A few thoughts on adapting “The Courtship of María Rivera Peña” for the screen

By Daniel A. Olivas
FROM: Labloga.com

41BTS5D4T1L._SX304_BO1,204,203,200_Nineteen years ago, a small independent press based in Pennsylvania—sadly now defunct—published my first book, a novella titled The Courtship of María Rivera Peña(Silver Lake Publishing). The story is loosely based on the migration of my paternal grandparents from Mexico to Los Angeles in the 1920s and follows the courtship, marriage, and family life of the cook Beto and the beautiful waitress María. Three years later, a longer, second edition was published under the same name but with a slightly different cover design. I am now exploring with a publisher whether we can publish a 20th anniversary edition that would include a scholarly introduction.

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L.A.’s Not A Cult Press Teams Up With Echo Park’s Stories Books & Cafe

By Brian Dunlap

FB_IMG_1559097544460Yesterday, L.A.’s Not A Cult Press announced on its Facebook page that Stories Books & Cafe has teamed up with them to sponsor their annual poetry submissions award. The award will now be called the Stories Award for Poetry. The winner gets a cash prize of $1,000 and a publishing deal with Not A Cult.

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My Lit Box 3rd Anniversary

By Brian Dunlap

20190507_204749On April 28, My Lit Box celebrated its third birthday at Hilltop Coffee & Kitchen in View Park-Windsor Hills. I arrived early, before the tables and chairs had been arranged and the microphone plugged in. The space was lively, black friends in conversation, white friends in conversation, hipsters sitting at the back counter completing work on their laptops.

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Final Chapter For A Mar Vista Bookstore — And Its Unique Community

By Jeffrey Fleishman
FROM: L.A. Times

la-1554236805-g0stejryrh-snap-imageListen to the rhythm of the stacks. Ghosts. Witches. Vampires. Come this way. Mummies. Mysteries. Mythologies. The words lift like music. True crime is down that aisle. Chaucer and Chesterton are over there. To the left wait Fitzgerald, Hemingway and a smiling Langston Hughes. And calling no attention to himself is Dostoevsky, so dark, yet so pure in the way he understood the things that menace the soul.

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Alma Rosa Rivera: Building Bridges In The Poetry World Between Brown Love, Motherhood, And Politics

By Astrid
FROM: LA Taco

Alma-Rosa-Rivera-2Alma Rosa Rivera is a bespeckled, Mexican American poet, mom, and wife who says she doesn’t like to “water down” her brownness. From the hot deserts in Santa Clarita to heavy smog and neon signs in Koreatown, Alma is representing brownness in all its glory.

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Business Beat: Fourth Street Turns Page With New Bookstore

By Ashleigh Ruhl
FROM: The Grunion

50196239_2008988662490429_5419863507640254464_nA new bookstore is turning the page on Fourth Street’s Retro Row.

Page Against the Machine (or PATM) opened earlier this month in a narrow but bright retail space at 2714 E. Fourth St., the sleekly remodeled home of what was formerly Seventh Wave surf shop. Continue reading “Business Beat: Fourth Street Turns Page With New Bookstore”

The Main Source

Amazon and rising rents killed the old Bohemia of the Beach Cities, but the spirit of the old Santa Monica survives at Angel City Books.

BY MAX BELL                                                                                                                              FROM: TheLAnd

rocco1-800x1067If you want to understand the ceaseless gentrification of Santa Monica, just walk down Main Street.

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