By Brian Dunlap
It was a hot, August Sunday in Boyle Heights. Mid-afternoon, Ceaser Chavez was quieter than usual. It might’ve been due to the Delta variant raging across the county. It might’ve also been due because it was Sunday, the only slow day in L.Á. Still, some stores were open like Boyle Heights Amor, a small store front selling natural medicine.
Continue reading “Book Release: My Name is Romero”
FROM: La Bloga
L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón is due out September 7th from Flatiron Books.
Continue reading “L.A. Weather”
Many/Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
Maggie Smith, with Victoria Chan, & Goldenrod via Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to hear author Maggie Smith, in conversation with award-winning poet Victoria Chang (Obit), discuss her new poetry book, Goldenrod.
Award-winning poet Maggie Smith returns with a powerful collection that looks at parenthood, solitude, love and memory by taking unique looks at modern life to explore with empathy and honestly.
NOTE: See Site for details and registration.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Monday the 9th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: See Site
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/live-crowdcast-maggie-smith-discusses-goldenrod-victoria-chang
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events: 08/09/21 – 08/15/21”
By Brian Dunlap
In 2012 poet Luis Antonio Pichardo founded the arts mentorship organization DSTL Arts. He had ambitious goals. From the start, he wanted to inspire, teach, and hire emerging artists from underserved communities. This idea was born at his house in Glassell Park. Northeast L.Á.
Continue reading “The Future of an L.Á. Arts Mentorship Organization: DSTL Arts”
Many/Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
Monday Art Block Writing Workshop via DSTL Arts –Contact DSTL for details
Join DSTL Arts for a new Monday Art Block Writing Workshop. This long-running series of writing workshops is about to resume, and details and registration will be available at site. Submissions are also underway for new publications.
NOTE: See Site for details and registration.
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Registration available at site.
Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/calendar
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events: 08/02/21 – 08/08/21”
By Daniel A. Olívas
FROM: LARB
Cherríe Moraga is an internationally recognized playwright, essayist, and poet who is best known as the co-editor of the groundbreaking feminist work This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Moraga is the author of several collections, including A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness and Loving in the War Years. Moraga has been recognized for her writing with the United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature, the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lambda Foundation’s “Pioneer” award, among other honors.
Continue reading “Three Questions for Cherríe Moraga Regarding Her Memoir, “Native Country of the Heart””
Another busy week in the Los Ángeles literary community, with in-person and virtual events. In=person events are at local bookstores, Re/Arte in Boyle Heights, Sims Library of Poetry in South Central. etc. Some local writers reading this week: poet Daniel Jose Ruiz, Brendan Constantine, Tommy Domino, V. Kali, Hiram Sims, October BLU and more. Continue reading Los Angeles Literature Events: 07/26/21 – 08/01/21
By Brian Dunlap
As more of the Los Ángeles literary community returns to in-person events, two long-running Orange County open mics, Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and Shout! the Open Mic, are joining forces, as Two Idiots said on Facebook, to “maintain an online reading.” They want to “continue to connect with our extended community beyond the borders of Southern California.”
Continue reading “Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and Shout! the Open Mic Are Joining Forces”
By Sean Hooks
FROM: Full Stop
Author of articles and essays in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, GQ, Esquire, Salon, and Slate, Rosecrans Baldwin has published the novels You Lost Me There (2010) and The Last Kid Left (2017), and the nonfiction titles Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down (2012) and his newest release Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles, published by MCD/FSG. It’s replete with cultists, wildfires, earthquake lore, working-class thespians, DIY survivalists, Border Angels, gamer collectives, labor trafficking survivors, and assorted Angelenos who could be said to be vagabonds (or wastrels). Despite reckoning with a litany of contemporary apocalypses, it remains a book levied with humor, including an inventive appropriation of Charles Bukowski’s character Henry Chinaski, an exposé of the lampoonable greed of investment trusts that view human suffering as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to “buy low,” and a hilarious depiction of a screenwriting team’s meeting with Hollywood producers gone awry.
Continue reading “Rosecrans Baldwin”
Many/Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
Treehouse Event: & Ziggy Marley & My Dog Romeo via Skylight Books & LA Public Library – Online Kids Event
Skylight Treehouse and the LA Public Library present an interactive kids event celebrating author Ziggy Marley’s new picture book, My Dog Romeo. Illustrations are beautifully done by Ag Jatkowska. This event is presented in partnership with the band Punk Rock Marthas.
This vibrant picture book follows a child and dog throughout their days, sharing their love of music and play. A children’s album of the same title is also available.
Where: Skylight Bookstore Online Kids Event (see site)
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 11 am
Address: Skylight Books Online (see site)
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events: 07/19/21 – 07/25/21”
Los Angeles Literature 