While doing background research for “Masterpieces and Ballrooms,” we delved into the world of Xiem Clay Center, deeper and deeper, until we found ceramist Sharon Mann. She was kind enough to answer some questions: HP: Since you’ve been creating, have you always been working with clay or did you arrive here after drawing, painting, photography, […]
Walking up Patrick Gothard’s driveway, it’s clear an artist lives at the end. Not only is it located high up in Altadena, where pine needles line the streets in all seasons and painted rocks mark house numbers, but the yard is filled with empty easels and paintings are scattered underneath the carport. A cat […]
“He teases out lyricism from the most mundane words, and significance from the most mundane situations,” says author Gene Yang. He is speaking about Ron Koertge, the highly prolific South Pasadenan author who’s newest book is a collection of flash fiction titled Sex World. The title story, it turns out, isn’t about sex at all […]
“Notes from the Chicano Sublime” is an exhibition of abstract work that brings into focus ideas that border on otherworldly themes associated with the cosmic, biological and spiritual worlds, writes curator and contributing artist Linda Arreola. This is where the beauty of the sublime is found…not in what we recognize but rather in what we have […]
Pasadena’s Prospect Park Books is feeling good. Their newest author Karen Rizzo is one of the readers at this year’s Los Angeles’ Literary Death Match “competition.” Rizzo’s debut novel Famous Baby is about a “mommy blogger” who’s 18-year-old daughter—the subject of many (too, too many) blogs—kidnaps her grandmother to save her from the same fate. The novel […]
About a year ago, I was asked if I might be willing to help build a spaceship. Since I spend my days looking at a screen and typing at a keyboard, I was a bit hesitant, especially as the weekends spent in the garage with my dad building a Bugatti (a VW kit car), which eventually […]
One thing we love about writing and publishing Hometown Pasadena is that we read in order to write book reviews. Since reading is one of our favorite pastimes and a perfect vehicle for endless procrastination (which legitimately can be labeled “work”), we snapped up Jacqueline Winspear‘s new novel The Care and Management of Lies, headed straight to Vroman’s […]
From its shocking opening to its dream-like ending, Désirée Zamorano’s The Amado Women dishes out secrets, lies, and hurts as fast as we can gobble them up. This is how Hometown Pasadena contributor Petrea Burchard begins her review of Zamorano’s new novel. Désirée Zamorano is Pushcart prize nominee and an award-winning short story writer. She’s had commentaries published […]
The Women’s City Club of Pasadena was founded 70 years ago by Gloria Gartz who also donated the historic Blinn House to the cause. Gloria Gartz proved herself to be a catalyst of community contributions in Southern California, in particular in the Pasadena community. Ms. Gartz, was an Altadena native, daughter to A.F. Gartz, a […]
It’s a week for big names, new names, and the Stephen Colbert bump. Jacqueline Winspear, bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series, remains fascinated by the “war to end all wars” World War I. This time, rather than incorporate her ruminations via investigator Dobbs, Winspear has written the stand alone novel The Care and Management […]
