By Brian Dunlap

The poets and writers in the Los Ángeles literary community are always busy. They’re writing, publishing, hosting, featuring, teaching, and a few are even publishers, run literary arts organizations and are activists. Matt Sedillo and Diamond Bar’s own David Romero, featured at the first ever Elba Poetry Festival in June, created by Mark Lipman, who also founded the Culver City Book Festival. There is Hiram Sims, Professor, founder of Community Literature Initiative (CLI), The Sims Library of Poetry and co-founder, along with Connie Williams, of World Stage Press. There is poet Charles Jenson, who is the Program Director at UCLA’s Extension Writers’ Program, and Camari Hawkins who founded and launched Mama’s Kitchen Press in 2021, an independent press that supports and prioritizes Black Voices.

The most recent news comes from writer, poet and Pomona native Natalie Sierra. She is now an Acquiring/Commissioning Editor with Texas based FlowerSong Press. Sierra is not only a first generation Latinx writer and Pushcart Prize nominee, she’s published the novel, Charlie, Forever and Ever (FlowerSong Press, 2021), about Charlie, a young doctoral student of mixed race, with schizoaffective disorder, in 1990’s Manhatten, who is on the brink of discovery when she meets—and falls in love with—boygod; the troubled heir to a tech company. She said on Facebook about her new position, “I’m looking forward [to] shaping the future of our mighty Latinx press!” As Acquiring/Commissioning Editor, she will do this by securing new author relationships and participating in publishing strategy.

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Recently, Jaha Zainabu released a new book of poetry, I’m Writing to Tell You, from Mama’s Kitchen Press. Mama’s Kitchen is a new press founded in 2021 by Angeleño Camari Carter-Hawkins. Its website says the “press was birthed in Camari Hawkins’ grandmother’s kitchen while speaking with her and her mother. She thought about how personal, important, heart-felt conversations happen in kitchens.” Its mission is to “support and prioritize Black Voices” and “also seek to publish books that are personal, intimate, and heartfelt.” Zainabu’s new collection is about “her journey and soul work as a woman and mother. She lives with bipolar 1 and talks about her life with depression.” More than a poet, Zainabu is a visual artist and photographer.

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Earlier this year, Salteaters Bookshop’s brick and mortar location opened in Inglewood. Owner Asha Grant made sure the bookstore prioritizes “books, comics, and zines by and about Black women, girls, femmes, and gender expansive people. ​Inspired by The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, [her] shop is working to create a resting ground for us all, a place to come home.”

Another reason Grant wanted to open her own bookstore, she told Forbes is “to normalize nerd-ing out over the voices and stories that have been deemed illegitimate by racist and misogynistic literary canons and academies for centuries.” As the woman who founded the Free Black Women’s Library’s Los Angeles Chapter in 2019—a Black feminist mobile book-swap that features books of all genres written by Black Women—Grant said in the same Forbes story that, The Salt Eaters Book Shop was the next step in the evolution of promoting the ignored, under-told stories of Black folks and other marginalized groups.

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On July 2, poet and educator Gina Duran finished teaching her two part workshop at the Sims Library of Poetry entitled Community Poetry. The workshop was held in a safe/courageous space, where participants embraced their mistakes and told their truths to grow with community. The workshop’s goal was to transform self-care into community-care through poetry.

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Luvette Resto’s third poetry collection Living on Islands Not Found on Maps is a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards’ Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award – One Author – English. The awards are given out annually, since 1997, and have recognized the greatness in both Latino writers and in non-Latinos who are working on Latino topics. The awards honor authors, translators, and illustrators for their books written either in English, Spanish y Portuguese in categories such as Children’s, Young Adult, Nonfiction, Fiction, Design, Translation and Best First Book.

Resto’s collection is about love, heartbreak, memory, family, pain and loss though the wide range of being the woman she is. She writes about being a daughter, mother, poet, dreamer and Wonder Woman and more.

Other Los Ángeles area based authors are finalists for the International Latino Literary Awards: Denis O’Leary for his picture book Popol Vuh Stories for Children, nominated in the category Best Educational Children’s Picture Book—Bilingual; Author René Colato Laínez for his children’s book Let’s Be Friend/Seamos Amigos in the category Best Children’s Fiction Picture Book—Bilingual; Naibe Reynoso and Giselle Carrillo for their picture book Courageous Camila in the category Most Inspirational Children’s Picture Book—English; Ernesto Cisneros’ (Santa Ana) chapter book Falling Short, nominated in the categories Best Youth Latino Focused Chapter Book, Best Youth Chapter Fiction Book and Most Inspirational Youth Chapter Book; Linda Castro Martinez for her young adult book Encarnación Castero’s Journey in the Anza Expedition 1775-1776 in the categories Best Young Adult Fiction Book and The Ambassador Julian Nava Best Educational Themed Book; Yolanda Nava for her nonfiction book Through the Dark in the categories Most Inspirational Nonfiction Book—English, Best Autobiography—English and Best Self transformational Book—English; Erwin Raphael McManus for his book El genio de Jesús in the category Most Inspirational Nonfiction Book—Spanish; Danny Trejo for his autobiography Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood in the category Best Autobiography—English; the Self Realization Fellowship for their spiritual book Rajarsi Janakananda: Un gran Occidental in the category Best Religious Book; Sri Daya Mrinalini Mata for his book Encuentros con santos de la India en compañia de Sri Daya Mata in the category Best Spiritual/New Age Book; Richard A. Santillán, Ron González, et al. (Alhambra) for their sports history book Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay in the categories Best Sports/Recreation Book and Best Nonfiction—Multi-Author; editors Marc García-Martínez and Francisco A. Lomelí for their nonfiction book A Critical Collection on Alejandro Morales: Forgoing an Alternative Chicano Fiction in the category Best Nonfiction—Multi-Author; Maria Amparo Escandón for her novel L.A. Weather in the category The Rudolfo Anaya Best Latino Focused Fiction Book Award—English; Desirée Proctor and Erica Harrell for their book Nuclear Power in the category Best Graphic Novel; Mayra Bermúdez-Arroyo translated by Melba Ferrer for their book Sunset’s Shadow in the category of Best Fiction Book Translation—Spanish to English; Maia Gonzalez for her book El Elote Man Goes to College for The Mariposa Award in Best First Book—Children & Youth—English or Bilingual; Alejandro Morales for his book Zapote Tree for The Mariposa Award in Best First Book—nonfiction—English; Ellie D. Hernández (UC Santa Barbara), Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. (Cal State Fullerton) and Magda García (PhD candidate UC Santa Barbara) for their book Transmovimientos in the category Best LGBTQ+ Themed Book; editors Thelma T. Reyna, Frank L. Meyskens, Jr. and Johanna Shapiro for their anthology Doctor Poets & Other Healers: COVID in Their Own Words in the category Best Poetry Anthology Book.

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Last month Hiram Sims and Community Literature Initiative (CLI) kicked off the first annual Beach City Writers Conference. Hiram Sims, poet, professor, Founder of CLI and the Sims Library of Poetry, founded the Conference “to gather the students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of The Community Literature Initiative. While the focus of [their] lectures, panels, and workshops is to further the literary education of [their] ever-growing community, [they] also wish to honor other significant organizations who are actively making a contribution to their community through literature. The conference also endeavors to explore the ways in which nature enhances our ability to create significant writing. Culminating in [their] annual AuthorDraft, [they] aim to challenge the current publishing establishment, and create new paths to the publication of poetry and children’s books.”

This year’s first annual conference consisted of three days of events, from Friday-Sunday. Friday consisted of the Gala and Awards Ceremony. It was “an evening gourmet hors d’oeuvres, poetry performances, an awards ceremony & a musical performance by Juan Flautista,” according to the conference’s website.

Saturday, at USC, consisted of Welcome and TED Talks from 9am-11am, with a Welcome and Invocation from poet and publisher Camari Carter Hawkins, and a Keynote Address from Hiram Sims and talks from poets Alex Petunia, Connie Williams and others. Then from 11:05pm-Noon workshops ranging from The Importance of Storytelling for Minorities taught by Andy Sanchez to Blues, Vibrations & Poetry: Finding the Rhythm in Bim Bim Bim! taught by Tommy Domino. Then in the afternoon there were panels and breakout sessions on the business of writing and how poets can make money taught by poets of color, such as Ravina Wadhwani. Then in the late afternoon more CLI lead Ted Talks by the likes of Cynthia Guardado, Karo Ska and others. Then in the evening the Conference moved to Dockweiler Beach for Guided Beach Writing Sessions.

Then Sunday at USC Founder’s Park, a day of press tabling and book pitches began at 10am.

The Beach Cities Writers Conference panelists and workshop leaders were all local writers who had gone through the CLI program and published their own books with World Stage Press or elsewhere.

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More news continues to be made in the Los Angeles literary community than I can keep up with. The literary festival LITLIT, the Little Literary Fair, returns on July 30 – 31 to Hauser & Wirth in the Arts District. It’s a festival founded by the Los Angeles Review of Books to provide “local independent presses and literary arts organizations the opportunity to share their work and ideas with fair attendees. Free and open to the public, programming will include panel discussions with publishers, authors, artists, and community organizers, as well as bookish demonstrations for all ages, including traditional bookbinding and letterpress and screen printing. The goal is to increase public and institutional support for small presses and the communities they sustain and create.” Local writers continue to publish, such as liz gonzález who published an article in Poets & Writers Magazine earlier this month titled, “Book Prize Celebrates Older Poets.” Hiram Sims hosted a poetry reading and bash for his birthday last Saturday at the Sims Library. And I featured at Trenches Full of Poets last Thursday, at Page Against the Machine. And with certainty, there will always be more news.