Siel Ju's Blog, page 14

Best coffee shops for writers in Los Angeles: Northeast LA

Picky writers can’t just go to any coffee shop. We need good working spaces with comfy chairs and tables. We need decent wifi and electric outlets for our laptops. We (or at least I) need good reading light. And we like to be able to hang for a few hours without feeling like we’re overstaying our welcome.

Which is to say — I’m really putting together this best coffee shops list for me.

I often find myself stuck in a part of town I don’t know very well — usually before or after some event — be...

Live Talks Los Angeles: Literary conversations with popular authors

Ever wonder how novelists are treated at the Oscars? At a Live Talks Los Angeles event on Monday, Colm Tóibín dished on his experience attending an Academy Award after his novel Brooklyn was made into a film.

“If you’re a star up for an Oscar, you go in one door, and if you’re a just a novelist … you go in another door. And it’s not just the red carpet. There’s no carpet!”

Colm Tóibín was paired with arts and cultures writer Scott Timberg for a wide-ranging conversation that covered everyth...

How to buy dance shoes in Chinatown

Salsa dancing can get expensive, what with the lessons, the club covers, and the new dance-friendly outfits. A good pair of salsa shoes alone will generally run you at least $100, if you get them at a dance store.

So when I heard a rumor that you could buy dance shoes in Chinatown at less than half the cost, my interest was piqued!

The place to go is apparently the 800 block of North Broadway, variously known as Chinatown Plaza, Dynasty Shopping Center, or some other permutation of those wo...

Best coffee shops for writers in Los Angeles: Westside

Picky writers can’t just go to any coffee shop. We need good working spaces with comfy chairs and tables. We need decent wifi and electric outlets for our laptops. We (or at least I) need good reading light. And we like to be able to hang for a few hours without feeling like we’re overstaying our welcome.

Which is to say — I’m really putting together this best coffee shops list for me.

I often find myself stuck in a part of town I don’t know very well — usually before or after some event — be...

Sublevel and Westwind: Two more journals for Los Angeles writers

Just eight months ago I wrote about 12 literary journals for Los Angeles writers — and since then, I’ve discovered two more! Read, enjoy, and submit —

Sublevel. CalArts’s longtime lit magazine Black Clock folded a little while back, but in its place a newer, even edgier literary magazine has launched. Sublevel is “devoted to the nexus of literature, poetics, art, criticism, philosophy, culture, & politics,” and its editors “make no hard distinctions between creative and critical enterprise.”

...

How to start salsa dancing in Los Angeles

Once upon a time, as in a few years ago, a friend dragged me to her beginner’s salsa dancing class. I learned how to do the basic step and right turn — and instantly developed a semi-addiction to salsa —

For writers especially, salsa dancing is in many ways an ideal hobby. Writing is solitary and sedentary. Salsa — being social and active — balances that out.

It’s also one of those social night time activities that women can do alone — no need to try and talk a girlfriend into coming with yo...

Five firsts: Rob Roberge on on binge writing, craft, and realistic expectations

Every month, I interview an author I admire on his literary firsts.

April’s featured author is Rob Roberge, author of The Cost of Living, a wild ride of a novel starring Bud Barrett — guitarist of an indie rock band — who goes from reckless days of touring and partying with strangers and hiding his drug addiction to getting sober and confronting the traumas and mistakes of the past.

Rob’s most recent book is Liar, a memoir with many similarities to The Cost of Living. He’s also authored thre...

One book review in The Rumpus

Can science be sexy? Yes, in stories by Michelle Ross! I wrote a review of her new short story collection, There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You, for The Rumpus.

Here’s a little excerpt:

In the first story of this collection, a girl learns the shocking truth that the world is made of atoms, that “when you get right down to it, it’s all just studs and holes.” Later on the school bus a boy whispers seductively into the girl’s hair: “Man, what else don’t you know?”

Read the rest at The Rumpus!

May giveaway: Rob Roberge’s The Cost of Living

I was first introduced to The Cost of Living when I heard Rob Roberge read at Roar Shack. The excerpt — about an addict called Bud Barrett whose friend talks him into digging up a relative’s grave to steal jewelry to hawk for drug money — was disturbing and intense and sad and unexpectedly hilarious! “She was dead,” the reluctant Bud rationalizes —

So of course, I had to read the novel. Every page of The Cost of Living is an entertaining ride: Reckless musicians on tour, hooking up with stran...

April book reviews: Childhood romances and other adventures

Brief reviews of books by contemporary authors I read this month — along with photos of what I ate while reading. The list is ordered by the level my enjoyment:

Riverine: A Memoir from Anywhere but Here by Angela Palm (Graywolf, 2016)

“I was well acquainted with the sensation of exterior isolation and interior energy, of the power in that juxtaposition.”
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A girl grows up in a poor rural Indiana town, in love with the sweet boy next door — who ends up killing two people while strung out on h...