Dear Booklovers,

Get used to that subject line, I'm afraid! Libros Schmibros will be turning 10 from July 19 this year all the way til July 19 next year. As a full-time journalist, I used to hate anniversaries, since they took up space that might otherwise go to current events. Now, as more of a bookman, I love anniversaries, since they give us an excuse to read about how we got here. (Sometimes I also love them precisely because they take up space that might otherwise go to current events.)

I especially love the 10th anniversary of Libros Schmibros, because it reaffirms our team's commitment to putting books into people's hands in Boyle Heights -- and to experimenting with other, newer ways of connecting books and people. Such as:

1) Our Summer Fellowships, which kicked off just outside Libros last Monday with four gifted Boyle Heights students settling in for a monthlong seminar in the history, politics and literature of Los Angeles. Here's Eduardo R., unmasked between bites of a First Street Tacos burrito, confiding to paper his impressions of L.A. alongside his physically distanced classmates:

2) The Libros Schmibros Podcast, which continues to make us new friends near and far. This month marks the interviewing debut of Libros mainstay Cuauhtémoc Hernández, who sought out and interviewed KPCC's Walter Thompson-Hernández (no relation), late of the New York Times and now the author of The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland.

Also just posted is my interview with John Logan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and creator of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which takes place in 1938 in an L.A. barrio called, ahem, "Belvedere Heights."

Stay tuned later this month for podcasts with National Book Award and Pulitzer-nominated historian Jill Lepore (These Truths), GENTE-fied actress and director Brenda Banda, and artist Gajin Fujita, whose work lives in everybody's pocket on their L.A. library card.

So subscribe to the Libros Schmibros podcast -- especially now that I'm finally learning not to shout on Zoom!

That's it for now. Happy anniversary to us, to you -- and to the Federal Writers Project, which officially turns 85 on July 27, and may yet ride again, if Libros has its way. Email and ask me how you can help.

Oh yes -- if you are able, please at least consider clicking on the Donut Button below. And thanks, always!

David and the whole Libros team

Libros is Turning 10!