Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today (City Lights Books)

We're looking forward to hosting Paul Krassner, only person to win awards from both Playboy (for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workshop (for journalism), to be inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, to receive an ACLU Uppie (Upton Sinclair) Award for dedication to freedom of expression, and to be described by the FBI as "a raving, unconfined nut." He'll be here discussing and signing his new book .

Paul Krassner was a close friend of Lenny Bruce and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Krassner co-founded the Yippies, was involved with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and is written about in Tom Wolfe's unforgettable The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Playboy, The Nation, Penthouse, Mother Jones, New York, National Lampoon, Utne Reader, San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly and Funny Times. He has been a guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Krassner published The Realist, the counterculture's first alternative paper, from 1958 t to 2001 and writes regularly for Season in the Sun, High Times, AVN Online and the Huffington Post.

It's a night celebrating the chapbook!

Three fantastic poets will read from and sign their recent chapbooks, and in the process, bring more attention to these sometimes underappreciated small collections of poetry. Charlotte Innes is the author of Reading Ruskin in Los Angeles, Andrea Scarpino is the author of Grove Behind, and Corrie Greathouse is the author of Portraits: Invisible Ink on Parchment (all chapbooks).

Come on by and find out what makes chapbooks so cool!

Charlotte Innes's poetry has appeared in various journals, including The Hudson Review, The Sewanee Review, The Pinch, The Chaffin Journal, and Knockout.  Currently, she is
writer-in-residence at Pilgrim School, where she teaches English and
creative writing; assists students in putting out a literary magazine;
and runs a visiting writers series.

Andrea Scarpino received an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State
University, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is widely published in
both print and online journals. She currently teaches with the Union Institute
and University's Cohort Ph.D. program in Interdisciplinary Studies and is the
West Coast Correspondent for the blog Planet of the Blind.

Corrie
Greathouse was raised in Orange County and lives in Los Angeles. She
has performed throughout California and in NYC both solo and
accompanied by ambient musician graffiti61. Her work has been published
in Poetix, The Toronto Quarterly, Falling Star Magazine, November 3rd Club and others.

Photo of Charlotte Innes by Shweta Chanda.

The Graphic Eye: Photos from Graphic Designers Around the Globe (Chronicle Books)

A launch party for this beautiful new collection of the work of top graphic designers, edited by Stefan Bucher, the man behind the 100 Days of Monsters website and book. There will be light refreshments and a photo booth, and Stefan will be discussing and signing this great new book!

Stefan G. Bucher (http://344design.com) has created designs for everyone from Sting and David Hockney to groundbreaking filmmaker Tarsem. He designed the award-winning American Photography 17 annual, and his work has been recognized by the D&AD, AIGA, the Art Directors Club, the American Center for Design, the One Show, the Type Directors Club, HOW, PRINT, STEP Inside Design, novum, Communication Arts, and WIRED. He is the author of the books All Access: The Making of Thirty Extraordinary Graphic Designers and 100 Days of Monsters, which chronicles his acclaimed online drawing and storytelling experiment dailymonster.com. You can also see him drawing monstrous letters on public television as part of the rebooted children's television classic The Electric Company. He lives in Los Angeles.

A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. Our staff will share their faves from indie presses. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served!

This month we feature:

Graphic Novels from Independent Publishers

Dan bows low to Ponent Mon, a Spanish publisher created February 2003, Ponent Mon together with Fanfare, aims to introduce comic book readers to the latest graphic and
story telling tendencies coming out of Japan's alternative comics
scene.

While they focus on the "Nouvelle Manga" movement formed by Frédéric Boilet, their hope is to survive long enough to be able to publish a long list of
major Japanese artists including new works previously unpublished
anywhere.

Darren delves deep into IDW Publishing which currently publishes a wide range of comic books and graphic novels including titles based on Angel, Doctor Who, GI Joe, Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation, and Transformers. Creator-driven titles include Fallen Angel by Peter David and JK Woodward, Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, and a variety of titles by writer Steve Niles including Wake the Dead, Epilogue, and Dead, She Said.

Another imprint of IDW, Worthwhile Books, focuses on character-driven children’s books. Michael Recycle,
a story about a super-hero who teaches a town how to recycle, is one of
the company’s best-selling titles. Other titles in the line include Vigfus the Viking, written by the Golden Globe Award winning writer David Sacks and Brian Ross, The Town of Zack, written by the Emmy Award winning writer Dava Savel, Seamus McNamus, written by the People’s Choice Award winning writer Rob Kurtz, and Carl the Frog, written by Shrek 2 writer David Weiss.

Justin talks about DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT which was founded in 2004 and is
home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties,
including Red Sonja, Project Superpowers, The Boys, Army of Darkness,
Battlestar Galactica, The Lone Ranger, Zorro and more!

In
addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and best selling comics,
Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics
and entertainment, including Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis,
Michael Turner, Jim Lee, Michael Avon Oeming, Brian Reed, Mel Rubi,
Marc Guggenheim, Stephen Sadowski, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak,
Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner­ and a host of up and coming new talent and
fan favorite creators!

The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (Semiotext(e))

The "rock star of modern poetry" (Bust Magazine) will read from her new collection of essays on art and culture.

Eileen Myles is a poet (Sorry, Tree; Not Me, etc.) who writes fiction (Cool for You, Chelsea Girls).  She ran St. Mark's Poetry Project in the '80s, and conducted an openly female write-in campaign for President of the U.S. in 1992. She is a Professor Emeritus of Writing at UCSD. She writes for Parkett, The Believer, Vice, The Nation, The Stranger, AnOther Magazine and is blogging all summer on the Harriet site.

Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities (Chronicle Books)

We're delighted to co-present this event with AIGA/LA, the Los Angeles branch of the professional association for design. 

This event will be a fascinating presentation by master letterpress printer and artist John Carrera, whose latest project, Pictorial Webster's, collects 19th century engravings from Webster's Dictionary. Carrera will discuss the 10-year history of this project and the art and craft that go into letterpress printing and the techniques used in this book.

John M. Carrera is a printer, book binder and artist who has taught and lectured extensively. He is the founder and proprieter of Quercus Press -- a letterpress and bindery.  He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.

AIGA is committed to furthering excellence in design as a broadly-defined discipline, strategic tool for business and cultural force. AIGA is the place design professionals turn to first to exchange ideas and information, participate in critical analysis and research and advance education and ethical practice.

09/17/09 Breaking News! John Krasinski, actor/director/writer for the movie Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, will be joining us to promote the movie (which opens on September 25th). He will read a bit from the book and sign movie posters. How cool is that!

We would like to
extend an invitation to you for our Infinite Summer's End David Foster
Wallace Celebration. It will be a party to celebrate the completion of Infinite Jest
by people all over Los Angeles, the country and the world in
conjunction with Infinite Summer 2009. We also would like to celebrate
the life and work of David Foster Wallace, a writer who so many of us
deeply admired. It will be a celebration to commend you on your achievement, and to
raise our glasses to DFW on his achievement.

What will
be happening at this party? We are hoping to have people who knew DFW
personally in addition to members of the media and the general public.
We will have refreshments (both AA and non-AA versions), custom desserts from StraightOuttaChocolate and
cookies which DFW himself enjoyed when he read at Skylight a number of
years back. There will be a limited number of custom commemorative
tennis balls courtesy of Sideshow Media, publishers of Elegant Complexity (an Infinite Jest guide). We are also hoping to have some sort of promotion for the movie Brief Interviews With Hideous Men,
which will be released the following week. We will offer a discount on
all books that have more than 800 pages (to fill the massive void that Infinite Jest will have left). The more the merrier, so please join us for what promises to be an amazing evening. 

For more information on Infinite Summer, visit http://infinitesummer.org

Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for Justice (Simon & Schuster)

From 1915 to 1923, the ruling Ottoman Empire drove 2 million Armenians from their ancestral homeland, during which 1.5 million of them were viciously slaughtered. While there was an initial global outcry and a movement led by Woodrow Wilson to aid the "starving Armenians," the promise to hold the perpetrators accountable was never fulfilled and a curtain of silence soon descended on one of the worst crimes of modern history. Now, almost a century later, the Armenians are still fighting for justice.

After uncovering his family's experiences during the Genocide, Michael Bobelian struggled to rationalize how an event as widely reported as the Genocide--more than a hundred articles ran in The New York Times in 1915, with a typical headline exclaiming "Wholesale Massacres of Armenians by Turks"--could fade from public consciousness. Why was the Genocide ignored, forgotten, and, worse, relegated to fiction for so long? What role did America’s national self-interest play in helping Turkey evade public accountability? Why did Armenians themselves initially stand silent? Based on years of archival research and personal interviews, Children of Armenia is the first book to trace this post-Genocide history and reveal the events that have conspired to eradicate the "hidden holocaust" from the world's memory.

Michael Bobelian, a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, is a lawyer, journalist, and grandson of Genocide survivors. His work has appeared in Forbes.com, American Lawyer, and Legal Affairs magazine and has been featured on NPR's Leonard Lopate show. He resides in New York City with his wife and daughter.

The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder (Graywolf Press)

(author photo by Katherine Emery)

"The Adderall Diaries is phenomenal. With jittery finesse and a reformed tweaker's eye for detail, Stephen Elliott captures the terrifying, hilarious, heart-strangling reality of a life whose scorched-earth physical and psycho-emotional dimensions no one could have invented -- they absolutely had to be lived. Elliott renders the extremes of his own existence with a fearless, through-the-windshield immediacy. By all rights, the author should either be dead or chewing his fingers in a bus station. Instead, he may well have written the memoir of an entire generation. Once you pick up Adderall, you won't want to crash. I loved this book." --Jerry Stahl

The Promising Series is the only
reading series in Los Angeles that exclusively features Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, and Transgender writers. A goal for the series is to
celebrate established authors and introduce the next generation of
writers who will explore the GLBT experience.  Writers
featured this quarter are Ama Birch, Richard Villegas, Kim Savo and
NPR's Cash Peters.  The series is curated by Noel Alumit.

Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture (Henry Holt & Co.)

Photo of Kaya Oakes by Patty Nason.

Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture

We're looking forward to this panel discussion on the development of indie culture in America. Kaya Oakes, author of the new book on the topic, Slanted and Enchanted, will be joined by Ben Bush, editor of The Fanzine; Courtney Knopf of Everloving Records; and Daniel House of CZ Records. Justin Gage, founder of the fantastic music blog Aquarium Drunkard, will moderate, and the band The Old Lumps will play a short set to start things off.

Kaya Oakes is the co-founder of Kitchen Sink magazine, which won the Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Magazine in 2002, and currently is a writing instructor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Based in Los Angeles, Justin Gage is the founder of both the influential music blog Aquarium Drunkard as well as Autumn Tone Records. He also hosts, and is the program director, for the weekly Aquarium Drunkard show on Sirius/XM satellite radio. His first book, Memphis And The Delta Blues Trail, was published in May via Countrymen Press.

Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Deanne Stillman

Twelve, the King (Perceval Press) by Michael Blake

Two authors will discuss and sign their books about the American West!

Deanne Stillman is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer. In addition to Mustang, she is the author of the bestseller Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, an LA times “best book 2001” which Hunter Thompson called “A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer.” It was recently published in a new, updated edition.

Michael Blake’s first novel, Dances With Wolves, was published as a mass-market paperback in 1988, receiving no attention until the film version was released to worldwide acclaim in the late 1990s. The phenomenal success of the movie ended more than twenty years of impoverished struggle to make a living out of literature and resulted in a downpour of awards, including the Oscar. In addition, Blake has received other prestigious awards including The American Library Association’s Hero of the Year and Cancervive’s Survivor of the Year. His latest work is a memoir about a rescue horse that greatly impacted his life titled Twelve, The King (Perceval Press, 2009) and his past works include The Holy Road and Indian Yell. Blake also has a new movie in development with Keven Costner that is based on a short story he wrote titled “The One”. He resides on his ranch, Wolf House, in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona.

Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking with What You've Got

An interactive event--with snacks!--about cooking with what you've got.

"Jam Today is just my kind of book--one of those rare trackings of the healthy human animal rustling about the kitchen then settling in at the table. In addition to some great meals made to satisfy desires, needs, whims or simply to make use of what's at hand, Jam Today is a complete pleasure to read."
--Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors and What We Eat When We Eat Alone

Tod Davies has been a screenwriter, film producer, radio food show host, and independent publisher. She thinks if you want the world to be a better place, you should start by making sure everyone around you is well fed and then work from there. She lives in Oxford and the mountains of Oregon with her husband and two dogs.

This Side of Jordan (Fantagraphics)

Monte Schulz will read from and sign his new novel, the first in a planned series of three novels about the Jazz Age.  Schulz is the son of Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts, and in This Side of Jordan one of his ambitions was to recreate the time of his mother's and father's Jazz Age childhood, when America was making the irresistible transition from rural to urban life.

All that Work and Still No Boys (University of Iowa Press) by Kathryn Ma

How to Leave Hialeah (University of Iowa Press) by Jennine Capo Crucet

Two winners of the Iowa Short Fiction Award read from their story collections!

Kathryn Ma,
a first-generation American whose parents are from Wuxi and Mengzi,
China, was born and raised a Pennsylvania Quaker. Her stories have
appeared in the Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, TriQuarterly,
and elsewhere. Ma won the 2008 David Nathan Meyerson Prize for Fiction
for her title story; her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize
and Best New American Voices. A lawyer and a Bread Loaf
Scholar, she has taught in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the
University of Oregon. She is the founding board chair of the San
Francisco Friends School. Ma lives in San Francisco with her family.

Jennine Capó Crucet was born to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, the Southern Review, the Northwest Review, and other magazines. She is the recipient of a Bread Loaf Scholarship and has been a finalist for the Missouri Review
Editors’ Prize and the University of California, Irvine, Chicano/Latino
Literary Prize. A graduate of Cornell University, she currently lives
and writes in Los Angeles.

Unintended Consequences (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

This local author will present his new collection of stories, the fourth in his "L.A. Stories" series.

"Fondation's fiction is so far past noir that it's almost surreal. What's
horrifying is that it's not surreal; it's real. Fondation is the author of three
books of fiction...and each of these books is a small masterpiece..." --Transfuge
(France)

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife (Harper)

The bestselling author of many acclaimed novels and books of
nonfiction, Francine Prose will discuss and sign her latest book, about
the artistic achievement of Anne Frank, whose Diary of a Young Girl is required reading in countries all around the world.

Francine Prose is the author of fifteen books of fiction, including A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the nonfiction New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. Her latest novel, Goldengrove, was published in September 2008. She is the president of PEN American Center.

Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius (Unbridled Books)

A fascinating discussion by this local author about the extraordinary
history of a particular kind of obsession--the desire to own the skulls
of the famous, for study, for sale, and for public (or private)
display. The rise of phrenology at the beginning of the 19th century
only fed that fascination with the belief that genius leaves its mark
on the very shape of the head.

86'd (Harper Perennial)

We're pleased to welcome back Dan Fante, whose new novel is the fourth
in his series of semiautobiographical Bruno Dante novels. This time,
Bruno, encountering setbacks as a writer, loses a telemarketing job and
gains a job at a limo service, which he is instructed he can only keep
if he stays sober. But business success fuels a booze-fueled downward
spiral, and he struggles to keep his demons from getting the best of
him.

The son of novelist John Fante (Ask the Dust), Dan Fante is the author of the
novels Chump Change, Mooch, and Spitting Off Tall Buildings; the short
story collection Short Dog; two books of poetry; and the plays The Boiler Room
and Don Giovanni. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he lives in Arizona with his
wife and son.

Strange Movie Full of Death (Perceval Press) by Wannberg

White Time (Off Beat Pulp) by Smith

Two poets will read from their new collections.

Scott Wannberg's Strange Movie Full of Death is a death-defying, joy-riding high-wire act of a poetry collection. Of David Smith, Holly Prado writes in the Los Angeles Times, "Muscular and funny, satirical and tender, David Smith is a big-city
tough talker...Smith's mixture of tough blasts and affecting lyricism
creates an invigorating texture."

The Sri Lankan Loxodrome (New Directions Publishing)

A launch party for this new poetry collection by the acclaimed poet Will Alexander.

Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and visual artist who
lives in Los Angeles, the city where he was born in 1948. He was the recipient
of a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry in 2001 and a California Arts Council
Fellowship in 2002. Over the years he has worked several jobs (including the LA
Lakers box office), has taught at various institutions, and has been associated
with the nonprofit organization Theatre of Hearts/Youth First, working with
underserved, at-risk youth. 

Blood's a Rover (Knopf)

We're thrilled to host the Los Angeles launch for the new book by the author of so many L.A. novels that we love: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. 

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. quartet -- The Black
Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz -- were international
bestsellers. American Tabloid was Time's Novel of the Year in 1995; his memoir
My Dark Places was Time's Best Book and a New York Times Notable book for 1996.
His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New York Times Notable Book and Los
Angeles Times Best Book for 2001. He lives on the coast of California.

Slow Lie Detector (Equator Books)

We're celebrating the release of a new novel from Equator Books, the publishing house that grew out of the retail store in Venice Beach.

Slow Lie Detector, a story of love and itinerant filmmaking in the heart of Death Valley, is a glimpse into the fevered career of auteur Maximilian Echs and his “nurse” and heroine as they traverse a harrowing psychic territory, searching an ever-shifting perceptual
landscape for something like a perfect ending.

“Multi-layered, dream-like prose.”
--Baltimore Morning Sun

“. . . written in the delicious Beat-poetic rhythms that are the hallmark of Les Plesko’s spare style.”
--Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

The Ravenous Audience (Black Goat) by Kate Durbin

The launch event for Kate Durbin's debut poetry collection, The Ravenous Audience, featuring Chris Abani, curator of the Black Goat poetry series and acclaimed author and poet.

Born in San Diego and raised in Washington, California, and Arizona, Kate Durbin
is author of a chapbook, Amelia Earhart: Fragments Found in a 1937
Aviator's Boot, published by Dancing Girl Press. Her poems have
appeared in Drunken Boat, elimae, Boxcar Poetry Review, and The Ledge,
as well as other journals. She holds an MFA from the University of
California, Riverside and lives in Whittier, California, where she is
working on a novel.

Chris Abani's prose
includes Song For Night (Akashic, 2007), The Virgin of Flames (Penguin,
2007), Becoming Abigail (Akashic, 2006), GraceLand (FSG, 2004), and
Masters of the Board (Delta, 1985). His poetry collections are Hands
Washing Water (Copper Canyon, 2006), Dog Woman (Red Hen, 2004),
Daphne's Lot (Red Hen, 2003), and Kalakuta Republic (Saqi, 2001); and
he is the curator of Akashic Books' Black Goat Poetry Series. He is a
Professor at the University of California, Riverside and the recipient
of the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a Lannan
Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy
Award, a PEN Beyond the Margins Award, the PEN Hemingway Book Prize
& a Guggenheim Award.

A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. Our staff will share their
faves from indie presses. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served!

 This month: L.A.-based publishers!

Justin will show us the ropes of Ammo Books, publishers of beautifully designed books on the arts.

Emily will discuss Green Integer, who specialize in a variety of books by leading artists, critics, and historians.

Monica will introduce us to Les Figues, who focus on the innovative, experimental, and avant-garde.

Come join us and find out more about these terrific indie publishers!

Carpathia (BOA Editions)

Cecilia Woloch is the author of four award-winning collections of poems: Sacrifice, a BookSense 76 Selection in 2001; Tisgan: The Gypsy Poem; Late, for which she was named Georgia Author of the Year in 2004; and Narcissus, winner of the Tupelo Press Snowbound Prize for the chapbook in 2006. She has also published prose in numerous journals and magazines; her essay, "Carpathian Dreams," was recently awarded the Scott Russell Sanders Prize from Elsewhere journal and will be published as a limited edition chapbook in 2009.

Ms. Woloch is currently a lecturer in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern California. She has received grants and fellowships from the California Arts Council, Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, the Isaac W. Bernheim Foundation, Chateau de la Napoule Foundation in France, and CEC/ArtsLink International Partners. She spends part of each year traveling and teaching in Europe, and directs the Paris Poetry Workshop in Paris, France, each spring.

Advocate Days and Other Stories (Queermojo) by Mark Thompson

A Perfect Scar and Other Stories (Queermojo) by Trebor Healey

Wisdom for the Aging (Ken Arnold Books) by Malcolm Boyd

Three generations of gay authors will present their recent books in an
event that takes its name from a pre-code Warner Bros. movie about
three women surviving together in the Depression.  It was a favorite
movie of Vito Russo, author of the classic The Celluloid Closet.

Mark Thompson started working for The Advocate
in 1975, reporting on the burgeoning gay liberation movement, and ended
his tenure at the national newsmagazine almost 20 years later as its
Senior Editor. In addition, he has authored seven books on gay history
and culture, including the internationally acclaimed trilogy, Gay Spirit, Gay Soul, and Gay Body.

In addition to A Perfect Scar and Other Stories, Trebor Healey is the author of Through It Came Bright Colors, a novel; and Sweet Son of Pan, a poetry collection. His short fiction and poetry were nominated for a 2008 Pushcart Prize. A new short story collection, Eros and Dust, is forthcoming from Rebel Satori Press in 2010.

Malcolm Boyd is the author of 32 books including the international bestseller Are You Running with Me, Jesus?, the gay classic Take Off the Masks, and his new book Wisdom for the Aging: Practical Advice for Living the Best Years of Your Life Right Now. He served three terms as president of PEN Center USA West.

Best of the Web 2009 (Dzanc)

Katherine Taylor, Tricia Louvar, and Lou Mathews will be reading from their selected work.

Katherine Taylor, author of Rules for Saying Goodbye, has won a Pushcart Prize and the McGinnis Ritchie Award in Fiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, Town & Country, Details, Allure, and literary journals such as Ploughshares, The Southwest review, and ZYZZYVA.  Much
like her fictional alter ego, she has burned bridges in London, Rome,
and Brussels, but now lives in Los Angeles, where she is working on her
second novel.

Tricia Louvar , born in Iowa, is a writer, editor, and poet.  She lives in a
bucolic area of Los Angeles.  For more of her work, please visit www.tricialouvar.com.

Lou Mathews is a fourth-generation Angeleno. He worked as a mechanic until he was thirty-nine. His first novel, L.A. Breakdown, about illegal street racing, was picked by the Los Angeles Times as a Best Book of 1999. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a California Arts Council Fiction Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize.  He has published recent work in Black Clock and Tin House. His nonfiction has been published in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Reader, L.A. Weekly, Mother Jones, Tin House, and L.A. Style, where he was a contributing editor for eight years and a restaurant reviewer for forty-three pounds. He teaches fiction writing and literature in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, where he was Teacher of the Year is 2002.

Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington (Scribner)

Ann Bardach, a PEN award-winning investigative journalist, will
discuss and sign her new book on the disappearence of Fidel Castro from
the world scene.

Bardach is a PEN award-winning investigative journalist who has covered Cuba for fifteen years for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and many other national publications. She's author of Cuba Confidential and editor of Prison Letters of Fidel Castro and Cuba.
She is a member of the core group of the Brookings Institution Cuba
Force and teaches at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Photo of Ann Bardach by Dawny Rothenberg.

Los Angeles's Original Farmers Market (Arcadia Publishing)

The authors of a new book celebrating Los Angeles's original farmer's market (at 3rd and Fairfax) will be here to discuss the 75 year history of this historic landmark.

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Pantheon Books)

The only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the
insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club will read and discuss his unique, firsthand,
revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.

Jake Adelstein was a reporter for the Yomiuri Shinbun,
Japan’s largest newspaper, from 1993 to 2005. From 2006 to 2007 he was
the chief investigator for a U.S. State Department-sponsored study of
human trafficking in Japan. Considered one of the foremost experts on
organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan
and the United States. He is also the public relations director for the
Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project Japan, which combats human
trafficking and the exploitation of women and children in the sex trade.

Nothing Like You (Simon Pulse)

A launch party for a debut novel by a local young adult author!

Lauren Strasnick grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, now lives in Los Angeles, and is a graduate of Emerson College and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) MFA Writing Program. NOTHING LIKE YOU is her first book.

The Drama of AIDS: My Lasting Connections with Two Plays That Survived the Plague (Heinemann)

A launch party for this new book by author and actor Michael Kearns!  Special guests include readers Joan Engelhaupt and Eduardo Santiago. Joe Gill, Jimmy Shaw, and Kearns will perform from Robert Chesley's Jerker and James Carroll Pickett's Dream Man, the two plays that are celebrated in this memoir.

The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama (Paradigm)

Longtime activist Tom Hayden will discuss and sign his new book about
how Barack Obama's presidency wouldn't be possible without the Sixties.

After
forty years of activism, politics, and writing, no one is more
qualified to write about the sixties and its legacy than Tom Hayden.
From his days as a founding member of the Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS), freedom rider in the deep South, and prominent Vietnam
War protester to today, Hayden remains a leading voice for reforming
politics through greater citizen participation. The author of seventeen
books and the original Port Huron Statement
- long considered the founding document of the sixties movement - he
has more recently authored Voices of the Chicago 8: A Generation on Trial (2008) and Writings for a Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader (2008).  He continues to write for The Nation and many other magazines.

Balloons, Refreshments, Discounts all day Saturday and Sunday - to celebrate our 13th Anniversary!!!

Discounts on every book - from 10 to 70%!

 Join us from 3 to 5pm on Saturday, Oct 31 for a wine and treat reception.

Balloons, Refreshments, Discounts all day Saturday and Sunday - to celebrate our 13th Anniversary!!!

Discounts on every book - from 10 to 70%!

 Join us from 3 to 5pm on Saturday, Oct 31 for a wine and treat reception.

One Model Nation (Image Comics)

We're thrilled to host the Dandy Warhols' Courtney Taylor (aka C. Allbritton Taylor) and Camp Freddy's Donovan Leitch as they present their new graphic novel One Model Nation, illustrated by Jim Rugg.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, C. Allbritton Taylor has lived in New York, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, London and has made countless trips to Berlin for more than a decade while collecting information and writing One Model Nation. Now a resident of Washington State, C. Allbritton says of his first published full-length work, "I did my best to present a clear story while having to protect the people who wanted to remain hidden. I had to change names (and occasionally places) to do this while remaining true to my original intention: to pay homage to the great artists who played their parts in that time of unsung greatness."

Actor, musician, producer, rock historian, Donovan Leitch co-conceived One Model Nation with his collaborator C. Allbritton Taylor. Donovan was the lead singer for the '90s andro-glam NY band Nancy Boy and now fronts the all-star jam band Camp Freddy. As an actor, he has appeared in many late night cable cult classics and he played the lead role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch in both New York and L.A. productions. He has produced several documentaries and is now developing rock based musicals. As an avid music historian, Donovan constantly seeks to uncover the deeper truths of the mysterious band One Model Nation.

The Crying Tree (Broadway Books)

Naseem Rakha will read and sign her debut novel, which Publishers Weekly called a "complex, layered story" that "comes together through spellbinding storytelling," and was "highly recommended" by Library Journal.

Naseem is an award-winning journalist whose
stories have been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning
Edition, Marketplace Radio, Christian Science Monitor, and Living on
Earth. She lives in Oregon with her husband, son, and many animals.
When Naseem isn’t writing, she’s reading, knitting, hiking, gardening, or just watching the seasons roll in and out.

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks (Lyons Press)

We're happy to host Gilsdorf, whose book about geekdom promises not only to tell us about the lives of geeks, but also to illuminate the whys behind the pursuit of geeky pastimes. We know a few geeks, and we're pretty sure you do, too. Come by and learn more about the geek in your life!

"Books about escapism and gaming too often swerve into cautionary tale
territory. Negative and holier-than-though, they tend to lecture at
length about the drawbacks to such pastimes and ignore the benefits of
escapism. Thankfully, Gilsdorf’s book is different. ... For anyone who
has ever spent time within imaginary realms, the book will speak
volumes. For those who have not, it will educate and enlighten."
 –Wired.com

"Gilsdorf is an engaging and personable guide. Like many who will
pick up his book, he’s got one foot squarely in the real world, the
other in the fantasy one. This is a journey well worth taking. "
–Booklist

“A breathless adventure/quest/memoir that is uniquely contemporary.”
—Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator

“More fun than being a Dungeon Master to a group of high-level mages and thieves.”
—A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically

After playing Dungeons & Dragons religiously in the 1970s and 1980s, Ethan Gilsdorf went on to become a poet, teacher, and journalist. In the U.S. and in Paris, he's worked as a freelance correspondent, guidebook writer, and film and restaurant reviewer. Now based in Somerville, Massachusetts, his travel, arts, and pop culture stories appear regularly in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor, and have been published in other magazines and newspapers including National Geographic Traveler, Psychology Today, and the Washington Post. He has also been a guest on talk radio as a fantasy and escapism expert. He does not own elf ears, but he has kept all his old D&D gear, and has been known to host a Lord of the Rings party or two. Follow Ethan's adventures at http://www.ethangilsdorf.com.

Too Long a Solitude: Poems (Univ. of Oklahoma Press)

This world-renowned poet will read from his most recent collection.

James Ragan is an internationally recognized poet, playwright, and screenwriter, and, for 25 years, served as the director of the University of Southern California’s  Professional Writing Program. Ragan has read his poetry for five heads of state including Mikhail Gorbachev, Czech President Vaclav Havel, and South Korean Prime Minister Young-Hoon Kang, and has been honored here and abroad as an ambassador of poetry.  In 1985 he was one of three Americans, including Robert Bly and Bob Dylan, invited to perform at the First International Poetry Festival in Moscow.  He has performed his poetry at New York’s Carnegie Hall (2000 & 2002) and at the United Nations (2001).

Ragan's literary
honors include three Fulbright Professorships (Yugoslavia, China,
and the Czech Republic ), the Emerson Poetry Prize, eight Pushcart
Prize nominations, an NEA, a PSA Gertrude Claytor Award, and the Swan Foundation Humanitarian Award.  He is the author of In the Talking Hours, Womb-Weary, The Hunger Wall, Lusions, Selected Poetry, Too Long a Solitude, Shouldering the World and is co-editor of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Collected Poems: 1952-1990.

This year we join bookstores around the country in celebrating the first annual National Bookstore Day, a day devoted to celebrating bookselling and the vibrant culture of bookstores.

So we decided to invite booksellers (buyers, owners, managers) from other So Cal bookstores to a unique "meet and greet" reception and they'll bring info about their stores.   You can say hello to old friends from other bookstores and learn about others. 

And to highlight the publication of the lovely new book, Art of the Bookstore: The Bookstore Paintings of Gibbs Smith, in which a number of these stores are featured, they will sign copies of the book.

At press time, the indie bookstores being represented so far are Skylight Books, Book Soup, Metropolis Books, Portrait of a Bookstore, StoriesLA, Chaucer's in Santa Barbara, as well as 2 legendary indies which are now closed -- Doug Dutton of Dutton's Brentwood and Adele Wallace of Sisterhood Books.  We expect additional bookstores will join us.

If you can't make it to this event, use the day to stop in at ANY independent bookstore and be reminded how varied and fascinating these 'bricks and mortar' bookstores can be.

Chocolate Bliss: Sensuous Recipes, Spa Treatments, and Other Divine Indulgences (Celestial Arts)

Susie Norris will present a chocolate tasting and discuss and sign her new book!

Susie Norris is a cookbook author, artisan chocolatier, pastry chef/instructor and TV producer. Her chocolate business, Happy Chocolates, was featured on Food Network and in More Magazine. Her articles have been printed in numerous publications. She served as Associate Chef/Instructor at California School of Culinary Arts (Le Cordon Bleu Program) and her first book, Chocolate Bliss, will be released by Random House/Celestial Arts in October 2009. She currently writes for Zester Daily (www.zesterdaily.com) and her next book is about vanilla.

Prior to her work in the food business, Susie was Vice President of Series Television at and held similar positions at Nickelodeon, CBS, NBC and Turner Network Television. She has a B.A. degree in English Literature from Boston College and a Certificate in Professional Baking from Epicurean School of Culinary Arts and Barry Callebaut Chocolate
Academy. She also produces television programming with her husband, TV writer Jacob Epstein, and divides her time between Los Angeles and the Berkshires of Massachusetts.

The Art of Exile (Bilingual Press) by William Archila

Shadow and Praise (Main Street Rag) by Terry Wolverton

Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press) by Lynne Thompson

Three wonderful local poets will read from their recent work!

William Archila was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, and earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon. His poems have been published in The Georgia Review, AGNl, Poetry International, The Los Angeles Review, Notre Dame Review, Crab Orchard Review, Rattle, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, and Portland Review, among others. He is a PEN Center USA West Emerging Voices fellow. In his first book, The Art of Exile, Archila asks readers to engage with a subject seldom explored in American poetry: the unrest in El Salvador in the 1980s and its impact on Central American immigrants who now claim this country as home. The Art of Exile is the recent winner of the Emerging Writer Fellowship Award from the Writer’s Center. "A poet of the heart and head, of the personal and public, at times William Archila's poignant poems make me hear and feel an echo of Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo." --from the introduction by Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize winner.

Terry Wolverton is a local poet and novelist who founded Writers at Work, a creative writing center, where she continues to teach. She is the author of Embers, a novel in poems; Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building, a memoir; Bailey's Beads, a novel; The Labrys Reunion, a novel; and two collections of poetry: Black Slip and Mystery Bruise. She has also edited fourteen compilations of literary work.

Lynne Thompson’s first full-length manuscript, Beg No Pardon, was the winner of the 2007 Perugia Press First Book Award as well as the 2008 Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award.  A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Thompson is a frequent reader on the national scene and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, Rattle, Poetry International and Spillway.

The Black Body (Seven Stories Press), edited by Meri Nana-AMA Danquah

Meri Danquah will be reading with Susan Hayden, Nzingha Clarke, Kenji Jasper, and Jason Luckett.

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah is author of the groundbreaking memoir Willow Weep for Me:
A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression and editor of two critically
acclaimed anthologies, Becoming American and Shaking the Tree. She is a native
of Ghana, a single mother, and Los Angeles resident.

Photo of Meri Danquah by Korama A Danquah.

Pyramids (The Ice Plant)

We're delighted to host the launch party for Pyramids, the beautiful third book of photographs from Mike Slack.

Mike Slack lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He is a traveling
salesman and the co-publisher of The Ice Plant. His photographs have appeared in Harper's, GOOD, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek.
His previous photo books are OK OK OK and Scorpio.

College Girl (Riverhead)

Patricia Weitz will read and sign her debut novel College Girl.

"With College Girl Patricia Weitz has created an everywoman for our bewildering times, a woman who transforms before our eyes into a philosopher of heartbreak and redemption."
--Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Patricia Weitz has worked for The Nation, The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, director and screenwriter Paul Weitz, and their two children.

The 50th Law (Harper Studio)

The author of the bestselling The 48 Laws of Power will discuss and sign his newest book, cowritten with 50 Cent, The 50th Law.

Robert Greene is a self-described history nut with a degree in classical
studies. He has worked in New York as an editor and writer at several magazines
including Esquire and in Hollywood as a story developer and writer. He is also
the author of The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 48 Laws of Power, and The 50th Law, and lives in Los Angeles. 

How to Make Love to Adrian Colesbury (Gotham Books)

Adrian Colesberry will discuss and sign his book How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry, in what is sure to be an entertaining and educational evening.

A biomedical engineer by training, Adrian spent a decade working in pharmaceutical manufacturing. In the evenings, after work, he did stand-up comedy, proving once more the age-old formula:

corporate drug manufacturing + time (approx 2 hours) = comedy.

After divorcing, Adrian found humbler employment as an extra in film and TV. It was during his Zen-like retreat into extra-land, that Adrian wrote the dirty, funny, dirty How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry.

Breaking the Sound Barrier (Haymarket Books)

We're thrilled to have Amy Goodman back to present her new book Breaking the Sound Barrier, which breaks through the corporate media's lies, sound bites, and silence in this
wide-ranging new collection of articles.

Amy Goodman has been confronting the Washington establishment and its corporate
sponsors while giving voice to the ordinary citizens and activists who are
fighting for a better, more peaceful world. Her daily international radio and TV
show, Democracy Now!, began in 1996 and is now carried on more than 500 stations
and on http://www.democracynow.org.

Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times (Angel City Press)

A fascinating presentation by the author of the book that ties in to the PBS documentary Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times, about the Chandler family and the history of the Los Angeles Times.

In his 30 years with the Los Angeles Times, Bill Boyarsky was a political writer, featured columnist, and city editor. He was a member of reporting teams that won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of two biographies of Ronald Reagan. He is author of Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics and Los Angeles: City of Dreams; with his wife, Nancy, he coauthored Backroom Politics.

New writing from LGBT writers, curated and hosted by our staffer Noel Alumit.This month, we're featuring D. Travers Scott, Myriam Gurba, Ian MacKinnon, and Michelle Sewell.

D. Travers Scott has worked as a writer, critic, and artist, appearing everywhere from underground ‘zines to Harper’s and This American Life. For the first time, the best of Scott’s celebrated short fiction are gathered together in Love Hard: Stories 1989-2009, collecting work originally appearing in award-winning anthologies, queer media, erotica, and live performance, along with new stories never before published. Together, they offer the first comprehensive overview of Scott’s ongoing explorations of masculinity, sexuality, urban environments, family, love, and the power of writing. Scott is also author of two novels: the internationally acclaimed Execution, Texas: 1987 and the Lambda Literary Award winner, One of these Things is Not Like the Other. He is currently completing a PhD at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angles, where he lives with his husband.

Myriam Gurba is a teacher and writer. She lives in a small blue house in Long Beach with two rabbits and a Midwestern trannie. She is the author of Dahlia Season, a novella and short story collection which won the Edmund White Award.

Ian MacKinnon is a gay centered performance artist and curator of queer theatre events in Los Angeles. He is a member of Queer Exchange, a group of LGBTQ multidisciplinary artists who perform, tour, and conduct workshops around California. In his solo work, Ian combines spoken text, gay centered Jungian psychological theory, digital video, and music to evoke issues central to the queer community and to Gay Liberation. He graduated with honors and a BFA in Acting from Meadow's School of the Arts at SMU. Ian was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Best Off Off Broadway Performance" for his piece, Spanked, performed at the New York International Fringe Festival, and toured to The New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

Michelle Sewell is an award-winning screenwriter, poet, and founder of GirlChild Press. Throughout her work as a poet and a social worker, she has maintained that there must be a place for women and girls to develop and express their truest selves. With that in mind she has created open mics, workshops, and writing circles to foster a "sacred space" environment for women. The Jamaican-born artist/activist’s work has appeared on NPR, in does your mama know?, Sinister Wisdom, Other Countries: Voices Rising, Campaign to End AIDS Anthology, and Port of Harlem Magazine. She is also a columnist for Swerv Magazine and Velvet Park: Dyke Culture in Bloom.

Noël Alumit wrote the novels Letters to Montgomery Clift and Talking to the Moon.  His solo shows are The Rice Room: Scenes from a Bar and Master of the (Miss) Universe.

Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces (Univ. Press of Florida)

A very special event featuring readings by two contributors to the new anthology Site Dance, as well as a solo performance in our store, presented by Collage Dance Theatre!

Collage Dance Theatre Founder/Artistic Director Heidi Duckler has created and presented over sixty dance performances in disparate venues in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Portland, Oregon, Hong Kong, China and throughout Southern California including the Lincoln Heights Prison, the Los Angeles River, the Subway Terminal Building, the Herald Examiner Building, the Ambassador Hotel and the LA Police Academy.  Called “the reigning queen of site-specific performance” by the L.A. Times, Duckler has served as consultant to Aben Dans in Denmark.

Merridawn Duckler has published in Carolina Quarterly, Georgia State Review, and Main Street Rag, among others, with current work in Isotope,
Green Mountains Review, NarrativeNight Train. She is a two-time winner of Society of Professional Journalists Award and was nominated for Best Creative Non-Fiction Anthology 2009 and a Pushcart. She teaches at The
Attic in Portland Oregon and is an Associate Editor at Story Quarterly.

Blame (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

We're delighted to copresent a reading with Michelle Huneven with the nonprofit substance abuse service organization Phoenix House. We'll be donating 10% of the sales of Blame from the event to Phoenix House, the largest nonprofit alcohol and drug abuse treatment and prevention facility in the nation.

Michelle Huneven is the author of two previous novels, Round Rock and Jamesland. She has received a General Electric Foundation Award for Younger Writers and a Whiting Writers’ Award for fiction. She lives in Altadena, California.

Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT WAS ORIGINALLY LISTED IN ERROR AS TAKING PLACE ON ANOTHER DATE -- THIS IS THE CORRECT DATE AND TIME.

The acclaimed cartoonist-reporter Joe Sacco (author of Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde, among others) will present his most recent work of graphic journalism.

Her Fearful Symmetry (Scribner)

The best-selling author of The Time Traveler's Wife reads from her newest novel. First editions will be available for purchase!

Audrey Niffenegger lives in Chicago, where she is a visual artist and writer.  She is the founding member of Text 3, an artist and writer’s group that also performs and exhibits in Chicago.  Her work is in the collections
of the Library of Congress, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Newberry Library.  She is the author of two visual novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters
and The Adventuress.  Her short story, The Night Bookmobile,
was serialized as a graphic novel in the London Guardian last year.  Her first novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, was published in 2003 and was a national bestseller.

Her new book, Her Fearful Symmetry, is set in and around London’s historic Highgate Cemetery,
where Niffenegger, a self-proclaimed “cemetery tourist,” is an occasional guide.

Just Kids (Ecco)

Music legend Patti Smith will discuss and sign her new book, Just Kids, the story of Smith's extraordinary relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. This is Smith's first book of prose.

We're anticipating a pretty big crowd for this event, so here are a few guidelines to keep in mind if you're planning to attend:

Due to time constraints, after her reading Patti will only be signing her books (please leave memorabilia at home). Along those same lines, feel free to take photos from the line, but Patti will not be posing for pictures while signing.

Anyone who'd like to get something signed needs to buy one of Patti Smith's books (like Just Kids!) at our store either in advance of the event or at the event itself.

When you buy your copy, be sure to get one of our nifty numbered and color-coded slips -- this slip will get you a place in the signing line (and the earlier you get yours, the better your place in line!).

If you forget to get a numbered slip when you buy your copy, just come back with your receipt and we'll give you one.

And if you have any questions, just give us a call! We're at (323) 660-1175.

Patti Smith’s seminal album Horses was followed by nine releases, including Radio Ethiopia, Easter, Dream of Life, Gone Again and Trampin’. Her artwork was first exhibited at Gotham Book Mart in 1973, and she has been associated with the Robert Miller Gallery since 1978. Strange Messenger, a retrospective of three hundred works, made its debut at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and has been exhibited worldwide. Her books include Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Patti Smith Complete 1975 - 2006. In 2005, she received the Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the highest grade awarded by the French Republic to eminent artists and writers who have contributed significantly to furthering the arts throughout the world.

The Unnamed (Little, Brown & Co.)

National Book Award-nominated writer Joshua Ferris (Then We Came to the End) will read from his new novel, The Unnamed.  Our staff member Kevin loved this book -- read his blog post here!

Joshua Ferris's first novel, Then We Came to the End, has sold in 20 countries and was shortlisted for the National Book Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Granta, Tin House, New Stories From the South, Best New American Voices, The Guardian, The Iowa Review and Prairie Schooner. He attended the University of Iowa and the University of California, Irvine. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife where he is at work on his second novel.
 

Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read (Alyson Books)

New writing from LGBT writers, curated and hosted by our staffer Noel Alumit.

This month, we're hosting a launch party for the new anthology Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read, a collection of 50 essays by critics, public figures, and authors about the LGBT titles that have meant a lot to them, and why everyone (of any and all sexualities) should read them, too.

Our event will feature contributors Felice Picano, Fenton Johnson, Matias Viegner, and Promising Series host and curator Noel Alumit.

Felice Picano is the author of 19 books, including the international bestsellers The Book of Lies and Like People in History. He also wrote the acclaimed literary memoirs Ambidextrous, Men Who Loved Me, and A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay. He has been nominated for a PEN/Hemingway award, several Lambda Literary Awards, and is a recipient of the Ferro-Grumley award for fiction.

Fenton Johnson is the author of two novels, Crossing the River and Scissors, Paper, Rock as well as Geography of the Heart: A Memoir. His most recent book is Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks. Johnson has served as a regular contributor to Harper's Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. His stories and essays have appeared in many literary quarterlies and have received numerous awards, among them a James Michener Fellowship from the Iowa Writers Workshop and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowships in both fiction and creative nonfiction.

Matias Viegner is a Los Angeles based writer, artist and critic who works alone and collaboratively in writing, video, installation and performance art. He has shown solo work or performed at The Whitney Museum, The Kitchen and The Drawing Center in New York, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), New Langton Arts in San Francisco, Beyond Baroque, Machine Project, the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), The Silver Lake Film Festival, and the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.

Noël Alumit wrote the novels Letters to Montgomery Clift and Talking to the Moon. His solo shows are The Rice Room: Scenes from a Bar and Master of the (Miss) Universe. www.thelastnoel.blogspot.com

From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time (Dutton Books)

Physicist Sean Carroll, founder of the Cosmic Variance blog and dubbed the "great science communicator" by ted.com, will be here to present his new book, From Eternity to Here.

"Sean Carroll is a sure-footed guide through some of the most perplexing and fascinating insights of modern physics. His delightful From Eternity to Here is an accessible and engaging exploration of the mysteries of time, deftly grappling with issues that will very likely play a critical role in the next major upheaval in our understanding of the cosmos.” --Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe

Sean Carroll, Ph.D. is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of
Technology.  After receiving his doctorate from Harvard university, he pursued his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago.  His technical papers on dark matter and dark energy, the physics of extra dimensions, and alternative theories of gravity as well as the graduate-level textbook Spacetime and Geometry have been widely
praised by his academic peers.  Sean Carroll is one of the founders of the group blog, cosmicvariance.com, named one of the top five science blogs by Nature.

Photo of Sean Carroll by Ken Weingart.

A Common Pornography (HarperCollins)

Kevin Sampsell will be here to discuss his new memoir!

Kevin Sampsell has been the publisher of Future Tense Books since 1990. His fiction has been published widely in literary journals like LIT, McSweeney’s, Opium, and on popular sites like Nerve and Failbetter. His non-fiction essays and reviews have appeared in various newspapers and magazines. His books include Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets. He works as Small Press Champion (his actual title) for Powell’s Books. He
lives in Portland, Oregon.

"This is a heartbreaking and magnificent book.  I love its mosaic structure—a portrait of a family and a young man created out of
jewel-like fragments of memory.  In its depiction of small-town American
life—the ennui and despair and beauty—I am reminded of Denis
Johnson's Jesus’ Son. This is the kind of book where you want to thank the author for helping you feel less alone with being alive."—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and The Double Life is Twice as Good

Photo of Kevin Sampsell by Barb Klansnic

Life in the USA: An Immigrant's Guide to Understanding Americans (University of Michigan Press)

A launch party for this new book by two local authors!  Planaria J. Price and Euphronia Awakuni will discuss and sign Life in the USA, designed to help immigrants become more comfortable by gaining familiarity with the many the nuances of American culture.

Euphronia Awakuni has lived and worked in Japan and traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia
and Europe. She has a Master’s in TESOL and has taught at Glendale College, USC and LACC.  She received a John Woods scholarship to attend the Prague Summer Program with the University of Western Michigan
in 2005.   She has taught English and ESL in Los Angeles at Evans Community Adult School for the last nine years.  She is currently working on a new novel. 

Planaria Price has taught English as a Second Language to adults for 37 years in Los Angeles.  She often
lectures and is the author of five books on English and American culture: Competency in English, Open Sesame: Understanding American English and Culture Through Folktales and Stories; Eureka!: Discovering American English and Culture Through Proverbs, Fables, Myths, and Legends;  Achieving Competency in English: A Life Skills Approach; Life in the USA: an Immigrants Guide to Understanding Americans.  She is also the author of a pronunciation book: Realistically Speaking: a Practical Approach to the Basic Sounds and Rhythms of American English.   She is currently working on a Holocaust memoir: A Witness Forever, the Barbara Reichmann story.  

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)

A launch event for the debut novel by this award-winning local author!

Heidi W. Durrow is the 2008 winner of the Bellwether Prize for the best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice. She has also won the Lorian Hemingway
Short Story Competition and the Chapter One Fiction Contest. She has
received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the American
Scandinavian Foundation, and the Lois Roth Endowment and a Fellowship
for Emerging Writers from the Jerome Foundation. Her writing has been
published in Alaska Quarterly Review, the Literary Review, and others.

This Time Tomorrow (St. Martin's Press)

A launch party for the debut novel by Michael Jaime-Becerra, author of the acclaimed short story collection Every Night is Ladies' Night.

Michael Jaime-Becerra grew up in El Monte, CA, a working-class suburb of Los Angeles. He received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine and currently teaches creative writing at University of California, Riverside. His short story collection, Every Night Is Ladies' Night, was named to lists of the years' best books by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. It was awarded a California Book Award, the Silver Medal for a First Work of Fiction. Michael lives in El Monte, CA.

Photo of Michael Jaime-Becerra by Elizabeth Vergara

The Black Automaton (Fence Books)

Poet Douglas Kearney will be making his third appearance at Skylight Books, this time to present his new poetry collection The Black Automaton, which was selected for the National Poetry Series!

Douglas Kearney’s work as a poet, performer and librettist has been
featured in many fine publications and venues in print, in-the-flesh and
in digital code. His first full-length collection of poems, Fear, Some,
was published in 2006 (Red Hen Press). His second manuscript, The Black
Automaton, was chosen by Catherine Wagner for the National Poetry Series
and will be published by Fence Books in November 2009. In 2008, he was
honored with a Whiting Writers’ Award. He lives in the Valley with his
family and teaches courses in African American poetry, opera and myth at
California Institute of the Arts.

Model Home (Scribner)

The Los Angeles launch of this first novel from Eric Puchner, the acclaimed author of the short story collection Music Through the Floor.

"Puchner is such a tremendously skilled writer, you barely notice how
deftly he slips between points of view, how he creates characters that
are so real their yearnings and failures become your own. This is a
heartbreaking yet consistently funny novel that wraps its arms around
all the beauty and tragedy of the unfulfilled American dream." -- Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries

Eric Puchner is an assistant professor of English at Claremont McKenna College. His award-winning short stories have appeared in numerous prominent journals and anthologies. He lives in Los Angeles.

We're happy to have students in the University of California, Riverside MFA writing program back to our store to read from their work.  Our student readers are: Julie Cline, reading from her nonfiction; Eva Konstantopoulos, reading from her fiction; Victor Zamora, reading from his poetry and nonfiction; Bonnie Bolling, reading from her poetry; and Patricia Rosales, reading from her fiction.

Silhouette (Writegirl Publications)

Teen girls from the Write Girl program will read from Silhouette, the new anthology of their work!

WriteGirl is a creative writing and mentoring non-profit for teen girls. Hear the authors read their original works. From tumultuous relationships to accordions to Hindu mythology, Silhouette covers a wide range of themes and genres, all told through the unique voices and perspectives of this diverse group. Join us. Get inspired!

Kate Coltun, Nikki Darling, Sara Gerot, Tiffany Promise, Analisa Raya-Flores, and Sam Cohen, who are students in the CalArts MFA writing program, will read from their work.

The Traitor in Us All (Five Star)

A launch party for Los Angeles crime fiction author Robert Levinson and his new book The Traitor in Us All.

The cover art of this new book is a detail from an oil painting by James Strombotne, whose work hangs in major museums and private collections. The author and artist will be signing "limited edition" reproductions of the cover suitable for framing, with complimentary copies offered to the first 12 who attend and purchase the book at the event.

Robert S. Levinson is the best-selling author of seven previous
mystery and thriller novels, In the Key of Death, Where the Lies Begin, Ask a Dead Men and four in the Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner "Affair" series. His short stories appear regularly in the
Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines. He is a 2009 Derringer Award winner for "The Quick Brown Fox," which also appears in the new anthology, BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT. He won Ellery Queen Magazine Readers Award honors three consecutive years. His short stories have appeared in "year's best" anthologies five years running, while plays staged at RiverPark Center, Owensboro, KY, were nominated for "Angie" awards of the International Mystery Writers Festival
two years running.

The Spellmans Strike Again (Simon & Schuster)

New York Times-bestselling and Edgar-award-winning author Lisa Lutz will be here to read from and sign her fourth and final installment in the uproarious and kooky Spellmans mystery series.

Lisa Lutz is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Spellman Files; the national bestseller Curse of the Spellmans, nominated for both an Edgar and a Macavity Award; and the critically acclaimed Revenge of the Spellmans. Although she attended UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, the University of Leeds in England, and San Francisco State University, she still does not have a bachelor’s degree. Lisa spent most of the 1990s hopping through a string of low-paying odd jobs while writing and rewriting the screenplay Plan B, a mob comedy. After the film was made in 2000, she vowed she would never write another screenplay. A motion picture adaptation of The Spellman Files is in development with Paramount Pictures.

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To (Vintage)

A launch party for the debut novel from DC Pierson, about the typical high school experience: the homework, the awkwardness, and the mutant creatures from another galaxy.

DC Pierson was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ.  He graduated from NYU's
Dramatic Writing Department in 2007 with a degree in writing for
television. His comedy group DERRICK made a feature film called
"Mystery Team."  He publishes short stories and unsolicited opinions on
his website, dcpierson.com.  This is his first novel.

Not Your Typical Political Animal (Art Attack Press)

Political artist Robbie Conal will be here to present Not Your Typical Political Animal, a humorous and soulful collection of 20 years worth of writings, drawings, and paintings featuring his political animal muses.

In the 1980s, Robbie Conal, angered by the extreme hubris of the Reagan Administration, began making satirical posters of politicians and bureaucrats who, by his personal standards, had abused their power in the name of representative democracy. He developed an irregular guerrilla army of volunteers, and started pasting up his political jabs in the form of posters, in all of the major cities across the country. Since 1986, when his first poster, “Men With No Lips,” anonymously appeared in the streets of Los Angeles, Robbie has made more than 60 posters satirizing politicians from both parties, televangelists, and global capitalists. He has gained national prominence as the country's premiere street poster artist. Conal’s work has been featured on CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose, and in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, People Magazine, Interview, and scores of daily newspapers around the country. The Washington Post named him "America’s foremost street artist" in 1988. His books include Art Attack: The Midnight Politics of a Guerrilla Poster Artist (HarperCollins, 1992), Artburn (Akashic Books, 2003), and Not Your Typical Political Animal (Art Attack Press, 2010). He continues to teach drawing, work on new posters and paintings, and live in Los Angeles with his wife and their two cats, Smilla and Bodhi.

My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World (Simon Spotlight)

Actor Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm) will be here to present his new book, in which he chronicles his year-long journey to reduce both his physical
footprint (losing weight) and his carbon footprint (going green) in his
laugh-out-loud self-experimental memoir.

Jeff Garlin is best known for his work on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  He also spent three seasons on NBC’s Mad About You and has appeared on Arrested Development, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Daily Show with John Stewart, and WALL-E.

Los Angeles Noir 2, edited by Denise Hamilton (Akashic Books)

Orange County Noir, edited by Gary Phillips (Akashic Books)

Seven wonderful mystery writers will be here to present two new entrants in the very popular Akashic Noir anthology series: Los Angeles Noir 2 and Orange County Noir.  Editors Denise Hamilton and Gary Phillips and contributors Susan Straight, Robert S. Levinson, Robert Ward, Jervey Tervalon, and Naomi Hirahara will read from their work.

Denise Hamilton writes the Eve Diamond series and is editor of Los
Angeles Noir, an anthology of new writing that spent two months on the
best-seller lists, won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, and won
the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ award for Best Mystery
of the Year. Her latest novel, Los Angeles Times best seller The Last
Embrace, has been compared to James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler.

Gary Phillips writes stories of chicanery and misadventure in various
formats, including novels and short stories. He has contributed stories
to several volumes in the Akashic Noir Series, including Los Angeles
Noir, Dublin Noir, and Phoenix Noir. He recently published Freedom’s
Fight, a novel set in World War II.

Susan Straight is a native of Riverside, California, just over the
Orange County border. She has published six novels, including Highwire
Moon, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Million
Nightingales, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book
Prize. Her new novel, One Candle, will be published in 2010. Her short
story “The Golden Gopher,” from Los Angeles Noir, won an Edgar Award in
2008.

Robert S. Levinson is the author of the novels The Traitor in Us All,
In the Key of Death, Where the Lies Begin, and Ask a Dead Man, as well
as the Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner series of mystery-thrillers,
which to date consist of The Elvis and Marilyn Affair, The James Dean
Affair, The John Lennon Affair, and Hot Paint: The Andy Warhol Affair.
The Derringer Award–winner’s short stories appear often in the Ellery
Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines.

Robert Ward’s 2006 novel Four Kinds of Rain was nominated for a Hammett
Prize. He is a former writer-producer on TV shows New York Undercover,
Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice. His latest novel, Total Immunity,
was published in 2009 by Harcourt.

Jervey Tervalon lives in Altadena, California, with his two daughters.
He teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California
and is currently revising the manuscript of Hope Found Chauncey, a
sequel of sorts to his best-selling novel Understand This. His essay
“The Slow Death of a Chocolate City,” originally written for the LA
Weekly, won a Los Angeles Press Club Award in 2008.

Naomi Hirahara, born and raised in Southern California, won an Edgar
Award for her third mystery in the Mas Arai series, Snakeskin Shamisen.
She writes crime fiction and also novels for younger readers; her short
story “Number 19” was published in the original Los Angeles Noir. She
contributes a mystery serial for an English-language weekly in Japan
and regularly leads writing workshops. Her fourth Mas Arai mystery,
Blood Hina, is being published in 2010.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table (Simon & Schuster)

Creator of the popular and award-winning food blog Orangette, Molly Wizenberg will be here to discuss her new book, A Homemade Life.

"Molly Wizenberg writes with wit, style, and heart. Her delicious recipes are a special gift to every reader—and home cook." --Barbara Fairchild, Editor-in-Chief, Bon Appétit Magazine

Molly Wizenberg is a freelance food writer and the creator of Orangette. She writes the monthly column "Cooking Life" in Bon Appétit, and her writing has also been featured in Modern Bride, Town & Country, and on NPR.org.  She has degrees in human biology, French, and cultural anthropology, but in 2005, she left the world of academia to write full time.

The Song Is You (Random House)

We're thrilled to have Arthur Phillips here to read from and sign the new-in-paperback novel The Song Is You, one of our Staff Favorites from 2009!

“One of the best writers in America.”—Washington Post Book World

“Enthralling . . . brilliant . . . triumphant.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Arthur Phillips is the internationally bestselling author of The Song is You, The Egyptologist, and Prague, which was a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.

Name Me by Kim Noriega (Fortuante Daughter Press)

Join us for the launch of a new poetry chapbook by Kim Noriega and a party celebrating the recently established poetry press Fortunate Daughter, whose publisher and editor is Cecilia Woloch! This event will features readings by both Noriega and Woloch.  Both chapbooks currently available from Fortunate Daughter (Noriega's just-published Name Me, as well as last year's An Urgent Request, by Sarah Luczaj) will be available for purchase.

Kim Noriega teaches poetry to adults and teens in recovery homes and public libraries, and facilitates family literacy programs for low-literate adults with small children, to help them break the cycle of intergenerational low literacy.  She reads her work locally and abroad.  Her poem, "Heaven, 1963" was featured in Ted Kooser’s  syndicated column, "American Life in Poetry."  Her poem, "Name Me" was a finalist for the 2009 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize.   Kim lives in San Diego with her husband, Ernie, and close to their daughter, Leiha.

Cecilia Woloch is the author of four award-winning collections of poems, most recently Narcissus, winner of the Tupelo Press 2006 Snowbound Series Chapbook Award. Carpathia, newly available from BOA Editions Ltd., is her fifth book. She is currently a lecturer in the creative writing program at the University of Southern California, as well as the founding director of The Paris Poetry Workshop. She spends a part of each year traveling, and in recent years has divided her time between Los Angeles, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Shepherdsville, Kentucky; Paris, France; and a small village in the Carpathian mountains of southeastern Poland.

Photo of Cecilia Woloch (right) by Jim Hall.