Downtown Bookfest highlights LA’s independent literary scene

On a cloudy day in Grand Park, festivalgoers congregated for readings, book recommendations and a celebration of all the Los Angeles independent literary scene has to offer.

The Downtown Bookfest, which took place Saturday in Grand Park, featured poetry readings, tributes to late authors and pop up shops that sold books from local small presses. The event drew UCLA alumni, professors and avid readers living in the Los Angeles area.

Curating at the north performance lawn stage was UCLA writing programs professor David Kipen. One of his panels, “Anti-Death League (Faces We Miss)” involved writers paying tribute to recently deceased writers. Attendees gradually gathered around the small stage, and joined in both mourning and celebrating the stories of beloved authors like The New York Times journalist David Carr, and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” screenwriter Melissa Mathison.

For Kipen, events like Downtown Bookfest allow him to share his passion for books regardless of how large the publisher or how well-known the author. He said small independent presses, though often ignored by the public, produce more good books than he can keep track off.

Nestled between a Starbucks and the Grand Park entrance, the family pavilion and stage hosted kid-friendly skits and activities. In the nearby booths, attendees could trade used books, sign up for library cards, or type messages on old typewriters.

In the south lawn of Grand Park, a pop-up bookshop curated by Writ Large Press, featured books from authors and small presses based in the Los Angeles area.

For attendees like UCLA alumna Shelley Luce, the shop provided an opportunity to find talented authors that had not yet been introduced to a mass audience through major presses and booksellers.

Luce added that while stores like Small World Books or Skylight Books offer zines and poetry from local authors, she only finds this content in places far away from her Baldwin Hills home.

“Maybe if I went looking for these books they wouldn’t be so hard to find, but they’re definitely not everywhere I go,” Luce said.

After paying tribute to the late author Octavia Butler in a reading, UC Riverside graduate student Jaymee Goh stood near the family pavilion and stage observing a storytelling event based on Native American myths. As children and their parents sang along to the stories, Goh talked about how people can find their local independent literary scene.

“I’m on social media a lot, and when you actually follow the right kinds of people, it’s actually really easy to find (these communities),” she said. “You just have to actually go out and look for it. You can’t just go into a random bookstore and hope to find things.”

UCLA alumnus and local writer Mike Sonksen said the Los Angeles literary scene is one of the city’s hidden gems.

“The independent book scene in LA is stronger than people realize,” Sonksen said. “In the age of Amazon and online shopping, the market has changed, but there are more small independent presses in this city than people know.”

He said the city’s diverse ethnic and social makeup results in poetry, fiction and nonfiction that perhaps could not exist elsewhere. Chicano, black, Asian, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and Caucasian writers are able to interact with each other and help create a literary scene as diverse as the city itself.

“LA is more than just Hollywood or the Sunset Strip,” Sonksen said. “From this literary scene you get to see the real LA, and I think it’s the best portrait of the city we have.”