Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, editors of Slake: Los Angeles, have been scouring the streets of Southern California for poets, writers and artists to save from the massacre of the printed word. E-readers, the Great Recession and the death of long-form journalism have left many without a home. Ochoa and Donnelly found poets metaphorically washing car windows off the I-10; journalists rummaging through their sacred piles of printed newspapers; and painters substitute-teaching math classes, lecturing on the beauty of Charles Demuth's I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold. Oh, the humanity! And by creating literary magazine Slake, Ochoa and Donnelly gave these cultural survivors a home and a sense of artistic community. Now, after publishing two issues that spent weeks on the Los Angeles Times best-seller list, Ochoa and Donnelly are inviting the entire city to Atwater Crossing for their Slake Issue 3 Launch Party. Not only will people dedicated to establishing L.A. as a literary city surround you but also you will hear live performances by the collective Ojo, drink complimentary vino and stare at mesmerizing art from contributors. It's time to celebrate a magazine that electrifies our city's crevices and tells its stories.

Fri., Aug. 26, 7:30 p.m., 2011

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