Los Angeles Literature Events 1/06/19 – 1/12/20
Docent Tour of Central Library at Downtown LA Central Library
Visit Los Angeles Public Library’s historic Central Library. Enjoy the art and architecture of the 1926 Bertram Goodhue Building with its distinctive sphinxes and rooftop pyramid. Wander through the 1993 Tom Bradley Wing, designed by architect Norman Pfeiffer, and gaze at the 8–story atrium with its whimsical chandeliers. Learn about the library’s comprehensive collections. All tours are FREE. Start the year by getting to know your LAPL central library!
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 12:30 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/docent-tours-central-library
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A New L.Á. Novel
By Jessica
Virtual Velocity by Anthony Mora is the story of the curious creation of pop phenomena, Jake Jenkins, America’s most renowned and successful literary novelist. Spanning six decades, through three interconnected stories, Virtual Velocity follows Jake from a sixteen-year-old learning about literature and women, to frenetic rock journalist, to struggling literary novelist, to world-famous author. Journeying through L.Á.’s rock and literary worlds, it is also an homage to the city, tracking its internal and external changing landscape and its cultural shape shifting.
Los Ángeles Writers Publish in 2019
By Brian Dunlap As 2019 comes to a close, it’s clear that Los Ángeles writers explore a diverse range of topics, themes, and ideas. As the months went by, writers published novels, essay collections, poetry collections/chapbooks or announced their books had been accepted for publication in 2020. Their writing ranged from exploration of children lost too soon, to a celebration Los Ángeles, to the love … Continue reading Los Ángeles Writers Publish in 2019
La Palabra, A Great Way to End the Year
By Brian Dunlap
Avenue 50 Studio was packed with poets, folding chairs and powerful and difficult-but necessary-words. It was the third Sunday in December and Santa Ana winds sent a chill through Highland Park. But the front room inside the gallery dedicated to local Latinx art, with an emphasis on Chicanx artists, was a safe space filled with familiar faces. It was the final La Palabra open mic of the year.
‘I Was Interested In The People Who Are Stuck With These Memories’
Steph Cha discusses her new novel “Your House Will Pay,” the LA Riots, the Korean American Angeleno community, her 3,600 Yelp reviews, and pushing back against gatekeepers in publishing.
By Victoria Namkung
FROM: Longreads
On March 16, 1991, 15-year-old Latasha Harlins went to a local convenience store in South Los Angeles to buy a bottle of orange juice. Owner Soon Ja Du accused the teenage girl of shoplifting, an altercation ensued, and in a split-second captured on video, Du shot Harlins in the back of the head. She died with two dollars in her hand. A jury found Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but against their recommendation, the judge sentenced the Korean-born woman to a $500 fine, probation, and community service.
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Holiday Break
As it’s the thick of the holiday season, Los Angeles Literature is taking this week and next week off from from compiling it’s weekly list of events as the literary community has gone dark to celebrate good times with loving family, no matter what form family may take. The list will return on January 5th with events for the week of the 6th-12th.
Poetic Lenses: Our Fifteenth Annual Look at Debut Poetry
By Dana Isokawa
FROM: Poets & Writers
For our fifteenth annual look at debut poetry, we chose ten poets whose first books struck us with their formal imagination, distinctive language, and deep attention to the world. The books, all published in 2019, inhabit a range of poetic modes. There is Keith S. Wilson’s reimagining of traditional forms in Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love, and Maya Phillips’s modern epic, Erou. There is Maya C. Popa’s lyric investigations in American Faith, Marwa Helal’s subversive documentary poems in Invasive species, and Yanyi’s series of prose poems in The Year of Blue Water. The ten collections clarify and play with all kinds of language—the language of the news, of love, of politics, of philosophy, of family, of place—and, as Popa says, they “slow and suspend the moment, allowing a more nuanced examination of what otherwise flows through us quickly.”
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Friday Night Poetry: There’re Just Words
By Brian Dunlap
Friday night at Book Show in Highland Park was a goodbye of sorts. Local poets from places such as Santa Clarita, Mar Vista and Long Beach gathered there as if moths drawn to a flame. Drawn to share their experiences. They’d been coming to Book Show on the third Friday of the month for the past two years to share in community at Friday Night Poetry: They’re Just Words, hosted by L.A. poet Ingrid Calderon-Collins.
Los Angeles Literature Events 12/16/19 – 12/22/19
Plenty of literary events this week: open mics, book clubs, readings, workshops, kids, teen and LGBTQIA+ events. Local writers reading this week include: Coco, Linda Albertano and Steven Reigns, among others. Continue reading Los Angeles Literature Events 12/16/19 – 12/22/19
FROM OUR LAND TO OUR LAND
Distinguished Mexican American writer, Luis J. Rodriguez, meditates on the place of Xicanx culture in what he sees as a sick and increasingly fragmented global society. Continue reading FROM OUR LAND TO OUR LAND
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