My name is Justin Nurse, and I'm contacting you all the way from Cape Town, South Africa. I'm 28 years old and I run a small publishing company called Laugh it Off. You can check out some of the stuff I do on www.laughitoff.co.za I recently won a landmark freedom of expression/trademark infringement case against the world's second largest brewery for a T-shirt I produced using the Carling Beer logo, which I altered to read 'Black Labour/White Guilt' (a reference to SA's apartheid past). I don't know if you've ever been involved in any legal wranglings, but the court case lasted for four
years and just about sucked my will to live!
The reason I contacted you is that I am now trying to get things up and running again, by publishing my third Laugh it Off Annual – a collection of writing, graphic design, and photography, and I was really hoping that you would be willing to contribute. The past two Annuals have featured the writing of literary heavyweights like Naomi Klein, as well as previously unpublished poets. Everyone, and just about anything, is welcomed.
Short stories, fictional fables, tales of love and loss that’ll leave us crying as we fall asleep at night with ‘The Annual’ next to our bed is first prize. Humour is another big winner with Laugh it Off – funny haha, and funny peculiar. We also like being controversial, so original political rants and cleverly constructed diatribes about the state of the world that we are all living in, also fits the bill. My small team and I are so dedicated to the task of publishing this third Annual that we’ve become somewhat fanatical in our approach. It’s even going to have the look and feel of a religious text about it. We believe that what we are doing is good, important, and necessary, and that is why we’re extending a long-distance e-mail invitation to you. I really do hope that you consider getting involved.
If you would be willing to contribute anything from a few hundred to a few thousand words, we would include details, URL, e-mail address and whatever else you'd like. At the very least it'd result in some extra exposure for you. Closing date is the 30.07.2006. I'm going to work my damnedest to get the Annual out there, once it's done, and will be taking it to the Frankfurt Book Fair, and shopping it around for international distribution deals.
I'm flat broke at the moment, so I'm sorry that I can't offer you any financial remuneration for this. All I can ask is that you check out my site www.laughitoff.co.za , and if you like my vibe, please throw me a friggin bone. I think that the good folk here in South Africa would love to read about what’s on your/your students’ mind. If there's anything else I can offer you, or that you'd like to know, please let me know. Oh, and on our site, under 'my downloads/annuals', you can download PDFs of the previous two annuals to get a better sense of the good work Laugh it Off has done in the past. I see Laugh it Off as a tongue-in-cheek media version of Greenpeace. Hopefully with your help together we can start saving mainstream swimming media dolphins all over the world, and release them into pools of their own imagination.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Love and respect, Justin Nurse.
