Bronwyn Mauldin's Blog, page 15

Holidays on a budget: think books, think indie

Certain websites may be selling the newest Dan Brown novel for half price, but it's not the best bargain out there this holiday season. A book published by an independent press and purchased from an independent bookseller supports two indie businesses and makes a more unique gift. Your loved ones will thank you. So will your community.

If your community is Southern California , you're in luck. Our region is fertile ground for locally grown organic literature. Check out these presses and bookstores:

Southern California-based Presses:

Ammo Books: one-of-a-kind titles featuring amazing design, thoughtful writing, and exquisite printing
Angel City Press: nostalgic yet cool illustrated books
Arktoi Books: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that give lesbian writers access to "the conversation"
Cahuenga Press: poetry that honors creative freedom and cooperation
Cloverfield Press: books as visually beautiful as they are intellectually and emotionally stimulating
Dzanc Books: literary fiction that falls outside the mainstream
Gorsky Press: risk-taking books that encourage readers to re-examine society
Green Integer: essays, manifestos, speeches, epistles, narratives, and more
Les Figues Press: aesthetic conversations between readers, writers, and artists, with an avant-garde emphasis
Make Now Press: contemporary works of constraint and conceptual literature
Otis Books/Seismicity: contemporary fiction, poetry, essays, creative non-fiction and translation
Perceval Press: art, critical writing, and poetry
P S Books: micro-press that publishes conceptually motivated series on a project by project basis
Red Hen Press: works of literary excellence that have been overlooked by mainstream presses
San Diego City Works Press: local, ethnic, political, and border writing
Santa Monica Press: offbeat looks at pop culture, lively how-to books, film history, travel, and humor
Tsehai Publishers: literary fiction and serious nonfiction, with an emphasis on first-time authors and writers from under-served communities
What Books Press: books by L.A.-based writers whose work spans the full scope of the past quarter century

Independent Bookstores:

Book Soup, West Hollywood

Chevalier's Books, Larchmont Village

Diesel, Brentwood and Malibu

Equator Books, Venice

Eso Won Books, Leimert Park

Family, Fairfax District

Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse, La Cañada

IMIX Bookstore, Eagle Rock

Metropolis Books, Downtown

Portrait of a Bookstore, Studio City

Sierra Madre Books, Sierra Madre

Skylight Books, Los Feliz

Small World Books, Venice

Stories, Echo Park

Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore, Sylmar

Village Books, Pacific Palisades

Village Bookshop, Glendora

Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena

Please repost, tweet and email this widely to everyone interested in books and writing. Happy holidays from the Future of Publishing Think Tank*!

*The Future of Publishing Think Tank is an ad hoc group of writers and representatives of independent publishers and bookstores, nonprofit literary organizations, and community radio. Our task: to consider the changes occurring in publishing, distribution, and marketing of literary work and to envision new ways for writers to engage readers and build audiences for their work. Visit us to see the results of our reader survey and find more bookstores and literary activities in your area.

Reviews of these and many other independent bookstores can be found at BookstorePeople.com.

Tagged: books, bookstores, holidays, independent, indie, indie lit, literature, presses, reading

GuerrillaReads No. 10

John Talley-Jones reads the Marfusha Haiku

These haiku narrate the story of Marfusha, first rabbit into space. In July of 1959, she participated in a high-altitude, suborbital Soviet test flight.  Along with two canine companions, she successfully returned to Earth, where she lived out the rest of her days.  A Rumanian postage stamp was subsequently issued in her honor.

Click here if you don't see the embedded video above.

Written and read by John Talley-Jones of the Los Angeles punk band Urinals.

Tagged: author, fiction, haiku, John Talley-Jones, literature, Marfusha, rabbit, reading, space, Urinals, USSR, writing