Laura McKinny Men Against Women Discusses and Signs “Men Against Women”

Morgan is a single mom and a tough-minded cop who has requested a transfer out of her sleepy suburban town to the gritty streets LA’s 77th precinct. As a woman in a male-dominated profession, she has pretty much experienced it all – or so she thought. What she finds downtown is much more serious and potentially life threatening. At the 77th, there is a clear division and hostility between the men and the women on the force.

Soon after Morgan arrives at the 77th, the women fill her in on the men’s after-hours secret cop club, Men Against Women (MAW) — where the guys vent their frustrations at having to share their jobs, and their pride, with women, atmosphere that is hard to endure. When Morgan refuses to rat-out a fellow male officer, she is unceremoniously demoted to “report car” and discovers a cover-up that could bring down MAW and forever change the 77th. (Stone’s Throw Media)

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday, the 9^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/laura-mckinny-discusses-and-signs-men-against-women

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literary Events 11/9/15 – 11/15/15”

From: La Bloga

La Bloga friend, Randy Jurado Ertll, shares the following about his Thursday, November 5 event at the main Pasadena Public Library. The roll of writers in our society: What do we really value–material wealth or knowledge?

Occidental College Alumni Seal award winner Randy Jurado Ertll (’95) will speak about the experiences, motivation and perseverance required to be a writer in today’s society. Can we achieve social changes through the written word? What is the price that writers pay to exercise their freedom of speech? Continue reading “Ertll Book Presentation and Signing”

Yumi Sakugawa with “There Is No Right Way to Meditate”

In “There Is No Right Way to Meditate,” award-winning artist Yumi Sakugawa helps you tap into your inner self and finally find the peace that you’ve been seeking. Each page offers a unique perspective on how to lead a more mindful life, with captivating ink illustrations and encouraging words like, “it’s okay if the only thing you did today was breathe.” From simple ways to get rid of a bad mood to instructions for making your intentions come true, her lessons will inspire you to become more aware of the present moment and find stillness no matter where you go.

Yumi Sakugawa is an Ignatz Awards nominated comic book artist and the author of I Think I Am in Friend-Love With You and Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One With The Universe. Her comics have also appeared in The Believer, Bitch, the Best American Non­Required Reading 2014, The Rumpus, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. A graduate from the fine art program of University of California, Los Angeles, she lives in Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight Books

Date: Monday, the 2^nd

Time: 7:30 pm

Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/yumi-sakugawa-discusses-her-new-book-there-no-right-way-meditate

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature 11/1/15 – 11/7/15”

From: La Bloga

Ninety-degree weather at the end of October is a normal California Fall. Almost as normal, it was the fourth Sunday of the month, and that normally means a La Palabra Hosted by Karineh Mahdessian  celebration at Northeast Los Angeles’ cultural soul, Avenue 50 Studio.

Continue reading “Triple Features For October La Palabra Reading Series at Avenue 50 Studio”

John Freeman and Daniel Galera in
Conversation

John Freeman, editor of “Freeman’s : Arrival: The Best New Writing on Arrival,” the first issue of his spectacular new biannual anthology, is in conversation with Brazilian author Daniel Galera, of “Blood-Drenched Beard.”.

In this inaugural edition of unpublished writing, former Granta editor and NBCC president John Freeman brings together the best new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Daniel Galera is a Brazilian writer, translator and editor, and is one of the founders of the publishing house Livros do Mal.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Monday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 126 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004

Website: http://www.chevalier’s.com/events/

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literary Events 10/26/15 – 1/1/15”

By Geosi Gyasi

From: Geosi Reads

Brief Biography:

Peter J. Harris is the author of Bless the Ashes, poetry (Tia Chucha Press), winner of the 2015 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ a book of personal essays, winner of a 2015 American Book Award.  www.blackmanofhappiness.com/shop.  Harris has published his work in a wide variety of publications since the 1970s.  Since 1992, he’s been a member of the Anansi Writers Workshop at the World Stage, in LA’s Leimert Park.

Geosi Gyasi: You’re the founding director of “The Black Man of Happiness Project”. Could you tell us how you started this project?

Peter J. Harris: The project grows from my deep curiosity about an elemental question: What is a happy Black man?www.blackmanofhappiness.com

As I’ve matured as a writer and thinker and cultural worker, as a man, this question has become a powerful prompt to explore manhood and masculinity through the lives of African American men, who obviously exist within historical crosshairs. Taboo. Fetish. Threat. Sexual Predator. Sexual Symbol. Prey. In my research, I’ve never found one mention or index item in which Black men and happiness have been connected. So on Juneteenth 2010, I invited a variety of men to attend a video shoot at the Ebony Repertory Theatre in Los Angeles. I wanted them to answer on camera the question, What is a happy Black man? Some 20 men answered the question in a variety of ways, as I hoped they would. I was confident that each man would have his own richly individual answer, which is a major goal of the Project: to explore the individuality of Black men’s testimonies about their joy. Since 2010, I’ve created a website, through which you can view the videos, like our Facebook page, purchase the two published books, and otherwise be inspired to search for your own answer. Goals for 2016 include setting up more video shoots, launching a new blog in which I write about what I call ‘wreaking happiness,’ and raise the profile on the books, especially my book of personal essays, The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ which was chosen in July 2015 for one of 15 American Book Awards, which have been awarded for 36 years by the Before Columbus Foundation. http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/foundation-news/2015-american-book-awards/

Continue reading “Interview with 2015 American Book Award Winner, Peter J. Harris”

A Catalyst for Change

From: http://www4.csudh.edu/watts/index

In 1965, the Watts Rebellion devastated a community and awakened the nation, bringing longstanding grievances and inequalities into the spotlight. California leaders placed their hopes on an institution of higher education as a catalyst for change, and decided to build a new state college close to the communities impacted by the rebellion.

A transformation was needed. And they got one.

Fifty years later, California State University, Dominguez Hills boasts over 90,000 alumni, with over 65 percent of our alumni living within 25 miles of the campus.

The university changes lives each and every day through the transformative power of education.

Continue reading “50th Anniversary, Watts Writers Workshop”

Lillian Faderman & Roberta Kaplan at Aloud

“Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA,” features renowned litigator Roberta Kaplan and scholar Lillian Faderman in conversation with LA Times columnist and author Patt Morrison. Kaplan takes us behind the scenes of this gripping legal journey in her new book, Then Comes Marriage. Award-winning activist and author Lillian Faderman’s latest book, The Gay Revolution, begins in the 1950s, when the law classified gays and lesbians as criminals, then moves to the present to offer a sweeping account of the modern struggle for gay, lesbian, and trans rights. Following this summer’s landmark Supreme Court decision supporting gay marriage, hear from two of today’s most influential champions for equality.

Where: Downtown LA Central Library, Taper Auditorium

Date: Monday the 19^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 630 West 5^th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071

Website: http://www.lfla.org/event/then-comes-marriage-united-states-v-windsor-and-the-defeat-of-doma/

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 10/19/15 – 10/25/15”

by Jessica Ceballos

From: Medium.com

It’s a beautiful morning in Los Angeles, but since last night my head has been stuck in 1999. And I know where my heart is, but pieces of memory are tugging at anything that might be a little loose.

How does someone survive through so much heartache. The NBA draft, the fame, the money, the championships, the wedding to pretend that love makes everything better, the hope that everything will be made better. None of thatcan make a deep dark sad better. Especially when that sad started at birth. And the world kept trying to crush him, and so he self-medicates though the crushing, through the depression, through everything. And then it becomes too heavy and something makes the sadness stop…for just a second…and that second becomes everything in the world. And it’s okay to be happy for just one second. But that’s only on the outside.

Continue reading “Triggers. Memories. A long [non-linear] time ago.”