This Saturday we’re bringing you the final reading at the Glendora Book Shop in Glendora. Click the link for the facebook invite.

Thanks to Daniel Cuesta for the art. He’s done a countdown of images we’ll post here on the site.

“I had just finished giving a reading in Long Beach a couple of months ago and was standing a little apart from everyone. It was a hot room, and I’d been wearing a suit and speaking for a long hour, and I think people were giving me a comfortable distance because I am a sweater in the best of times. In the worst, I’m a stick of butter on a hot day.

“So you work at Mt. SAC?” someone said behind me.

I turned to find a close talker – someone who invades your personal space – standing within three fingers’ width of me. He was smiling broadly. He was wearing a purple shirt. He smelled of lavender and foot.

“Yeah,” I said, taking a step back.

He matched my movement, staying close, tinting my sweat with an acrid hint of fear. [...] ”

The King of All Literature in Repose

Local Magazines Go International

In My Head, I Can Still Hear the Drums

Writing and Poetry in the San Gabriel Valley

I’m sitting in the AWP Conference (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) right now between sessions, waiting for the next session to begin. I’m in the next session. I’m moderating and speaking in it, telling people what we do at Mt. SAC and how little money it takes to run a creative writing program when our only agenda is creating a community. A few things have begun to occur to me here in my little corner of the conference.

It occurs to me that Chicago is a cold place to be in early March. My hotel is just down the road from here, and I’ve had to walk the blocks every morning and every evening and every day at lunch if I didn’t want pub food, which is all they sell in the Chicago Hilton. Every time I start to feel a little tired or sweaty, I step outside for thirty seconds to be blasted with arctic winds blowing off Lake Michigan.

It occurs to me that early March is a strange time to have a conference, especially in the North, but I think I understand why. Who else is going to conferences? Who else is going on vacation? Who else voluntarily goes north when everything is so bleak? I think what’s happening is that the people who run the AWP have figured out a way to bring down the cost of the conference. They’ve intentionally made themselves more uncomfortable than they had to be in a place that can be damn inconvenient when the snow is blowing so the conference will be cheaper for poor young professors and even poorer young grad students.

It occurs to me that writers and poets can be a good group of people. They can be a group that looks out for each other and helps each other when needs be. They put the needs of the least powerful in the writing community above the luxury of those who are most powerful. And I’m glad to be a part of them.

It occurs to me that this whole weekend has been filled with people who have absolutely nothing but the best intentions. I haven’t found every panel useful to my needs, but every panel I’ve seen has been useful to someone, and every panel has been run with a vision and vigor.

It occurs to me that I’m here to talk about writers in the San Gabriel Valley who come to Mt. SAC, and there are going to be people in the audience who listen and care. They want to know about California, but more importantly, they want to know how to save money when running their own creative writing programs. Their programs are full of students who are having a hard time making ends meet and feeding their children and supporting their spouses, and all those students want for themselves is to be able to afford to learn how to write. They people who come to my conference see helping these people as a sacred good, as something to aspire to.

It occurs to me that we’d do well to apply all of this to the way we writing the San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival. There’s a reason AWP has gained popularity and importance in the last 16 years. People are getting something out of it, and they’re welcomed.

And finally it occurs to me that connection with other people is the highest duty of art. That’s pretentious, I know, but it’s also true. True connection comes through a live reading or when people read a book and see something familiar and realize that truly they’re not alone in this world. Artists do that for people. Poets and writers do it for people, and it occurs to me that being a poet is a pretty wonderful thing for me to be.

We need help from individuals and organizations of all types as we work closely with the City of West Covina to form the festival.

The non-profit form is the first form we have available, if you’re interested in participating with the festival planning, sharing resources, or requesting a presence at the festival please fill out the form after the jump.

In the Land of Bears — Originally Published in Confrontation from Long Island University

Part 1

When Darlene had first seen the picture of her father hugging Prissy, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel. Her mother told her that Prissy was her father’s first wife, who he’d married and who had died in a car accident years before her parents had met. Darlene decided by Christmas of that year that she should feel sorry for her father, and by Valentine’s Day, the woman had taken on a mysterious air, and her father seemed like a tragic figure who had lost a charming and sophisticated woman and had tried to replace her with the conservative lump who was Darlene’s mother. Now, he seemed trapped in a life of bitter responsibility with a partner he didn’t love and three children all under sixteen years old. In the picture, Prissy had been wearing the kind of jewelry her mother never did. She had a purple silk scarf and perfectly round, oversized sunglasses just like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She was laughing with abandon at something, and her father watched Prissy with unveiled longing mixed with amusement for her carefree attitude. Yes, the proper point of view was that the loss of Prissy had been the tragic and defining event of her father’s life.

All of this she decided without talking to her father. She didn’t want to remind him of everything that he had lost when this woman in the pearl earrings left him to continue on without her. By Easter, she had constructed a fantasy life for her father where he had once been dashing and carefree. He had told Darlene once that he’d studied flying, and she thought that he would have been a pilot had it not been for her mother. When Darlene heard him groan or sigh, she wondered if he was caught in the memory of that past and perfect life when everything was electric, and he had been so perfect himself.

With Easter weekend, Spring break came, and Shelly, her cousin on her father’s side, invited Darlene up to the mountains to go skiing. Shelly lived up above 5000 feet near Lake Arrowhead, and something about the location of her house, and her relation to her father made that side of the family feel romantic and free. They were people who lived up away from the city. They were unafraid of the bears that lived near them or the treacherous drive. The road would ice over, but they would drive on despite the nearness of cliffs that she couldn’t see over.

Besides the skiing, she would be able to talk to her cousin, and maybe her aunt and uncle about Prissy. The first chance Darlene got, when the two girls were totally alone on the ski lift, Darlene brought the subject up. She asked, “Did your parents ever tell you about Prissy, my father’s first wife?”

Shelly’s eye’s narrowed. Below her was a hundred feet of oxygen ending with the hard packed snow. Shelly never seemed to mind the imminence of death, and now she frowned at Darlene and shook her head. She said, “My father told me once that I’m not supposed to talk about Prissy, but I will if you want.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s some big secret except Dad said some things you just don’t talk about. I don’t think I’m even supposed to know, but they caught me snooping one time, and they knew there was no avoiding it.”

A hot tingling passed over Darlene’s body. She forgot about the height nearly completely. “Who was she?”

“My dad and mom have pictures of her, and they told me some of the stories.” Shelly told her about the wedding, which had been outside under some pine trees at a place near Shelly’s house. She knew this because her parents had kept the wedding pictures. Darlene asked about the dress and the decorations, and it was painful when the ski lift dumped them at the top of the run because she knew she’d have to wait until they were all the way down and back on the lift again before she’d be able to ask about her father’s romantic, previous life.

That became the pattern of the day. On the lift, Darlene would steer the conversations towards Prissy as much as she could. Shelly wanted to talk about the friends she planned to introduce to Darlene, and she knew only so much about Prissy, but Darlene tried to squeeze everything she could out of the hints and photographs her cousin had come across. On the way down the run, she would mourn her father’s lost life. She wondered what he’d been like then. He had become serious and single-minded, perhaps even closed off. Had he been exciting before? Shelly said that if Darlene wanted to, they could try to sneak into her parent’s bedroom and get a hold of the pictures. It might be dangerous, but it could be worth it too.

By three o’clock, Darlene was physically exhausted, but mentally more energized than she had been when the day had started, and when Shelly fell down on the slope and bruised her thigh badly, Darlene was almost thankful because she knew that would be the end of skiing for the two of them that day. As they were changing in the locker room, Shelly admitted that she had wanted to end early too because she’d gotten the two of them invitations to a get-together. A get-together, not a party, Darlene thought. The word suggested something to her. It was the sort of thing that Prissy would have gone to. It was the kind of thing that they did up here in the mountains after a day of skiing. It suggested red wine and conversation with people who had seen the world.

Back at the cabin, Shelly disappeared into her parents’ bedroom for a moment and rushed back into her room before anyone could see what she was doing. Darlene followed her, and the two girls sat on Shelly’s bed picking through pictures of Prissy and her father’s wedding out of a shoe box full of snapshots. “They didn’t want you to see these, but they’ll never know.”

Her father was thin in the pictures, and Darlene realized that she’d never seen him like that before. She was staring at his handsome alter ego without those permanent dark circles under his eyes, and the slumped shoulders that he’d gotten from sixteen years of trying to provide for his children. The man before her was not the man she knew, and while Shelly went into the bathroom to get ready, Darlene tried to get to know the man by seeing into his eyes. What kind of person was he? There was something about him that seemed almost dangerous to her, in a sort of 1950s way with a flipped up collar and a smile that was nearly a sneer, but it wasn’t danger, really, she decided. It was youth and life. It was impossible to know what her life would have been if Prissy had been her mother, but she knew that it would have been different because she could see that with Prissy, her father had been a different sort of man.

Eventually, Darlene lay down on Shelly’s bed thinking about her father and creating a romantic dream about the way it must have been for him once. He had been one of these people up here. He had the same vitality and courage. She could see him driving on these mountain roads, along cliffs, when the blacktop was iced over, and the tires slipped at every curve. He must have been like Shelly’s father who would laugh when the car would skid for a moment and make a joke or call out that it was good luck and good sense to lose your grip every once in a while. Now her father was living down the mountain in a single story ranch house that looked exactly like the one next to it and the one next to that one. What would she have been like if she had grown up here? Would her life have been filled with skiing and boys and girls like Shelly who thought nothing of snooping in her parents’ bedroom? Dreaming of this life, she allowed the fatigue of the day catch up with her, and she drifted off to sleep on Shelly’s bed.

Darlene woke in the darkened room to Shelly caressing her face and telling her to wake up. “They’re here,” Shelly said.

Each disk features a hand-made stencil and (mostly) hand-colored package art (above).

Only five ridiculously inadequate dollars.  Available at any SGVLF sponsored event & at The Village Book Shop in Glendora, CA

Editors: Daniel Questa, Elder Zamora, Charlotte San Juan.

Track List:

1. Elder Zamora – Sea Glass
2. John Brantingham – Papa in Space
3. Michaelsun Knapp – Drunk Dialing God
4. Charlotte San Juan – Bus People
5. John Buckley – Go Tell It to the Mountain
6. lLoyd Aquino – Beat Poets
7. Michael Torres – I Don’t Mind Sleeping Much
8. Adrienne Selina Silva – Has Been
9. John Brantingham – An Insomniac’s Sestina
10. Michaelsun Knapp – Grass Angel
11. Elder Zamora – Blood Poem
12. Adrienne Selina Silva – If There’s Any Love in Me, Don’t Let is Show
13. Michael Torres – Audio Instructions on How to Read a Michael Torres Poem…
14. lLoyd Aquino – Cigarette and Spit
15. Charlotte San Juan – Where We All Seem to be Going
16. John Buckley – California Winter

Shadow Oak Sessions is not currently taking unsolicited submissions, but you may direct any inquiries to sgvlitfest@gmail.com. Send your order inquiries here as well.

I’m a zealot when it comes to writing communities. The romantic vision of the lone writer who creates masterpieces in isolation is most often nonsense. There are, of course, exceptions. There are always exceptions. But the truth is that artists are people, and people are social by nature. The dynamics of a good community creates innovation and demands a high level of sophistication and precision.

Lately, we’ve been creating moments of communal art at the San Gabriel Valley Arts Community in a strange and fun experiment. We’ve been coming together for specific lengths of time and given the prompts. By the end of the time, we’ve had people produce poetry, stories, music, paintings, and drawings. We’ve had extraordinary work, stuff that shocks me with innovation of idea.

Our first get together was at my house. My guess is that as our community grows, I’m not going to be able to host these get-togethers any longer. The theme of the day was “From the Mountains to the Ocean.” I personally produced a short story that’s been posted on this blog, and there were perhaps ten poems, five visual art pieces, and a song.
I think what I liked the most was the number of people who were just starting in the arts or returning after a long hiatus. Lance Schaina was there. He’s a former math professor and current medical student, and someone who hasn’t written in years. What he wrote, he kept private, but he, like three or four other people, came up to me personally and told me what a relief and joy it was to write after not having done it for so long.

I talked to Lance and several of these people as I practiced my ukulele on my front lawn. It’s my first musical instrument, and I’m teaching myself to play it. I’m a large man with a gray beard and a red shirt, and this was just before Christmas. Some kids walked out of the house across the street, saw me, and gaped. It must have been a surreal moment for them. They thought they were seeing Santa Claus on his off hours playing a tiny guitar without any rhythm and or sense of melody.

I smiled and waved at them, trying to look jolly. Usually the Santa Claus comparisons annoy me, but after talking to Lance and others like him, I felt like Santa. The only difference was that I hadn’t really given them anything. They’d given each other their gifts.

We’ve went off to Mt. Baldy the next month for a weekend in the woods creating work. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to be with like-minded people who love what I love. We’re all there to make ourselves and each other better, and it’s working.

I’ve taught creative writing at universities and colleges for years now, and I’ve never seen a more successful group of writers than these. I currently work at a community college, and since I am a big part of the San Gabriel Valley Arts Community, many of us are community college students. Publishing isn’t the primary reason we write, but it’s an important aspect of our work, and to confirm the value of our community I have never seen a group of people with the number of publications and quality of work than I have with these writers.

We started gathering as a group on and off in April of last year. In that time, we’ve had about twenty people start to publish. One person is talking about book deals and already has a chapbook out; another has published hundreds or poems. Those who have wanted to publish their work have done so.

This is all just to say that I’m so pleased and excited to be a part of our little community and to say that we’re going to have more of these get-togethers in the time to come. I’m amazed about what has passed, and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. And what’s coming next? Ideas are spinning off each other.

My friend, Daniel Cuesta, is starting an audio chapbook series. That’s right, chapbooks on CDs. I’m giving him any help I can, and I will help anyone else who wants to start a project with SGVLF.

We’d love for you to be a part of it.

Write us if you’re interested.
–John Brantingham

The SGV "Apple of Knowledge" logo designed by Alex Torrez

The poets Shelley, Keats, and Hunt famously came together for a friendly poetry competition in which they composed sonnets about the Nile in 15 minutes. The result was three brilliant poems with Hunt being nominated the winner. On December 18th, we are going to meet at the Brantinghams’ house with the same idea in mind. We’re going to meet, and I’m going to announce the topic. You will have 4 hours to compose some kind of art to that theme. The difference between what we’re doing and what the three poets did is that we can work in any medium. Are you a film maker? Make a short film. Musician? Create a song. Web designer? Create a website. Of course, there will be poems, stories, paintings and sculptures too.

Come an join us for an afternoon of pure creation.

The Brantinghams’ Home
654 Pinecrest Lane, Walnut, CA
View Map · Get Directions

Ara Shirinyan reads at Wine and Words in Downey

John Brantingham and David Caddy read at Dezember House at Whittier College


The October Valley Poets reading

Eric Morago

Scott Creley

Luke Salazar

David Caddy of Tears in the Fence visited from England to read in The Long Beach Poetry Festival

Check out the youtube for a ton of video the SGVLF staff has shot in the past two months.