Book News From Natashia Deón
by Brian Dunlap
Recently, L.A. novelist Natashia Deón announced she sold her second book “The Perishing,” to Counterpoint Press. She reacted to the news on Facebook by saying, “So doggone grateful. Glory!”
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 10/15/18 –10/21/18
“Listen to This” Open Mic Poetry Night at Pico Branch Library, SMPL
Share your own poems, or read from your favorite writer. “Listen to This” allows you to listen or to take turns at the microphone, reading, reciting, or performing one poem at a time.
Where: Pico Branch Library, SMPL
Date: Monday the 15th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 2201 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: http://calendar.smgov.net/library/eventsignup.asp?ID=27978 Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 10/15/18 –10/21/18”
Overheard At Vroman’s
Reyna Grande In Conversation With Alex Espinoza
by Michel Sedano
From: Labloga.blogspot.com
Friday night’s is an audience of readers, gente who have come on Friday night to the independent bookseller, Vroman’s, in Pasadena CA because reading matters to them. They want to hear Reyna Grande, whose stories to them mattered.
Reyna Grande has five books; two novels, three memoirs (one the YA Distance Between Us) and not including translations. She’s the kind of writer a passerby would want to sit and hear. But there’s SRO. And still they stand. She’s that kind of speaker.
Love, Migration and Revolution
By Brian Dunlap
Friday September 28th at 826LA Mar Vista was electric. The room was packed, filled mostly with people of color and queer people of color. The metal chairs were set in rows facing the front where the writers were about to read. On the right side of the room was a small display of artwork from invited Eastside artist Freddy Negrete, who shared the table with pastries from Portos. Attendees continued to trickle in, conversations adding a welcomed excitement to the room. But when host Mixel Salinas stepped to the mic a focused quiet fell over the audience. 100 Thousand Poets for Change’s Love, Migration, and Revolution reading began.
What is happening at ALOUD?
By Rigoberto González
From: Los Angeles Times
On Sept. 20, I had the pleasure of interviewing Native American writer Tommy Orange on the stage for ALOUD, a lecture series at the Los Angeles Public Library, and I hope that the audience in attendance benefited from our exchange. Our banter was friendly, and there were a few chuckles during the evening so I know that we were, at the very least, entertaining. The book-signing line was lengthy and the brief interactions we had with the book buyers were generous and appreciative. After the last book was signed, Tommy and I embraced and said our goodbyes, promising to remain in touch. But despite how smoothly the entire evening went, something was not quite right. Perhaps it was the guns.
Los Angeles Literature Events 10/08/18 –10/14/18
The Displaced Children of Displaced Children at UCLA
Please join host Neelanjana Banerjee to welcome and hear writer and activist Tanzila Ahmed (Luskin MPP ’07) and award winning poet Faisal Mohyuddin, for a reading and conversation about writing, loss, politics, and more. Refreshments provided!
Faisal Mohyuddin’s poetry, fiction and visual art have appeared widely, and his poetry is also anthologized. His chapbook The Riddle of Longing of was published by Backbone Press in 2017, and his first full length collection, The Displaced Children of Displaced Children was the winner of the Sexton Prize and came out in 2018.
Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed plays at the intersection of pop and politics through a variety of mediums and actions. She is co-host of the Good Muslin Bad Muslim Podcast, among other pursuits.
Where: Powell Library, UCLA
Date: Monday the 8th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: Powell Library, UCLA Campus, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: http://www.facebook.com/events/581882458919768/?active_tab=about
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 10/08/18 –10/14/18”
Los Angeles Literature Events 10/02/18 –10/07/18
Dennis Vaughn & The Longboat at Diesel Bookstore
Please join us to hear author Dennis Vaughn discuss and sign his novel, The Longboat.
This book is a family saga, spanning multiple generations and continents, focused on two Burmese boys who are brought to the U.S. and the challenges they face in adjusting to the Western world and to changes in their own relationship. Over the span of thirty years they go from inseparable best friends to antagonists, and ends with the Saffron Revolution of 2007.
Where: Diesel Bookstore, Brentwood
Date: Tuesday the 2nd
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 10/02/18 –10/07/18”
Jack Jones Founder Named to The Root 100 2018
by Brian Dunlap
Last week Kima Jones, founder of L.A. based Jack Jones Literary Arts, was named to The Root 100 2018. Coming in at number 88, The Root says Jones made the list because her book-publicist firm consists of a roster “primarily…[of] women and writers of color.”
Continue reading “Jack Jones Founder Named to The Root 100 2018”
WORDS ON A WIRE: Vickie Vértiz
by Brian Dunlap
This past Sunday L.A. poet Vickie Vértiz was interviewed on KETP’s literary program “Words On A Wire.”
Vértiz is the oldest child of an immigrant Mexican family and was born and raised in Bell Gardens, a southeast Los Angeles city. Her writing is featured in the New York Times magazine, Spiral Orb, Huizache, Nepantla, Omniverse, the Los Angeles Review of Books, KCET Departures, and the anthologies: Open the Door (from McSweeney’s and the Poetry Foundation), and The Coiled Serpent (from Tia Chucha Press), among many others. Vértiz’s first full collection of poetry, Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut, was published in the Camino del Sol Series by The University of Arizona Press in September of 2017.
Cafe con Libros Thrives in Creative Community
A bookstore oasis in the heart of the Pomona Arts District
by Joseph Harvey
From: SAC Media
“As part of the community, our mission is to provide a space for everyone to embrace art, literature, cultural expression; in all its forms, to enlighten the future of our community.”
For founders Adelaida Bautista and Patricia DeRobles, Cafe con Libros is a project and business endeavor that means a great deal to members of the community and inevitably, the City of Pomona.
Continue reading “Cafe con Libros Thrives in Creative Community”
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