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.

The Poetry Bomb

We're not going to give you all the details, because what's the fun in that?  But if you're a poetry lover, you're going to want to see this. No, it's not an April Fool's Day prank.

As a bonus, we'll have a mic set up, so bring a poem for the bomb and read it (one poem! no longer than one 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper!) as part of the celebration. S.A. Griffin will MC.

This is the kickoff to National Poetry Month at Skylight Books, and we hope to see you all there!

Name Me by Kim Noriega (Fortunate 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.

Lit Thing Book Bash -- a time for writers to rant or rave about the book they love or the book they love to hate!

We'll have Cylin Busby talking about Flowers in the Attic, Carolyn Kellogg discussing Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, Liza Palmer presenting Hope for the Flowers, Antoine Wilson covering A Spell for Chameleon, and the evening's host Cecil Castellucci talking about Tintin.  Which will be rants and which will be raves?  You'll have to come to find out!

Cylin Busby is the former Senior Editor of Teen Magazine and the author of numerous magazine articles and books for young readers. Her most recent publication is the memoir The Year We Disappeared. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Carolyn Kellogg writes book reviews and the LA Times book blog, Jacket Copy.

Liza Palmer is the internationally bestselling author of Conversations with the Fat Girl, Seeing Me Naked, and A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents. Palmer currently lives in Los Angeles and is hard at work on her next novel as well as several film and television projects.

Antoine Wilson is the author of the novel The Interloper and a contributing editor to A Public Space.

Cecil Castellucci is the author of young adult
novels.  Her newest one, Rose Sees Red (Scholastic) comes out this
August, as does her first picture book, Grandma's Gloves (Candlewick).
She rants and raves about books all the time.

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN UNFORSEEN SCHEDULING CONFLICT. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Big Machine (Random House)

Victor LaValle will be here to read from and sign his new-in-paperback novel Big Machine, one of our staff picks!

"If Hieronymus Bosch and Lenny Bruce got knocked up by a woman with a
large and compassionate heart, they might have brought forth Big
Machine. But it is Victor LaValle's peculiar, poetic, rough and funny
voice that brings it to us, alive and kicking and irresistible." —Amy Bloom

In addition to Big Machine, Victor LaValle is the author of the short-story collection Slapboxing with Jesus and the novel The Ecstatic, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has been the recipient of numerous awards
including a Whiting Writers' Award, a United States Artists Ford
Fellowship, and the key to Southeast Queens.  He was raised in Queens, New York.

Pain Killers (Harper Perennial)

L.A. writer and perennial Skylight favorite Jerry Stahl will read from and sign his novel Pain Killers, now out in paperback!

"Stahl is no stranger to smashing social taboos, and his trademark blend of
ballsy, blacker-than-black humor and wry social commentary lets him find humor
in the third Reich." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jerry Stahl is the author of Permanent Midnight; I, Fatty; Perv--a Love
Story; and Plainclothes Naked. He has written extensively for film and
television, and his work has appeared in Esquire, Details, Playboy, and
other publications. He lives in Los Angeles.

In honor of National Poetry Month, author and educator Terry Wolverton offers a free two-hour workshop exploring the anatomy of a poem.  Using poems drawn from Best American Poetry 2009, participants will discuss not only their meaning, but how their construction contributes to their meaning.  Participants may want to get a copy of the anthology prior to the workshop, but it is not required.   Please pre-register by Friday, April 9 by calling (323) 661-5954.

Terry Wolverton is the author of seven books: The Labrys Reunion, a novel; Embers, a novel in poems; Insurgent Muse, a memoir about the Woman's Building; Bailey's Beads, a novel; and two collections of poetry, Black Slip, Mystery Bruise and Shadow and Praise.  She has also edited fourteen compilations of literary work.

Join Kim Dower, Yvonne M. Estrada, Dylan Gailey, Brett Guitar Hofer, Eric Howard, Ronna Perrin, Sharon Venezio, and Terry Wolverton for an explosion of forms and styles the demonstrate the variety and vitality of poetry in Los Angeles.

Writers at Work was founded by author, editor, and long-time writing instructor Terry Wolverton to provide a space for writers to stretch the imagination, strengthen their craft, produce new work, fulfill their goals, and create a community for their work.

Canteen Magazine

Joyce Maynard and Dana Goodyear will read from their pieces in Canteen Magazine. While the reading takes place, aspiring writers will get to compete with an established writer as Dana Goodyear will face off against two audience members in a flash fiction writing contest, using an assigned topic.  When the readings from Canteen are over, all three short pieces will be read out anonymously, and the audience will pick the winner.  Prizes for all!

Canteen redefines the literary magazine by asking accomplished writers to reveal their creative process, and pairing that insight with the best new work in fiction, poetry, art, and photography—all designed to look more like a fine art book than a dusty journal.

Joyce Maynard is the author of many books, including the novel To Die For (look for her in the movie adaptation of this book, in which she plays the role of Nicole Kidman’s attorney) and the best-selling memoir, At Home in the World. Her novel, The Usual Rules — a story about surviving loss — has been a favorite of book club audiences of all ages, and was chosen one of the ten best books for young readers for 2003. Mother of three grown children, she spends half her time in Mill Valley, California, and the other half in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, where, in addition to pursuing her own work, she runs writing workshops.

Dana Goodyear is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where she has worked since 1999, and the author of Honey and Junk (W. W. Norton), a collection of poems.  Her work has appeared in many magaznies, journals, and periodicals, including The New York Times, the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Yale Review, the Colorado Review, Open City, Slate, and Vogue.  She lives in Los Angeles.

Alone with You (Simon & Schuster)

The acclaimed author of The God of War will be here to read from her new short story collection, Alone with You.

Marisa Silver made
her fiction debut in The New
Yorker when she appeared in
the inaugural “Debut Fiction” issue. Her collection of stories, Babes in Paradise, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. She is also the
author of the novels No
Direction Home and The God of War, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the fiction category.  She is the winner of the
O. Henry Prize, and her work has been included in The Best American Short
Stories as well as other
anthologies. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Photo of Marisa Silver by Bader Howar.

Robin and Ruby (Kensington Publishing)

The award-winning author will read from and sign his new novel.

"A fiercely gripping story... a brother and sister, bonded and haunted, smart and intense, sharing overlapping roads to romance or tragedy or hard-won self-understanding." --Michelle Tea, author of Rose of No Man's Land and Valencia

Praise for The World of Normal Boys:
"Extraordinary...an exhilarating experience...that Soehnlein has produced as his first novel a work of such maturity and excellence is little short of astounding." -- Fenton Johnson, author of Scissors, Paper, Rock

"This is a rich and unflinching book." --The New York Times Book Review

K.M. Soehnlein is the author of the Lambda Award-winning bestselling novel, The World of Normal Boys, and You Can Say You Knew Me When. He lives in San Francisco, where he works as a freelance writer, editor and writing teacher. Readers can visit his blog at http://kmsoehnlein.typepad.com and his website at www.kmsoehnlein.com.

Students in University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work.

This evening's student readers are Kimberly Laux, Tesia Walker,  Ilir Lita, Jacqui Lazo, and Ra’Kenna Joseph. Faculty member and author Madelyn Cain (The Childless Revolution) will also read.

A Fortunate Age (Scribner)

Joanna Smith Rakoff will be here to read from and sign the new-in-paperback edition of her acclaimed debut novel, A Fortunate Age.

"A wonderful, funny and spot-on portrait of my clumsy generation that brings to
mind such hallmarks as Mary McCarthy's The Group, Jay McInerney's Brightness
Falls, and Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children." -- Gary Shteyngart,
author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook

Joanna Smith Rakoff has written for The New York Times, Time Out New York, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine,
and other publications. She holds a B.A. from Oberlin College, an M.A.
from University College, London, and an M.F.A. from Columbia
University. She lives in New York with her husband, son and daughter.

Legend of a Suicide (Harper Perennial)

David Vann, whose short story collection Legend of a Suicide earned rave reviews in hardcover, will be here to read and sign the new paperback edition.

"The reportorial relentlessness of Vann’s imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain. 'A father, after all,' Vann writes, 'is a lot for a thing to be.' A son is also a lot for a thing to
be; so is an artist. With Legend of a Suicide, David Vann proves himself a fine example of both.” —Tom Bissell, New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant . . . . Vann's prose follows the sinews of Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway, yet has its own nimble flex." —The Times (London)

David Vann is a professor at the University of San Francisco. A contributor to Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Men’s Journal, Outside, and National Geographic Adventure, he is author of a best-selling memoir, A Mile Down: The True story of a Disastrous Career at Sea, and the forthcoming Last Day On Earth: A Portrait of the NIU Shooter, Steve Kazmierczak, winner of the 2009 AWP Nonfiction Prize.  He has also been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and a Wallace Stegner Fellow.

Make/shift

Two editors and five contributors will be here to present the new issue of this great feminist culture magazine!  Editor/publishers Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski (pictured above), along with contributors Ruth Blandon, Emily Hobson, Erin Aubry Kaplan, James McKeever, and Christine Petit, will read.

Jessica Hoffmann is a coeditor/copublisher of make/shift. Her writing has appeared in publications including ColorLines, AlterNet, and the anthologies We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists and Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. In 2008, Utne named her one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."

Daria Yudacufski is a coeditor/copublisher of make/shift. She received a master’s degree in art history from UCSB, focusing on issues of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary art and culture. She is the managing director of Visions and Voices, an arts and humanities initiative at USC.

Ruth Blandón recently completed her PhD in English at USC, looking at transamerican modernisms.

Emily Hobson is a lecturer in feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara.

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a contributing editor to "Opinion" at the Los Angeles Times and a columnist at make/shift.

James McKeever is an assistant professor of sociology at Pierce College. 

Christine Petit is the president of the union for academic student employees at the University of California, a blogger, and a frequent contributor to make/shift.

Make/shift magazine creates and documents contemporary feminist culture and action by publishing journalism, critical analysis, fiction, poetry and visual art. Join coeditors/copublishers Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski for an afternoon of readings featuring several make/shift contributors.

Aliens in the Prime of their Lives (W. W. Norton)

National Book Award finalist Brad Watson (for his first novel, The Heaven of Mercury)will be here to read from and sign his new short story collection, Aliens in the Prime of their Lives.

"Brad Watson’s stories worm their way through you. Watson’s talent is singular, truly awesome; he reminds me of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Conner, Chris Offutt in his bravery, his unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running. And yet these are not exactly dark stories—that is part of their magic, they are infused with an uncanny beauty in which even at the most god awful moments, something is salvaged."
—A. M. Homes, author of This Book Will Save Your Life

Brad Watson teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. His first collection,
Last Days of the Dog-Men, won the Sue Kauffman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His first novel, The Heaven of Mercury, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Los Angeles Review, Issue 7 (Red Hen Press)

Join The Los Angeles Review, the literary journal of Red
Hen Press, as they release their seventh issue. Dedicated to Judy Grahn,
Issue 7 features some of the finest poetry and prose from the West
Coast, the nation, and the world.

Reading from featured Los Angeles Review Issue 7 contributors include:

Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart's Traffic
(Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press) and is a fan of choreographed poetry and
other "hijacked forms."

Donna Emerson's second chapbook, Body Rhymes,
was nominated by Finishing Line Press for a California Book Award and she's just won
the 2010 Flashpoint Essay with Tiny Lights.

Stephanie Barbé Hammer’s fiction, non-fiction and
poetry have appeared in The Café Irreal, Square Lake, NYCBigCityLit,
CRATE, The Red Rock Review, Hot Metal Bridge,
Argestes, Soundings, The Bellevue Literary Review,
and Hayden's Ferry Review. A two-time nominee for the Pushcart
prize, she teaches comparative literature and creative writing at UC
Riverside, and is a student in the MFA program at Whidbey Island,
Washington.

Since Tyke Johnson can't live up to the
expectations of Christ, he does his best to live up to the expectations
of his dentist. So far, no cavities.

Howard Rappaport is a writer and teacher in San
Francisco where he lives with his wife and two children.  His work has
appeared in the North American Review and the Madison
Review.

Ryan Ridge edits Faultline Journal of Art
& Literature and has work in The Mississippi Review, PANK, Pindeldyboz, Salt
Hill and others.

Harry Thomas is a poet, critic, and translator,
and editor-in-chief of Handsel Books, a literary imprint at Other
Press/Random House.

Kim Young is the author of Divided Highway
(dancing girl press, 2008) and the editor of Chaparral.

Bonnie ZoBell lives in a cute casita in San Diego
where she’s planted all kinds of succulents and has published in lots of
places.

When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison (PublicAffairs)

We're thrilled to announce that Greil Marcus, music and culture critic, Believer columnist, and author or editor of many Skylight staff and customer favorites (Lipstick Traces, A New Literary History of America, and others) will be here to discuss and sign his new book of criticism on another Skylight favorite person: Van Morrison.

Greil Marcus is the author of The Shape of Things to Come, Like a Rolling Stone, and The Old Weird America; a twentieth anniversary edition of his book Lipstick Traces
was published in 2009. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America, published last year by Harvard University Press. Since 2000 he has taught at
Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New School in New York; his column “Real Life Rock Top 10” appears regularly in The Believer. He lives in Berkeley.

Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth (DC Comics)

The popular and prolific comic book writer Geoff Johns will be here to discuss and sign Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth, the deluxe edition of the series that relaunched one of DC Comics' greatest heroes.

Johns will be signing other books in addition to Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth, but if you choose to bring something from home for him to sign, we request that you also purchase a book here.  There will be a large selection of Johns' work to choose from!

Geoff Johns has written highly acclaimed stories starring Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Teen Titans, and Justice Society of America. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling graphic novels Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns, Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War, Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, and Superman: Braniac.  He is currently working on the story for The Flash feature film, which he will also co-produce.