The Last We Fake

Send a text Cameron Gomez reads his vision-filled but deeply human short story "Volcanoes, from Above: Oil on Canvas," then talks with Alan Rifkin about amusement parks out of season, risky career choices, and stories that decide not to be snarky and ironic. Gomez is a third-year English major at California State University, Long Beach, who dreams of glory, riches, and a better haircut....

Send a text Writer Brooke Prado reads her macabre, symbolically rich but never quite implausible modern parable, "The Hollow Book," developed this fall in an upper-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the perils of reading in the dark.  Prado's work has been published in multiple journals, including Chaffey Review an...

Send a text Long Beach's Rafael Zepeda ( Horse Medicine & Other Stories, The Yellow Ford of Texas, Can This Wolf Survive, Tao Driver) , whose deadpan prose style across many books has earned praise from authors like Jim Harrison and Edward Field, reads from his 2012 novel Desperados and his narrative poem "A Descent into Baja," then chats with host Alan Rifkin about poetry, Pica...

Send a text The finale of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, teleph...

Send a text Episode 11 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, teleph...

Send a text Episode 10 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, teleph...

Send a text Episode 9 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 8 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 7 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 6 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 5 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 4 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 3 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Episode 2 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telepho...

Send a text Season 2's original novel, titled SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, unfolds the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who come to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their tim...

Send a text Season 2's original novel, titled SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, unfolds the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who come to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their tim...

Send a text In this Season 1 finale, Dina Villegas reads and discusses her graceful, arresting, uplifting and disturbing ballad of ambition and imperfection, “The 100 Melodies of Dan Van,” which she developed in a lower-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach. A first-year student majoring in Political Science, Villegas is currently at work on a magical-realist fantasy...

Send a text Catherine Hein's former life took her from 20 years in the entertainment industry to two years in a homeless women's shelter. That's where Wanda Fleming--the tenacious, calamity-prone TV co-host fatale of Hein's historical novel, THE CELEBRITY--was born.  Called to her grandmother's funeral in the spring of 1962, the novel's heroine must face life without...

Send a text As baseball season takes hold, award-winning journalist, writer and editor Joe Donnelly reads his short story “Bonus Baby,” which was selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories collection of 2016.  Donnelly’s features, fiction and essays have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times , Los Angeles Review of Books , LA Weekly , Mother Jones , The Surfer’s Journal , The Washing...

Send a text State of California Beat Poet Laureate and novelist Rich Ferguson shares a playlist of his unique and prophetic LA works, each set to music and largely recorded during the Covid lockdown months of 2020-21. A winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match L.A., Ferguson has shared the stage with such poets and musicians as Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, and Moby; was a featured performer...

Send a text Flash fiction author and editor Meg Pokrass presents a Los Angeles trilogy titled "Her Own Music" and a standalone story, "Cash Register Tape," set in the San Fernando Valley, then chats with host Alan Rifkin about low points that promise everything.  Pokrass's work is featured in three Norton Anthologies of the flash fiction form, and her work was recently sel...

Send a text Novelist (THE ENTHUSIAST), screenwriter (OVER THE EDGE, TEX, GREMLINS 2, MATINEE), and feature writer (ESQUIRE, NEW YORKER, NEW WEST) Charlie Haas presents  a sneak preview of his new novel, SUNLAND--about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free-love bohemians who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world ov...

Send a text Episode 12 of  “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun.  Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward...

Send a text Episode 11 of  “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun.  Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward...

Send a text Episode 10 of  “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun.  Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward...