The first community news of the year and the Los Ángeles literary community has already had a jam-packed January. There have already been readings, open mics, and workshops at Cafe con Libros Press in Pomona, the Sims Library of Poetry in South Central, Casa Verde in Whittier, Re/Arte in Boyle Heights, LibroMobile in Santa Ana, Beyond Baroque in Venice, The World Stage in Leimert Park, Bel Canto and Page Against the Machine in Long Beach, Tía Chucha’s in Sylmar and everywhere in-between. Writers building community. To share ideas, bond with like-minded people and open up others to see the world in new and important ways.

With that purpose in mind, the Black-focused open mic, Griot Café, returned to Shades of Afrika in Long Beach in November. Spoken word artist, poet and community activist Conney Williams has already graced its mic. Shy But Flyy and Subject Matter still host. Shy But Flyy brings her aesthetic as a jazz/blues singer and performance poet to Shades of Afrika each Saturday from 8 pm – 10 pm, as she does with the multitudes of other open mics and readings and musical performances she hosts and participates in throughout the year.

A Mic and Dim Lights, founded by performance poet Cory Besskepp Cofer, a Pomona Staple for 20 years at both the Millenia Arts Lounge before moving to the dA Center, returns February 22. Its run as one of the region’s premier open mics got interrupted as a result of the Coronavirus Pandemic. It began with the need for poets to have a safe venue to express themselves in, in the Pomona Valley and the Inland Empire region of SoCal, with a simple premise. All that’s needed is a single microphone lit up by a spotlight. Focus on the poet’s words. A Mic and Dim Lights’ new venue is at 1327 Willow Street in Downtown Los Ángeles and begins at 7:30 pm. Admission is $10.

Also, in December, Inland Empire poet James Coats announced he’s starting an independent press named Loving Words Press. He explained he’s starting it to help give voice to the voiceless because BIPOC writers are still severely underrepresented in the literary community. Coats’ hope is to change this reality by offering these voices a platform and access to education, resources and publishing opportunities.

Then in January, Matt Sedillo and David Romero announced they are starting an independent press they’ve named El Martillo. Both presses join a publishing community that consists of Kaya Press, Rare Bird Books, Red Hen Press, Angel City Press, Moon Tide Press, Nervous Ghost, and Tía Chucha Press, among others. Sedillo said he started his press to publish Chicanx/Latinx literature that the majority of the publishing industry ignores and dismisses as unimportant or unsellable but actually sells well because there is a large audience that needs these stories, as opposed to so much of the white poetry being published that only sells a few copies and doesn’t connect with a wide audience.

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In other Los Ángeles literary news, the Orange County-based poetry journal Spillway has found a new home as part of the Moon Tide Press family. As Moon Tide said in a blog post on their site, “Spillway has an incredibly rich history in the poetry community.” Originally an annual publication of Tebot Bach, Inc., an Orange County organization dedicated to “strengthen[ing] community, promot[ing] literacy, broaden[ing] the audience for poetry, and demonstrate[ing] the power of poetry to transform one‘s life experiences through programs including Community Outreach, Readings, Workshops, Contests, and Publications, the journal and the organization went dormant at the outset of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Since Spillway’s debut in 1993, the journal has published such local poetry luminaries as Suzanne Lummis, former Los Ángeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson, Poet and USC Professor of English and Comparative Literature David St. John, Chad Sweeney, Gail Wronsky, Amy Uyematsu, Gerald Locklin and other poets from around the country. As Moon Tide said in their blog post, “We are grateful to Mifanwy Kaiser and Tebot Bach for all the amazing work they put into making Spillway what it has become and promise to honor its legacy and push it into the future.”

Moon Tide Press also announced “that Spillway’s new managing editor will be [Orange County poet] Ellen Webre.” Webre is a biracial, Taiwanese-American poet, born in Hong Kong and raised in California. She attended the Creative Writing Conservatory of the Orange County High School of the Arts and received a degree in screenwriting at Chapman University. Her debut book, A Burning Lake of Paper Suns, was released in October 2021 with Moon Tide Press.