Two Awards and Two Book Releases
by Brian Dunlap
Over the past two weeks more good news has come to the Los Ángeles-Long Beach literary community. Two accolades for a spoken word album that a L.A. poet has two tracks on, and an honor for a poet writing about El Salvador and Salvadorian issues, plus two poetry releases.

Dear poets and friends,
Earlier this week three L.A. poets, Irene Monica Sanchez, Angelina Sáenz and T. Sarmina got accepted into the prestigious VONA/Voices of Our Nation summer workshop at Realm Academy in Berkeley. The workshop is for emerging poets and prose writers-of-Color.
Jack Jones Literary Arts, located in Los Ángeles, is hosting its second annual writing retreat at Blue Sky Retreat, Taos, New Mexico. This two-week retreat will be held October 13- 27, 2018, and is open exclusively to women of color. Jenna Wortham joins us as our 2018 Writer-in-Residence.
“Los Angeles is not Baywatch or the Beach Boys, it is getting carne asada tacos from a taco truck and bacon wrapped hot dogs at two in the morning.”
This year—fall 2018—marks the 30th anniversary of Santa Monica Review (SMR). The national literary arts journal published by Santa Monica College (SMC) showcases the work of established authors alongside emerging writers, with a focus on West Coast fiction and nonfiction; it happens to be the only nationally-distributed literary journal at a community college.
It begins every Wednesday at 7:30 pm. Early arrivals step to the mic, sharing a poem in progress to receive much needed feedback. Then they provide feedback to others. V. Kali, author of Hymn (World Stage Press), sits next to the donation box and front entrance and welcomes attendees as they arrive. As host, V. has been a warm presence each week for years, her long beautiful natural hair a thing of legend. As the crowd grows, the list of open mic readers expands before the feature grabs everyone’s attention. Murmurs of “mmm hmm” and “that’s right” arise from the crowd. After, it’s the community-the open mic readers’-turn at the mic. It’s their chance to bring down the house.