree that grows on their property, which amounts to miles and miles of trees – along the entire length of train tracks across the country.
When his L.A. life and his second marriage fall apart, Frankie Razzini, a guy who likes to roam about, comes back to the Bronx to understand what he had done wrong in the past. In his wallet he carries a picture of his first love, and deep in his soul a bitter remorse, and perhaps a secret. He meets up with his best friend Eddie in the old pub they had once favored and strikes up a conversation with Brenda.
When his L.A. life and his second marriage fall apart, Frankie Razzini, a guy who likes to roam about, comes back to the Bronx to understand what he had done wrong in the past. In his wallet he carries a picture of his first love, and deep in his soul a bitter remorse, and perhaps a secret. He meets up with his best friend Eddie in the old pub they had once favored and strikes up a conversation with Brenda.
LZ: The film is a brilliant mind-teaser which will keep the audience guessing until the end - and then surprise them with an unexpected answer to all their questions. How did you get the idea of playing with an ecological disaster and the human mind going astray from this peculiar angle?
Elena Beloff, a graduate of the New School University where she had studied film production, wanted to make movies since she was a little girl in her hometown in Tatarstan, Russia. When she was in high school she came to the USA as an exchange student and returned later to pursue her dreams. While living in New York Elena came across the infamous phenomena of the Russian women stereotype as materialistic gold-diggers and mail-order brides so she decided to make a film to explore the alleged stereotypes.
LZ: What inspired the idea of the film?
GW: I had just moved from Melbourne to London and was working as a Producer on a show called "The Media Report" for European Business News (now CNBC). I was broke and discovering London, looking for a film project that wouldn't take me away from my day job. One Sunday my sister and I were walking through Hyde Park & saw Speakers' Corner for the first time. I was mesmerized, mostly by the sounds, the chaos and yet the order all around. As it was only held on Sundays, it was the perfect subject for a documentary!
Trapped inside the endless labyrinth of doors, walls and floors, Niamh (Mary Woodvine) and her two children hide from the poisoned world outside where one cannot survive without wearing a respirator. Niamh keeps the maps of their black and white maze on paper scraps she sticks to the walls, and she follows their directions in the light of the unevenly flickering electric lamps, which, strangely enough are still working.
Elena Beloff, a graduate of the New School University where she had studied film production, wanted to make movies since she was a little girl in her hometown in Tatarstan, Russia. When she was in high school she came to the USA as an exchange student and returned later to pursue her dreams. "Filmmaking is my passion. I chose it because I can communicate my vision, beliefs and love for art through film."
Last Thursday I visited the Pendu Gallery show opening in Williamsburg and was excited to discover a new, holistic approach to introducing art into the world. Started by Todd Pendu Brooks in 2003, The Pendu Gallery is more than the traditional art studio that displays an artist’s creations. Pendu hosts art shows, publishes an on-line art-fashion-music magazine, puts out records and tapes and organizes music and weekly dark-disco dance party at Glasslands Gallery, featuring DJ sets and live performances from local artists and touring bands. It even organizes an annual NY Eye & Ear Festival. It literally seems that there is no creative channel left out of Todd Pendu’s repertoire.
Recently Pendu gallery joined the ranks of the non-profit organization, so this was one of my questions to Todd – whether the non-profit status made more financial sense. I was surprised to hear that the dollar amount made little input in the decision-making.
Last week, browsing the Craigslist for writing gigs as usual, I came across an ad that promised decent payments for 800-1200 words business articles if accepted by www.theglasshammer.com - an online publication designed for women executives in finance, law, business and other parts of the big corporation universe. I’m not a big fan of big corporation, actually to be truthful, I’m an anti-fan, but the name glass hammer made me think of a young spunky corporate rebel (maybe even with a tattoo or two) smashing a skyscraper’s window with a big heavy sledge and I liked the image. Maybe they were a new-age corporate website, I thought. Besides, in these tough times a freelance writer can’t be picky. I sent my resume.
Back came two replies, one from Melissa, one form Nicky. “Can you do an article on comparing CR and CSR as a test for us?” they asked. “What is the difference? Is there any?”
“Look at this!” I told Ebony, my best friend, who sat next to me in the Tipperary Pub, the Irish-themed bar of the Parsippany Sheraton. I was here for the Deadly Ink writers’ conference and Ebony and Lucy were here for moral support. “I think it’s my death threat. Oh, I’m so excited!”
Ebony took the envelope I gave her, pulled out the note and read it aloud.
“I’ve done the deed. You won’t be disappointed. Have the money before the luncheon or you’ll never be hungry again.”
She put down the paper and gave me a look. “You are excited about your own death threat?”
Ebony had full lips, big brown eyes and a voluptuous mop of African hair that propagated equally in all directions. She wore about five dozen bracelets and golden lipstick. I wore old t-shirts and ragged jeans. Jewelry and make-up were always an afterthought.
“Just think about it,” I said. “What an idea for a story!”
Lucy, my other best friend, inched over to see the paper. She had just got off duty and still wore her cop uniform and the twenty pounds of stuff that came with it. That’s why I was so calm and nonchalant. It was easy feeling invincible when your best friend’s a cop. Lucy was six feet tall and loved martial arts and extreme sports.
What would happen if Woody Allan’s Sleeper met Frank Black from Soylent Green and the two of them tried to start a revolution by the way of Les Miserables, but got intercepted by Agent Smith? Too complex of a concept? Too heavy? Too depressing? Greetings and salutations, my dear citizens of One World. Welcome to DYSTOPIA GARDENS , a part futuristic fantasy, part dead-on reality taking place in One World, its citizens huddling under the gigantic domes built to protect them from the irreversibly polluted planet – a distorted reflection of our own realm, where we all live under the same cupola of the so far still blue sky.
