Former book editor/critic of the San Francisco Chronicle and NEA Director of Literature, David Kipen has contributed for years to the L.A. and NY Times, teaches writing at UCLA, and is the founder of the 11-year-old bilingual storefront nonprofit Libros Schmibros Lending Library in Boyle Heights. He is also the author of Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542-2018 (Modern Library), and is currently collecting material for the sequel, Dear California: The State in Diaries and Letters.
A 2020 L.A. Times article by Kipen — “85 years ago, FDR saved American writers: Could it happen again?” — has led to a bill now before Congress, Rep. Ted Lieu’s 21st-Century Federal Writers’ Project Act, aka H.R. 3054. (Supportive calls and letters to your own members of Congress welcome.)
He has also been a runner-up in the last two LA Press Club Awards in the Humor/Satire category, first for his short story “Time Turns Around at Musso & Frank” and then for his phony interview, “Thomas Pynchon Unmasked,” both in Alta magazine.”