One of our favorite literary events (any type of event, actually) in Los Angeles is the PEN USA sponsored series Dirty Laundry Lit, hosted and produced by Natashia Deon. Not only is it a fun, sexy, raucous event that packs the house with hundreds of people, but Natashia has made it a mission to use the stage to promote diversity, inclusivity, and to raise awareness AND money for a local non-profit.
Dirty Laundry Lit always showcases a mix of established writers and authors who many will never have even heard of, shaking up an often repetitive and stale reading circuit around the city.
We are excited that the first Dirty Laundry Lit of 2015 is almost here! Look below for the full line-up and description!
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Dirty Laundry Lit and PEN Center USA proudly presents:
DIRTY LAUNDRY LIT: OPEN
A love offering of the naughtiest literature for your Valentine.
Los Angeles, CA: On February 7, 2015, Dirty Laundry Lit and PEN Center USA will present DIRTY LAUNDRY LIT: OPEN, a love-themed reading featuring Golden Globe nominee, Transparent star Ian Harvie, former-SNL joke writer, Jeff Eyres, Guggenheim Fellow, Joshua Weiner, slam poet Food4Thot, YA writer Cecil Castellucci, editor Daniel Barron, essayists Yennie Cheung and Julia Ingalls. Curated by law professor, writer and creator of Dirty Laundry Lit, Natashia Deon.
The event, which L.A. Weekly has said, “Is more like a raucous, all-inclusive party than a reading” will be held at The Virgil in Hollywood and DJ Thing will perform live. This is the thirteenth installation of the DIRTY LAUNDRY LIT series, which was founded in 2011 and is dedicated to producing engaging literary readings and showcasing emerging and established writers from around the country. DIRTY LAUNDRY LIT: OPEN will begin at 7 PM.
Dirty Laundry Lit is a literary non-profit whose mission is to promote literacy while celebrating writers.
PEN Center USA, a literary nonprofit based in Beverly Hills, has a membership of more than 600 professional writers. PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States.
The Virgil is located at 4519 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90069. DIRTY LAUNDRY LIT: OPEN is $7 and open to the public. For more information on DIRTY LAUNDRY LIT: OPEN, please contact Natashia Deon, Director of Programs and Events at Dirty Laundry Lit: natashiadeon@gmail.com. www.DirtyLaundryLit.com
Ian Harvie is a standup comic, actor and writer. His unique standup act queers the traditionally macho, sex-obsessed world of standup in ways you won’t believe, proving that laughter cuts across all gender identities and ultimately unites us all. He currently co-stars as Dale on the new Jill Soloway series, Transparent, streaming now on Amazon. Transparent was named the #1 show of 2014 by The New York Times, Time Magazine, Variety, and The Advocate. Transparent was also nominated for two Golden Globes. For more information about Ian, go to ianharvie.com.
Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (Chicago, 2013). He is also the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn, and the poetry editor of Tikkun magazine. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, he will be a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in 2015. His poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The American Scholar, Harvard Review, AGNI, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He is professor of English at the University of Maryland, and lives with his family in Washington DC.
Cecil Castellucci is the author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, First Day on Earth, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, and Odd Duck. Her picture book, Grandma’s Gloves, won the California Book Award Gold Medal. Her short stories have been published in Strange Horizons, YARN, Tor.com, and various anthologies including, Teeth, After and Interfictions 2. She is the YA editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, Children’s Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus and a two time Macdowell Fellow. She lives in Los Angeles.
Julia Ingalls is an essayist. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Dwell, Guernica, and on KCRW, among others. She’s into it.
Yennie Cheung, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of California Riverside, Palm Desert. Her work has been published in The Los Angeles Times, Word Riot, and decomP magazinE. A native of Southern California, she is currently working on a book about Downtown Los Angeles, slated for publication in November 2015.
Daniel Barron never planned on being a journalist, but after a year mired in post-grad ennui the film-student-turned-ad-hoc-reporter decided to combine a knack for the written word with a faith in the notion that most people really like talking about themselves. As the Editor-in-Chief of the arts and culture publication Yay! LA, Daniel interviews and profiles creatives in the fields of art, literature, music, and beyond. He has contributed to The Rumpus and LA Music Blog and can usually be found writing, thinking about writing, hustling for future writings, and hating what he’s writing. Incidentally, he also really likes talking about himself. Don’t enable him.
Food4Thot is an established producer, writer, educator, businessman, and poet who utilizes spoken word to promote the innate greatness that resides in all beings. Coined the “prince of poetry” by the late, great Leimert Park poet D-Black, Food4Thot’s extremely potent delivery is like an iron fist inside of a silk glove. A native of Watts, CA, Food4Thot later became the co-founder of Licky Thumbs Entertainment, DH Productions, and developed Lyrical Jinglist, a jingle-writing company focused in writing television and radio jingles for businesses looking to gain attention in innovative spectrums. This venture segued into The Still Waters Experience, a quarterly production he produces that features dynamic musicians, poets, authors, vocalists, visual artists, African dance and theatrical skits. Food4Thot’s work includes CDs, school curriculums, and books. In 2010, Food4Thot launched Still Waters Publishing and Vibrations Holistic Center with his wife, Melanie Luja. He credits the many great people he’s met and learned from with his success.
Hosted By:
Jeff Eyres has written jokes for Saturday Night Live and a number of late night television shows and has worked as a pundit/commentator on CNN Headline News. His sketch comedy group Mental Furniture had a sold-out run at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York and appeared in HBO’s New Performers Series. He was a member of the legendary First Amendment Improvisation Troupe – whose roll included Bruce Willis, John Leguizamo, Kathy Kinney and many others. His plays “Hamlet: Satanic Sentinel of the Suburbs,” “Mountain Vampire Goth Chicks” and “Mrs. Copway’s Pony” have each run multiple times in New York. He wrote and appeared in the cult classic movie Dick and Jane Drop Acid and Die. He is a graduate of the Second City Writers Program and the University of California, Riverside MFA program. www.jeffeyres.com
Curated By:
Natashia Deón is a Los Angeles attorney, writer, and law professor. Creator of the reading series Dirty Laundry Lit, Deón was recently named one of L.A.’s “Most Fascinating People” in L.A. Weekly‘s 2013 People Issue. Deón has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Prague’s Creative Writing Program, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. A 2010 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, her writing has appeared side-by-side with Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Yusef Komunyakaa in The Rattling Wall, and in B O D Y, The Rumpus, The Feminist Wire, Asian American Lit Review, and other places. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert, and has taught creative writing for Gettysburg College, for the University of California, PEN Center USA, 826LA, and inner city high schools around Los Angeles.