Saturday, April 9, 2016

Bovard Auditorium, USC campus

Since 1980, the LA Times Book Prizes have honored the previous year’s best books and their authors. This year’s ceremony — the 36th annual — will be held at Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus.

2015 Innovator’s Award Winner

Continue reading “Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists”

Ethan Canin at Book Soup

Ethan Canin discusses and signs his new novel, A Doubter’s Almanac. Ethan Canin, the bestselling author of America America and The Palace Thief, here explores the nature of genius, rivalry, ambition, and love among multiple generations of a gifted family. A Doubter’s Almanac is the story of how the flame of genius both lights and scorches every generation it touches, and is a suspenseful and deeply moving novel spanning seven decades, as it moves from California to Princeton to the Midwest to New York. (Random House)

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: http://www.booksoup.com/event/ethan-canin-discusses-and-signs-doubter%E2%80%99s-almanac

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 2/22/16 – 2/28/16”

Saturday night, black Los Angeles poets gathered to celebrate at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Pam Ward, S. Pearl Sharp, V Kali and others came together to celebrate the history of black L.A. poets.

The theme of the night, as stated by Pam Ward, was that if no one is documenting our history, then we need to document it ourselves. As she explained at the outset, when she did some research on black L.A. poetry she didn’t find much. There were gaps, she knew, in the historical record.

The readings kicked off by documenting other, older contemporary and historic black poets. Each poet read a poem or two, starting with S. Pearl Sharp, channeling Ruby Dee, as she read Dee’s “Calling All Women.” With the same sass and attitude that appropriately captured the no-nonsense sassy strength of Dee’s call to action for all women to stand up for themselves, she displayed the strength of the words and message, kicking off he night in roaring fashion.

Continue reading “The History of Black Poetry in Los Angeles”

by Carolyn Kellogg

From: The Los Angeles Times
On this sunny Friday, unseasonably gorgeous even for Los Angeles, I headed to Echo Park Lake to visit the new Floating Library. You don’t need a card to borrow books from the Floating Library, but you do have to reach it.

You can only get there by boat — a pedal boat, specifically — which luckily you may rent at the Echo Park boathouse.

Designed by Minnesota artist Sarah Peters and set loose in the Great Lakes region during the recent summers, the Floating Library is making its first visit to the West Coast. It’s a raft filled with art books and zines, presented by the Machine Project gallery as part of the L.A. Art Book Fair.

Continue reading “A visit to the Floating Library in Echo Park Lake”

by Michael Sedano

From: Labloga.com

The spate of heavy rain exhausted itself and overnight the weather turned Southern California gorgeous. And since it looked like Spring had sprung early and was here to stay, people planned outdoor events, like the publication party for Jésus Salvador Treviño’s Return to Arroyo Grande.

As the day for the gathering of friends and readers approached, Pasadena skies clouded and rain threatened to wash out the reading and move it indoors. The hosts, Barbara and Michael Sedano, were bummed because Plan B, moving indoors, would challenge space and seating plans.

Continue reading “Book Launch Reading in Pasadena Backyard”

Maylis De Kerangal at Book Soup

Join author Maylis Kerangal, to hear her discuss and sign The Heart, in conversation with Beatrice Mousli, professor of French & Francophone Literatures at USC. Translation provided by Lucille Toth, a teacher of French at Scripps College.

The Heart takes place over the twenty-four hours surrounding a fatal accident and a resulting heart transplant as life is taken from a young man and given to a young woman close to death. Kerangal’s The Heart has mesmerized readers in France, where it has been hailed a breakthrough work of a new literary star. (Farrar Straus & Giroux)

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday, the 15^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: http://www..booksoup.com/event/maylis-de-kerangal-presents-and-signs-heart

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 2/15/16 – 2/21/16”

PEN Center presents Charles Yu and Salvadore Plascencia at Chevalier’s

PEN Center USA continues to offer this year’s Emerging Voices Author Evening Series to the public at Chevalier’s, which will offer a 15% discount on the books discussed with a purchased ticket. PEN members are free, but must have a ticket to enter. Tickets for this event may be purchased/reserved at the door. For more information go to: https://penusa.org/author-evenings or check site for further details.

In preparation for the reading, conversation and Q&A session with the audience, we recommend you read: Sorry Please Thank You: Stories by Charles Yu, and The People of Paper by Salvadore Plascencia, and that you arrive ready to engage in discussion!

Charles Yu’s work has been published in The New York Times, Playboy, and Slate, among other periodicals. Yu lives in Los Angeles, and is currently writing for the upcoming HBO series Westworld.

Salvadore Plascencia was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and now lives in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Whittier College and holds an MFA from Syracuse University. The People of Paper is his first novel, and he was named one of the “Fifty Most Inspiring Living Authors in the World” by Poets & Writers.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 7:30 pm

Address: 126 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90005

Website: http://chevaliersbooks.com/

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 2/8/16 – 2/14/16”

Chiwan Choi, Found of L.A. based literary press Writ Large, said the following earlier today about the Grand Park BookFest:

“[W]e had to move the Grand Park Downtown BookFest to May this year because of AWP scheduling (jerks). [B]ut it’s just given us all to do all these smaller scale events at GP starting in March and going on all the way to May 7th.”

The list of literary events at Grand Park kicks off with the following:

Continue reading “Grand Park BookFest”