A couple of real good readings at UCLA’s Hammer Museum: Wed 11/18 7pm, Tin House regular Yiyun Li; and Thurs 11/19 7pm, in a terrific pairing, two wonderful women and amazing short story writers, Dylan Landis and Mary Otis Dylan will be reading again later that week, Sun 11/22 4pm, at Village Books in Pacific Palisades; also at Village Books, LA Times film critic Kenneth Turan, Thurs 11/19 7:30, with a new book about Joe Papp and the Public Theater A good month also at the Central Lib... Read Full Story

I attended a good reading the other night at Skylight Books, featuring selections from Dzanc’s new Best of the Web 2009 anthology. There are selections from some of the more established online journals like failbetter and Juked, print journals like AGNI with online companions–and still others like Toasted Cheese and Hot Metal Bridge that are new to me. Dzanc is fast becoming a force in independent publishing–under their own imprint, as well Other Voices, Black Lawrence, M... Read Full Story

This month’s installment of the New Short Fiction Series (which presents fiction by West Coast writers in dramatic readings by local actors of screen & stage) features work by Andrew Roe. Andrew has some impressive publishing credits, with stories in journals that include Tin House, One Story, Glimmer Train, Failbetter, Night Train, and the Cincinnati Review. Two new stories were published in the last week alone! He has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Click on his name... Read Full Story

… is a very cool site I’ve written about before. They invite editors of online journals, or print journals with online content, to nominate a favorite story from their archives. When a story is chosen, the editor introduces both the journal and the story, and a guest reviewer writes a short review, followed by a short bio. So you get introduced to a journal you may not know, and likely two writers as well. And it’s all about celebrating great short stories. This month, I... Read Full Story

At Skylight Books in Los Feliz: Mon 10/5 7:30 - Kathryn Ma and her Iowa Short Fiction-winning All That Work and Still No Boys; Wed 10/7, 7:30 - Francine Prose with a new book about Anne Frank; Tues 10/13, 7:30 – James Ellroy, Blood’s a Rover; Wed 10/14, 7:30 - popular UCLA Extension instructor Les Plesko with a new novel, Slow Lie Detector; Sat 10/17, 4pm - Skylight Salon: the well-read staff present favorite small-press titles, with wine & snacks; Tues 10/20, 7:30 - Dzanc,... Read Full Story

Last night I went to a wonderful reading at Diesel Bookstore in Brentwood: Dylan Landis, reading from her new novel-in-stories, Normal People Don’t Live Like This. As a writer working on a novel-in-stories myself, one also centered on a difficult and complicated female character, and who’s been exposed to some of Dylan’s work, I have been keenly awaiting the arrival of this book. Dylan read from the story “Underwater,” which revolves around, among other things, ... Read Full Story

Skylight Books in Los Feliz has a busy month, including: 9/7 7:30 – Candacy Taylor, Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress; 9/10 7:30 – poet Kim Addonizio, Lucifer at the Starlite; 9/11 7:30 – Peter Gadol with his locally set novel Silver Lake; Sat 9/19 4pm – Skylight Literary Salon (wine & cheese & booktalk), this month looking at indie Graphic Novels; 9/20 5pm – Eileen Myles and her essay collection The Importance of Being Iceland; 9/24 ... Read Full Story

I don’t write to music. For me, silence is the mother of sound, as to dancers and actors stillness is the mother of movement (and stillness can bear some fine fruit to the writer as well). But music stirs me in unique ways. And song, with its particular marriage of music & word, has a singular ability to jar us, transport us, and set us down in unexpected territory. So I often turn to music and song for beginnings, or just to be shook from old stale patterns. I wrote here recen... Read Full Story

One of my favorite new online journals, Five Chapters, each week serializes a new short story over five days. (This spring they moved to WordPress, with a much-improved design.) From the start, founder Dave Daley (a former Details editor) has attracted some impressive names. (More from Dave HERE in a good interview with Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network.) They end the summer with a flurry: fifteen stories in fifteen days, starting today. Featured authors include Lori Ostlund (... Read Full Story

Two late additions to the local literary calendar: Thurs 8/20, 7:30pm – Skylight Books in Los Feliz presents Dave Eggers reading from and signing his Hurricane Katrina novel, Zeitoun Sun 8/30, 6pm – at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood (1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga), Tongue & Groove presents the worth-the-price- of-admission-alone Mary Otis (her book Yes, Yes, Cherries is a must for short story lovers), along with fellow New Short Fiction Series alum Larry Fondation; as well as Janet Sarb... Read Full Story