literary scene

Imagine Paris in the 1920s, only it’s Los Feliz today — the Figaro Bistro patio humming with literary gossip from mercurial poets through clouds of cigarette smoke. It’s a proposition that Sammy Ginsberg is willing to explore.

A longtime writer and former high school English teacher, Ginsberg found writer gatherings to be inaccessible — either too large in scope or too exclusive. Luckily, Vermont and Hillhurst avenues are just right. The Los Feliz Writer Festival was born.

“Los Feliz is super artsy and filled with writers. It’s fun to organize one in the neighborhood,” says Ginsberg.

Ginsberg is weary of the well-trodden conversations about the New York literary scene, steeped in endless mythology. We may not have the New Yorker or the Paris Review, but we have each other: “There are 40 million people who live in L.A. County. I’m like, ‘We don’t need New York. We have people.’ ”

Willa Lane writes in a notebook at the closing Los Feliz Writers Festival event that featured journaling and meditation in Barnsdall Art Park.

(Samahra Litte )

That scrappy DIY quality can make Los Angeles’ literary community feel mysterious, even to the people living in it. A San Fernando Valley native, Ginsberg knows there’s plenty happening around the city — you just have to know where to look.

“There’s a lot of things going on, but you have to be in the know,” she says. “It’s happening in someone’s living room because it costs so much money to book a venue.”

In late August, Ginsberg organized the second annual Los Feliz Writer Festival, a sprawling collection of readings, workshops, parties and other literary miscellany. “Last year we did it, and it went really well,” she says. “This year, it’s even bigger and crazier and magical.”

The festival is, in some ways, an extension of the community Ginsberg has been quietly building all year. Since October, she’s hosted a weekly “Shut Up & Write” at Los Feliz watering hole the Big Bar at Alcove. “We have dinner and then write next to each other quietly,” says Ginsberg. “You can see each other every week, and it’s a natural, slow way to get to know people.”

The Los Feliz Writer Festival kicked off with Poets Are the New Popstars, a reading-meets-house-party at a private home in Los Feliz. Over the course of the festival’s 13 events, writers could attend personal essay workshops, receive tarot readings, and celebrate the 100th birthdays of Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg and Harper Lee at East Hollywood bar Tabula Rasa. “I made these limited-edition official after-party zines with a poem and quote from the authors,” says Ginsberg.

Alex Moreno reads from her poetry collection “Sticky Time” at Poets Are the New Popstars.

(Toby Shapiro)

Ginsberg imagines the literary scene as a collaborative project. “For me, this is kind of like hipster ‘Dungeons & Dragons.’ I’m playing with my friends,” she says of the festival, which she plans to organize annually. In the future, the festival hopes to include more diverse voices. “In the second year, we’re trying to open up the conversation,” she says. “We, too, believe that L.A. is for everyone and want it to be a writers festival for everyone.”

Christina Catherine Martinez, a critic, writer and comedian, has a more pointed take on the Los Angeles literary world.

“A lot of parties and readings, but not a lot of bylines,” she muses. “Substack IRL but still gunning for the traditional publishing deal — kind of an old world is dying, a new world is not yet born.”

Yet, Martinez welcomes the proliferation of readings that have emerged throughout the city. “I love that there are so many readings,” she says. “Fifteen years ago the only time I mingled with other writers was at the yearly Artforum dinner, when the lit scene was barnacled to the art scene.”

This fall, Los Angeles will host an eclectic mix of literary events, from readings by acclaimed novelists to intimate gatherings for emerging writers and readers. For those looking to immerse themselves in the city’s burgeoning literary scene, here are 16 readings and literary events taking place across Los Angeles.