Locs in the Sweat Lodge: On Shonda Buchanan’s “Black Indian”
By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
FROM: LARB
Award-winning poet Shonda Buchanan honors multiple literary traditions in her breathtaking new memoir, Black Indian. An educator, freelance writer, and literary editor, Buchanan is a culture worker with deep, decades-long engagement in communities of color. Her work honors the complexity and diversity of these Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. At once Indigenous, Black Female, Speculative, Feminist, Womanist, Urban, Southern Gothic, and counter to the Tragic Mulatto stereotype in American literature, stage, and film, Black Indian is a quintessentially American narrative.
Continue reading “Locs in the Sweat Lodge: On Shonda Buchanan’s “Black Indian””
Joan Didion’s California Captured in Sweeping New Collection
By Lynell George
FROM: Los Angeles Times
The sequence is as predictable as the season itself: The calendar reads “fall” but the thermometer registers 90-plus. The Santa Ana winds kick up. Wildfires zipper across the landscape. Once again Joan Didion whispers in the Southland’s collective ear.
Continue reading “Joan Didion’s California Captured in Sweeping New Collection”
Episode Six of Poetry Salon’s Poetry Saloncast
By Brian Dunlap
The Poetry Salon has released the six episode of its Poetry Saloncast. This episode’s interview is with local poet Alexis Rhone Fancher, whose work has been described as blazing and frank and her submissions regimen ambitious. Fancher discusses her work-ethic and her ability to detach herself from her writing, even when writing about very personal subjects.
Continue reading “Episode Six of Poetry Salon’s Poetry Saloncast”
Los Angeles Literature Events 11/11/19 – 11/17/19
Andreina Perez & Tito, Piece of Heaven at Book Soup
Author Andreina Perez will present and sign her book, Tito, Piece of Heaven.
This is the story of an ordinary girl with no extraordinary abilities, on the contrary, she was quiet and lonely, her outfits were colorful to its maximum that the only thing that would stand out was the misery within the reflection in her eyes; only visible to those brave enough to see through her beyond what the eyes could reach. This ordinary girl without any ability is me: Amy.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 11th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/andreina-perez-discusses-and-signs-tito-peace-heaven
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 11/11/19 – 11/17/19”
10 Best Bookstores In Los Angeles
By Lacey Womack
FROM: The Travel
There are stores dedicated to just about everything, all around the world. Whether you’re shopping for jewelry, shoes, or even books, there are stores where you can browse and buy whatever it is that you’re looking for.
Los Angeles Literature Events 11/04/19 – 11/10/19
Kiese Laymon & “What’s Good: Reckoning with the Horror” at The Athanaeum, Claremont McKenna College
Author and comparative literature scholar Kiese Laymon will discuss “What’s Good: Reckoning with the Horror of One of Our Most Overused Words” and will also discuss and sign his book, Heavy.
The author and his presentation will explore the unspoken traumas and joys embedded in the word “good” in his home, region, and in the nation.
Where: The Athanaeum, Claremont McKenna College
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 385 E. 8th St., Claremont, CA 91711
Website: https://www.clarmeontmckenna.edu/mmca
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 11/04/19 – 11/10/19”
My El Monte Halloweens
By Michael Jaime-Becerra
FROM: Los Angeles Times
When I was a boy, we didn’t celebrate Halloween. I recall trick-or-treating once, the year I was 5, my mother taking my sister and me to our nana’s house in South El Monte, me in a cowboy costume, my caramel-colored corduroy vest and chaps fresh from my mother’s sewing machine, my sister’s ladybug costume too. We approached a few houses to collect whatever candy we could, and aside from a future Halloween party or two and our elementary school’s costume parade, that was it.
Los Angeles Literature Events 10/31/19 – 11/03/19
Poetry Salon Fall Class – Fullerton
The Poetry Salon is a fun, nurturing environment where advanced writers share their work and develop their craft. This quarterly 8-week workshop deepens your craft and writing practice, so you can hone your work into powerful written pieces.
NOTE: This is a ticketed event so check further details at website.
Where: Fullerton Location TBA
Date: Thursday the 31st
Time: 11 am – 2 pm
Address: Fullerton Area Location TBA, Fullerton, CA
Website: https://facebook.com/events/457252281665295
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 10/31/19 – 11/03/19”
Author Interview With Author of Arroyo, Chip Jacobs!
By Denise Alicea
FROM: The Pen & Muse
Set against two distinct epochs in the history of Pasadena, California, Arroyo tells the parallel stories of a young man and his dog in 1913 and 1993. In both lives, they are drawn to the landmark Colorado Street Bridge, or “Suicide Bridge,” as the locals call it, which suffered a lethal collapse during construction but still opened to fanfare in the early twentieth century automobile age. When the refurbished structure commemorates its 80th birthday, one of the planet’s best known small towns is virtually unrecognizable from its romanticized, and somewhat invented, past.
Continue reading “Author Interview With Author of Arroyo, Chip Jacobs!”
Literary History: Why L.A. Is The Perpetual Dark Heart of Crime Writing
By Jeffery Fleishman
FROM: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles is a madman’s prayer wrapped inside a murderous dream.
It’s homeless on sidewalks and hustlers in the hills. It’s laborers and housekeepers, and billboards of lust, dystopia, apes, robots, Chewbaccas, Kim and Kanye, and Lady Gaga’s newest thing. It’s clear skies, no mosquitoes and laser-sculpted people with money, hedgerows and sins. A crime writer can make of it what he or she wants, like “Westworld” or a lover who gives you a kiss and a key, and one day changes the locks.
Continue reading “Literary History: Why L.A. Is The Perpetual Dark Heart of Crime Writing”
Los Angeles Literature 