In the 1620s, the first literary salons popped up in Paris. They were held in big, lavish hotels by the upper classes. In 1920s New York, we saw the birth of the roundtable gatherings at the Algonquin Hotel, peopled by the cultural elite — Dorothy Parker, Alexander Wollcott, Harpo Marx, Harold Ross, Edna Ferber, Robert Sherwood. Finally, in the 1950s, Allen Ginsberg and his beatnik brigade brought literary readings to the masses. Back then it was the commingling of verse and jazz that mixed the rich and the poor and just about everyone in between together. Those North Beach cafés leveled 300 years of elitist tradition. Here in L.A. the literary scene has equal parts Hollywood glamour and Eastside edge. Besides its literary magazines (Swink, Black Clock, The Los Angeles Review) and smaller indie presses and imprints, there are also a dozen regular literary salons and another half-dozen not-so-regular salons, many of which come with a heavy dose of industry participation on both ... More >>>