Have we reached the end of water?
As negotiators meet in Paris to hammer out the details of another tepid global climate change treaty, artists across Los Angeles are coming together to demand they do better by us and the planet in a festival called VisionFest LA ’15.
Join us on Sunday, December 6 as four LA writers will read stories about water and our relationship to it at Vista Hermosa Park in downtown LA, as part of the festival. The stories are by authors Chris Iovenko, Henry Hoke, Bronwyn Mauldin and A.R. Taylor. This reading is free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome.
In their stories we meet a weatherman who tells uncomfortable truths, a species of whale that may be extinct (and may always have been), a carwash laborer seeking justice for his father, and a scientist testing her theory that we can solve the problem by turning wine into water. These stories are, by turn, powerful, hilarious, informative and heartbreaking.
This reading is outdoors at the Grotto Ampitheatre in the park. Bring a picnic lunch and enjoy this beautiful park landscaped with drought-tolerant native plants, punctuated by a view of the downtown LA skyline. The park itself has been specially designed so almost every drop of water that falls on it either percolates into the ground and replenishes the underlying aquifer or is captured for irrigation.
This set of stories was featured in October as part of the 2015 LitCrawl in NoHo, where they were read by professional actors. This time you’ll get to hear the authors themselves read their work, and talk with them about what inspired their stories. Please join us, and bring a friend!
The End of Water
Sunday, December 6 at 2:00 p.m.
Vista Hermosa Natural Park
100 N. Toluca Street
LA, CA 90026
(map)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chris Iovenko is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles with many documentary and narrative film credits. Iovenko’s award-winning dark comedy EASY SIX (Showtime) starred Jim Belushi and was produced by Jason Blum and marked Iovenko’s feature writing and directing debut. Iovenko’s last documentary GATEWOOD was broadcast on PBS and Emmy nominated in 2015. Iovenko’s essays, stories and articles been widely published including such places as The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Details Magazine and Spin.
Henry Hoke wrote The Book of Endless Sleepovers (forthcoming in 2016 from Civil Coping Mechanisms). Some of his stories appear in The Collagist, Electric Literature, Tierra Adentro and PANK. He co-created and directs Enter>text, a living literary journal in Los Angeles.
Bronwyn Mauldin is the author of the forthcoming Off the Grid, a novel about power, both electrical and political. She is the author of Love Songs of the Revolution and the short story collection The Streetwise Cycle. Her work has appeared in Literature for Life, Akashic Books, Necessary Fiction, The Coffin Factory and other places. She is creator of GuerrillaReads, the online video literary magazine. When she’s not writing, Mauldin is Director of Research and Evaluation at the LA County Arts Commission.
A.R. Taylor has published in the Los Angeles Times, Southwest Review, Pedantic Monthly, The Cynic online magazine, the Berkeley Insider, So It Goes, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Magazine on Humor, Red Rock Review, and Rosebud, among others. L.A.’s New Short Fiction series and the Annenberg Center have featured her stories and humor pieces, and after winning a Writers Foundation of America award in Comedy for her play Up The Nile, Taylor appeared at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York and Tongue & Groove in Hollywood. In addition, she was head writer on two Emmy winning series for public television. Her debut novel, Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion appeared in 2014 and recently won a gold medal for Best Regional Fiction in the IPPY Awards.
GuerrillaReads 