Here on the frontier, things tend to appear and disappear, connected by long stretches of interior monologue. By which I mean: Driving.
Hence the psychic terrain of Los Angeles is singularity and fairy dust.
If LA is NY lying down, there are practical applications to the implied, trussed-up Literary Sofa where The West reads. Take New York—take its coffee houses, its pizza joints, the placarded-and-plated up storefronts, the number of different people you see on a given street, the new-and-remaindered bookstores, the way air feels on the skin, the corner pastry shop that seems to call well-dressed women and families to it like a magnet, and the moment you catch the eye of someone on a subway and something happens in your stomach or knees or the corners of your eyes…take those moments and stretch them over the 4,061 sq.mi. of Los Angeles county. Replace the subway with a metal box. Mow the lawn.
Then bring in the Poets…
Those of you reading this from anywhere else in the U.S.—you already know what I’m getting at—how creating a literary life outside a singularized, centralized literary hub is a subtle and delicate balancing act.
-Jenny Factor