25 Hottest Indie
Authors, Artists, Advocates
2019
Tom Lutz By Wilnona Marie
Photo credit: David Walter Banks
Say “Hollywood” and you think of glitz and glamour, the siren song of the movies, where many careers run aground and splinter. Say “the literary scene in Hollywood” and you think it’s an oxymoron, but there is one, and Tom Lutz is a standout story, ironically, about books in Tin-
sel Town. Lutz’s story is not one of the big screen adaptations (though I think it will be one day). Lutz loves books— the smell of the ink, the feel of the pages, the sound of the spine as the book opens to reveal its secrets—and he fights to give books a home in the city. Lutz came to books early, and they were a fundamental part of his growing up. “If you were reading a book, and it was time to cut the lawn, you got a pass,” he reminisced. Lutz learned the importance of reading through his parents’ willingness to allow chore-skipping, and also through the pure enjoyment of being in someone else’s world for a while. When he read the book Black Stallion, as a boy, Lutz was captivated by a world he didn’t know—a place called Arabia, people who owned horses. When he moved to Los Angeles 25 years ago, his books and his love moved with him. (Lutz still considers himself a recent transplant). Lutz became a professor at UC Riverside, and his days were filled with preparing for teaching creative writing, of course. Then there was the grading of Tom w/ Poet Laureate Filipe Herrera thesis papers; it is part of the job after all. Still Lutz found time to do more than shape the future Tolkiens, Hemingways, and Dickinsons of the world, he carved out a place for contemporary literature. His inspiration came from the many conGiving lifetime achievement award to versations about books he had Maxine Hong Kingston (with UCR in LA living and dining rooms, Chancellor Kim Wilcox)
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where he says, true homage to the book can be found. “There is a genius for finding a great tale in Hollywood,” say Lutz. Upon closer inspection that must be true, I mean, where else do those dramatic movies come from? A great story. “They really know how to do narrative.” Lutz’s story is as great as any of those shown on those six-foot screens. As we chatted, he told tales of chatting with Michael Tolkin, playing the keyboard in the Bay Area in a band for Doctor Loco, called Rocking Jalapenos. While playing for that band he crossed paths with a future poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, and he backed his readings up musically, too—they’ve been performing together for 30 years. But his greatest story is his own success in starting the Los Angeles Review of Books. “Starting this venture took 16-hour days, seven days a week, and a massive learning curve,” Lutz said. The founders and the volunteers had to learn how to build a website, fundraise, learn HR skills, do marketing, and the list goes on. At the end of all the labor, Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) was born. Nowadays, this periodical is a star of literature on the West Coast, and it’s growing brighter as it adds a publishing house to its many literary accomplishments. The acquisition of a small, experimental press Les Figues Press go them started, and they have now launched their own series like LARB Provocations, an imprint for political books, and LARB Classics, which reintroduces readers to West Coast books from the past, like a translation of a Mexican writer from early in the twentieth century, the earliest Latinx text ever published. Readers can say another “Hello, how do you do,” to Edgar Rice Burrough’s work as they publish The Girl from Hollywood. Not to be outdone by the fiction selections, non-fiction and novellas will find a comfy
At Tiger’s Nest Monastery place to call home at LARB as well. Lutz has come a far way from reading books while a sibling filled in on a chore, and his love for the written word has never waned. He can never be compared to
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