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From: Cultural Weekly
When Abbot Kinney, an eccentric developer and conservationist, created the city of Venice, California in 1905, with a system of canals complete with gondolas and gondoliers brought in from Venice, Italy, he was inspired by the art, architecture, poetry and literary life he’d experience during a Grand Tour of Europe.
Today, the smooth design and commercialized culture of a rapidly gentrifying Venice overlies whatever remains of the authentic seaside neighborhood of about 40,000 inhabitants just south of Santa Monica, which has been part of the City of Los Angeles since 1926. The canals are still there (sans gondolas), and along Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a mile-long strip of galleries, fashion outlets like Rag & Bone and Shinola, and crowded chic-cuisine eateries, there’s some hint of the style and flair that used to be. But with an invasion of high tech companies like Snapchat and the inevitable erosion of character brought on by soaring rents, Venice struggles to retain the reputation for creativity and intellectual ferment intended by its founder.
One outpost of authenticity in Venice, however, is the renowned Beyond Baroque literary arts center, now gearing up for its 50th anniversary. Housed in the original Venice City Hall and “dedicated to the possibilities of language,” Beyond Baroque is the hub of a bustling arts complex that includes a theater complex and what used to be the Venice city jail (now headquarters for SPARC, the city’s mural arts organization). The nonprofit public space is devoted to cultivating new writing and expanding the public’s knowledge of poetry, fiction, literature, and art through cultural events and community interaction.
Los Angeles Literature 