Author: Los Angeles Press Club

By C. Tillman A looming grey cloud coming from off in the distance. I remember wishing this wasn’t going to be bad. It was though- even worse. Then it began-sharing what I read and what I heard on CNN (clown’s nemesis). Clown, you ask- well we shall save that for the follow up article, should I write another. Covid-19, arrival date January 15, 2020 (3 months, 1 week and 2 days ago). What you were doing when you learned? Did you take it seriously? Where on the scale did you…

See More

By Sorina Szakacs I open my eyes and look at my phone. It’s 5:30 a.m., April 7th, day 19 of Los Angeles’ “Safe at home order”. My days are usually the same, even on weekends. I wake up before the sunrise, make a cup of coffee, and go on the balcony. I sit there until the sun sets, alternating coffee with wine, reading, and writing. I hear a door slam. I get up and look toward the street like those old bored at home ladies, ready to see some juicy…

See More

By Sharon Stello Cooking, dishes, laundry, TV, reading, repeat. My boyfriend is an essential worker, still going into the office, so I’m at home alone until he returns. One day blurs into the next and I can’t help feeling like a housewife in the 1960s-era “Mad Men” show I finally had time to watch. Of course, during this modern-day quarantine, we have the benefit of technology, so Facebook memes, Zoom game days, streaming television and Instagram live concerts also fill my hours. I have no children to homeschool and I’ve…

See More

By Paul Rogers “We’re ordered to stay home,” announced the text message, surprising me in the mostly black-spot wilderness of Indian Canyon. I strode on a few more steps; down to the seasonal stream that was the turnaround point of my hike. Recent rain propelled it across the otherwise dusty fire road with incongruous, picturesque purpose. “Okay,” I responded flatly, as not to inflame panic. “Will be home by dark.” A futile orange circle spun next to my words – they probably wouldn’t reach my wife before I did. It…

See More

By Matthew Rodriguez Every time I unlock my phone, the negatives seem to pile up — the worldwide shutdown, the increasing number of deaths and the seemingly endless supply of bad news. However, I try to focus on the positives — the extra time I have to play videogames, the FaceTime calls with my parents and the times I sneak out of quarantine to watch romantic comedies with an old fraternity brother. I can’t do much else. Prior to being locked-up in my West-LA apartment, blocks away from my favorite…

See More

By Olivia Remedios DEAR Coronavirus, I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We are the Quaranteens. Our world was never prepared for a collision like this, although there were signs that could have changed everything. Since you are sticking around for a while, closing down schools and putting families out of jobs, we wanted to tell you a few things about us. We know that no one asked for this, but specifically we didn’t ask for our childhood to be ripped away right when we thought it was time to say…

See More

By Jon Regardie In the time of the coronavirus, many of us have one thing in common: We’d do just about anything to gain access to Doc Brown’s time-traveling DeLorean from the Back to the Future movies. Just think— those doors swing up instead of out! Of course, it would also be nice to pull a Marty McFly and zip out of 2020 and into the past or the future, and to escape the incessant conversations and dark inner thoughts related to illness, death, quarantine, lost work and depleted bank…

See More

By Marieke Oudejans When I was seven and a half years old, we moved from a small town in the Netherlands to the big bustling city of Bangkok, Thailand. I was woefully unprepared, but adapted amazingly well. The farewell gift from my classmates had been a collection of their drawings depicting my future life. It showed me in front of a wooden house on stilts, lounging in a hammock strung to palm trees, holding monkeys in my lap. This was an era when people did not travel far. No one…

See More

By Rachel Monge The coronavirus took away my prom, graduation ceremony and my 18th birthday party. Although, those were once in a lifetime moments I would not ask for them back but instead I would ask for the rest of America to wake up and move forward. I’ve been working part-time at a grocery store since the summer of my junior year. However, the pandemic closed down my mother’s factory and I was left to work full-time to keep our household afloat. Working 6 days out of the week during…

See More

By Devra Maza  Writers are naturals at social distancing. We live in our minds, tossing thoughts out like lifelines, while transforming blank pages into stories. So when a “stay-at-home” order was issued in Los Angeles to slow the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus, sending everyone home to stare at computers, I couldn’t help but think, “Now everyone’ll know what it feels like to be a writer.” I was deep in research on March’s Friday the 13th (go figure) when the public library and Getty museum abruptly closed. Not slated…

See More