The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To (Vintage)

A launch party for the debut novel from DC Pierson, about the typical high school experience: the homework, the awkwardness, and the mutant creatures from another galaxy.

DC Pierson was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ.  He graduated from NYU's
Dramatic Writing Department in 2007 with a degree in writing for
television. His comedy group DERRICK made a feature film called
"Mystery Team."  He publishes short stories and unsolicited opinions on
his website, dcpierson.com.  This is his first novel.

Not Your Typical Political Animal (Art Attack Press)

Political artist Robbie Conal will be here to present Not Your Typical Political Animal, a humorous and soulful collection of 20 years worth of writings, drawings, and paintings featuring his political animal muses.

In the 1980s, Robbie Conal, angered by the extreme hubris of the Reagan Administration, began making satirical posters of politicians and bureaucrats who, by his personal standards, had abused their power in the name of representative democracy. He developed an irregular guerrilla army of volunteers, and started pasting up his political jabs in the form of posters, in all of the major cities across the country. Since 1986, when his first poster, “Men With No Lips,” anonymously appeared in the streets of Los Angeles, Robbie has made more than 60 posters satirizing politicians from both parties, televangelists, and global capitalists. He has gained national prominence as the country's premiere street poster artist. Conal’s work has been featured on CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose, and in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, People Magazine, Interview, and scores of daily newspapers around the country. The Washington Post named him "America’s foremost street artist" in 1988. His books include Art Attack: The Midnight Politics of a Guerrilla Poster Artist (HarperCollins, 1992), Artburn (Akashic Books, 2003), and Not Your Typical Political Animal (Art Attack Press, 2010). He continues to teach drawing, work on new posters and paintings, and live in Los Angeles with his wife and their two cats, Smilla and Bodhi.

My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World (Simon Spotlight)

Actor Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm) will be here to present his new book, in which he chronicles his year-long journey to reduce both his physical
footprint (losing weight) and his carbon footprint (going green) in his
laugh-out-loud self-experimental memoir.

Jeff Garlin is best known for his work on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  He also spent three seasons on NBC’s Mad About You and has appeared on Arrested Development, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Daily Show with John Stewart, and WALL-E.

Los Angeles Noir 2, edited by Denise Hamilton (Akashic Books)

Orange County Noir, edited by Gary Phillips (Akashic Books)

Seven wonderful mystery writers will be here to present two new entrants in the very popular Akashic Noir anthology series: Los Angeles Noir 2 and Orange County Noir.  Editors Denise Hamilton and Gary Phillips and contributors Susan Straight, Robert S. Levinson, Robert Ward, Jervey Tervalon, and Naomi Hirahara will read from their work.

Denise Hamilton writes the Eve Diamond series and is editor of Los
Angeles Noir, an anthology of new writing that spent two months on the
best-seller lists, won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, and won
the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ award for Best Mystery
of the Year. Her latest novel, Los Angeles Times best seller The Last
Embrace, has been compared to James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler.

Gary Phillips writes stories of chicanery and misadventure in various
formats, including novels and short stories. He has contributed stories
to several volumes in the Akashic Noir Series, including Los Angeles
Noir, Dublin Noir, and Phoenix Noir. He recently published Freedom’s
Fight, a novel set in World War II.

Susan Straight is a native of Riverside, California, just over the
Orange County border. She has published six novels, including Highwire
Moon, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Million
Nightingales, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book
Prize. Her new novel, One Candle, will be published in 2010. Her short
story “The Golden Gopher,” from Los Angeles Noir, won an Edgar Award in
2008.

Robert S. Levinson is the author of the novels The Traitor in Us All,
In the Key of Death, Where the Lies Begin, and Ask a Dead Man, as well
as the Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner series of mystery-thrillers,
which to date consist of The Elvis and Marilyn Affair, The James Dean
Affair, The John Lennon Affair, and Hot Paint: The Andy Warhol Affair.
The Derringer Award–winner’s short stories appear often in the Ellery
Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines.

Robert Ward’s 2006 novel Four Kinds of Rain was nominated for a Hammett
Prize. He is a former writer-producer on TV shows New York Undercover,
Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice. His latest novel, Total Immunity,
was published in 2009 by Harcourt.

Jervey Tervalon lives in Altadena, California, with his two daughters.
He teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California
and is currently revising the manuscript of Hope Found Chauncey, a
sequel of sorts to his best-selling novel Understand This. His essay
“The Slow Death of a Chocolate City,” originally written for the LA
Weekly, won a Los Angeles Press Club Award in 2008.

Naomi Hirahara, born and raised in Southern California, won an Edgar
Award for her third mystery in the Mas Arai series, Snakeskin Shamisen.
She writes crime fiction and also novels for younger readers; her short
story “Number 19” was published in the original Los Angeles Noir. She
contributes a mystery serial for an English-language weekly in Japan
and regularly leads writing workshops. Her fourth Mas Arai mystery,
Blood Hina, is being published in 2010.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table (Simon & Schuster)

Creator of the popular and award-winning food blog Orangette, Molly Wizenberg will be here to discuss her new book, A Homemade Life.

"Molly Wizenberg writes with wit, style, and heart. Her delicious recipes are a special gift to every reader—and home cook." --Barbara Fairchild, Editor-in-Chief, Bon Appétit Magazine

Molly Wizenberg is a freelance food writer and the creator of Orangette. She writes the monthly column "Cooking Life" in Bon Appétit, and her writing has also been featured in Modern Bride, Town & Country, and on NPR.org.  She has degrees in human biology, French, and cultural anthropology, but in 2005, she left the world of academia to write full time.

The Song Is You (Random House)

We're thrilled to have Arthur Phillips here to read from and sign the new-in-paperback novel The Song Is You, one of our Staff Favorites from 2009!

“One of the best writers in America.”—Washington Post Book World

“Enthralling . . . brilliant . . . triumphant.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Arthur Phillips is the internationally bestselling author of The Song is You, The Egyptologist, and Prague, which was a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.

Name Me by Kim Noriega (Fortuante Daughter Press)

Join us for the launch of a new poetry chapbook by Kim Noriega and a party celebrating the recently established poetry press Fortunate Daughter, whose publisher and editor is Cecilia Woloch! This event will features readings by both Noriega and Woloch.  Both chapbooks currently available from Fortunate Daughter (Noriega's just-published Name Me, as well as last year's An Urgent Request, by Sarah Luczaj) will be available for purchase.

Kim Noriega teaches poetry to adults and teens in recovery homes and public libraries, and facilitates family literacy programs for low-literate adults with small children, to help them break the cycle of intergenerational low literacy.  She reads her work locally and abroad.  Her poem, "Heaven, 1963" was featured in Ted Kooser’s  syndicated column, "American Life in Poetry."  Her poem, "Name Me" was a finalist for the 2009 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize.   Kim lives in San Diego with her husband, Ernie, and close to their daughter, Leiha.

Cecilia Woloch is the author of four award-winning collections of poems, most recently Narcissus, winner of the Tupelo Press 2006 Snowbound Series Chapbook Award. Carpathia, newly available from BOA Editions Ltd., is her fifth book. She is currently a lecturer in the creative writing program at the University of Southern California, as well as the founding director of The Paris Poetry Workshop. She spends a part of each year traveling, and in recent years has divided her time between Los Angeles, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Shepherdsville, Kentucky; Paris, France; and a small village in the Carpathian mountains of southeastern Poland.

Photo of Cecilia Woloch (right) by Jim Hall.

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN UNFORSEEN SCHEDULING CONFLICT. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Big Machine (Random House)

Victor LaValle will be here to read from and sign his new-in-paperback novel Big Machine, one of our staff picks!

"If Hieronymus Bosch and Lenny Bruce got knocked up by a woman with a
large and compassionate heart, they might have brought forth Big
Machine. But it is Victor LaValle's peculiar, poetic, rough and funny
voice that brings it to us, alive and kicking and irresistible." —Amy Bloom

In addition to Big Machine, Victor LaValle is the author of the short-story collection Slapboxing with Jesus and the novel The Ecstatic, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has been the recipient of numerous awards
including a Whiting Writers' Award, a United States Artists Ford
Fellowship, and the key to Southeast Queens.  He was raised in Queens, New York.

In honor of National Poetry Month, author and educator Terry Wolverton offers a free two-hour workshop exploring the anatomy of a poem.  Using poems drawn from Best American Poetry 2009, participants will discuss not only their meaning, but how their construction contributes to their meaning.  Participants may want to get a copy of the anthology prior to the workshop, but it is not required.   Please pre-register by Friday, April 9 by calling (323) 661-5954.

Terry Wolverton is the author of seven books: The Labrys Reunion, a novel; Embers, a novel in poems; Insurgent Muse, a memoir about the Woman's Building; Bailey's Beads, a novel; and two collections of poetry, Black Slip, Mystery Bruise and Shadow and Praise.  She has also edited fourteen compilations of literary work.

Join Kim Dower, Yvonne M. Estrada, Dylan Gailey, Brett Guitar Hofer, Eric Howard, Ronna Perrin, Sharon Venezio, and Terry Wolverton for an explosion of forms and styles the demonstrate the variety and vitality of poetry in Los Angeles.

Writers at Work was founded by author, editor, and long-time writing instructor Terry Wolverton to provide a space for writers to stretch the imagination, strenthen their craft, produce new work, fulfill their goals, and create a community for their work.

Canteen Magazine

Joyce Maynard and Dana Goodyear will read from their pieces in Canteen Magazine. While the reading takes place, aspiring writers will get to compete with an established writer as Dana Goodyear will face off against two audience members in a flash fiction writing contest, using an assigned topic.  When the readings from Canteen are over, all three short pieces will be read out anonymously, and the audience will pick the winner.  Prizes for all!

Canteen redefines the literary magazine by asking accomplished writers to reveal their creative process, and pairing that insight with the best new work in fiction, poetry, art, and photography—all designed to look more like a fine art book than a dusty journal.

Joyce Maynard is the author of many books, including the novel To Die For (look for her in the movie adaptation of this book, in which she plays the role of Nicole Kidman’s attorney) and the best-selling memoir, At Home in the World. Her novel, The Usual Rules — a story about surviving loss — has been a favorite of book club audiences of all ages, and was chosen one of the ten best books for young readers for 2003. Mother of three grown children, she spends half her time in Mill Valley, California, and the other half in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, where, in addition to pursuing her own work, she runs writing workshops.

Dana Goodyear is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where she has worked since 1999, and the author of Honey and Junk (W. W. Norton), a collection of poems.  Her work has appeared in many magaznies, journals, and periodicals, including The New York Times, the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Yale Review, the Colorado Review, Open City, Slate, and Vogue.  She lives in Los Angeles.

Alone with You (Simon & Schuster)

The acclaimed author of The God of War will be here to read from her new short story collection, Alone with You.

Marisa Silver made
her fiction debut in The New
Yorker when she appeared in
the inaugural “Debut Fiction” issue. Her collection of stories, Babes in Paradise, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. She is also the
author of the novels No
Direction Home and The God of War, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the fiction category.  She is the winner of the
O. Henry Prize, and her work has been included in The Best American Short
Stories as well as other
anthologies. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Photo of Marisa Silver by Bader Howar.

Robin and Ruby (Kensington Publishing)

The award-winning author will read from and sign his new novel.

"A fiercely gripping story... a brother and sister, bonded and haunted, smart and intense, sharing overlapping roads to romance or tragedy or hard-won self-understanding." --Michelle Tea, author of Rose of No Man's Land and Valencia

Praise for The World of Normal Boys:
"Extraordinary...an exhilarating experience...that Soehnlein has produced as his first novel a work of such maturity and excellence is little short of astounding." -- Fenton Johnson, author of Scissors, Paper, Rock

"This is a rich and unflinching book." --The New York Times Book Review

K.M. Soehnlein is the author of the Lambda Award-winning bestselling novel, The World of Normal Boys, and You Can Say You Knew Me When. He lives in San Francisco, where he works as a freelance writer, editor and writing teacher. Readers can visit his blog at http://kmsoehnlein.typepad.com and his website at www.kmsoehnlein.com.

Students in University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work.

A Fortunate Age (Scribner)

Joanna Smith Rakoff will be here to read from and sign the new-in-paperback edition of her acclaimed debut novel, A Fortunate Age.

"A wonderful, funny and spot-on portrait of my clumsy generation that brings to
mind such hallmarks as Mary McCarthy's The Group, Jay McInerney's Brightness
Falls, and Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children." -- Gary Shteyngart,
author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook

Joanna Smith Rakoff has written for The New York Times, Time Out New York, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine,
and other publications. She holds a B.A. from Oberlin College, an M.A.
from University College, London, and an M.F.A. from Columbia
University. She lives in New York with her husband, son and daughter.

Legend of a Suicide (Harper Perennial)

David Vann, whose short story collection Legend of a Suicide earned rave reviews in hardcover, will be here to read and sign the new paperback edition.

"The reportorial relentlessness of Vann’s imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain. 'A father, after all,' Vann writes, 'is a lot for a thing to be.' A son is also a lot for a thing to
be; so is an artist. With Legend of a Suicide, David Vann proves himself a fine example of both.” —Tom Bissell, New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant . . . . Vann's prose follows the sinews of Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway, yet has its own nimble flex." —The Times (London)

David Vann is a professor at the University of San Francisco. A contributor to Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Men’s Journal, Outside, and National Geographic Adventure, he is author of a best-selling memoir, A Mile Down: The True story of a Disastrous Career at Sea, and the forthcoming Last Day On Earth: A Portrait of the NIU Shooter, Steve Kazmierczak, winner of the 2009 AWP Nonfiction Prize.  He has also been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and a Wallace Stegner Fellow.

Make/shift

Make/shift magazine creates and documents contemporary feminist culture and action by publishing journalism, critical analysis, fiction, poetry and visual art. Join coeditors/copublishers Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski for an afternoon of readings featuring several make/shift contributors.

Aliens in the Prime of their Lives (W. W. Norton)

National Book Award finalist Brad Watson (for his first novel, The Heaven of Mercury)will be here to read from and sign his new short story collection, Aliens in the Prime of their Lives.

"Brad Watson’s stories worm their way through you. Watson’s talent is singular, truly awesome; he reminds me of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Conner, Chris Offutt in his bravery, his unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running. And yet these are not exactly dark stories—that is part of their magic, they are infused with an uncanny beauty in which even at the most god awful moments, something is salvaged."
—A. M. Homes, author of This Book Will Save Your Life

Brad Watson teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. His first collection,
Last Days of the Dog-Men, won the Sue Kauffman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His first novel, The Heaven of Mercury, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison (PublicAffairs)

We're thrilled to announce that Greil Marcus, music and culture critic, Believer columnist, and author or editor of many Skylight staff and customer favorites (Lipstick Traces, A New Literary History of America, and others) will be here to discuss and sign his new book of criticism on another Skylight favorite person: Van Morrison.

Greil Marcus is the author of The Shape of Things to Come, Like a Rolling Stone, and The Old Weird America; a twentieth anniversary edition of his book Lipstick Traces
was published in 2009. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America, published last year by Harvard University Press. Since 2000 he has taught at
Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New School in New York; his column “Real Life Rock Top 10” appears regularly in The Believer. He lives in Berkeley.

Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth (DC Comics)

The popular and prolific comic book writer Geoff Johns will be here to discuss and sign Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth, the deluxe edition of the series that relaunched one of DC Comics' greatest heroes.

Geoff Johns has written highly acclaimed stories starring Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Teen Titans, and Justice Society of America. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling graphic novels Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns, Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War, Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, and Superman: Braniac.  He is currently working on the story for The Flash feature film, which he will also co-produce.

Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly)

Daniel Clowes, the acclaimed cartoonist behind Ghost World (the graphic novel and the Oscar-nominated screenplay), the minicomic (turned movie) Art School Confidential, and the Eightball comic series will be here to discuss and sign Wilson, his new first all-new graphic novel!

The Silver Hearted (Alyson Books)

David McConnell will read and sign his novel The Silver Hearted.

"The Silver Hearted is our Heart of Darkness. It is just as
ominous, as violent, as exotic, as darkly colonial. But it is a lot
better written than Conrad's book. Whereas Conrad is always resorting
to 'the unspeakable,' McConnell tells us everything in glowing detail
and in fresh, eloquent language. Sexy, demonic, elusive, The Silver
Hearted is a perfect work of art. "--Edmund White

New York-based novelist David McConnell, whose short fiction and
criticism have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, is the
author of the fictional memoir The Firebrat.

Photo of David McConnell by Everett McCourt

And the Heart Says... Whatever (Free Press)

Emily Gould will discuss and sign her new humorous essay collection And the Heart Says Whatever.

Emily Gould has written for The New York Times, the New York Observer, and Jezebel.com, among other
publications.  Before becoming editor of Gawker.com, a job she quit and
then described in a cover story for The New York Times Magazine in 2008, she was an associate editor at Hyperion.

Inheritance (Lethe Press)

A launch party for the latest poetry collection by this acclaimed local poet!

Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles-based poet and educator. His newest
collection, Inheritance, came out in 2010 by Lethe Press. After earning a
degree in Creative Writing at the University of South Florida, he
published his début poetry collection, Your Dead Body is My Welcome
Mat, in 2001. Since then, Reigns has published four chapbooks: Ignited,
Cartography, In the Room, and As if Memories Were Not Enough.  A
two-time recipient of The Los Angeles County’s Department of Cultural
Affairs' Artist in Residency Grant, Reigns organized and taught the
first-ever autobiography poetry workshop for GLBT seniors and edited an
anthology of their writings, My Life is Poetry. He has taught writing
workshop around the country to GLBT youth and people living with HIV
and recently received his Masters in Clinical Psychology from Antioch
University. Currently he is involved with S(t)even Years, a 7-year
endurance performance under the mentorship of performance artist Linda Montano. Visit him at www.stevenreigns.com.

Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles (Santa Monica Press)

Join us for a fascinating look at our very own corner of L.A.!  Author Charles Fleming will present and sign his walking guide—chock full of local history—about the historic staircases of Los Angeles.

Charles Fleming is the author of the novels The Ivory Coast and After Havana and the respected Hollywood "how-not-to" book High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess, and co-author of the recent non-fiction bestseller My Lobotomy. A veteran reporter for Variety, Newsweek, the LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Fleming teaches entertainment reporting at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. He lives in Silver Lake with his wife
and two daughters. Secret Stairs is his first walking guide.

101 Things I Learned in Film School (Grand Central Publishing)

Join us for a fascinating discussion and a screenwriting workshop with the author of 101 Things I Learned in Film School!  The workshop will be on "Character-Driven Screenplay Structure," and will examine how to build an iconic character from the inside out, and how plot emerges from and is influenced by the unique choices characters make based on their specific psychological/emotional needs, fears and desires.  Each participant should bring a pad of paper and a pen, and please RSVP (including the date/location of the workshop) to Landaubookrelease@gmail.com.

Neil Landau is a screenwriter whose television and film credits include Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Melrose Place, Doogie Howser, M.D., The Magnificent Seven, and Twice in a Lifetime. He has developed feature films for 20th Century Fox, Disney, Universal, and Columbia Pictures, and television pilots for Warner Bros., Touchstone, Lifetime, and CBS. He works internationally as a script consultant and teaches at UCLA's School of Film, Television, and Digital Media, as well as at USC Film School, and Goddard College in Vermont.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Random House)

We're thrilled to have David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, back to our store to read from and sign his new, highly anticipated novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

"Mitchell is, clearly, a genius." --The New York Times Book Review (review of Cloud Atlas)

"Mitchell really is his generation's Pynchon." --Kirkus Reviews (review of Cloud Atlas)

"Brilliant…Mitchell creates an evocative yet authentically adolescent voice, an achievement  even more impressive than the ventriloquism of his earlier books." --The New York Times Book Review (review of Black Swan Green)

David Mitchell is an internationally bestselling two-time Booker Prize finalist, a Time magazine 100 Most Influential People, and a Granta Best Young British Novelist. His first novel, Ghostwritten, was awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best book by a writer under 35 and a Guardian First Book Award finalist. His second novel, Number9Dream, was a finalist for the Booker Prize finalist and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His third novel Cloud Atlas was short-listed for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was an international bestseller. His most recent novel, Black Swan Green, was long-listed for the Booker Prize and named a Time Best Book of the Year. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.