Review: Barbie Chang By Victoria Chang
by Kitty Anarchy
From: Los Angeles Review
Victoria Chang’s poetry collection Barbie Chang looks at the complex realities of racism for third-generation children. Even as a child, the speaker, Barbie Chang, is not able to have normal friendships with anyone—she overhears a classmate’s mother advising her daughter against forging a friendship with her because it is not in her best interest in “Barbie Chang’s Daughter:” “the new girl’s / mom tells Barbie Chang / that her own daughter should not tie / herself down too fast.”
Long Beach’s Grassroots Poetry And Literary Scene Is Underground No More
By Mary Anne Perez
From: Long Beach Press-Telegram
The Friday night crowd clapped, hooted and snapped their fingers for each poet who stood up to read their work at Fox Coffee House. The poets read from their phones, mostly, expressing loss, frustration with societal expectations and anger at injustice.
One fantasized about dealing with a mechanical friend.
“Time does not stop simply because your friend is a robot,” one man read.
Continue reading “Long Beach’s Grassroots Poetry And Literary Scene Is Underground No More”
Los Angeles Literature Events 8/06/18 –8/12/18
Book Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library
Writing a book and looking for feedback? Need deadlines to help you reach your writing goals? Then this is the group for you!
Each week, you should bring 5-10 double-spaced pages of writing to share with the group. Every member will have time to present their work and receive constructive feedback.
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035
Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-writers-group
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 8/06/18 –8/12/18”
On the Books: Brian Dunlap
by Jefferson Beavers
From: Fresno State MFA Blog
When did you attend the Fresno State MFA program, and what genre did you study?
I attended Fresno State from 2010-2013 to study fiction.
What were your first thoughts when you learned that your poetry chapbook, Concrete Paradise, would be published?
Surprise and disbelief, because I’d only sent my manuscript out to four or five publishers in the six months since I began the submissions process. Plus, I thought it was ironic that my first book was a book of poems, considering I always wrote fiction and dreamed of publishing novels, and for most of my life had avoided poetry altogether.
An Interview With Poet Matt Sedillo
Matt Sedillo is a hard working poet. He’s read at universities around the country. He recently was named the first Literary Coordinator of dA Center. Check out this interview to see what his plans are for the dA Center. Continue reading An Interview With Poet Matt Sedillo
Naomi Hirahara’s Los Angeles
By Mike Sonksen
From: Los Angeles Review of Books
Editor’s note: Naomi Hirahara has been a pillar of the mystery community since she published her first Mas Arai novel in 2004. To commemorate her final Mas novel, I asked Mike Sonksen, a.k.a. Mike the Poet, bard and historian of contemporary Los Angeles, to go on a walk with Naomi and write a profile that would do her justice. It was a huge task, but I believe he succeeded.
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NAOMI HIRAHARA IS one of the most prolific Los Angeles writers of the last few decades. Best known for her Edgar Award–winning seven-book Mas Arai crime novel series, she has also authored several nonfiction titles on Southern California Japanese-American history. Her newest Mas Arai mystery title and the final one of the series, Hiroshima Boy, was just published by Prospect Park Books in March 2018, and in April her latest nonfiction title, Life After Manzanar, was published by Heyday.
Los Angeles Literature Events 7/30/18 –8/05/18
Mary McCoy & Camp So-and-So at El Sereno Branch Library – Teen Event
Please join us for our Summer Author series and meet author Mary McCoy, who will present Camp So-and-So. She is a talented writer of stories about Los Angeles’s notorious past, AND a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. You can meet her this summer at this event, and might be the lucky winner of a free copy of the book.
Where: El Sereno Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 30th
Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 5226 S. Huntington Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032
Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/summer-author-meet-mary-mccoy
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 7/30/18 –8/05/18”
Poetry Circus #5
by Brian Dunlap
Last Saturday was the 5th annual Poetry Circus and the first time I attended. I was an hour late, but the circus ran from 5 pm – 10 pm at the Merry-Go-Round at Griffith Park. 44 L.A. poets were scheduled to read over three rings. 44 L.A. poets with vastly different voices and stories to tell.
PoetryLA Interview With Sarah Thursday
From: Poetry.LA
The most recent interview by Poetry.LA. is of Long Beach Poet Sarah Thursday. She is also the founder/publisher of Sadie Girl Press, which she founded in 2014 to create “print form collections of poetry, art, and beyond,” as the presses website states. As self-declared “poetry advocate,” she hosts readings series, leads workshops, organizes literary events, and promotes poets by publishing their work in chapbooks, anthologies. Her most recent chapbook is Seventeen Poems Not About a Lover from Arroyo Seco Press.
Love is the Message
By Jason Toney
From: misterjt.com
I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE LOS ANGELES.
— JONATHAN GOLD
We were standing in the non-fiction, cultural studies aisle of Book Star on Ventura Boulevard when a woman came around the corner and sternly said, “No laughing!” We blushed and then, she smiled.
“Sometimes when I do that, it’s to teenage couples that are smooching in the stacks,” she explained. I revealed that just before we had been looking at “adult books” like 101 Sex Positions and, yes, laughing like school children that were getting away with something.
Los Angeles Literature 