LANGUAGE LESSON AND SURVEILLANCE BY ASHAKI M. JACKSON
BY KENJI LIU
From: Therumpus.net
A gifted poet and doctor of social psychology, Ashaki M. Jackson debuted two chapbooks in 2016, both remarkable for their delicate attention to language and conscience. Language Lesson involves the deeply personal process of grief after the loss of a close family member, and Surveillance a kind of communal grief (though no less personal) due to the ongoing police murders of black people.
Continue reading “LANGUAGE LESSON AND SURVEILLANCE BY ASHAKI M. JACKSON”
Southern California author Matt Coyle discusses and signs his new book, Dark Fissures. Private investigator Rick Cahill fears the next knock on his door will be a cop holding a warrant for his arrest. For murder. La Jolla Chief of Police Tony Moretti is convinced Rick killed a missing person. Although no body has been found, all the evidence points to Rick
The launch of Angels Flight (not the funicular) is the grand blastoff of an ambitious literary salon series to be held at the venerable, quintessentially downtown Clifton’s Cafeteria. The night focuses on writings about Los Angeles history and how L.A. provokes change in our lives. Author and USC English professor Dana Johnson (Elsewhere, California: A Novel) and screenwriter-novelist David Kukoff (Children of the Canyon and the forthcoming Los Angeles in the 1970s: Weird Scenes in the Goldmine) read from their work, followed by a Q&A. Attention writers: You can share your own writing, completed and in-progress, on this ever-fascinating subject. Themed beverages and dining available.
The stories in Dana Johnson’s collection “In the Not Quite Dark” take place in and around Los Angeles, the historical Pacific Electric Building in downtown in particular. Characters across stories live there, either the victims of gentrification or the unapologetic gentrifying. In “Because That’s Just Easier,” yuppie parents try to teach their child that there is nothing she can do for the homeless of downtown. When the girl observes a man prone on the sidewalk, she wonders whether or not he’s alive. Her father kneels down and says, “If he’s not dead … then it’s harder.” The girl decides by the end of the story that the homeless man must be dead then, because — as the title states — that’s just easier.
Tim Wu, in conversation with KCRW’s Madeleine Brand, will discuss and sign his new book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, which explores the rise of firms whose business models are the mass capture of attention for resale to advertisers. Wu looks at the cognitive, social, and unimaginable ways that industries focusing on human attention are transforming our society and our personal lives.
Alice Hoffman, with Lisa See, at Vroman’s Bookstore 
DSTLarts and Junipero Serra Branch Library present Conchas Y Café, an adult creative writing workshop, offered every Monday, where you can work with local artists on the DIY art of writing poetry, drawing mini-comics, collaged instruction, self-publishing and making zines.
Libyan Author at ALOUD, Central Library 
