December 3: Launch of Angel City Review #4

Celebrating the release of issue 4 of Angel City Review, a free online journal begun in 2014, a series of launch readings begins on December 3rd at the Poetic Research Bureau in Chinatown.

Readers include: Will Alexander, Jian Huang, Sesshu Foster, Rocio Carlos and Mark Valley.

Will Alexander is a poet, aphorist, playwright, essayist, philosopher, visual artist, pianist, and native of Los Angeles. The author of nearly thirty books, his awards and honors include a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry in 2001, a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2002, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award in 2007, and an American Book Award in 2013 for Singing In Magnetic Hoofbeat: Essays, Prose, Texts, Interviews, and a Lecture. In 2016 he was awarded the prestigious Jackson Prize for poetry, which is among the most substantial given to an American poet.

Jian Huang’s parents brought her to the United States from Shanghai, China, when she was six years old. She grew up in South Los Angeles and earned her degree in Art History from the University of Southern California. She has worked for several social service organizations, including LA Conservation Corps, Homeboy Industries and LA County Arts Commission. Her work has appeared in Entropy, Los Angeles Review of Books, ALOUD, and Tongue & Groove among others. She is the recipient of a 2016 PEN Emerging Voices fellowship. Jian is currently working on her first memoir about the humorous and lonely journey to the American Dream.

Sesshu Foster’s poems have recently appeared in Párrafo, The Poetry Loft, La Bloga, The L.A. Telephone Book. Vol. 1, CultureStr/ke, Ping Pong, Lana Turner Journal, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. A video version of his poem, “The Movie Version: Hell to Eternity,” by artist Aturo Romo-Santillano was exhibited in Washington DC at the Smithsonian’s “Crosslines” May 2016 exhibit. His most recent books are Atomik Aztex and World Ball Notebook, which won the American Book Award. He has taught composition and literature in East L.A. for 30 years. He has also taught writing at the University of Iowa, Pomona College, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Naropa University at the California Institute of the Arts.

Rocío Carlos is the author of A World Below (Mindmade books, 2014) and co-author of ex her pt (wirecutter collective, 2016). Selections of her collaborative work in progress with Rachel McLeod Kaminer, Attendance appear in Cultural Weekly. She lives and works in Los Ángeles.

Mark Valley is an accomplished film and television actor, West Point Graduate and Army Veteran who now lives in Los Angeles, CA. He is a comic and writer as well, slugging it out writing several TV pilots, one of which is being shot in November in his hometown in Northern New York. He is just recently started submitting his stories for publication. He is an advocate for veteran’s causes, mental health, and urban cycling.

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Saturday, December 3

7:30 - 10:00 pm

Poetic Research Bureau

951 Chung King Road

Chintown 

Open to all. Free.