LitFest Pasadena, cited in a study that designated Pasadena as the #1 city in the U.S. for book lovers, launches on Saturday, April 30 with bestselling authors Michael Connelly and Gregg Hurwitz conversing in Old Radiance Hall at Cecil E. Bryan’s 1923 architectural masterpiece Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena. With Connelly’s Harry Bosch series at book number 36 and Hurwitz’s Orphan X most recently seen in Dark Horse, number seven in the series, these veteran authors share how they maintain interest in their characters over such an extended period of time and how they keep coming up with new, engaging escapades for their readers. Connelly and Hurwitz also reveal their adventures in screenwriting – how this medium differs from novel writing; the advantages of one medium over the other; and the challenges of retaining their characters’ essence when leaping from page to screen.
Also on the program on April 30 is “Sci-Fi, Race and Empowerment: How Octavia Butler Changed the American Literary Landscape” with Shonda Buchanan, author, educator, journalist, and President of the Board of Trustees at Beyond Baroque. Buchanan interviewed Butler and she has studied her archives extensively. She will be reading from several of Butler’s works and revealing how Butler’s personal and professional journeys have influenced the science fiction genre, as well as her own life and writing.
“Brown and deep green hills” is a line from Octavia Butler’s notebook, and her stories have a deep understanding of Pasadena and Los Angeles running through them. When location informs every bit of who you are, it imbues your stories with something more. Dr. Jalondra Davis, Natashia Deón, and Nicole D. Sconiers have all breathed their Los Angeles experiences and LA’s history into their work, and the city has become a character of its own. These three authors talk about speculative fiction, the city they mined for their work, and the layers of this city and every city that exist just beyond the veil of reality.
Covering crime for almost 15 years at the LA Weekly, Newsweek, Daily Beast, and currently at People magazine, Christine Pelisek wrote The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central, considered a “painfully relevant” work by the LA Times, about a serial killer whose murders spanned two decades from 1984 to 2007. On the other end of the true crime spectrum, Julia Bricklin went back in time, writing about a “blonde rattlesnake” who was only 19-years-old during the Great Depression and with her husband went on to terrorize Los Angeles during a 3-week crime spree. Pelisek and Bricklin join Liz Brown (Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood) and Frank C. Girardot, Jr. (Name Dropper) to discuss their varied true crime stories, how authors choose their focus, and reflect on the underbelly of true crime – our attraction to it and trying to understand the motives of those who perpetrate it. Moderated by Jillian Lauren, author of the upcoming Behold the Monster.
“Mysterious Dimensions” gathers adult and teen thriller writer Wendy Heard, bestselling author Joe Ide, Edgar Award nominee Kwei Quartey, NAACP Image Award winner Pamela Samuels Young, and Anthony Award winner Gary Phillips to examine the enduring draw of the mystery genre, the lure of puzzles, and our constant yearning for answers.
Why are otherwise “nice” people drawn to darkness? What draws writers to write horror, and how is horror used as a prism on social commentary and metaphysical speculation? In “When the Dark Side Calls,” Hellraiser screenwriter, novelist, and short story writer Peter Atkins, satirical and farcical horror author Carlos Allende, haunting gothic author Jo Kaplan, and the explorer of grief, tragedy, and monsters Michael Paul Gonzalez dissect their love – and our love – of horror.
As experimental filmmaker Thom Anderson quips in his cult collage essay, Los Angeles Plays Itself, “If you identify more with the city of Los Angeles than the movie industry, it’s hard not to resent the idea of Hollywood.” It’s easy to forget that LA is much more than the projection of Hollywood. “The Geography of Crime” has authors Steph Cha, Claire Phillips, Jervey Tervalon, and Antoine Wilson discussing geography and its intersections, lived and imagined, invented and internalized. Linked inevitably with the noir genre, the Los Angeles novel gets its drive from its borders, both real and fantastic, spun in the rays of frantic sunshine and the long shadows of a familiar dread.
Wednesdays, May 4 and May 11 at Altadena Library, LitFest features acclaimed authors Naomi Hirahara, Attica Locke, Reyna Grande, and Rachel Harper, as well as the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, “Friendship and the Literary Life,” and “The Uncaged Voice: Transcending Bondages.”
The 2022 Jonathan Gold Award will be presented on May 4 to author, investigative journalist, Emmy Award-winner, and LA Times opinion columnist Jean Guerrero for her fearlessness and risk taking – in life and on the page.
Saturday, May 7 focuses on the world of publishing and the craft of writing at Red Hen Press, then LitFest Pasadena culminates on May 14 at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church and Vroman’s Bookstore with panel discussions on memoir, romance, picture book, middle grade, YA, poetry readings, general fiction, and a conversation between Pasadena Star-News Public Editor Larry Wilson and Congressman Adam Schiff.
LitFest Pasadena is presented by Light Bringer Project, the Pasadena-based arts and education nonprofit, and Locavore Lit LA. LLLA is a program of LBP, serving as an online journal and curriculum resource for public school educators.
Joining longtime LitFest Pasadena partners Red Hen Press, Vroman’s Bookstore, Playhouse Village Association, and Omega Sci Fi Awards are many new collaborators: Open Book, Flintridge Bookstore, Once Upon a Time, The Ripped Bodice, Mountain View Mausoleum, Pasadena Presbyterian Church, and Altadena Library.
The full program and schedule may be found at LitFestPasadena.org/schedule.
