Naomi Hirahara’s Los Angeles
By Mike Sonksen
From: Los Angeles Review of Books
Editor’s note: Naomi Hirahara has been a pillar of the mystery community since she published her first Mas Arai novel in 2004. To commemorate her final Mas novel, I asked Mike Sonksen, a.k.a. Mike the Poet, bard and historian of contemporary Los Angeles, to go on a walk with Naomi and write a profile that would do her justice. It was a huge task, but I believe he succeeded.
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NAOMI HIRAHARA IS one of the most prolific Los Angeles writers of the last few decades. Best known for her Edgar Award–winning seven-book Mas Arai crime novel series, she has also authored several nonfiction titles on Southern California Japanese-American history. Her newest Mas Arai mystery title and the final one of the series, Hiroshima Boy, was just published by Prospect Park Books in March 2018, and in April her latest nonfiction title, Life After Manzanar, was published by Heyday.
The most recent interview by Poetry.LA. is of Long Beach Poet Sarah Thursday. She is also the founder/publisher of Sadie Girl Press, which she founded in 2014 to create “print form collections of poetry, art, and beyond,” as the presses website states. As self-declared “poetry advocate,” she hosts readings series, leads workshops, organizes literary events, and promotes poets by publishing their work in chapbooks, anthologies. Her most recent chapbook is Seventeen Poems Not About a Lover from Arroyo Seco Press.
Long Beach-based writer liz gonzález has a simple and surprising answer when you ask her to describe her creative self. “Taco.” It took me a second to absorb her answer. “Taco?” I asked.
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal just signed on as nonfiction editor at LA’s own Gold Line Press. She’s an innovative poet who isn’t constrained by genre; her work is electrifying, form-melting, challenging. I asked her about Gold Line’s upcoming chapbook contest and her work as an editor.
DSTL Arts is a nonprofit arts mentorship organization based in Los Angeles that “inspires, teaches, and hires emerging artists from underserved communities.” The acronym in DSTL Arts
This is the fifth interview in an ongoing series about the intersections of writing, teaching, and identity. Read Past Interviews in the series: Kathy Kottaras, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Mike Rose, Virginia Pye.
I first came across John Brantingham’s work when he sent in a poetry submission to TreeHouse Arts, which I quickly accepted (you can view that publication 
Anna: Can you tell me a little bit about Antígona González?
Cynthia Guardado is a fierce and unapologetically brown Salvadorian American female punk rockera, poeta, activista, y profe straight from Inglewooooood, California. Her poems have been published in PALABRA, A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art; The Packing House Review; and Razorcake’s very own Puro Pinche Poetry: Gritos Del Barrio.
When you read Mean by Myriam Gurba, you’re going to laugh, and cry, at some really gross and mean things – but that’s kinda the whole point. Mean is a very introspective book, exploring Gurba’s childhood, adolescence, and early adult life. By analyzing her own memory, Gurba forces the reader to do the same. She describes the book as a “novel that is memoiristic,” meaning not exactly a memoir, but not exactly fiction — it blends the two genres through memory, analysis, and retrospection.
