A Review Of Percical Everett’s The Trees
“No category adequately describes The Trees. Percival Everett seems to have purposefully written it that way.” Continue reading A Review Of Percical Everett’s The Trees
Author: Brian Dunlap
Brian Dunlap is a native Angeleño capturing the city’s stories hidden in plain sight. He’s the author of the chapbook Concrete Paradise (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and the winner of a Marvin Bell Memorial Poetry Prize from december magazine judged by former Los Ángeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. He's also the Editor-in-Chief of Los Angeles Literature, an independent online magazine covering the Greater Los Ángeles literary community.
Los Angeles Literature Events: 02/07/22 – 02/13/22
Many/Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
At Skylight: Daniel Alexander Jones & Omi Osun Joni L. Jones Present: Love Like Light & Particle and Wave at Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Daniel Alexander Jones in conversation with Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, will present the books: Love Like Light and Particle and Wave, respectively.
Daniel Alexander Jones’ Love Like Light: Plays and Performance Texts (53rd Street Press) collects the author’s texts of Bel Canto, Black Light, Blood: Shock: Boogie, clayangels, Duat, Phoenix Fabrik, and The Book of Daniel into a shifting transformational body of work. Each play is a provocation to the possibility of a more just and loving world. It’s a reunion of the avant-guards of New York, Austin, and Minneapolis, among others, and includes an interview and essays by others.
Particle and Wave: A Conversation (53rd State Press) is a companion volume, and features a book-length conversation between Daniel Alexander Jones and poet, scholar, and activist Alexis Pauline Gumbs about Love Like Light, and the ways that love, like lights, suffuses everything and is the condition and power of change in the world.
Joni Osum Joni L. Jones is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs black feminist aesthetics and theatrical jazz principles in her performance work, her pedagogy, and her facilitation. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Ase, and the Power for the Present Moment (Ohio State University Press). She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas, at Austin.
NOTE: See Site for book purchases, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Date: Monday the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events: 02/07/22 – 02/13/22”
A review of Shaky Town by Lou Mathews
“Shaky Town by Lou Mathews is a linked short story collection filled with the working-class concerns of L.A.’s barrio, circa 1980s.” Continue reading A review of Shaky Town by Lou Mathews
Flower Song Press in Southern California
By Brian Dunlap
Flower Song Press has infiltrated Southern California. It began with publishing El Sereno native Matt Sedillo, in late 2018. His poetry collection Mowing Leaves of Grass, was a critical success, critiquing the American history we’re taught in school to render it in full, speaking truth to the struggle, tragedy, anger, joy, despair, possibility and faith in the struggles of working class people, specifically Chicanx, to overcome the forces of capitalism and racism that keep them marginalized.
Continue reading “Flower Song Press in Southern California”
Donna Hilbert Finds Love in the Poetry of Lament
“In Threnody: Poems, her new collection of 62 poems, Hilbert continues that tradition of lament, demonstrating that the modern lament is as contemporary as its older and ancient predecessors.” Continue reading Donna Hilbert Finds Love in the Poetry of Lament
Los Angeles Literature Events: 01/31/22 – 02/06/22
Wajahat Ali & Guests & Go Back to Where You Came From via Skylight Bookstore & Writers Bloc – Online Event
Wajahat Ali will present and discuss his book, Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American, with his special guests:
Maz Jobrani is a comedian/actor/author and is noted for his book I’m Not a Terrorist But I’ve Played One on TV.
Rabia Chaudry is an attorney, advocate, and author of The New York Times bestseller Adnan’s Story, about the wrongful conviction of Adnan Sayed.
Tonya Mosley, moderator, is an NPR journalist.
“Go back to where you came from, you terrorist!”
This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago?
Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties. (“Become a doctor!”) He had turmeric stains under his fingernails, was accident-prone, suffered from OCD, and wore Husky pants, but he was as American as his neighbors, with roots all over the world. Then, while Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America’s enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y.
Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture. In this refreshingly bold, hopeful, and uproarious memoir, Ali offers indispensable lessons for cultivating a more compassionate, inclusive, and delicious America.
Expect a lively discussion of racism, xenophobia, white supremacy, and good food.
NOTE: See Site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & Writers Bloc – Online Event
Date: Monday the 31st
Time: 6 pm
Address: Skylight – Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-books-and-writers-bloc-present-go-back-where-you-came-evening-wajahat-ali-and-others or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/go-back-to-where-you-came-from-an-evening-with-wajahat-ali-and-others-tickets-22559844000
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events: 01/31/22 – 02/06/22”
Remembering Bob Johnson
By Lisa Morton
FROM: Iliad Bookshop
The Iliad’s longtime employee Bob Johnson passed away on January 24, 2022, of a massive heart attack. Bob was much loved for his sense of humor and his kindness; mention to him a favorite show or artist, and he’d probably come back in a few days with a DVD or tape for you. Bob loved (in no particular order) H. L. Mencken, the Boston Celtics, fried clam strips, cats, conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda, old t.v. detective series, Edward Gorey, Broadway musicals, and pizza (preferably with sausage). Before working at the Iliad, Bob had been a musical theater actor, a joke writer, and a seedy movie theater projectionist.
Continue reading “Remembering Bob Johnson”
Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews The Perishing by Natashia Deón
“Deon’s immortal, Lou, is unusual. She’s young, Black, somewhat naive, and utterly brilliant.” Continue reading Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews The Perishing by Natashia Deón
Mapping the Unfamliar: A Review of Navigating With(out) Instruments by traci kato-kiriyama
“In two of twelve sections, they touched on not having children, cancer, and the loss of a grandparent who was a familial pillar from an Asian American lens.” Continue reading Mapping the Unfamliar: A Review of Navigating With(out) Instruments by traci kato-kiriyama
Book Pages: Natashia Deón picks 3 great books, the Beatles’ top 100 and more
But first, seeing just what you can pick up curbside at the local library.
By Erik Pedersen
FROM: OC Register
Now that our local library has gone back to curbside pickups, I walked the dog to our branch to collect some things I’d requested. (Yes, I have books everywhere at home and towers of things to read for work – not to mention audio and e-books on my phone and Kindle – but there’s always a need, or a desire, for more.)
Continue reading “Book Pages: Natashia Deón picks 3 great books, the Beatles’ top 100 and more”
Los Angeles Literature 