Los Angeles Literature Events 2/27/17 –3/05/17
Clownfish Blues at Book Soup
Please join us to hear Tim Dorsey discuss and sign Clownfish Blues, a funny novel about a loud and proud Floridian Serge A. Storms, who decides to shoot episodes of his favorite classic TV show Route 66 to follow up on his very own remake of Easy Rider. But his adventure traveling the byways of the Sunshine State’s underbelly is about to take a detour into deadly territory.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: http://www.booksoup.com/event/tim-dorsey-discusses-and-signs-clownfish-blues
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 2/27/17 –3/05/17”
Next Week a New List of Events
This past Sunday I got food poisoning. The good news is I’m all better and next week there will be a new list of events. Continue reading Next Week a New List of Events
CalArts launches L.A.’s newest, nonconformist literary magazine
by Agatha French
From: L.A. Times

At times it seems that for every reader, there is born a literary magazine. There are venerated old guards such as Harper’s and the New Yorker, established university journals including Prairie Schooner and Agni, and scores of online-only upstarts with names like Animal and the Boiler. But with the sheer volume of literary magazines perpetually pushing past overload, and with, happily, no end to the new stories, essays and poetry being published in sight, how does anyone decide what to actually read?
One approach: start local.
Continue reading “CalArts launches L.A.’s newest, nonconformist literary magazine”
Two fathers use poems to teach their kids about growing up black in America
by ELIZABETH FLOCK
From: PBS Newshour
When poets Geffrey Davis and F. Douglas Brown first met at a poetry retreat in 2012, they instantly connected in discussing fatherhood and the poetry that sprang from that experience. Over time, that relationship grew, and they began writing poetry that came directly out of their conversations. Soon, they were even borrowing each other’s lines or writing stanzas or whole poems back and forth, as a kind of call and response.
And in November, they published their first series of co-written poems, in a chapbook called “Begotten,” which was published by Upper Rubber books. These poems explore with tenderness and anxiety the joys and perils of being a father — especially a black father — and how to escape the mistakes of past generations.
Continue reading “Two fathers use poems to teach their kids about growing up black in America”
Review America is disintegrating, reality is fracturing, all to a classic soundtrack in Steve Erickson’s ‘Shadowbahn’
by Scott Bradfield
From: Los Angeles Times
Steve Erickson was post-millennial long before the millennium ever got here. Like those of a Southern California Ballard or Beckett, his novels are filled with a wide variety of end of time-like calamities, both personal and political: suicide cults, alternate-history Hitlers, urban conflagrations, unpredictable weather storms and — most terrifying of all — the endlessly recurring (and continually unbelievable) presidential election cycle. Over several decades of feverish literary production (his first novel, the absorbingly recursive “Days Between Stations,” was published in 1985), he has written consistently and obsessively about people seeking a way out of their own cultural history. Sometimes they’re successful; sometimes they’re not. But one way or another, as soon as they wake up the next morning, they’re lost.
Los Angeles Literature Events 2/13/17 –2/19/17
Stephen Kinzer at Vroman’s Bookstore
Join us as author Stephen Kinzer discusses and signs The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire. The bestselling author of Overthrow and The Brothers brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America’s interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond. Kinzer examines the period when Americans first found their country able to dominate faraway lands, and the brilliant debates that followed this change. The words of the titans who faced off in this epic confrontation are amazingly current, and every argument in the world grows from this one. It all starts here.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 2/13/17 –2/19/17”
Chiwan Choi: The Fire This Time
By Jack Grapes
From: Cultural Weekly

When Chiwan Choi first walked into my class over 25 years ago, he was a 17-year old teenager, quiet and introspective. The writers in my Method Writing class were all adults, well into their 30s, and many even older. Some had already written books, novels, poems, plays, screenplays even (what a concept in Hollywood!), and were all excellent writers. Chiwan snuggled into a nondescript spot on the couch, scrunched between a guy who planned to win the Nobel Prize and a gray-haired woman who had already won one. I don’t think either one planned to learn new tricks, despite Method Writing’s array of linguistic tricks and literary constructs. Everyone in the room, I’m sure, were thinking to themselves, should I read my story about incest or abuse or sexual escapades in front of this 17-year old boy who seemed so innocent and naive.
Los Angeles Literature Events 2/06/17 –2/12/17
Author Talk at Mar Vista Branch Library–Children’s Event
Join us as author Gretchen Woelfle discusses her new book Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution. Learn about some lesser known figures of America’s past, and then participate in a craft making silhouette figures after the program.
The event is geared for ages 7 and up, and is part of African American Heritage Month.
Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 12006 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066
Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-qa-answering-cry-freedom
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 2/06/17 –2/12/17”
Los Angeles Literature Events 1/30/17 –2/05/17
Zine-Making Workshops at Central Library–Teen Event
The Teen’Scape program invites you back to work on the DIY art of writing poetry, drawing mini-comics, collaged illustration, self-publishing, and making zines.
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 30th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/zine-making-workshops-0
Coyote America at ALOUD Reading Series, Central Library
With a brilliant blend of environmental and natural history, Dan Flores’ Coyote America traces the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the “wolf” in our backyards. Illuminating this legendary creature, Flores will be joined onstage for a conversation with playwright and chronicler of urban wildlife Melissa Cooper, and actor Laura Innes, who will also perform an excerpt from her play, New York City Coyote Existential.
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 30th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 630 West 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: http://lfla.org/event/coyote-america/
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 1/30/17 –2/05/17”
Coming this Summer to the Los Angeles Literary Community
The Return of Writ Large Press’s 90/90. 90 readings in 90 days. I’ll be there. Will you? Continue reading Coming this Summer to the Los Angeles Literary Community
