LA Observed at the Festival of Books this weekend

LA Observed file photo of Bill Boyarsky at the book festival.

Hi all. I'll be back at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC on both Saturday and Sunday. It's always a fun event for seeing panels, catching up with friends and for me it's great to talk to LA Observed regulars when they stop by. I'll be at the Angel City Press booth from 2 to 4 p.m. on both days and around the festival before and after. ACP's booth is number 119, near Tommy Trojan on the main run and next to the large Vroman's display. I'll be signing "Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles" and chatting with anyone who wants to talk about Los Angeles. Sadly, "San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb" is out of print, but if you feel like talking about the Valley (and buying one of Angel City Press' other great LA titles) come by anyway.

Bill Boyarsky, our longtime politics columnist, posted yesterday about his scheduled conversation with former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan on Saturday afternoon in the Norris Theater. Here's his sneak peek at the discussion, pegged to Riordan's new memoir.

Elsewhere on the festival schedule, LA Observed columnist Jon Christensen will be on a Saturday panel at 11 a.m. titled "Pushing for Change: Our Environmental Future." Michael Hiltzik of the Times is the moderator and Jon is on a panel with Erik Conway, Jennifer Jacquet and Margo Oge.

On Saturday at 12:30 p.m., LA Observed contributor Cari Beauchamp will be on a panel in the Andrus Gerontology Center titled "All That Glitters: Arts in a Golden Age." M.G. Lord moderates the panel, which also includes Barbara Isenberg and Ben Yagoda. Cari's latest book is "My First Time in Hollywood: Stories from the Pioneers, Dreamers and Misfits Who Made the Movies." Here's what publisher Asahina & Wallace says about the book:

In "My First Time in Hollywood," over forty legends of the film business—half of them women—recount their first trip to Southern California. Actors, directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and editors recall their initial impressions, their struggle to find work, and the love for making movies that kept them going. Drawn from letters, speeches, oral histories, memoirs, and autobiographies, each story is intimate and unique, but all speak to our universal need to follow our passions and be part of a community that feeds the soul.

Some of those whose stories are included in "My First Time in Hollywood" are: Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Cecil B. DeMille, Anita Loos, King Vidor, Hedda Hopper, Gloria Swanson, Budd Schulberg, Ben Hecht, and Noėl Coward.

Cari Beauchamp is the award-winning author of "Without Lying Down: Francis Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood" (Scribner, 1997; UC Press, 1998), "Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years" (Knopf, 2008) and four other books of Hollywood history. She has written for Vanity Fair and a variety of magazines as well as writing documentary films that were nominated for Emmy and Writers' Guild Awards. She is the only person to twice be named an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences film scholar and lives in Los Angeles.

On Saturday at 3 p.m., our past contributor Denise Hamilton will moderate a panel on young adult fiction with Josephine Angelini, Catherine Linka and Margaret Stohl. And on Sunday at 3:30 p.m., past contributor Deanne Stillman will join in a panel called "Narrative Journalism: Writing American Crime." She will be with moderator Tom Zoellner and authors Ruben Castaneda, Sam Quinones and Barry Siegel.

The book festival runs Saturday and Sunday all over the campus at USC. Full schedule.