I reviewed Slim the Drifter Trio's album The Guilty Ten as promised. Leave a comment on my article if you have any memories of Slim you might want to share. He was legendary in the Bakersfield music scene performing country music, but starting off years ago in punk/hard rock...

If you get a chance, follow the links to his songs, Dancehall piano and Atlanta. Great music.

http://www.nlbelardes.com/b...

Come to the LA Small Press Book Fair May 28th and meet us

MAY 28th: Meet Noveltown, learn about the Lords of Bakersfield, and pick up a free copy of our magazine...

This summer Noveltown is busy growing and expanding. You'll read very soon how we've expanded deeper into the world of poetry with the likes of S.A. Griffin and Rafael Alvarado as poetry co-editors for our magazine. There's also some interesting partnership developments you might like that we'll tell soon. Later this summer we're releasing next issue of the Noveltown Review featuring the London Brutalists. Also late in the summer we'll be attending literary events, including the Yosemite Writers Conference. But first...

This weekend we'll be in Santa Monica for a great Indie Literary Press event. We'll be on hand with Cardoza Muller Productions for a talk at 1:50pm.

2nd Annual Small Press Book Fair:

AN EXPANSIVE DAY OF WRITERS, POETS AND PUBLISHERS:
Monday, May 28th, 2007, Memorial Day
10:30 am - 6:00 pm

LOCATION:

The Church in Ocean Park
235 Hill Street, Santa Monica

Donation at the door suggested

10:30 am Opening remarks - James Maverick: host and M.C

10:50 am Red Hen Press - poets to be announced

11:10 am Robert Greenfield (KCTV Literary talk show host): "on small presses"

11:30 am Lummox Press - Raindog

12:05 pm John Harris - poet

12:20 pro Beyond Baroque Press - readers to be announced

12:50 pm Cahuenga Press - James Cushing, Holly Prado, Harry Northup,

Phoebe McAdams

1:05 pm Bougie Girl Press - A. R. Alexander

1:20 pm Blue Press - Lewis McAdams, Kevin Opstedal

1:35 pm Solo Press - Kevin Patrick Sullivan

1:50 pm Cardoza Muller Productions & Noveltown - Rafael Alvarado, Nick Belardes & Leo Victor Briones

2:30 pm Kalimat Press/Highborn Lady Press - Anthony A Lee

2:45 pm Half Shell Edition - Pam Ward, Claudia Handler, Brenda Yates, Scott Wannberg

3:05 pm Sybaritic Press/poeticdiversity – Rachael Kann & Brenda Patrakos

3:20 pm Vinegar Hill Press - Donna, Gebron

3:35 pm Lynne Bronstein—poet

4:05 pm Rich Ferguson – poet

4:20 pm Sacred Beverage Press - Doug Richardson

4:35 pm Rum Razor Press - reader to be announced

4:50 pm Fall Star Magazine - Matt McGee

5:00 pm Rattle - M. Bitting, D. Griffiths Stamos, G. Mittelbach, M. Margolis, M. Lopez, P. Aylsworth

5:15 New Editions – Kevin Clark

5:30 pm Zenitram Press – Brenda Martinez

5:45 pm Ex Macina Press – Peter Balaskas

6:00 pm Ink Pen MutationsPress – kalamity j

Take SM Bus #s 1,2, or 8, and MTA Bus # 33. Wheelchair accessible. Information? 310-828-3951. Schedule subject to change.

Includes readings, refreshments, and an enlightening day of learning about the significance of small presses to the history of Los Angeles. All welcome.
Proceeds go toward the social justice work of the Church in Ocean Park.
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www.noveltown.net

We're partnering up with major universities from the West Coast and East Coast to showcase some of their professor/student writing talent. There's a full article on the way.

This is good news for Bakersfield and the Central Valley as it puts more focus on our area for making things happen in the literary world...

And thanks to The Californian's niche market magazine/website, Bakotopia for reviewing our literary journal flagship.... READ THE REVIEW

Lauren Baratz-Logsted takes Noveltown into her world of Vertigo and beyond - By N.L. Belardes

Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Hers isn’t an easy name to learn or write. Call me a simpleton. Yet, if you said her name these days, I’d know exactly whom you were talking about. She’s a regular commenter on LitPark, a regular on myspace (She’s everywhere like a freakin’ ghost ninja), and a regular in the Noveltown Review with an article in the inaugural issue and a forthcoming article in our upcoming racier edition.

Her article, "The Working Writer: What Kind Of Writer Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?" is meant to help out writers who need the guidance to get successful. I know I need it. Who doesn’t need encouragement? I probably look forward to her next article more than anybody. On a personal level I’ve been through every emotion a novelist must face in the path of a hopeful literary career. I told writer Samantha Dunn recently, “Noveltown is built out of the lint of our pockets.” And so are most writing careers. It’s tough work. People like Lauren help us through the process of acceptance and understanding what it’s all about.

It’s what you learn from people that matters. And some writers, well, they just ooze with wisdom. That’s Lauren Baratz-Logsted. I’m in dire need of picking her brain, cloning her brain cells, and injecting them into my own. I could use some of her writing prowess, her determination to succeed, and I’m guessing here, but some of her skills at being a perfectionist.

I recently finished Lauren’s book, Vertigo. It's been getting mostly raves with a few dissenters on Amazon. Love or hate Vertigo, it’s masterfully written, a complete blend of historical fiction with erotic suspense. It takes skill to mimic culture and language, knowledge to provide historical detail, and ingenuity to delve such in a path of formulaic writing. Vertigo’s prim and proper language and spellbinding characterization of a corrupt novelist from yesteryear and his curious unsatisfied wife makes for a daring psychological journey into literary formula and storytelling.



Literary formulas aren’t bad. When done well there are purposeful twists within. They lead your mind down roads where the reader naturally stereotypes the outcome. If done well, as in Vertigo, then such works have the ability to set up and shock the reader’s own expectations of where a story is headed. Sure, there’s a formula in Vertigo. And Baratz-Logsted purposely strays. That’s a good formula story. Your mind goes one way, the story goes another. The reader gets fooled and thus should have a better time reading. Yet it’s still locked in a genre—the water rises along a yardstick of thought, drops, pushes back up in a swell of conflict, all within the range of the formula.

I won’t go on and on. Rather I’ll allow Lauren Baratz-Logsted to speak for herself.

Here’s Baratz-Logsted's interview with Noveltown:

Noveltown: How do you get away with writing both Victorian era fiction with erotic overtones and young adult novels? Aren’t you going to make granny librarians and young mothers angry at you?

Baratz-Logsted: To answer the first question, I get away with it simply by believing that if a writer is willing to work hard, and I am, she deserves to get the opportunity to stretch her writing muscles all over the place; that, and no one has asked me recently to change my name so they can “brand” me as a certain type of writer. As for the second question, I’ve been mostly lucky with granny librarians – oh, and by the way, as a former sort-of librarian, on behalf of all librarians everywhere may I slap you for that – and young mothers. I’ve also been very lucky with men, who mostly aren’t threatened by my books in the way some women are. I’ve had less success with ultra-conservatives, but you can’t please everyone and I perversely hope I never write the book that does. Honestly, if I don’t ruffle at least a few people, I’m probably not doing my job.

(Read the full article/interview)
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www.myspace.com/noveltown