Los Angeles Review at the Luxe
Ocean-going ships launch with a splash of champagne, why not literary journals? On November 1, 2009, issue number six of the Los Angeles Review debuted at the celebration marking Red Hen Press’s fifteenth anniversary. A crowd of supporters, authors, and staff, old and new, gathered in a private dining room at the Hotel Luxe Bel Air on Sunset Boulevard to welcome another round of volumes published by the press.
In the courtyard, beyond the stacks of beautiful books and tables loaded with salmon and grilled vegetables, fuchsia and tangerine bougainvillea swayed in an early autumn breeze. The bartender handed a pomegranate mimosa to a latecomer who slipped into the room and took one of the few empty seats. Two grade-schoolers stood at the podium to read poems about parks and picnics they’d written as students in the Red Hen Writers in the Schools program.
Jamaica Kincaid sat front left, hair tied up in bandana. Lisa See, author of Shanghai Girls, a novel about sisters and mothers, shared a table with her sister and her mother, Carolyn See, novelist and guru of how to make a literary life. Radio journalist Naseem Rakha read a selection from her first novel, The Crying Tree, as well as a piece she’d published in LAR #6. Chris Abani, the Nigerian author once sentenced to death for his writing, introduced his first American creative writing teacher, Mark Doty. Poets Peggy Shumaker, Eloise Klein Healy, Alicia Ostriker, Doug Kearney, Wanda Coleman, Austin Straus, Lisa Krueger, and Kate Gale twinkled in the audience like so many exquisite fireflies.
The editors of the Los Angeles Review would like to thank Red Hen Press and the authors whose books also launched at the event for letting us join the party.
We at LAR suggest you support authors and small presses directly whenever possible, but here are some Amazon links for the other times:
CLMP Literary Press and Magazine Directory 2009/2010
