I don’t like to talk about myself, and I don’t like small talk. Guess that makes me the odd man out in LA.
The scene before me spread out like the opening of a movie. Interior establishing shot. A party. Extras hovering around, moving lips without anything coming out. Even with a bunch of people all grouped together, the place felt sparse. Ten thousand square feet and twenty-five-foot ceilings will have that effect.
What was I doing here, in a penthouse loft on Spring Street?
Dance music from the 80s pushed out of a 90s plastic boom box, the kind that looked like the front end of a car. No one was dancing.
Marvis Johnson, a partner at Infamous, is the business manager of Albert “Prodigy” Johnson and co-manager of Mobb Deep, the renowned hip-hop duo made up by Prodigy and Havoc. Infamous has partnered with Akashic Books to create the Infamous Books imprint, which is launching with Prodigy’s novella H.N.I.C. Akashic publisher Johnny Temple asks Marvis about his background, how he and Prodigy came to work together, and about the current state of the music and book industries.
Ashland, deep summer. It’s the one month the sun sets over steep Lithia Park only one hour earlier than everywhere else in Oregon, but at the jagged edge of town the hulking green shadows still pile up like a forest clear-cut. It’s the lull after Big Al’s Tennis Tournament, and it’s still a long haul ‘til Labor Day . . .
To celebrate the release of Eric Charles May’s debut novel, Bedrock Faith, Johnny Temple spoke with Eric Charles May and Bernice L. McFadden (author of Glorious, Nowhere Is a Place, Gathering of Waters, and The Warmest December, among others) about authorship, collective narration, mainstream literary culture, underappreciated authors, and more.
To celebrate the release of Buffalo Noir, the latest in Akashic’s Noir Series, we’re pleased to give you a look at coeditor Ed Park’s own personal Buffalo noir with his introduction, “Ice-Cold Stories.”
Shelley was the one who married Harvey right out of college, whose parents went into debt for the wedding, saying it was worth it—that he was worth it, they should have said . . .
Join local authors from 5:00 to 7:00 PM with a variety of books for everyone: Gary Earl Ross, Kim Chinquee, Dimitri Anastasopoulous, and Christina Miletti, who contributed to Buffalo Noir; Wende Essrow, author of If You Listen to the Trees; Elizabeth Leader, author of Buffalo Snow; Roselyn Kasmire, author of Billy Buffalo’s Big Catch; and Carol Fleischman, […]
