From the monthly archives:
Two writers who will be appearing at Vroman’s in the near future are getting some major online love today. The first is Nina Revoyr, who is interviewed by Denise Hamilton over at The Elegant Variation. Nina will be at Vroman’s (along with special guest Janet Fitch) on May 13. The second is Willy Vlautin, who [...]
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Today’s poem is pretty apt, I think. THE LAST POEM IN THE WORLD Would I write it if I could?Bet your glitzy ass I would. –Hayden Carruth I love the confidence, maybe even arrogance of this poem. “Hell yeah, I’m good enough to write the last poem in the world.” Hayden Carruth lives in the [...]
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National Poetry Month kicked my butt. It can be hard to write a blog post every day, let alone a blog post a day about poetry, but I tried. Maybe if NaPoMo didn’t coincide with National LA Times Festival of Books month, I would’ve done better. But that’s just an excuse, and excuses are for [...]
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We were name-checked in Scott Timberg’s LA Times story about the series of lame con attempts perpetrated against indie bookstores in Southern California. Somebody called us pretending to be an author who had/was about to appear at our store and asked for money to do…whatever. In neither case did the con work (In fact, our [...]
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Keith Gessen appeared on the LA Times Festival of Books panel entitled “Fiction: Unconventional Visions.” Tonight he will read and discuss his debut novel All the Sad Young Literary Men at Vroman’s at 5:30. It’s an odd start time, but I’m hoping for a good turnout. For once, the media machine is helping me out, [...]
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In my mind, and probably in the minds of many people at Vroman’s, I’ve been marking time by the Festival of Books. Last week was “One week before the Festival of Books,” and today, finally, is one day after the Festival of Books. It was nice to crawl to my desk, groggy and sore, and [...]
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I’ve done my fair share of handicapping various book awards this past year and Counterbalance (via LAist) has had some fun with the upcoming LA Times Book Prizes (tomorrow night!), but nobody takes awards coverage quite as far as Max at The Millions. Max has come up with an entire system of assigning value to [...]
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Today’s poem comes to me via my friend Stephanie. Thanks, Stephanie! (And again, I apologize for the formatting issues. This is not how the poem actually should look on the page). SENTIMENTAL ATOM SMASHER So this guy walks into a bar and asks for a beer. Sorry,the bartender says, I only sell atom smashers And [...]
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There’s a new episode of Titlepage up. It features, among others, Edward Hirsch, of whose poetry I’m quite fond, and Mark Sarvas, who will be appearing at Vroman’s on May 5. It’s a good episode, especially since they let the authors talk to one another a bit more than in previous episodes.
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It’s Earth Day today, which means all your greener-than-thou friends will act put out because, you know, they do this stuff year-round. Here at Vroman’s, we actually celebrated Earth Day on Saturday with a day-long festival that included live music, eco-friendly vendors, and a fashion show featuring all sorts of sustainable, local, organic clothing provided [...]
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