Press Release: Los Feliz Writers Festival 2025

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First Ever Los Feliz Writers Festival on August 23 & 24 Hopes to Celebrate, Connect, and Empower Hyperlocal Writers

(LOS ANGELES – August 6, 2025) On August 23rd and 24th, the first ever Los Feliz Writers Festival will be celebrating the voices of Los Feliz and creating spaces for the community to write together! They will have flash fiction writing competitions with prizes donated by local businesses; poetry writing workshops, literary trivia, zine-making, a community mic, and more. The intention of the festival is to create a safe and welcoming environment for all the voices of Los Feliz to connect and share their work. The festival is organized with support from the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, as well as 23 local organizations.

Sammy Ginsberg and DW Socha, the co-directors of the Los Feliz Writers Festival, met last year at the Skylight Bookstore Coyotes Book Club, as well as through the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council committees. They are both writers themselves who love the local neighborhood and community. They wanted to organize a festival that represented what they think of as Los Feliz- fun, creative, and a little weird.

See below for schedule of events:

9am to 12pm, Saturday, August 23, Philz Coffeebar: Trashy Stories with Sammy Ginsberg, aka the Literary Pixie

Our festival will begin with our first writing competition, Trashy Stories! First we will meet at the corner of Ambrose and Hillhurst to volunteer with our fav Los Feliz Trash Busters. We will participate in a community service clean up from 9am to 10am. All equipment will be provided!

Then we will head over to Philz Coffee, and write a piece of flash fiction inspired by the trash we find. Participants will have from 10am to 11:30am to drink coffee, write, and edit, before submitting. All flash fiction pieces will be read live at the event and as a group we will vote for our favorites based on a few different criteria. The pieces that receive the most votes will receive a prize!

Prizes have been donated by Bru Coffeebar, Write Bloody Press, Sunflower Station Press,Palermos, and Liza Shtromberg Jewelry.

The event will be facilitated by Sammy Ginsberg, the editor of Literary Pixie & co-director of the Los Feliz Writers Festival.

All participants will be able to submit their piece to the literary magazine TrashLit, published by Literary Pixie, which will be launching on World Clean Up Day on September 20th, 2025. We are grateful to Philz Coffee for hosting us! Make sure to grab a coffee and support our local business.

12:30pm to 2pm Saturday, August 23, Desert Rose: Poetry and Pita with Derrick C. Brown, President of Write Bloody Publishing

Inspired by Lunch Poems by Frank O’ Hara, we will have our own version of lunch poems with a poetry workshop by Derrick C. Brown titled “This Your River is Waiting” at the Desert Rose.

Derrick has been on both sides of the publishing desk, and knows exactly what works. He is the president of Writing Bloody Publishing, as well as the Texas Book of the Year winner.

As this is a free event, food is not included – however, we hope you will enjoy a delicious lunch at the Desert Rose while Derrick shares about:

(1) the four kinds of writers block, and how to crush it;

(2) basic craft techniques to make your poems ready for public consumption;

(3) a short primer on understanding poetry publishing;

(4) a Q &A. It’s time to break through.

We are grateful to the Desert Rose for hosting us! Make sure to enjoy some lunch and support our local business.

3pm to 5pm, Saturday, August 23, Bru Coffeebar: Los Feliz Scavenger Hunt with DW and Ryan Socha

Meet us at Bru, where we will send you on a scavenger hunt to visit our delightful local businesses on Vermont Ave to find the three prompts that our hosts DW and Ryan Socha have placed in the stores. Once you find all three, return to Bru to write a 100 word short story that incorporates all the prompts!

All flash fiction pieces will be read live at the event and as a group we will vote for our favorites based on a few different criteria. The pieces that receive the most votes will receive a prize! Prizes have been donated by Bru Coffeebar, Write Bloody Press, Sunflower Station Press,Palermos, and Liza Shtromberg Jewelry.

The event will be facilitated by DW Socha, local author, publisher of the Griffith Globe, and co-director of the Los Feliz Writers Festival & Ryan Socha, founder of E2M Nonprofit & organizer of the Los Feliz Writers Festival.

We are grateful to Bru Coffeebar for hosting us, as well as donating a prize to our competition! Make sure to grab a coffee and support our local business.

7pm to 9pm Saturday, August 23, Barnsdall Art Gallery: Voices of Los Feliz Celebration & Open Mic

Our Los Feliz Writers Festival showcase is our Voices of Los Feliz event at the Barnsdall Art Gallery. Writers of Los Feliz each get up to 3 minutes to share their voice as the sun sets. There will be some chairs, but feel free to bring your own and blankets.

We will be there from 6:30pm with performances starting at 7pm with breaks at 7:45pm and 8:30pm. There will be some journaling and live writing as well! We will also have a bookstore where you can purchase the work by those performing and local presses such as Sunflower Station, Los Angeles Breakfast Club, and Write Bloody. Bring your own food and have a picnic! There will be some music at the end and most likely an afterparty…

This event is organized in partnership with the Barnsdall Art Park and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Our writers who will be performing are: Alex Moreno @alexhere.ok; Alexa Wise @lex.spex.42;Alionka Polanco @alionkapolanco; Ben Deeb @deebthoughts; CD Eskilson @cdeskilson; Derrick C. Brown @derrickbrownpoetry; DW Socha @sochafarmwest; Gregory L Virgin @gregoryvirgin; Hanna Pachman @caffeinatedcat; Isabella Bellezza; Jennifer Baptiste @wheresmsb; Juan Amador @thee_amador; Keleigh Ferguson @keleighmaureen; Lenny Love Jr. @lennylovejr
Molly Sanchez @mollyfuckingsanchez; Rebecca Slater; Ryan Socha @directorryan; Sammy Ginsberg @literarypixie; Sandi Hemmerlein @avoidingregret; Sharon Yablon; Tim Kirk @tim2kirk; and william j meyer.

We may have some open mic slots on the day as well.

11am to 1:30pm Sunday, August 24, Porchfest LA HQ: Zine-making brunch with Porchfest

From 11am to 1:30pm, we’ll be making zines, eating Boichik Bagels, and hanging out at the Porch HQ of Porchfest LA, a 100% free performance art festival taking place November 1 and 2 where residents turn their porches into performance spaces sharing music, performance art, stand-up, story-telling, clowning, and more with the local community!

We’ll be hosting a Los Feliz Writers Festival porch in November and would love to get as many writers involved. Sammy Ginsberg will be organizing. She publishes The Feminist Toilet & Trashlit as part of Literary Pixie, and has tabled at the LA Zine Fair! She is always looking for submission (poetry, prose, art, etc).

We’re grateful to Boichik Bagels for donating to this event! Go and check them out if you haven’t already on Sunset Blvd!

3pm to 5pm Sunday, August 24, Tabula Rasa: Poet Laureate Announcement & Literary Trivia with Molly Sanchez

Our finale for our first ever Los Feliz Writers Festival is Literary Trivia Evening with Molly Sanchez at Tabula Rasa where our Los Feliz Poet Laureate will be announced. Will that be a question? Molly Sanchez is a writer and comedian who has performed at the Netflix Is a Joke Festival, The LA Comedy Store and various other hives of scum and villainy. She co-hosts The Blume Saloon, a Judy Blume book club podcast and is an officially published fan fiction author. Her night of literary trivia will feature rounds dedicated to Los Angeles Authors/literature, YA, Book Boyfriends, and much more for the grand prize of X. Plus if you’re reading this here’s a hint! Tabula Rasa (a natural wine bar est. 2016) is a Latin term for “blank slate” mentioned by John Locke in his 1689 work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

This is a free festival organized by volunteers with the support of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council.

About the Los Feliz Writers Festival

The Los Feliz Writers Festival is an annual festival that will launch on August 23rd and 24th, 2025 focused on creating a space for Los Feliz writers and literary texts to be shared, celebrated, and developed in community. View our website. @losfelizwriters

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