Review: Obsidian Tongues Open Mic
by Brian Dunlap
It’s Saturday April 14th and the crowd is large. Café Con Libros is silent. There are no empty seats when I arrive so I stand. I’m in Pomona’s Art Colony for Obsidian Tongues, an open mic hosted by William Gonzalez and Ceasar K. Avelar. I’m 15-20 minutes late, and with the large crowd, worry there won’t be time for me to read as part of the open mic.
Los Angeles Literature Events 4/23/18 –4/29/18
The Italian Party & Christina Lynch at Vroman’s Bookstore
Please join us as Christina Lynch presents and signs The Italian Party. One of the Wall Street Journal’s “Six Books to Read This Winter,” this is a delicious and sharply funny page-turner about “innocent” Americans abroad in 1950s Siena. This novel is half-glamorous fun, half an examination of America’s role in the world, and a smart pleasure.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: http://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/christina-lynch-discusses-and-signs-italian-party
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 4/23/18 –4/29/18”
More Book News
By Brian Dunlap
There is more good news to report from the Los Ángeles literary community. Novelist Alex Espinoza, author of Still Water Saints (Random House, 2007) and The Five Acts of Diego Leon (Random House, 2013), and Professor and Director MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Arts at Cal State L.A., posted the following on Facebook the other day:
Community Corner: The Cadence Connection
By Nancy Lynée Woo
From: Patreon
On Monday, April 9, 2018, the poetry community said a sad yet fond farewell to one of the strongest poetry readings in Long Beach—Cadence Collective—and with it one of the biggest poetry hearts of our beloved city—G. Murray Thomas.
Los Angeles Literature Events 4/16/18 –4/22/18
Chiwan Choi & Open Mic at Woodbury University
First Press Reading series and Moira Literary Magazine, welcome author Chiwan Choi, who will present his recent book-length poem, The Yellow House. Choi is also a partner at Writ Large Press, a Los Angeles-based indie publisher, focused on using literary arts to resist, disrupt, and transgress.
This second event in the series will also feature an Open Mic (one short piece and/or two minutes of reading time). Please join us and share some of your work. Also, please RSVP if you can at website link.
Where: Woodbury University, Enkeboll Library Courtyard
Date: Monday the 16th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 7500 N. Glenoaks Blvd., Burbank, CA 91504
Website: http://moriaonline.com/reading-series/
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 4/16/18 –4/22/18”
Two Awards and Two Book Releases
by Brian Dunlap
Over the past two weeks more good news has come to the Los Ángeles-Long Beach literary community. Two accolades for a spoken word album that a L.A. poet has two tracks on, and an honor for a poet writing about El Salvador and Salvadorian issues, plus two poetry releases.
Los Angeles Literature Events 4/09/18 –4/15/18
The Big Read of Citizen & Blackout Party at Westchester-Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL
In celebration of The Big Read of Citizen, by Claudia Rankine, please join us by creating blackout poetry and displaying your poem on our branch’s wall. Event continues during normal branch hours.
See website for directions and details.
Where: Westchester-Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 9th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 7114 W. Manchester Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-blackout-poetry
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 4/09/18 –4/15/18”
Fifty Years of Beyond Baroque: 1968–2018
This year Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Venice celebrates 50 years of promoting and developing local poets and beyond. It’s the oldest literary arts oragnization in the Greater Los Angeles literary community. Check out its rich history. Continue reading Fifty Years of Beyond Baroque: 1968–2018
Los Angeles Literature Events 4/2/18 –4/8/18
LiveTalksLA presents: Sean Penn, with Jane Smiley, at New Roads School – Santa Monica
LiveTalksLA presents a series of literary events (and podcasts) to meet and hear cultural and business leaders present and discuss their work. Tonight, actor and debut author Sean Penn discusses his novel, Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff. He has been nominated five times for an Academy Award as Best Actor, and won the 2003 award for Mystic River and the 2009 award for Milk. He has also garnered awards for his directing and writing, and has written about political issues for various journals. This book is a darkly humorous novel, a revised and expanded work based on an audiobook he released in 2016.
Jane Smiley is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Thousand Acres, and the author of The Last Hundred Years Trilogy, five works of nonfiction, and a series of YA books.
NOTE: LiveTalksLA readings are ticketed events. Tickets may be purchased at various prices, with or without a book purchase, and details are available at website link.
Where: New Roads School – Santa Monica, Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 8 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401
Website: http://livetalksla.org/events/sean-penn/
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 4/2/18 –4/8/18”
Los Angeles Literature Events 3/26/18 –4/01/18
Poets Reading on Oscar “Zeta” Acosta at Redwood Bar & Grill
Please join us for, Hunting the Brown Buffalo: Poets Read and Reflect on Oscar “Zeta” Acosta. Chicano Movement icon Oscar “Zeta” Acosta’s novels, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and Revolt of the Cockroach People, are testaments to the movement’s focus on criminal justice, civil rights, cultural identity and affirmation, and discrimination.
Six writers read new work that reflects on his legacy and ask what his life and writing can teach us today. The reading will be followed by a screening of Phillip Rodriguez’s documentary, The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo, at Civic Center Studio, 207 S. Broadway, Suite One, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Featured readers include:
Adrian Arancibia is a co-founder of Taco Shop Poets, authored the collections, Atacama Poems and The Keeper/El guardador, and will release Poems of Exhaustion in 2018. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Miramar Community College.
Darren J. de Leon, is an award-winning poet, playwright, performance artist, radio journalist, taquero, DJ, teacher, and community activist. In 1995 he founded Los Delicados: Poetas del Sol, San Francisco’s avant garde leaders of the Latino Spoken Word scene.
Carribean Fragoza has published fiction and poetry, as well as arts/culture reviews and essays. Her chapbook, K-12 was published by Eohippus Labs, and she is co-director of the South El Monte art Posse (SEMAP).
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez is a poet and journalist. In 1994 he co-founded Taco Shop Poets. He’s been a reporter at NPR-affiliate KPCC 89.3FM in Los Angeles since 2000.
Joseph Rios is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations (Omnidawn). He is a VONA alumnus and a Macondo Fellow, and was named one of the notable Debut Poets by Poets & Writers Magazine for 2017.
Yesika Salgado is a Los Angeles-based Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, culture, and brown body. She is co-founder of the Latina feminist collective Chingona Fire and is an internationally recognized body positivity activist. Her first book, Corazon, was published with Not a Cult in fall of 2017.
FREE event! Register at Eventbrite link.
Where: Redwood Bar & Grill
Date: Monday the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm: Meet for sidewalk performance on sidewalk on east side of Hill St, between 2nd and 3rd at 252 Hill St.
7 pm: Poetry Reading at Redwood Bar & Grill.
8:15 pm: Screening of documentary at Civic Center Studio.
Address: 316 West 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 3/26/18 –4/01/18”
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