Interviewed by Paul Massignani
Writ Large Press isn’t an indie press that prints a few books, sits back, and waits for something to happen. In 2008, after meeting at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, Judeth Oden Choi and Chiwan Choi (LA Weekly’s “Jay-Z of poetry”) founded Writ Large and, soon after, they partnered with Peter Woods and Jessica Ceballos, two mega-active forces of nature in the LA arts scene. The four of them form a sort of poetic Voltron that smashes through the old ideas about who experiences the arts, where they’re showcased, what disciplines to integrate, and even why one would do any of this anyway.
Bringing Peter on board, they partnered with his art/music/education grassroots movement Quality Collective, along with his reach as Development Director at The Roots and Wings Project, a nonprofit theater company.
Jessica Ceballos brought both her Bluebird and Poesia Para la Gente reading series with her to the press, along with a seat on the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, where she works on policy that supports the arts and cultural sustainability.
They stage readings and performance art on train platforms, galleries, and guerilla spaces. They partner with theater outfits, jazz ensembles, and visual artists. There was a series of poetry readings where the only copy of the book in existence was burned in front of the crowd after the poems were performed, never to be heard again. Live, visceral events are threaded into neighborhoods where most publishers and authors don’t go, and underserved people get to experience the vitality of the arts. I sat down with Jessica over breakfast in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood to talk shop.
PAUL MASSIGNANI: Writ Large seems to favor poetry, but is also open to interesting, original projects like Jose Luis Peixoto’s Antidote, a book of short stories based on a Moonspell goth metal album, each story corresponding to a song. The limited-run handbound poetry set from Boogie Nights and Big Love actress Melora Walters is another great one-off publication. What’s the Writ Large (or your) process, finding authors and works like these?
JESSICA CEBALLOS: All of the writers are friends now, or very close, or what they’re writing, the subject of what they write, or why they write, is something that Writ Large Press believes in. I think that shows in the dialogue and the discourse throughout the publishing process. It’s important, and rare when it comes to publishing authors from within the same close-knit community. To believe in them, to understand their process, and to help them connect to the outside, it’s part of that web, interconnectivity between author, publisher, audience, to build this communal type of infrastructure, hopefully. That’s how I see it anyways.
I came aboard Writ Large more as the development person, because I had ideas for expanding on outreach and grant writing for sustainability. We’d thought about it for a while, and I came on right about the time of the 90 for 90 events, that whole project. They’d already made the decision to publish Wendy (Hollywood Notebook). The planning of her tour is something I’ll have a lot of input on, aside from designing the book. But really, we all kind of work together on everything.
PM: What’s your vision for the future of literary events, in the internet age? What do you see as their potential?
JC: I’ve used Google Hangouts during readings, patching in LA writers who were in Israel and Scotland. I’d like to do more of that. I’m always interested in engaging the community, the audience, with the writing – in public spaces. And there is no greater public space than the internet right?
PM: What do you look for in emerging authors?
JC: Ooh. A voice, a defined voice, and good writing, that’s it. A unique way of saying what they have to say. Honesty and truth in that word, and not that ambiguous voice.
I’m excited about Traci’s work because it comes from a tortured place for her. It was something that was hard to write about. Chiwan is really great at coaching authors, bringing that stuff out.
I guess when you ask what I like in emerging writers, it’s that they’re emerging. To emerge, you’re inspired and you want to write, and that’s beautiful. We’re trying to inspire everyone to write, through Publish and DTLAB. Everybody. We want to be involved with people we like. Nice, personable, likable people. And those people don’t always define themselves as writers.
PM: Are all your writers LA-based?
JC: No, there’s a few that aren’t from LA. Peixoto is from Portugal.
PM: I get dizzy trying to keep up with all the events you’re going to and planning. Every day there’s something new on my Facebook feed. Can you talk about that, the passion for live performance?
JC: Community, number one. I see an importance. With Wendy’s book, for instance, I think it’s pretty spectacular, as are all the authors lined up right now with the press. Their writing is a catalyst for conversation. They can help start a dialogue that needs to happen in the community, regardless of color or background. I immediately can see, like when a painter looks at a blank canvas and sees a finished work, like with Wendy’s book, I immediately see how it can connect with a community. I’ve always felt that a book, although it’s important for the author to write the book and have it out, because that’s their voice, it should have an audience. There are so many books out there, so much art, but if it doesn’t have a need, a sense of purpose or community, it doesn’t interest me. Something like Hollywood Notebook, I’m immediately drawn to it and excited to bring it to the people, have people read it.
And there are so many voices in LA, so many individual experiences and so many talented artists that understand the importance of sharing that. But also, I’ll actually skip a Bluebird [her reading series] because I haven’t found someone I’m drawn to. There has to be something that’s important or significant. So with Wendy’s book, I’m excited to bring it out and showcase it in a way that excites people and starts a discourse. So, the next step is creating that event.
One of the most exciting series of events we did with Poesia Para La Gente was the Metro series in 2013. It was three or four readings on the LA Metro train, blue line, red line, all of them. The final event in the series was a bigger one, I had to get a permit. The permit killed it. As soon as we got it, it felt like it wasn’t something true, something unique. We still did it. On the gold line from Union Station to Pasadena, we had stops, people reading in the train, on the platforms, outside the stations. It was a blast. We’re going to do it again soon because there’s a need to engage in the community that way, but because we’re artists, we also need to explore new ways to engage.
PM: Was that a hole in the scene you wanted to patch?
JC: We weren’t the first to do something like that, but the difference is in who’s doing it, who’s invited to do these kinds of events. What communities are exposed to them? Which poets am I going to invite, from which particular community?
Like with Wendy’s book coming up. Its audience isn’t just made up of writers and poets, they’re people who have regular jobs, have challenges and journeys of their own. It might speak to them and help them out, if the environment also engaged them, spoke to them, spoke to the author.
PM: What kind of policy do you work on with the Highland Park Council to promote the arts?
JC: The Neighborhood Council itself, I’m a part of it as a way to help bring awareness of what’s happening in the community. I’m trying to do my part in curbing the changes that are happening there. We support policy and neighborhood development efforts that favor cultural and community sustainability over disproportionate economic advantage.
PM: Gentrification?
JC: Yeah. So many businesses and buildings are being purchased by developers. There was an urgent, last-minute meeting last night for instance, about a new apartment building that’s being proposed. There are a number of businesses trying to gain Neighborhood Council support, and obtain liquor licenses, in a town that already has over 35 liquor licenses. Stuff like that.
I encourage people to come out and voice their concerns. It’s great. We have access to $34,000, and it’s supposed to be redistributed into the community. The funds are earmarked for purposes of beautification, land use, schools, arts education, all that stuff. As council members, we have a say, by way of vote, in that process. When I came on, there was a really tiny budget for arts and culture. Some of it was for murals and stuff. I started the Arts and Culture Committee, we’ve had one meeting. I’m trying to figure out what to do with that. It’s tough. It’s weird.
How do you have a successful relationship between business and art, without exploiting or commodifying elements of it? Everything now is about business, especially in a neighborhood that’s going through these changes, and it seems that business and art are moving in different directions. I think for an economy to be sustainable they both have to coexist.
PM: So the events you’re putting on are fighting back against the gentrifying process?
JC: Building and/or strengthening existing communities are ways to fight gentrification, sure. We’re currently in the process of trying to find funding for a project that redefines the relationship between local small businesses and the arts, literary arts in particular, by using nontraditional spaces for connectivity and engagement. For instance, why are books only sold in bookstores? The people who write and read the books aren’t robots, and if they are maybe it’s time to deprogram.
PM: Writing circles need someone like you, someone entrepreneurial and passionate, to put these events on. A lot of writers are introverts who don’t take stuff like this on.
JC: Well, I think there are several important literary curators in Los Angeles. A lot of us are introverts. But the thing is, we do this so that our friends, the writers of color, in diverse communities, can be heard and read. We’re interested in the writers who aren’t going to be invited to certain readings because of the color of their skin, or judged by which school they went to, or didn’t go to.
PM: Does that happen a lot?
JC: I think so. There are circles people travel in, and that’s just the world we live in.
PM: Being in the middle of the scene for a long time, I’m sure you’ve seen changes in LA lit and poetry. What’s the state of the literary arts here?
JC: I’ve seen changes and I haven’t seen changes. Poesia I got involved with in late 2012. Doing that, because we specifically go out to communities that aren’t exposed to poetry so much, is when I realized how divided the literary community is, or at least how absent it is from people’s lives. Like the Metro project, we had poets come out from the Westside who had never been to the Eastside, never had that kind of discourse with people who had maybe never heard poetry, in all its splendor. I have a different, unique perspective because I’ve seen that, but with all the gentrification it’s a constant fight to get a diverse audience. Especially in places like Hollywood or Silverlake. The lineup of poets may be diverse, but the audience never is.
PM: They’re mostly white?
JC: Yeah, the audience will usually represent the neighborhood, or the venue. But it’s not always like that. And it’s changing. What I do hear, more and more, is that people want diversity. There’s more opportunities in publication for writers of color, and more dialogue. It comes and goes, though.
PM: Have you seen how your events affect people?
JC: Yes. 90 for 90 was a project we produced at Union Station. It was 90 literary events in 90 days. We had an event every single day, in the train station, at Traxx Bar. It’s a beautiful space. It was supposed to be somewhere else, it got moved there from Figaro’s, downtown. There were problems, after just a week of being there. We had to figure out a new space, while never losing a day’s event. It was wild. We had about 7,000 people come through, commuters, transients, all kinds of people. It was pretty amazing, and I think pretty inspiring for many people, from what we gathered throughout the time of the project.
PM: Were you completely exhausted after that?
JC: I can’t even explain. Also, during that time, I moved four times. Ended a relationship, started a relationship. Got rid of my car, got a bike, the bike got stolen. Got another bike. Peter [Woods, partner at Writ Large] has a family, has a baby at home. Judy finalized her process to start her Ph.D. program in Pittsburgh and was leaving her years-long teaching job. So Chiwan was realizing he was about to lose his wife for a few years, we’re all going through all this shit, job stuff, relationship stuff, health stuff, Chiwan’s dad was sick, and we had to come up with these events. It was crazy.
Even with all that, it was beautiful. We were bringing all these people together. But then, the 90 days are up and it’s all gone, immediately. Poof.
PM: That’s a huge responsibility, and important. If not you, who’s going to do that? You’re the only press I know of that puts on events this ambitious.
JC: Blame it on Chiwan. And his crazy ideas!
PM: Werner Herzog said that behind the stereotypical glitz and glamor, LA is a place with real cultural substance, aside from Hollywood. How does this crazy frontier city affect you, your writing, and writers (or other people) you know?
JC: I can only speak for myself, because my own writing is so personal, but I have generations here, and there’s a culture that speaks to my history. Right now, all I can think about is that we’re losing it, it’s been washed over. There are places that are trying to make sure it’s preserved… Actually, there isn’t. That’s what’s inspiring me.
There’s the LA noir, that kind of thing, but as a Chicana, the culture is about the migration, the leaving, the coming and going, the surviving, and of course the prospering, that’s what I think about.
I’ll be honest. I have so many personal experiences that are outside of LA, it’s not so much about place anymore. Because I’ve moved around a lot and I’ve carried the burdens, the loss, the dysfunction, the memories and history with me, place sometimes seems irrelevant. It kinda bums me out that maybe it’s not affecting my writing, like I want it to. Like, I’m getting kinda sick of the culturally relevant stuff that makes all of this so familiar, and that grounds me. It grounds me, but I’m sick of it. The struggle of fighting for cultural sustainability.
PM: Chiwan staged a reading, and symbolic burning, of his poetry collection Ghostmakers. No one will ever hold a copy of that book. Does an event like that make the connection to audience you’re looking for?
JC: This Ghostmakers project of Chiwan’s makes a connection to the audience, to self, to literature, to mind, mentality, emotion, and memory – not only that I’m looking for, but that we need. It deprograms and makes us reconfigure how we think about the book, about why we write, about who we write for, and makes us think about the process of listening, and when we’re in the process of listening to him read, it kind of forces us to reexamine our need to use our imagination. James Dickey once said, about poetry – “The more your encounter with poetry deepens, the more your experience of your own life will deepen, and you will begin to see things by means of words, and words by means of things.” Chiwan has given us a way to encounter words on the deepest level imaginable. We’re taught that words are cemented into this forever place, but this project has his words die. Think about it. It’s beautiful, and so tragic.
