The Little Literary Fair, LITLIT, Returned to Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) and Hauser & Wirth Publishers presented the second annual Little Literary Fair, LITLIT, during the weekend of 30 – 31 July 2022 at Hauser & Wirth's Downtown Los Angeles gallery.
‘Increasing access to vibrant, cultural conversations and the world of literary production has been essential to LARB’s mission, publications, and programs since our founding,’ says LARB Executive Director Irene Yoon. ‘We’re thrilled to bring LITLIT back and celebrate the transformative work of local independent presses with our L.A. community.’
LITLIT offers local independent presses and literary arts organizations the opportunity to share their work and ideas with fair attendees. Free and open to the public, programming included panel discussions with publishers, authors, artists, and community organizers, as well as bookish demonstrations for all ages, including traditional bookbinding and letterpress and screen printing. The goal is to increase public and institutional support for small presses and the communities they sustain and create. Since the pandemic, LITLIT may now be the only fair of its kind in Los Angeles, a celebration of print culture and L.A.’s multicultural, multilingual, multi-genre literary scene.
View the full list of vendors and register for programming here.
Photo: Noé Montes
Located in Hauser & Wirth’s beautiful Arts District complex and taking place alongside Mika Rottenberg’s first Los Angeles solo exhibition of recent works in video, drawing, and sculpture, LITLIT is a unique opportunity to situate the literary arts within one of Los Angeles’s most exciting cultural spaces. In addition to important, groundbreaking exhibits, Hauser & Wirth also hosts attractions like the bookstore ARTBOOK, the restaurant Manuela, and the Gallery Shop retail space, all of which are set around a 6,000-square-foot open courtyard that frequently serves as a venue for outdoor installations.
‘Following the success of its inaugural year, we are pleased to partner again with the Los Angeles Review of Books to bring LITLIT back to Los Angeles. As an international publisher with deep roots in the arts scene, it is a great honor to support and showcase the many local independent presses who are a testament to this vibrant literary community.’—Dr. Michaela Unterdörfer, Publisher of Hauser & Wirth Publishers
Photo: Noé Montes
Participating publishers, booksellers, and vendors included: 826LA, Alegría Publishing, Angel City Press, Art of Tea, Artbook, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Brown Paper Press, Cena Vegan, colour bloc creativ, Con Todo Press, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (carla), Deluge, DoppelHouse Press, Dryland Literary Journal, Dwellers (ft. Canyon Coffee), Ellie Baked It, Harvard Square Editions, Heavy Manners Library, Heyday, Inlandia Institute, Insert Press, Inventory Press, Kaya Press, Los Angeles Poet Society, Los Angeles Public Library, New Documents / Fillip, Not a Cult, Paper Chase Press, PARA LLEVAR Magazine, PEN America, Rare Bird, Red Hen Press, Semiotext(e), The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, The International Printing Museum, The Los Angeles Press, The Village Well Books & Coffee, theLAnd, Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore, Two Lines Press (Center for the Art of Translation), UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, Unnamed Press, What Books Press, Words Uncaged, World Stage Press / Community Literature Initiative, and X Artists’ Books.
LITLIT—the Little Literary Fair, presented by Los Angeles Review of Books and Hauser & Wirth Publishers—took place on 30 and 31 July 2022, from 11 am – 6 pm at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, located at 901 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. LITLIT was free and open to the public. Find more information at litlit.org.
This year’s fair was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Panel 1 – Poetry Rising: Resistance, Resilience, Healing
The leaders behind some of L.A.'s cherished literary organizations discuss community making and mending through verse. Participants include Neelanjana Banerjee of Kaya Press, Quentin Ring of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy of Words Uncaged, and Hiram Sims of the Community Literary Initiative, moderated by Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson.
Panel 2 – Art of Translation
Four eminent translators discuss the hard-fought, increasing visibility of their art and offer insight into their methods and projects. Participants include translators Andrew Way Leong (Lament in the Night, The Ones Who Leave), Bruna Dantas Lobato (Moldy Strawberries, The Words that Remain), and Robin Myers (Copy, The Dream of Every Cell), moderated by Magdalena Edwards (The Chandelier, Letters from Mom).
Panel 3 – Page to Screen and in Between
Media luminaries discuss recent TV and film adaptations of indie-press titles, relationships between studios and literary sources, how book scouts and showrunners choose material, and how these developments affect authors. Participants include Sarah LaBrie (Made for Love, Minx), Claire Lundberg of CTL Scouting, Thomas Perry (The Old Man, The Left-Handed Twin), and Dr. Annie Julia Wyman (The Chair, Tokyo Vice), moderated by Los Angeles Times Page-to-Screen critic Bonnie Johnson.
Panel 4 – New Genres of Music Criticism
Where does music criticism take place and what does it address? Music critics and academics reflect on their changing audience and platforms due to a proliferation of outlets for music criticism. Participants include Tyson Cornell of Rare Bird, Kevin Dettmar of Pomona College, Karen Tongson of USC, and Oliver Wang of CSU Long Beach, moderated by Karla Nielsen of The Huntington.
Panel 5 – For the Love of Print
Editors of The LARB Quarterly, Chloe Watlington and Michelle Chihara, join Jeff Weiss of theLAnd and local designer and near-futurist writer, Schessa Garbutt, to discuss the love and labor of print magazines, designing for print, and ongoing debates around the relevance of literary criticism and production today.
