Slake: Los Angeles, "Still Life"

I just read the first issue of Slake: Los Angeles, a new LA based literary and art quarterly founded by Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly. This issue was called "Still Life". They are actually about to publish their third issue but a friend just turned me on to them and I thought I would start at their beginning.

Slake is a beautiful book, and as an angelino I immediately was drawn to it. It provides a beautiful array of perspectives on what it is like to live in Los Angeles, and especially to grow up here. Although many of the pieces are located in Los Angeles, most are only vaguely connected and will appeal to a wider audience. The book has a number of pieces of fiction and poetry, but seems especially dedicated to narrative journalism (which you hardly find anywhere). For that reason it is truly unique.

There was an interesting piece on the role of poetry in the life of the writer by Mark Z. Danielewski, another on fruit art by pulitzer prize winner Jonathan Gold, a work of memoir on mexican-american identity by Daniel Hernandez, and a fantastic piece by David Schneider (which Slake's twitter account informed me just won a Los Angeles journalism award). Other contributors include Jerry Stahl, Michelle Huneven, C.R. Stecyk III, Dana Goodyear, John Albert, Lauren Weedman, Victoria Patterson, Richard Lange, Mary Woronov, Sandow Birk, Margaret Wertheim, and Ben Ehrenreich.