before you hit the mall, occupy literature!

-
Beyond bringing blankets and soup to protesters camped out at your local city hall, what’s the best way to support the 99 percent this holiday season? How about buying books published by small presses and sold at independent bookstores for 100 percent of the people on your gift list? Small presses give voice to writers and viewpoints overlooked by the mainstream. Indie bookstores let you be a literary locavore. And subscriptions to literary magazines are gifts that keep giving all year long. Consider the lists below your holiday literary activism starter kit. Happy browsing!

Southern California-based Presses:
•Ammo Books: one-of-a-kind titles featuring amazing design, thoughtful writing, and exquisite printing
•Angel City Press: nostalgic yet cool illustrated books
•Arktoi Books: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that give lesbian writers access to “the conversation”
•Beyond Baroque: books by local, emerging, overlooked, and previously out-of-print poets
•Cahuenga Press: poetry that honors creative freedom and cooperation
•Cloverfield Press: books as visually beautiful as they are intellectually and emotionally stimulating
•Dzanc Books: literary fiction that falls outside the mainstream
•Green Integer: essays, manifestos, speeches, epistles, narratives, and more
•Les Figues Press: aesthetic conversations between readers, writers, and artists, with an avant-garde emphasis
•Otis Books/Seismicity: contemporary fiction, poetry, essays, creative non-fiction and translation
•Perceval Press: art, critical writing, and poetry
•P S Books: micro-press that publishes conceptually motivated series on a project by project basis
•Red Hen Press: works of literary excellence that have been overlooked by mainstream presses
•San Diego City Works Press: local, ethnic, political, and border writing
•Santa Monica Press: offbeat looks at pop culture, lively how-to books, film history, travel, and humor
•Tebot Bach: strengthening community and broadening the audience for poetry
•Tsehai Publishers: literary fiction and serious nonfiction, with an emphasis on first-time authors and writers from under-served communities
•What Books Press: books by L.A.-based writers whose work spans the full scope of the past quarter century

Independent Bookstores:
Book Soup, West Hollywood
Beyond Baroque, Venice
Chevalier’s Books, Larchmont Village
Diesel, Brentwood and Malibu
Eso Won Books, Leimert Park
Family, Fairfax District
Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse, La Cañada
Hennessey + Ingalls, Santa Monica and Hollywood
The Last Bookstore, Downtown
Libros Schmibros, Boyle Heights
Portrait of a Bookstore, Studio City
Skylight Books, Los Feliz
Small World Books, Venice
Stories, Echo Park
Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore, Sylmar
Village Bookshop, Glendora
Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena

Please forward this widely to those interested in books and writing. Happy holidays from the Future of Publishing Think Tank*!


*The Future of Publishing Think Tank is an ad hoc group of writers and representatives of independent publishers and bookstores, nonprofit literary organizations, and community radio. Our task: to consider the changes occurring in publishing, distribution, and marketing of literary work and to envision new ways for writers to engage readers and build audiences for their work. Visit us at www.foptt.com to see the results of our reader survey and find more bookstores and literary activities in your area.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

soleil for a day

-
Image
1. cirque love Since starting gymnastics at age five—or at least since reading Geek Love in college—I’ve wanted to run away and join the circus. Actually, the problem was that I wanted to join the circus but I didn’t want to run away. How fortunate, then, that AK found out about Cirque School , where you can lea rn the trapeze arts without ever leaving L.A. She gave me a class for my birthday, which I finally redeemed last night (after reading up on it, I decided it sounded kind of hardcore, and that I needed to build up some flexibility and upper body strength before going—I’m not sure that happened, but a month passed, I was a little closer to reuniting with my left splits and I was itching to take the class). The classes are held at Absolution L.A. , a small West Hollywood studio walled with honey-colored wood and stocked with pilates machines, trapezes, a climbing wall, red vinyl chairs and other items of expensive-looking fu rn iture. It reminded me, I told AK later,
Read more

seasons of love

-
Image
Everything Cheryl does, she’s totally joking and completely serious.             --AK 2,628,000 minutes 2.6 million moments so dear 2,628,000 minutes How do you measure, measure five years? In new jobs , in boob jobs , in blog posts, in cups of coffee In coffee, more coffee, in coffee, and tea In 2,628,000 minutes How do you measure five extra years? How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love Seasons of love 2,628,000 minutes 2.6 million plans gone awry 2,628,000 minutes How do you measure public places I’ve cried ? In grants that I wrote, and novels on the side   Facebook rabbit holes are no source of pride It’s time to kiss Dashaboo Though he’s sticky with jam Let’s celebrate, remember five years Of making people deal with who I am Remember the love Remember the love Remember the love Measure in love Rent rent rent rent reeeeennnnnnt! In diapers, in houses In homies , in couples t
Read more

tops of 2023

-
Image
Recently one of my therapists (plural) told me I talk too much. Well, technically she said that while doing EMDR, she needed to interrupt my highly intellectualized storytelling more, so that we could prioritize reprocessing rather than letting me tip into re-experiencing trauma. And she said it very nicely. But a little part of me heard "You're too much for your therapist, and now you have failed," and of course that kind of thinking is why I'm in therapy. Today I listened to this episode of This American Life, in which Yousef (above, with his family), an incredibly determined, kind, and good-humored Palestinian man, talks about how his two-year-old son wants "a thousand kisses" before going to bed. He laughs and says he doesn't mind. In nearly the same breath, he says he regrets having kids, because what's the point of having children if you can't protect them? I wanted to jump through my car radio and hug him, or some other useless action, be
Read more