Adventures in La La Land
AKA surviving this year’s AWP
I hopped off the plane at LAX, only to be greeted by grey skies and fifty-something Fahrenheit degree temperatures.
This was not the SoCal I was promised. This was not the SoCal I packed for! What place did my sandals and sundresses have in a city that suddenly seemed entirely devoid of good weather; that was reporting temperatures chillier than those at home in New York? I grumbled to myself as I called an Uber, then grumbled again as the driver pulled into bumper-to-bumper traffic on the I-105 freeway.
If I thought San Francisco wasn’t my jam, L.A. is even less so. The people are too pretty, too active. The buildings are too low, too flat. And as a person who can’t drive, getting around is nearly impossible. But I try to embrace every place I travel, and this was to be no exception.
I came to the City of Angels for the AWP conference and bookfair. The annual literary event brings together writers, students, journals, and small presses from across North America, theoretically to share ideas and learn about new voices through panels, offsites, and booths. In reality, I’ve usually found it to be an overwhelming and sleepless four days where I’m more likely to run into someone whose name I can’t remember (or worse, someone who turned me down for a job offer; or catastrophically, someone I very much disliked in graduate school) than to feel inspired. And yet I still wanted to attend as part of my job. I went so far as to volunteer to plan the company’s participation. Masochistic fear of missing out for the win…
Once I made this questionable commitment, I also decided I was going to do AWP differently than I have in the past. That I was going to do everything in my power to prevent burnout. This meant attending no panels, as well as no offsites. I knew on the tail end of Winter Institute in February and my recent walking pneumonia diagnosis I wouldn’t be able to handle so much socialization. All I planned to do was work my booth shifts, visit some bookstores, and chill in the sun. That is, if it ever graced me with its presence.
I stuck to this plan pretty well my first day. After dropping stuff off at the hotel, I met my colleague and roommate for the week Lucia at The Ripped Bodice in Culver City. We marvelled at the romance-themed goodies, picking up a few to take home. I bought so much I earned a free tote bag. Following visits to Malik Books and The Book Jewel, we then stopped in Santa Monica for a delicious South Asian dinner at Cobi’s.
The second day in La La Land proved more hectic thanks to my ambitious scheduling combined with terrible time management skills. I got a belated start heading to my first two bookstore tours: Echo Park’s artfully curated Des Pair Books and the indie press-minded North Figueroa Bookshop in Highland Park. I realized a bit too late in the game that traversing six-miles in L.A. is quite different from doing so in New York… This made me late to set-up the company booth at the bookfair, which took twice as long thanks to our materials being delivered to the wrong entrance of the convention center. I convinced myself I could get back on track as I slid into the backseat of another rideshare. All I needed to do was push my 3:30 PM drinks with my friend Marshall to 5:00.
Next up was Reparations Club in Jefferson Park, a beautiful, Black woman owned and curated space featuring not only great reads but also the best 70s-inspired vibes (think chartreuse paint, corduroy furniture, and a wall of vinyl records). Chevalier’s Books, Los Angeles’s oldest bookstore, was charming, too, offering everything from bestsellers to one-of-a-kind zines. I really wanted to explore its quaint Larchmont Village neighborhood, but alas. It was already ten ‘til five, in the heart of rush hour.
I’ve known Marshall for nine years, so he’s well acquainted with my struggle to realistically budget time around my job. I once left him sitting alone at a restaurant in London’s Chinatown for nearly three hours thanks to a presentation running wildly over. By comparison, showing up at 5:40 for drinks wasn’t bad. We caught up on his graduate program and adjustment to west coast life; on whether or not I would ever slow down my professional slog of duties to pursue my actual writing dreams. As one of the most consistent readers of this newsletter, Marshall harbored a little curiosity as to whether he might get mentioned in the L.A. recap. It was a nice chat, followed by a late-night trip to Skylight Books in the artsy Los Feliz neighborhood alongside a tasty gyro from Mediterranean café Spitz.
Wednesday in Los Angeles left me properly exhausted, but there was no chance to recover. Not when the AWP bookfair opened Thursday morning and I brilliantly scheduled myself for the first shift. I tried to re-energize by embracing the bustle. I met authors in-person who I’d only previously emailed and strolled the booth aisles for selective catch-ups. Drinks with old colleagues at the AC Hotel Rooftop Bar, a wonderful dinner at Beelman’s vegan-friendly pub, and Roxane Gay’s inspiring keynote made it all worth it.
Still, I really was wiped. I could feel it in my voice Friday morning as I downed cups of Earl Grey at breakfast before booking it to another early booth shift. My vocal chords frayed as I tried to sell folks on my press’s less popular titles, listening patiently as poets pitched me their collections despite the house I work for not publishing poetry. I used my afternoon break for a swim, trying to recharge for an event that evening at the natural wine bar and pizzeria Good Clean Fun; a mixer for authors of my press as well as current and former staff. It took a few glasses of orange wine to soothe my scratchy throat enough to comfortably mingle, but overall the night went well. I felt overly proud of myself for ordering exactly the right amount of food for a table of fifteen. And grateful to my mother for sending an Edible Arrangement so I returned to the delight of chocolate-covered strawberries.
Saturdays at AWP are always the hardest. It’s the busiest for the bookfair because it’s open to the public. Plus, it happened to be the moment my walking pneumonia symptoms came back with a vengeance. My head pounded as I tried to sell off the remainder of our booth stock, faking a smile through my sore throat. Annell López finally called my bluff, telling me to go rest. I followed orders, even if the advising relationship between Marketing Director and Author should really go the other way around.
I crawled my way to the hotel and rode the elevator to the rooftop pool. My lungs were too filled with mucus to swim, but I figured I could maybe get in a lounge chair nap. I wore my AirPods so I didn’t have to hear any of the kids splashing in the water or my own hacking cough. Mostly, I focused on taking deep breaths. Another successful conference was almost over. Soon, my travel schedule would ease. I’d even get some time off. I repeated the thoughts in my head, hoping they might convince my body to knock off the illness reboot; to be kind to me despite how I had run it ragged the past few days. That didn’t quite work. A week later and I’m still fighting off Pneumonia 2.0. But the world did eventually give me something nice in return.
A couple hours of interrupted sunshine where a warm glow settled onto my skin as I took a satisfying twenty-minute snooze.
Rachel’s Weekly Recs:
If you’re not already tuned into Rebel Ever After, you should be. The podcast hosted by author/sex and culture critic Ella Dawson dives deep into the world of romance, giving nuanced takes from diverse authors on the state of the genre and industry. A perfect commute or spring cleaning listen.
Chobani has put out a Confetti Birthday Cake flavor of their flippable Greek yogurts, and as a person about to turn a year older, I’m kind of obsessed. It’s a deliciously healthy sweet treat on the go, most especially perfect for the Aries and Tauruses in your lives.
In boring/adult news, I’ve been struggling to get into my dentist for a cleaning post-wisdom teeth removal and my teeth are showing it. Something that’s helped bridge the gap, though, is this Deep Stain Removal toothpaste from Crest. It’s not the cheapest, but it truly does show results from just one use.