Literary LA is a feature documentary on the literary history and culture of Los Angeles. Originally inspired by Lionel Rolfe's pioneering and idiosyncratic survey of the city's culture from its bohemian roots to the present day, Literary LA strives to capture the city's literary soul in all of its complexity.
To do so, the film's producers,
Kurt Olerud & Tom Lutz have interviewed a wide range of LA literary notables, from critics like Rolfe, Richard Schickel (Time), David Ulin (Los Angeles Times), Tom Lutz (Los Angeles Review of Books), David Kipen (Libros Schmibros), Scott Timberg (The Misread City), and Mike Davis (City of Quartz), to such acclaimed novelists, short story writers, and poets as Michael Tolkin (The Player), Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight), Juan Felipe Herrera (Poet Laureate of California), Janet Fitch (White Oleander), Aimee Bender (The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake), Steve Erickson (Days Between Stations), Laila Lalami (Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits), Kem Nunn (Tapping the Source, John from Cincinnati), Dan Fante (Point Doom), Hector Tobar (Barbarian Nurseries), Judith Freeman (The Long Embrace), Rachel Kushner (The Flamethrowers), and Walter Mosley (Devil in a Blue Dress). We will also interview Wanda Coleman, Nina Revoyr, Gar Anthony Haywood, John Rechy, Chris Rice, and others.
They have captured many of the various literary perspectives about this most diverse and in many ways still undefinable American city. Those who are native to the city, those who have come here from elsewhere in the country, and those who have immigrated from elsewhere in the world, who bring an even fresher perspective and who offer a window into this constantly shifting, ethnically diverse city. They cover a wide range of genres, including crime fiction (Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain), Hollywood fiction (Nathanael West), street realism (John Fante, Charles Bukowski) and, of course, the ever-present literature of the LA Apocalypse (too much to mention, unless you just say "all of it").
Los Angeles has a central place in the popular imagination, and is in many ways deeply misunderstood. While looking at a very specific subject - the experience of the working writer, past and present, in Los Angeles - Literary LA hopes to reveal what this very unusual, yet very representative city has to say about all of us.
They are now trying to raise funds to edit and score the film, as well as help with the high costs of stock footage and photographs so necessary to telling a story that deals with LA literature from the early, "booster" period through the present day.
Contributions will help complete a
Passion project that has been three years in the making and help us celebrate and preserve for posterity the contributions of Los Angeles writing to the literary canon. And, as a thank you, they are offering backers of Literary LA some excellent and exclusive rewards.
The producers wish to send a special thanks to all of the great talents who generously contributed their time and perspective to this project:
Lionel Rolfe, David Kipen, Scott Timberg, Kem Nunn, Tom Lutz, Laila Lalami, Michael Tolkin, Aimee Bender, Richard Schickel, Janet Fitch, Jerry Stahl, Denise Hamilton, David Ulin, Carolyn Kellog, John Ahouse, Judith Freeman, Mike Davis, Richard Schave, Dan Fante, Juan Felipe Herrera, Steve Erickson, Matthew Spector, Hector Tobar, and Walter Mosley.
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Literary L.A. is a Passion project we hope you can help us share with the world. Although we have conducted interviews with over 25 critics and writers, the story of literature in Los Angeles, with its myriad points of view, is as complex as the city itself. One of the biggest challenges moving forward will be how to actually define the history of literature in L.A. We plan to tackle this task with a linear, historical approach and also by looking at Los Angeles in terms of era and genre.
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