Skylight Books Author Reading Series

Memoirists and novelists James Brown (This River), Seth Greenland (Shining City), Diana Wagman (Skin Deep), and Leslie Schwartz (Angels Crest) will discuss the art and craft of fiction versus narrative nonfiction, in a panel discussion moderated by Meghan Daum (Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House).  This is sure to be a fascinating discussion among terrific local writers, and should not be missed!

James Brown is the author of several novels, including Lucky Town, and the memoirs, The Los Angeles Diaries, and This River.  He received a Nelson Algren Award in Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.  His work has appeared in numerous publications, including GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine.  Brown teaches in the MFA Program at Cal State San Bernardino.

Seth Greenland is the author of the novels The Bones, Shining City, and The Angry Buddhist (Spring 2012). He was one of the original bloggers on the Huffington Post. www.sethgreenland.com

Leslie Schwartz is the author of two novels, Jumping the Green, which won the James Jones Award for best first novel, and Angel’s Crest which was an L.A. Times Bestseller, a Book Sense 76 pick and was translated into 13 languages. She is the founder of a literary magazine: Charlotte: A Journal of Poetry, Prose and Art. Her second novel, Angel’s Crest has been adapted for the screen and debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. She is currently at work on her third book, a collection of personal essays.

Diana Wagman is the author of three novels.  Her second, Spontaneous, won the PEN West Award for Fiction.  Her short stories have been published in Black Clock, Electric Literature and elsewhere.  She has a personal essay in this summer's Colorado Review and often writes opinion pieces for the Los Angeles Times.

Meghan Daum is a columnist for The Los Angeles Times and the author, most recently, of the memoir Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House. She has contributed to numerous magazines and to public radio programs such as Marketplace and Morning Edition. She is also the author of the novel The Quality of Life Report and the essay collection My Misspent Youth.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JULY 6, 2011.

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Slake Issue #3

Contributors to the third issue of this great Los Angeles literary journal will read from their selected pieces!

We're pleased to welcome the following readers, who will be reading their work:

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Other People We Married (FiveChapters Books)

Brooklyn-based author Emma Straub will read and sign her much buzzed-about short story collection, Other People We Married.

“It is rare that I will love every story in a collection but I did love each of the twelve stories in this collection both individually and also as a whole collection with a distinctive shape. Each story was intimate and engaging and really, really clean. I never found a word or idea out of place, nothing that pulled me from the stories or the people and places borne of Straub’s imagination.”–Roxane Gay, HTMLGIANT

“These quiet epiphanies in Straub’s stories place her in the company of Beattie and Moore, and the voices she creates are contemporary. When I finished reading this exquisite collection, I flipped back to the beginning of the book and stared at the table of contents. The book was suddenly heavier in my hands—suddenly filled with the weight of all these character’s silent fantasies, side-thoughts and careful revelations. Other People We Married is a captivating first collection of short stories for this writer; I look forward to her future work.” –Bracha Goykadosh, The Rumpus

Emma Straub is the author of the short story collection Other People We Married and the forthcoming novel Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Slate, and Tin House, among many other journals. She lives in New York City and on Twitter @emmastraub.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JULY 27, 2011.

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Compression & Purity (City Lights Books)

Poet Will Alexander returns to Skylight Books to read and sign his new poetry collection, Compression & Purity.

"Born in South Central Los Angeles, and a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, Alexander, who got his start publishing in Clayton Eshleman's groundbreaking journal "Sulfur" in 1981, is vastly under-appreciated--an important avant-garde poet, who deserves a wider audience." -- Huffington Post

"Compression & Purity works well as an introduction to Alexander's black surrealist oeuvre while still engaging and challenging his longtime readers. Though emotionally cold and detached, the poems more than make up for it with a genuine love of language and its power to effect change." --The San Francisco Bay Guardian

Born in 1948, Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, visual artist and pianist. He was the recipient of a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry in 2001 and a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2002. He was also the subject of a colloquium published in the prestigious African American cultural journal Callaloo in 1999. Author of ten books (including ABOVE THE HUMAN NERVE DOMAIN, COMPRESSION & PURITY, EXOBIOLOGY AS GODDESS, and TOWARDS THE PRIMEVAL LIGHTNING FIELD), Alexander has taught at various colleges including University of California, San Diego, New College (San Francisco, CA), Hofstra University, and Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, in addition to being associated with the nonprofit organization Theatre of Hearts/Youth First, serving at-risk youth. He is a lifelong resident of Los Angeles.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JUNE 25, 2011.

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The Rattling Wall

Contributors to this exciting new literary journal will read from their included work!

Readers and authors include:

James Greer Lou Mathews Jessica Garrison Kathleen Tyler Lisa Giaffo

Find out more about this new Los Angeles based journal at:

http://therattlingwall.com/

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JUNE 23, 2011.

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Ten Thousand Saints (Ecco)

Debut novelist Eleanor Henderson will read and sign her highly acclaimed novel, Ten Thousand Saints.

"Eleanor Henderson is in possession of an enormous talent which she has matched up with skill, ambition, and a fierce imagination. The resulting novel, Ten Thousand Saints, is the best thing I’ve read in a long time."  —Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder

"Ten Thousand Saints is funny, touching, artistic, surprising, lovely, eye-opening, and very, very wise.” —Arthur Phillips, bestselling author of Prague and The Tragedy of Arthur

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JUNE 16, 2011.

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Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy (Soft Skull Press)

A launch party for journalist Sanjiv Bhattacharya, who will discuss and sign his new book, based on unprecedented access to fundamentalist Mormon polygamist families.

"From his telling beginning, a quote from Bob Dylan, Bhattacharya is amusingly off and running, and readers will want to follow his punchy, magazine-trained voice wherever it may lead." --Publishers Weekly

"Bhattacharya gained impressive access inside the polygamist compounds, weaving a fascinating and entertaining tale." --Huffington Post Sanjiv Bhattacharya has written for Details, Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Maxim. He has appeared as an expert on polygamy, discussing his Channel Four documentary, The Man with 80 Wives, on MSNBC Live, Montel Williams, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.

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