In her new collection, Colette Sartor delves into her generations of influence, from her strong, smart and ‘difficult’ Grandma Sartor to her mother’s bookshelf of true crime and horror. An excerpt plus Q&A with the author on writing craft and pandemic survival, past and present.
PEN America Emerging Voices alumna Parnaz Foroutan’s new memoir explores identity, belonging and desire. An excerpt plus Q&A with the author on writing memoir, underrepresented voices, finding home and more.
In her latest book, bestselling author Angella Nazarian chronicles and celebrates 15 iconic couples who’ve made an impact in our world. An excerpt and Q&A with the author give a glimpse into potent pairs and insights into how lessons from their partnerships can guide us during this time of uncertainty.
With worry and pride in her heart, Rhonda Mitchell watches her daughter—the little girl she once told to ‘be a leader’—head out to a Black Lives Matter protest. Exploring generational differences and attitudes toward racism, she finds hope through the eyes of her Gen-Zer.
Writing with fury and grace, Stephanie Zhong both reports on and protects herself from the rise of anti-Asian racism during the Covid-19 pandemic. She finds refuge at the 99 Ranch grocery store, a safe haven from what she describes as ‘the other pandemic.’
The poets in this issue remind us that we are still writing, painting, critiquing, thinking, singing and creating. Miriam Schweiger chronicles the new apart-but-together way of life, and Solvej Schou draws from personal and historical events, which parallel today’s.
In an excerpt from his new collection, Brian Sonia-Wallace writes about the weekend before Mother’s Day at Macy’s from a hired poet’s perspective, capturing complexities of the mother-child relationship as credit cards are swiped.
In two poems from his new collection, David A. Romero pays homage to uncles who paint cars and grandfathers who just want more time.
Participants from around the country and the globe in our ‘Journaling Through Catastrophe’ workshop share their interpretations of the “new normal” and their perspectives of a world that is paradoxically familiar but also very strange.
A selection of contributions from participants in our ‘Homebound Heroes’ workshop, with a focus on self-acceptance, self-care and imagination, reveals the power and magic of coming together as a virtual writing community and supporting others during this time of imposed isolation.
With a nod to magical realism, Tess Sullivan beckons us to join her on a provocative, imaginative journey. From her crowded street in Hollywood she walks to a steep set of stairs, where she looks up at a world of hillside mansions, wondering what those above think of the dwellers below facing Covid-19 hardships.
In this tour-de-force debut essay, a daughter and mother circle each other, their grief unspoken. As pain creates wildly varying interpretations of reality, even the imaginary sound of a crying animal is cause for blame.
A sleepless searcher discovers what she’s really looking for while late-night cyberstalking her past loves.
Losing her job during the pandemic opens new doors for one writer on a revived, post-divorce career path.
On their honeymoon, Grace Marvin’s grandparents came to Los Angeles and never left. In her essay, she examines her family’s California origin story, how history is passed on from generation to generation and the deep roots planted in the place where we grow up.
A recent move to an industrial park upholstery shop in Ventura County from an affluent neighborhood nearby makes one writer feel a bit out of place, like when she moved abroad years ago. But there’s also familiarity as her map expands.
Matchmaking mishaps and a pandemic challenge a single’s resolution to make 2020 the year of yes.
In this five-week online writing course, participants will learn the art of the personal essay by dissecting structure (and how to bend it), voice (and how to find yours), other essential craft elements and pitching. Led by Marnie Goodfriend, this class will help experienced and new writers go from start to publish.
Many of us remember that concert, art exhibition or book that brought us relief, made us think or inspired our own work. In this one-day workshop, arts and culture journalist Eva Recinos will walk you through crafting pitches to begin or prompt writing about cultural topics.
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, a community journal curated by Lillian Ann Slugocki grows organically as a shared, living, breathing document of our days together fighting a pandemic. Read and join in.
Sometimes the greatest act of heroism is survival. In this free community offering, Danielle Broadway will guide participants on a journey to find the inner heroes within them. Accompanied by playlists, including scores from Marvel and anime films, the class will feature pop-culture prompts, self-care rituals, and a dedicated time to read, write and share.
This five-week course, led by memoirist Shonda Buchanan, will explore the genre in its multifaceted forms while discerning cultural perspectives such as gender, identity and ethnicity. Students will also find and hone in on their story, motif, plot points and develop several chapters by the time the class ends.
This workshop will support fiction and nonfiction writers completing a dystopian novel, a memoir about a personal involvement in a catastrophe or with work that delves into the dynamics of trauma. Taught by Eileen Cronin, the class will explore universal themes, truths revealed about humanity and contributions survivors bring to a world in which mass catastrophe is increasingly common.
Each participant in this free community offering led by Lillian Ann Slugocki will keep a guided public journal of at least 500 words for 30 days. The class will be structured like a Massive Open Online Class, so people can drop in any time, day or night. The journal grows organically as a conversation and a shared document of our days together fighting a pandemic.
In this five-week online writing course, participants will learn the art of the personal essay by dissecting structure (and how to bend it), voice (and how to find yours), other essential craft elements and pitching. Led by Marnie Goodfriend, this class will help experienced and new writers go from start to publish.
Authors and publishers, writers and readers: We want to hear from you about your new books, reading lists, and writing reflections on how you’re coping (or struggling). Now more than ever, the world needs words that matter. Be kind, stay safe, read and write on.
THE PRETTY ONE, the celebrated, new essay collection by first-time author and #DisabledAndCute founder Keah Brown, is powerful guide for change. An excerpt, plus Q&A with the author on writing, Roxane Gay, pop culture, coming out, goal-setting and more.
In this emotive short story by Luis Garcia Romero, we dive headlong into a world of impenetrable secrets and deep memories trapped in the recesses of the heavy hearts of a wife and husband.
Outrage turned to action when authors, including Roxane Gay, Myriam Gurba and Wendy C. Ortiz, gathered at #Dignidadliteraria to demand increased Latinx representation in the publishing industry.
Mei Mei Sun’s lyrical essay explodes in a torrent of feelings about the beauty, fragility and brutality of love. New to L.A., she’s uncertain about her love for this city until she realizes the Pacific Ocean connects her upbringing in Shenyang, China, to this place she is still getting to know. And yet. Love may be very close to home.
New works by YA poets on depression, sea cucumbers, millennials and standing up to authority are feisty and unapologetically vulnerable.
Jonathan Blum’s anticipated collection, THE USUAL UNCERTAINTIES, is a glorious offering of stories in a range of settings from L.A.’s Koreatown to a South Florida country club. An excerpt, plus Q&A with translator Breanna Chia.
Writer D.B. Zweier brings us to a dark setting lit only by The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.” In his short story, a call in the pre-dawn hours unites two friends, one suffering through years of addiction and trauma and the other who has watched his sad charade again and again.
Adam Popescu’s debut novel, NIMA, tells the story of a young Sherpa woman’s journey through the many challenges of her world: an exploitive Western tourism industry, strict gender restrictions & the implacable presence of the Himalayas. An excerpt, followed by Q&A between the author & writer D.B. Zweier.
As he honors the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., L.A.-native Mark Eckhardt details how he has been a target of racist incidents in his own neighborhood since the election of President Trump, and encourages all of us to find the courage to confront the resurgence of bigotry, to live according to the dreams of Dr. King.
In YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY, Steph Cha brings her formidable crime-writing prowess to the aftermath of racially charged 90s’ Los Angeles. The result is a page-turning thriller driven by honesty, tension and an unyielding willingness to speak the emotional experience of its characters.
Gorgeous and richly layered, Shonda Buchanan’s memoir, BLACK INDIAN, examines what it means to be African American and American Indian, as the author rewinds time to uncover the origins of her dual heritage–almost lost forever–hidden among family secrets, grievances and long-ago deaths.
THE LAGER QUEEN OF MINNESOTA is J. Ryan Stradal’s anticipated follow-up to his bestselling debut novel, KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST. With his signature warmth, detail and exquisitely fine storytelling, Stradal once again delivers a novel worth falling in love with.
The moon is a muse for many poets. In this new collective, a collaboration by GetLit players reminds us how the moon is colonized and objectified, a poet pleads to the moon to make him super for a night and a lover bemoans the finality of loss of his woman under a full moon.
Through the lens of a cell-phone dating app, Wayne Tan’s experimental short story, “Ontology,” investigates the intersection of longing and regret, technology and humanity, philosophy and the age-old question: Have you ever been in love?
When newlywed David Feinberg’s Tarzana townhouse burned down, he and his wife moved in with her parents. Life with his in-laws forced him to rethink his definition of adulthood while adjusting to awkwardness of sex in his wife’s childhood room, and a rigid set of house rules.
“As we all continue to collectively mourn Toni Morrison, we also collectively pay tribute to the gifts she gave us. Rest in power and poetry,” writes AFLW Associate Poetry Editor Luivette Resto as she shares poems by Angelina Sáenz, Donny Jackson and Jessica Gallion that celebrate Morrison’s memory, beauty and wisdom.
After the loves and betrayals of THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M., young poet Marina Makarova finds herself pregnant and adrift amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War, forced to survive on her own resourcefulness. A riveting excerpt from Janet Fitch’s latest, acclaimed novel, CHIMES OF A LOST CATHEDRAL, followed by a deeply thoughtful Q&A on her process with writing group partner and friend, author Rita Williams.
Chris L. Terry’s new, acclaimed novel, BLACK CARD, presents a stirring examination of racial identity in America as its unnamed narrator is a young, mixed-race man who longs to earn his “black card,” but soon finds it comes with an acute and systemic vulnerability to racism. An excerpt, followed by a Q&A between the author and AFLW Fiction Editor Pete Hsu.
Through meditations on race, culture and family, Carla Rachel Sameth’s debut, ONE DAY ON THE GOLD LINE: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS, tells the story of a lesbian Jewish single mother raising a black son in Los Angeles. Through her moving essays, she examines life’s surprising changes that come through choice or circumstance, often seemingly out of nowhere, and sometimes darkly humorous. An excerpt from her celebrated, new book release.
David Lynch’s premiere of Twin Peaks at the Ace Hotel provides the setting for a wry, observant glimpse into the superficial, glitzy aspects of Los Angeles. That is until a chance encounter downtown at Clifton’s flings frivolity to the wind as life’s fragility zooms into sharp focus.
In her new memoir, writer and criminal defense attorney Karen Stefano, shares the gripping story of how a young woman persevered after a violent sexual assault, ultimately regaining her strength and sense of freedom she had lost.
Acclaimed YA novelist Lilliam Rivera creates an intricate dystopian world in her new novel, where fierce Latina girl gangs rule in order to survive.
Maria Hummel delves into L.A.’s art world, a sordid place of vice, provocation, violence and, yes, mystery in her novel, now in paperback.
East-Coast transplant and writer Marnie Goodfriend has an “it’s complicated” relationship with L.A.’s elusive passage of time, and considers the notion of idleness as a luxury item.