Lynell George
Lynell George is an award-winning Los Angeles–based journalist and essayist. She has been a staff writer for both L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles Times. Her work has appeared in various news outlets including the New York Times; Smithsonian; Vibe; Boom: A Journal of California Preservation; Sierra; Essence; and Ms. She was selected to be a University of Southern California Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism fellow in 2013 and received the Huntington Library’s Alan Jutzi Fellowship for her studies of California writer Octavia E. Butler in 2017. She is the recipient of a 2017 Grammy Award for her liner notes for Otis Redding Live at the Whisky A Go Go. George is the author of three books of nonfiction: No Crystal Stair: African Americans in the City of Angels (Verso/Doubleday); After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame (Angel City Press); and her most recent book, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler (Angel City Press), published in 2020, which was a Hugo Award finalist in the Best Related Work category in 2021.
Charting One’s Own Course
Susana M. Morris discusses her research for Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler and her subject’s legacy.
Lynell George on ‘Ode to ’Dena’
Conceived in the early days after the sweeping fires, the CAAM exhibition traces Altadena’s artistic history.
Slinky Grooves in an Uncertain Landscape
Lynell George considers the legacy of Dr. John the Night Tripper’s album in David Toop’s Two-Headed Doctor: Listening for Ghosts in Dr. John’s Gris-gris.
If He Hollers Let Him Go
Chester Himes’s If He Hollers Let Him Go explores race, rage, and resilience in 1940s Los Angeles through the eyes of a Black working-class man.
Recovering Burned Photos in Altadena
Claire Schwartz leads a community effort to recover keepsake images from the ashes and return them to their owners.
The Subterranean
In The Day and Night Books of Mardou Fox, Nisi Shawl gives new life to a character out of Kerouac.
Crenshaw at the Crossroads
An ambitious civic project aims to revitalize a historic Black neighborhood—without forgetting its past.
The Parable Is Now
Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, imagined a future in which California is inhospitable, weather is deadly, wealth disparities are vicious, and a presidential candidate may set the country back a hundred years. It all begins on July 20, 2024.
Radical Joy
In Blue on a Blue Palette, Lynne Thompson looks at Los Angeles in a different way.
A Reissued Novel Offers a Rare Look at Black Bohemian Life
Alison Mills Newman’s reissued novel, Francisco, describes the awakening of her 19-year-old self with intimacy and searing vitality.
Everyday People
With Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), Sly Stone sets the record straight.
A Different Way to Look at Coffee
The backstory of Tepito Coffee, a new outpost at a venerable L.A. bookstore, is as compelling as any narrative on the shelf.
The Search for Mardou Fox
She was the inspiration for Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans, but who was Alene Lee?
‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ Meets Los Angeles, 2023
Anna Deavere Smith’s landmark play, grounded in the past, gets a reboot for the present.
Song and Dance
In Laura Warrell’s first novel, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm, jazz becomes a character all its own.
Paper Pusher
The clean, crisp pages of a handmade journal help writer Lynell George puzzle out her thoughts.
Only Revolutions
Revolutionary Letters and Spring and Autumn Annals recall the power of Diane di Prima’s voice.
Playing a Sweet Mix of Gumbo
Chuck Taggart uses the music of his native New Orleans as a way to bring us all together.
‘A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky’
In A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky, Lynell George explores the inner life of the MacArthur-winning Pasadena writer Octavia E. Butler, who died in 2006.
Clora Bryant Blew Doors Open
Diane Keaton’s Family Album
In a new memoir, Diane Keaton disassembles her family’s narrative.
Fiction Picks
Fiction fans, take note: our fall picks feature two novels—wayward aunts and a small-press editor bent on mysteries—and two collections on the Chicano and Chinese American experience.
The Night Charlie Parker Soared in South Central L.A.
The jazz saxophonist gave a legendary after-hours performance at Jack’s Basket Room in 1947. No photos or recordings captured it, and last year a suspicious fire destroyed the L.A. building.