Book Review: All That Wasted Fruit by Arminé Iknadossian
By Alexandra Umlas
FROM: Cultural Weekly
Arminé Iknadossian’s mother would gather olives from the trees that grew just outside of her daughter’s high school; she couldn’t imagine all of that wonderful fruit going to waste. Iknadossian has not written a poem for this image she remembers all of these years later, but perhaps all of the poems in her first collection of poetry are, in a way, an homage to her mother’s incessant olive gathering.
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Welcome Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins
By Brian Dunlap
FROM: Arkay Artists
Arkay Artists will be publishing Salvadorian L.A. poet Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins’ memoir in the Winter of 2019. Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole is a memoir summoned in poetic prose and poems.
Los Angeles Literature Events 5/20/19 – 5/26/19
Fran Wilde & Rachel Hartman at Children’s Book World – Kids & Teen Event
Meet the authors! Full of adventure and heart, Fran Wilde’s book, Riverland (ages 10-14), is a story about the bond between two sisters and how they must make their own magic to protect each other and save the ones they love. In Tess of the Road (ages 13+) Rachel Hartman returns to the spellbinding world of the Southlands she created in her bestselling Seraphina and explores self-reliance and redemption in this wholly original fantasy.
In late September, 1957, Henry and Effie, very young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey for their honeymoon only to find the town is deserted. Then they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. The empty beach town becomes their playground, and the couple slips from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences. Erotic and moving, this novel is about marriage, love and sexuality, and the lifelong repercussions they reap.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Monday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90064
Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/author-events/
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A CLEANSING TORNADO: HEART LIKE A WINDOW, MOUTH LIKE A CLIFF BY SARA BORJAS
By Emily Perez
FROM: The Rumpus
I had the privilege of spending a few days with Sara Borjas at the CantoMundo retreat in the summer of 2016. She is electric—smart, funny, sassy, vulnerable—and these qualities come through immediately in her debut collection, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff. The title indicates the heart will be fully exposed—a “window” that can be seen and seen through—but the mouth is another story. The image of the “cliff” suggests that the speaker’s words will present obstacles and launching points, precarious ledges and walls to slam against.
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Monstrous Poetry
Kenji Liu Is Using Frankenstein As A Metaphor For Toxic Masculinity
by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
FROM: Bitch Media
Kenji Liu and I enter a tea shop on Las Tunas Drive in an area that feels like the epicenter of the boba tea shop movement in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley. K-pop plays over the speakers while a worker noisily fixes a hole in the ceiling, and Liu and I have to raise our voices in order to discuss Monsters I Have Been, his new collection of sci-fi–inspired poems that uses the figure of Frankenstein’s monster as a way to reflect on toxic masculinity. But though our location isn’t an ideal place to record an interview, after immersing myself in Monsters’ mix of languages, pop-culture references, and chopped-up texts, I wanted to meet in a location that has a similarly busy vibrance.
Los Angeles Literature Events 5/13/19 – 5/19/19
Chip Cheek & Cape May at Chevalier’s Bookstore
Join us to hear Chip Cheek, author of Cape May: A Novl, present and discuss his debut. In this mesmerizing story the author explores the social and sexual mores of 1950s America through the eyes of a newly married couple from the genteel south, corrupted by sophisticated New England urbanites.
In late September, 1957, Henry and Effie, very young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey for their honeymoon only to find the town is deserted. Then they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. The empty beach town becomes their playground, and the couple slips from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences. Erotic and moving, this novel is about marriage, love and sexuality, and the lifelong repercussions they reap.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 am
Address: 126 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90008
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks/event/chip-cheek
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My Lit Box 3rd Anniversary
By Brian Dunlap
On April 28, My Lit Box celebrated its third birthday at Hilltop Coffee & Kitchen in View Park-Windsor Hills. I arrived early, before the tables and chairs had been arranged and the microphone plugged in. The space was lively, black friends in conversation, white friends in conversation, hipsters sitting at the back counter completing work on their laptops.
Los Angeles Literature Events 5/06/19 – 5/12/19
Rachel Howzell Hall & They All Fall Down at Chevalier’s Bookstore
Join us to meet author Rachel Howzell Hall, in conversation with author and critic Steph Cha, who will read and discuss her suspense novel, They All Fall Down. This stand-alone novel brings seven sinners to a private island for a reckoning that will leave you breathless.
Delighted by a surprise invitation, Miriam Macy sails off to a luxurious private island off the coast of Mexico with six other strangers. But they have all been brought to the remote island under false pretenses—and they all harbor a secret. They are trapped in paradise and strange accidents stir suspicions, as one by one… they all fall down.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 126 N. Larchmont Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: http://www. chevaliersbooks.com/rachel-howzell-hall
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Final Chapter For A Mar Vista Bookstore — And Its Unique Community
By Jeffrey Fleishman
FROM: L.A. Times
Listen to the rhythm of the stacks. Ghosts. Witches. Vampires. Come this way. Mummies. Mysteries. Mythologies. The words lift like music. True crime is down that aisle. Chaucer and Chesterton are over there. To the left wait Fitzgerald, Hemingway and a smiling Langston Hughes. And calling no attention to himself is Dostoevsky, so dark, yet so pure in the way he understood the things that menace the soul.
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Los Angeles Literature Events 4/29/19 – 5/05/19
Celebrate National Poetry Month with Poets Reading at Mar Vista Library, LAPL
Join L.A. writer and host Brian Dunlap at the Mar Vista Library as he welcomes three powerful local poets of color to Send off National Poetry Month in style.
Bridgette Bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. She has performed her poetry in venues all around Southern California, and is one half of the literary curating team, Making Room for Black Women, with Sanunra Williams of My lit Box. Her first book of poetry will be released by Writ Large Press in 2020.
Nikolai Garcia grew up in South Central Los Angeles; currently works with homeless youth in East Hollywood; and has been sleeping in Compton for the last fifteen years. He is an Associate Editor for Dryland, a literary arts journal based in South Central. His first chapbook, “Nuclear Shadows of Palm Trees,” will be released this summer through DSTL Arts.
Irene Sanchez, Ph.D, Poet, Teacher was born in South East Los Angeles and raised in LA and later the Inland Empire (Jurupa Valley, CA). She is a Xicana and mama, award winning poet, and writer. She is co-founder of the Southwest Political Report and founder of Xicana Ph.D. where you can find some of her writings.
Irene is the co-host of a monthly poetry open mic in Pomona, CA called Poetry y Pan at Cafe con Libros Press. In 2017 she received a fellowship to attend The Pink Door writers retreat. She is a VONA 2018 alum for the poetry workshop with Willie Perdomo. She is the 2018 winner of the Joe Hill Labor Poetry Award. Her work has been featured in/by Zócalo Public Square, KPCC, Remezcla, Huffington Post, Inside Higher Ed and more. Irene has spoken/presented at over 50 colleges/universities.
Now based out of the San Gabriel Valley in LA County, Irene teaches high school Latinx Studies and can often be found at a community/cultural event with her family. For more information: www.irenesanchezphd.com
Brian Dunlap is a native Angeleño who still lives in Los Ángeles. He explores and captures the city’s stories that are hidden in plain sight. He is the author of the chapbook Concrete Paradise (2018) from Finishing Line Press. Dunlap is the winner of the 2018 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize from december magazine judged by former Los Ángeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. His poems and book reviews have been published in Angel City Review, CCM-Entropy, California Quarterly and Dryland, among others. He has an article forthcoming in the June issue of L.A. Parent. He runs the blog site www.losangelesliterature.wordpress.com, a resource to explore L.A.’s vast literary culture.
Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 6 pm – 7:300 pm
Address: 12006 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90066
Website: https://www.lapl.org.whats-on/events/poetry-reading
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 4/29/19 – 5/05/19”
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