The Teal Truck by Dakota Donovan (PRIME MOVERS Series)

The Teal Truck
by Dakota Donovan

The truck is bright teal
flying down the street
like its namesake duck.
But I do not duck when
I see you coming.
I am grateful, so grateful,
for you will take away
the leavings of the week
the vegetable peelings, sodden
tea bags, and the plastic,
metal, and paper that I have
sorted for separate disposal.
Oh, Earth Day, April 22, 1970,
if only we had listened sooner.
if only we had started sooner,
to right the wrongs we’ve
Inflicted on our beauteous planet.
Today, I celebrate workers at the
Los Angeles Sanitation Bureau,
who take away our remnants
and give us a clean slate
to start each week anew.
“Keep Los Angeles Beautiful”
the teal truck proclaims.
Nelson Algren said that loving Chicago
Is like loving a woman with a broken nose.
I say that loving Los Angeles is like
loving someone with a battered dream.
Each week, we dispose of our pieces
and the brave sanitation workers
take them away, and let us hope
for a better, less broken week ahead.

PHOTO: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti with Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation workers, who became the first recipients of his Civic Innovation Award (11/3/2014). They stand before some of the city’s beautiful teal-colored sanitation trucks. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dakota Donovan is a ghostwriter for the rich and famous who lives in Los Angeles. She’s had many wild and crazy experiences while working with celebrities to tell their life stories, and some of these strange-but-true tales appear in her Hollywood Ghostwriter Mysteries — starting with L.A. Sleepers. In other incarnations, she’s written novels, plays, screenplays, and television scripts. She’s currently working on L.A. Dreamers, the second novel in the Hollywood Ghostwriter Mystery series.

Free Literary Event! LitFest Pasadena: 100+ authors! Weekend of May 20/21, 2017

Sam Silvas, author of the short story collection Stanton, California, will appear along with more than 100 authors at LitFest Pasadena, which will take place in Pasadena, California, on May 20 & 21, 2017. For a complete schedule of authors and events, visit litfestpasadena.org.

Author John Guzlowski’s Los Angeles Book Tour, Oct. 7-9, 2016

Find Echoes of Tattered Tongues: Memory Unfolded by John Z. Guzlowski at Amazon.com.

“A searing memoir.” ― Shelf Awareness

“Powerful…Deserves attention and high regard.” ― Kevin Stein, Poet Laureate of Illinois

“Devastating, one-of-a-kind collection.” ― Foreword Reviews

“Gut-wrenching narrative lyric poems.” ― Publishers Weekly

“Taut…beautifully realized.” ― World Literature Today

Sun., 8/14/16 Tongue and Groove Literary Event in Hollywood

SPREADING THE WORD for 13 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove

If you’re in the L.A. area on Sunday, August 14, 2016, check out Tongue & Groove — a monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo with an impressive roster of featured performers. The 8/14/16 event has a music theme — featured performers include Eric Spitznagel, James Fearnley, Lisa Jane Persky, and David Kendrick, plus music by Kaylee Cole.

Sunday, August 14, 2016
6-7:30 p.m.
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, California 90028
$7.00

Come early! Seating is limited and the event starts on time! The club is a two-story black brick building, a third of a block below Hollywood Blvd. There are parking lots on Selma as well as Cahuenga. Meters need to be fed till 8pm. Avoid Cahuenga street parking

Eric Spitznagel is an Executive Writer at Men’s Health Magazine, where he’s written about a range of topics. He’s also been a frequent contributor to Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Maxim, Billboard, Details, The Believer, and the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He’s the author of seven books, including Ron Jeremy’s bestselling autobiography The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz. He’s also edited several humor anthologies, most recently Care to Make Love in that Gross Little Space Between Cars?, which features questionable life advice from people like Louis C.K., Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Sedaris. His most recent book is Old Records Never Die. You can read all about it at www.recordsneverdie.com.

James Fearnley, a founding member  of The Pogues, has written a memoir, Here Comes Everybody, drawn from his personal experiences and the series of journals and correspondence he kept throughout the band’s career. Fearnley describes the coalescence of a disparate collection of vagabonds living in the squats of London’s Kings Cross, with, at its center, the charismatic MacGowan and his idea of turning Irish traditional music on its head. With beauty, lyricism, and great candor, Fearnley tells the story of how the band watched helplessly as their singer descended into a dark and isolated world of drugs and alcohol, and sets forth the increasingly desperate measures they were forced to take.

An early participant in the CBGB’s scene, Lisa Jane Persky was a founding member of the staff of the New York Rocker and more recently a founding editor of Los Angeles Review of Books. Her work as journalist, photographer, and artist has appeared in Mojo, The Pitchfork Review, The Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere, and her fiction has appeared in Bomb and has been anthologized in Eclectica: Best Fiction Volume 1. She has appeared on, off, and off-off Broadway, and in numerous films and television shows. Lisa also anthologizes at chickensinliterature.com.

David Kendrick came to Los Angeles by way of a phone call from the legendary Kim Fowley. He has played with 90 bands more or less. Some of note have been Gleaming Spires, Sparks, DEVO,and Andy Prieboy. He is an avid collector of odd art and some of his finds have appeared in Clown Paintings by Diane Keaton. David’s ongoing music project, “The Empire Of Fun,” to date has released a box set plus six other collections, including the fiction story  CD set I’m sorry Mr. Kendrick, there’s a skull inside your head. Recently he has had essays on cycads and fear published by the Laboratory Arts collective Hymn magazine.

Kaylee Cole has opened for bands such as The Lumineers, The Head & The Heart, Damien Jurado, and Emily Wells, performed with the Seattle Rock Orchestra and Portland Cello Project, and nearly finished a debut album (recorded and produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio). Whether she’s behind a grand piano at an ornate theater, or sitting with a keyboard on her lap at a cozy house show, Kaylee Cole is a true entertainer who leaves no audience member without an impression.

Sun., 7/31/16 Tongue and Groove Literary Event in Hollywood

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove

If you’re in the L.A. area on Sunday, July 31, 2016, check out Tongue & Groove — a monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo with an impressive roster of featured performers.

Sunday, July 31, 2016
6-7:30 p.m.
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, California 90028
$7.00

Come early!  Seating is limited and the event starts on time!   The club is a two-story black brick building, a third of a block below Hollywood Blvd. There are parking lots on Selma as well as Cahuenga. Meters need to be fed till 8pm. Avoid Cahuenga street parking

This  month’s featured performers include Pam Ward, David Darmstaedter, Elizabeth Marquez, Rios de la Luz, Kristina Wong, and  music by Linda Ravenswood

Pam Ward is an author/artist and L.A. native. An art advocate as well as an instructor and mentor at Art Center College of Design, Pam has designed for politicians, community organizations, and corporate America.  A former board member of Beyond Baroque Literary Foundation, Pam was also an artist-in-resident for the City of Los Angeles, Venice and Manhattan Beach.  After publishing two novels, Want Some Get Some and Bad Girls Burn Slow, and working on merging writing and graphic design, Pam produced the recent installation, My Life, LA: The Los Angeles Legacy Project, a poster project blending graphics with story/facts documenting the impact of Angelenos on the actual land. Her play, I Didn’t Survive Slavery for This has played throughout L.A. Currently she is working on the true story of her aunt, a real Black Dahlia suspect.

David Darmstaedter lives in Topanga, California, and travels the hills dressed in tinfoil underwear to summon ideas from the wild. He has written plays, screenplays, short stories and novels. His memoir My Monster is in eternal development with Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke. He will be reading from his current book in the works, Solly’s Shangri-La.

Beth Marquez stumbled into a spoken word tent at Lollapalooza when she was 13, and it changed her life. She co-hosted Java Gardens reading in Huntington Beach and attended the National Poetry Slam as an alternate for the Laguna Beach team. She’d been  published in the Moontide Press, Valley of Contemporary Poets, and Ugly Mug anthologies and elsewhere. She will be debuting a show based on her poetry at The Victory Theater in Burbank in September.

Rios de la Luz is a queer xicana/chapina living in Portland, Oregon. She is brown and proud. She is the author of The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert (Ladybox Books, 2015). Her work has been featured in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Entropy, The Fem Lit Magazine, World Literature Today, and St. Sucia.

Kristina Wong  is a performance artist, comedian, and writer who has created five solo shows and one ensemble play that have toured throughout the US and UK. She was recently featured in the New York Times‘s Off Color series highlighting artists of color who use humor to make smart social statements about the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways that race plays out in America today.  She’s been a frequent ommentator/guest with, xoJane, Playgirl Magazine, Huffington Post,  and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore to mention but a few places. She has been the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and residencies and not to brag, but Kristina has twice given the commencement speech at UCLA, her alma mater.  Her most recent solo show “The Wong Street Journal,” which navigates privilege and economic disparity, premieree in June 2015.  Kristina’s mail order bride website is www.bigbadchinesemama.com. This Fall, she is a guest professor at Cal Arts in the MFA Creative Writing Program.

Linda Ravenswood, with an aim towards inquiry, tantalization,  and uncovering, speaks, stands, beckons, and reminds  viewers to hold memory, history, place, and lineage as holy, yet available markers.  In these ways, Linda has evolved  an arts practice holding a strong and defining spatial, and theatrical course. Recent work (2014¬2016) has appeared,  or been commissioned at The Broad Theatre, AWP/Pen Centre USA, Cornell University, The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, The Angel’s Gate Cultural  Centre, The Artery, The Bootleg Theatre, Gallery 16 (San Francisco), The Lancaster  Museum, The Hollywood Fringe Festival, and Craftswoman House.  She has been published in 30 literary journals, her music has appeared in three  documentary films (PBS), she has four books in print (Sybaritic Press, Mouthfeel Press, Gallery 16 Press, LACMA Press – forthcoming), and she is a 2016 Vermont Studio Centre fellow in Poetry.  Twice nominated for The Pushcart  Prize for Poetry, Linda is a lecturer, dramaturg, and workshop presenter, most recently teaching at Occidental  College.  Linda Ravenswood is NDN, First Nation, (Pokanoket Nation), a Mayflower descendant on her mother’s  side, and an Indigenous Mestiza from Baja California Sur on her father’s side.  She was raised by Holocaust  survivors from WWII.  No kiddin’.

Sun., Nov. 22, 2015: Tongue and Groove Literary Event, Hollywood

On Sunday, November 22, 2015, Tongue & Groove — a monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo — will feature Heather Chapman, April Dávila, Cheryl Montelle, Jeremy Radin, Maesa Pullman, and J. Ryan Stradal.

J. Ryan Stradal is a volunteer and advisory board member at 826LA and co­produces the literary/culinary event “Hot Dish.” He’s also worked in TV, most recently as the Supervising Producer on the A&E series Storage Wars: Texas. Some places where he has been published include Hobart, The Rattling Wall, Midwestern Gothic, The Rumpus, and McSweeney’s. His first novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a New York Times best seller. He likes wine, books, root beer, and peas. Visit him at jryanstradal.com.

Jeremy Radin is a Jewish person/actor from Los Angeles. He also writes poems, which have appeared in numerous journals. His first book, Slow Dance with Sasquatch, is available from Write Bloody Publishing. You may have seen him on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or in a restaurant aggressively eating pancakes by himself. Check out his website at jeremyradin.com.

Cheryl Montelle is a Los Angeles based writer whose stories have been published in various anthologies and magazines, and performed in Los Angeles, Joshua Tree, and New York City. She is the producer and host of “Desert Stories,”an annual fundraiser for the High Desert Playhouse in Joshua Tree, California. which she has also produced in New York City and Los Angeles. Cheryl has collaborated with The Laboratory, an international artist collective on two multi­faceted art magazines, and heads the veteran/community non­ profit Mil­Tree. Visit her at cherylmontelle.com.

April Dávila’s short stories have appeared in the Santa Clara Review, The Writing Disorder, and Dissections. Her non­fiction has appeared in Yes! Magazine, Earth Island Journal, and Our World 2.0 (a United Nation’s publication). Her writing on the topic of genetically modified foods garnered attention from Elle Magazine, NPR, the League of Women Voters and more. As a travel writer, she has published stories up and down the west coast. Her book Northern California is set to be published by Eye Muse Books in 2016. She is currently working on her debut novel. Learn more about her at aprildavila.com.

Heather Chapman writes a food blog at YouAreFed.com. Her short stories “The Ghost” and “The Hand” have appeared in the zine Scraps to Scribes. Her play Thaw was performed at Theatre West’s WestFest. She lives in Los Angeles.

Maesa Pullman started playing piano and writing songs when she was seven. She grew up in an artistic family whose roots go back to her grandfather who also played piano and sang. Maesa’s music is haunting with reflective lyrics; a poetic combination of folk, rock and soul steeped in Americana roots. Buy her CD Whipporwill at www.maesa.bandcamp.com.

WHAT: Tongue & Groove Literary Event

WHEN: Sunday, November 22, 2015, 6-7:30 p.m.

WHERE: The Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, 90028

ADMISSION: $6

Come early! Seating is limited and the event starts on time! More information at Facebook.

Sun., Oct. 25, 2015: Tongue and Groove Literary Event, Hollywood

 On Sunday, October 25, 2015, Tongue & Groove — a monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo — will feature Janet Fitch, David Francis, Rita Williams, Julianne Ortale, and music by Garretson & Gorodetsky.

Janet Fitch is the author of the novels Paint It Black and White Oleander. Her short stories and essays have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Black Clock, Room of One’s Own, Los Angeles Noir, the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, Black Warrior Review, Vogue, and Los Angeles Review of Books, where she is a contributing editor. She currently teaches at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Paint it Black has been made into a feature film, the directing debut of Amber Tamblyn, and will be released early next year. She is currently working on an epic novel of the Russian Revolution.

In her memoir, If the Creek Don’t Rise, Rita Williams shares the story of her childhood with the last African American widow of a Civil War soldier in Colorado. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, O at Home, Saveur, Best Food Writing for 2007, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, The Utne Reader, and Fins and Feathers, as well as numerous anthologies. She taught at the University of Southern California. Rita is  working on a novel about a trucker with a meth problem.

David Francis‘s first novel Agapanthus Tango  was published internationally in seven languages and in the United States as The Great Inland Sea. His second novel, Stray Dog Winter, was named Book of the Year in The Advocate, Novel of the Year in the Australian Literature Review, was a LAMBDA fiction award finalist, and won the American Library Association Stonewall Prize for Literature. His short fiction has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, Best Australian Stories 2010 and 2012, Griffith Review,The Harvard Review, Australian Love Stories and The Ratting Wall. His third novel Wedding Bush Road will be released by Counterpoint press in the fall of 2016.

Julianne Ortale is co­editor along with Samantha Dunn of the short story anthology Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, Alaska Quarterly Review, Salmagundi, The Malahat Review, Stand, Happy, The Gobshite Review, and Barbaric Yawp. She received her MFA in Fiction at UC Irvine’s Programs in Writing, where she was the Cheng Fellow. Her dialogues “Hombre Kabuki” and “Fluorescent Grey” were produced as short films and placed at Breckenridge Film Festival, Mexico International Film Festival, Tulsa International Film Festival, New Filmmakers Los Angeles, SNOB, and won Narrative Merit Award at Los Angeles Cinema Festival. She lives with her family on Bainbridge Island, where she writes and works with children with autism. Her story collection Music For Incurables is under review. She is currently finishing a novel.

Weba Garretson and Ralph Gorodetsky combine folk and pop music, blues riffs, and jazz harmonies with poetic lyrics to create songs that are haunting and humorous. Their most recent work “What Must the Hummingbird See?” is a song cycle about the fragile existence of urban wildlife In Los Angeles. Other commissions include music for Los Angeles Poverty Department’s “Utopia/Dystopia” at the Redcat, and the LA Public Library stage celebration of Melville’s Moby Dick “My Moby Dick” at the Broad Theatre.

WHAT: Tongue & Groove Literary Event

WHEN: Sunday, October 25, 2015, 6-7:30 p.m.

WHERE: The Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, 90028

ADMISSION: $7

Come early! Seating is limited and the event starts on time!

Sun., 8/16/15: Tongue and Groove Literary Variety Show in Hollywood, CA

On Sunday, August 16, 2015, Tongue & Grove — a monthly literary variety show with music produced by Conrad Romo — features three Burning River Press authors from Cleveland, Pen Emerging Voices Fellow Andres Reconco, with music by Tooth & Talon with Molly James.

WHAT: Tongue & Groove Literary Variety Show

WHEN: Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015, 6-7:30 p.m.

WHERE: The Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 N Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028

TAB: $7.00 at the door

ETC.: Come early! Seating is limited and the event starts on time! There are parking lots on Selma as well as Cahuenga. Meters need to be fed until 8 p.m. Avoid Cahuenga street parking. The signs are deceptive.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS…

Christopher Bowen is the founder and publisher of Burning River chapbooks. His chapbook published by Sunnyoutside Press, We Were Giants, has been lauded for its “bands of loss,” in the words of one critic — and as “a reminder of the temporality of everything” by another. In 2014, he started The Ohio Vintage Matchbook Company, a website devoted to prose, poetry, and the progress of literature in the 21st Century. He lives, cooks, attends school, and writes from the Cleveland, Ohio, area.

Chella Courington writes poetry and short fiction. Her chapbook, Girls and Women, was published by Burning River and she has also published with Indigo Ink and Porkbelly Press. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Gargoyle, and Danse Macabre — and she has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best New Poets anthologies. She is a professor of creative writing at Santa Barbara City College.

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of an experimental memoir, An Unsuitable Princess: A True Fantasy/A Fantastical Memoir (Jaded Ibis Press 2014), which received an honorable mention for the best books of (the Jewish year) 5774 from HEEB magazine. She is also the author of a full-length poetry collection, With Apologies to Mick Jagger, Other Gods, and All Women (The Aldrich Press 2012). Her first chapbook, After Voices,’ was published by Burning River. She has been nominated twice for the Best of the Net anthology and twice for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York City.

Andres Reconco was born in a little coastal town called Acajutla, in El Salvador. He came to the U.S. in 1991 and has been living in Los Angeles ever since. He received his bachelor’s in English Literature from CSULA. He is a 2014 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow and a 2015 Idyllwild Writer’s Week Fellow. He teaches English at the Los Angeles High School of the Arts, a public school in Korea Town.

Tooth and Talon is an up-and-coming, Oakland-based soul-folk trio. Their soulful vocals, sweet melodies, and ukulele-led instrumentation moved the Rock Paper Sciccors Collective to call them “Oakland’s ukulele darlings.” They came together originally through the 9 Lives Collective, an Oakland-based musician incubator. They are now in the midst of recording their first album. Tooth and Talon regularly plays cafes, bars, and home shows in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can listen to some demo recordings of their music here: https://soundcloud.com/toothandtalon.

Sun., Aug. 9th, A Celebration of The Doors at Beyond Baroque (Venice, CA)

Fans of The Doors and the band’s beyond-charismatic lead singer/songwriter Jim Morrison are in for a treat on Sunday, August 9, 2015 in Venice, California. Photographer Jim Coke will display the photos he shot of the band on July 15, 1967 at L.A.’s first rock music festival — just two weeks before “Light My Fire” hit number on on the Billboard charts.

To celebrate the occasion, some of L.A.’s most renowned poets will present a Doors Ekphrastic Poetry Set inspired by Jim Coke’s photographs of The Doors. Participants include Laurel Ann Bogen, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Juan Cardenas, Charles L. Davis, Iris De Anda, S.A. Griffin, Stevie Kalinich, Gerald Locklin, Brenda Petrakos, Kristin Sharp, Shy But Flyy, Joan Jobe Smith, Carl Stillwell, Fred Voss, Pam Ward, and Jessica Wilson Cardenas. The afternoon will also feature music from Juan Cardenas and his friends, sending listeners on a journey of Doors-influenced sound.

WHERE: Beyond Baroque, 681 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

WHEN: Sunday, August 9, 2015, 2 p.m. (reception), with a poetry reading at 2:30 and open mic at 3:30 (one poem per reader).

PRICE: $5 suggested donation for the poetry reading and open mic (photography reception is free).

PHOTOGRAPH: Jim Morrison by Jim Coke (July 15, 1967), all rights reserved by the photographer.

Tongue & Groove Event in Hollywood, Sun., July 26, 2015

Conrad Romo and his crew at “Tongue & Groove” promise a literary event extraordinaire on Sunday, July 26th, in Hollywood (details at the end of this post).

Tongue & Groove has been spreading the word in Los Angeles and surrounding areas for 11 years — with a  monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music. The upcoming event features Melissa Chadburn, Seth Fischer, Kita Shantiris, Kym Ghee, Keith Niles, Craig McLaughlin, and musical guest Tawny Ellis.

Melissa Chadburn has written for Guernica, Buzzfeed, Poets & Writers, Salon, McSweeney’s, Tin House, The Rumpus, American Public Media’s Marketplace, Al Jazeera America, and dozens other places. Her essay, “The Throwaways,” received notable mention in Best American Essays and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her first novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, is forthcoming with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Seth Fischer is a writer and editor whose writing has appeared in Best Sex Writing, PANK, The Rumpus, Guernica, and elsewhere, and his essay “Notes from a Unicorn” has been listed as notable in The Best American Essays. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary’s Emerging Voices Program, Jentel, and Woodstock Byrdcliffe, and he teaches at Antioch University Los Angeles and Writing Workshops Los Angeles. Find out more at seth-fischer.com.

Kita Shantirisʼ poetry has appeared in Ambit, Crannóg, Poetry, Quarterly West, The Fish Anthology, The Moth, Slipstream, Wisconsin Review, and other journals. One of three poets featured in The Border (Bombshelter Press, 1984), she also had two poems anthologized in The Faber Book of Movie Verse (Faber & Faber 1993). In 2012, Kita received 2nd Prize in the Ballymaloe International Poetry Contest judged by Leontia Flynn. She twice has been runner-up in Fish Publishingʼs contest judged by Brian Turner (2011) and Ruth Padel (2014). In her other life, psychologist Dr. Kita S. Curry runs a nonprofit mental health center in Los Angeles, where she has been honored for erasing stigma and bringing services to communities of color. Her website is kitashantiris.com.

Kym Ghee is a Los Angeles based writer and photographer. Formerly a music journalist, Kym has recently been working on a collection of short stories in the genre of personal narrative that explore life in L.A.’s Koreatown. Titled Tawdry Tales on the Road to Sanity the often humorous and raw collection explores themes of loss, addiction, sex, love, and personal triumph.

Keith Niles is a widely published Los Angeles poet. He honed his craft during a potent stretch writing, performing, and hosting shows in dive bars in East Hollywood. His most recent book, The Thousand Poems (Vol. 1), is a product of those wild years. A second volume is slated to be released in 2015. Most recently, Niles has recorded a full-length album of genre-defying music with his band The Knownothings.

Tawny Ellis has a distinctive quality rooted in sweet Southern folk. A Savannah, Georgia, native, Ellis traveled extensively before meeting collaborator Gio Loria, who brings lush melodies and lyrical storytelling their music. Ellis is also an accomplished sculptor with an ancestral connection to one of the world’s most famous sculptors/painters, Edgar Degas. She creates for private collectors and can be contacted for commissions. See more at tawnyellis.com.

Craig McLaughlin is a teacher and author of creative nonfiction, an award-winning journalist, and a nationally recognized storyteller. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MA in Journalism from UC Berkeley, and taught creative nonfiction at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. A former editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, he received numerous awards as a reporter and memoirist. He performs his essays as a storyteller at venues throughout the country, most often in the San Francisco Bay Area where he lives. For details, visit cdmclaughlin.com. (Note: Craig McLaughlin has been rescheduled for August 30th.)

WHAT: Tongue & Groove Literary Event

WHEN: Sunday, July 26, 2015, 6-7:30 p.m.

WHERE: The Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, 90028

ADMISSION: $7