Canteen Magazineis a mag on a mission — a mission to objectify authors. Or celebrate them. Celebrate them by objectifying them? Think Tao Lin meets Tiger Beat. Imagine a Stephen Elliott centerfold stuck with bubble gum on your closet door. Or Deb Olin Unferth taped on your fridge, reminding you to keep the dream alive in time for bikini season.

16 authors, 16 photographers, and one question: “What’s the hottest thing you’ve ever read?”

Here’s what Canteen has to say:

Writers have lost their place as cultural heroes. Instead, we celebrate a numbing parade of overpaid and undertalented actors, musicians, and athletes. Ridiculous amounts of money, publication real estate, and TV time are squandered to promote The Bachelors and the Kardashians and whoever will soon rise vapidly to take their place. 

Writers don’t traditionally get such crass and ubiquitous promotion. But why can’t they at least try to compete with pop-culture stars on the same terms? Let’s promote novelists as sexy and fabulous! Insist that the PEN Award require a turn on the catwalk! Hold the National Book Awards on a sliver of sand populated by buxom models in horn-rimmed shades; let the champagne pop for the cameras, as Oxford tweed gets wet on Temptation Island!

Deb Olin Unferth, author of Vacation (read it!) and the new memoir, Revolution, stars in the project’s pitch video. She was reached for comment on Twitter.

Her response: “Oh God…”