Despite what people think, Los Angeles is home to a lot of writers. And now they have a center to call them

Los Angeles has historically been a haven for writers and poets. In its city expansion and California light, Los Angeles has nurtured legendary writers from Joan Didion to Octavia E. Butler, created countercultural literary societies such as the Watts Writers’ Workshop, and inspired Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Despite Los Angeles’ contributions to a rich literary history, the literary community struggles to stay rooted in place as writers’ spaces and financial support move elsewhere.

Take the National Endowment for the Humanities, which eliminated more than $10.2 million in humanities and arts funding for projects already awarded in California. Or the devastating wildfires in Pasadena and Altadena that destroyed historical libraries and cultural archives.

For writers across the city, Los Angeles can feel like fragile literary ground. This is where Christopher Soto steps in.

Soto is a poet and author of the debut collection Diary of a Terrorist, a contributing writer for Image and now the founder of the website California Literature Center.

The California Literature Center is Soto’s hopeful initiative to connect writers across Los Angeles through readings, conversations, and advocacy. At a time when writers feel unsupported and concerned about the state of the arts, Soto says the center is needed in Los Angeles more than ever.

The inspiration came after the Los Angeles Times commissioned Soto to write an article titled “A Book About Loving and Leaving in Los Angeles” about writers having to leave Los Angeles due to lack of opportunities. He says while he was working on the article, it turned off. the reason? The book editor who was going to work on it was laid off and subsequently had to leave Los Angeles

“It was ironic,” Soto says. “This article and the research I did for it led me to see the need for a structural solution. People shouldn’t have to choose between having a thriving artistic life and having to leave their homes.”

Soto knew that waiting would only exacerbate the literary loss; If he wanted to change, he said he needed to do it. He reached out to inspiring writers in his community for their support and found that people were looking for a place to gather and organize themselves. Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminism and Hunger, is one of the center’s biggest supporters.

“There are a lot of stories about the death of literature, or that literary communities are dying, but clearly they are not,” says Jay. “They are alive and well and we have to remember that.” “Writing is a very solitary endeavor, but although we may write alone, we do not exist as writers in the public sphere alone. We need a community, whether it is people to share our work with, people who understand our frustrations, or people who will read our work.”

Soto and Jay imagine a future in which the center is shaped by the needs of writers. With the community as a central point, the organization aims to serve poets and authors by giving them a platform to share their work, attend workshops, and create connections among their peers.

Jay joined a lineup of distinguished speakers at the center’s official launch night, which was held at the downtown Los Angeles startup expo Giovanni’s Room and co-hosted with the Los Angeles Review of Books. Outside the launch, pupusas were bustling and poets and book nerds stood in line to grab a snack or read from the nearby Libros con Alma pop-up book cart.

The long line approaching the door was filled with chatters and friends, who entered the lobby and chatted closely over the music mixed by DJ Izla. Although the fair itself filled up quickly, warm and smelling like pupusas, the energy was filled with excitement and anticipation for people’s favorite authors and for a new beginning in the world of Los Angeles writers.

In one corner of the gallery, in front of a paper backdrop and lush plants, Grammy-nominated contemporary poet Aja Monet stood at the microphone to open the evening. She was assertive in the moment she spoke, clarifying the pronunciation of her name (ah-ja) and simply offering poems from her time as a political organizer in Florida.

As Monet delved into her work, her voice was serious, contained, and full of emotion. With each verse, she settled into a musical rhythm that was sarcastic and very honest. Her poems ranged from memories of oppressive, swampy Florida to nature poetry and musings of hypocritical activists.

Monet reads: “A poem can wash us, reflect us, reveal us / I give thanks for the intimacy of planting poems / for the life that brings poems into existence.”

The audience hummed and swayed in agreement and cheered in appreciation for the emotions she captured. After her moving set, Viet Thanh Nguyen picked up where she left off. Nguyen is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Sympathizer, which discusses the impact of the Vietnam War on the United States through the lens of a Vietnamese American immigrant navigating Hollywood’s social politics, integration, and racial tension.

In the section Nguyen read that night, the main character challenges stereotypes of Vietnamese characters in a movie, an attempt that was quickly shut down by a Hollywood executive. “The Sympathizer” was turned into an HBO show, putting Nguyen in the same Hollywood spaces he criticized, Nguyen laughed when he finished. He admits this, and asserts that “after spending a lot of time in Hollywood, no one would dispute this characterization.”

Author, actor and TV writer Ryan O’Connell added to the conversation with an extended reading of “The Slut Diaries,” an exploration of rediscovering sexuality in his 30s as a gay man with cerebral palsy. His musings on sex and dating through the lens of gay and disabled identity, and the hilariously vulgar encounters that follow, elicited boos and hoots from the audience.

Camille Hernandez, the Anaheim award-winning writer and poet, was among O’Connell’s laughing audience.

“I love being from here, and I want to elevate literature from here,” Hernandez says. “It’s really nice to be from somewhere with such a rich literary heritage, but it’s a travesty that a lot of people don’t know about, so efforts like this are so important to uplift writers like us, who can be as funny and honest as Ryan O’Connell or as inspiring as Roxane Gay once the community supports them.” “We deserve this.”

As Gay concluded the evening, her brief statement summed up the promising energy of the Center’s first gathering.

“We deserve the material and creative resources to practice our craft,” Jay said. “We deserve an abundant community that is aware of the past, active and engaged in the present, and able to envision a radical and expansive future.” “So I hope everyone here will join us in this work.”

As hopeful authors, poets and writers ventured out into the quiet night, conversations abounded about what would happen next. Some were excited for an afterparty rumored to feature Erykah Badu. Others expected the next reading to be headed by a larger crowd, fueling the hunger for the literary arts that the center aims to feed. Whatever comes next, Los Angeles’ literary community has a new home to gather in.