The Brief

This weekend, an estimated 160,000 people will pour into the USC campus to attend the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books.

At the same time in New York City, some 20,000 people will gather at the Javits Convention Center in Hell’s Kitchen for BookCon, a tradition that dates back to 2014—and typically takes place in late spring.

Is this the beginning of a classic bicoastal rivalry? Are there enough authors to go around?

As BookCon marketing manager Fallon Prinzivalli tells it, the event landed on this weekend simply because it was “the closest that we could get” to the traditional late May/early June slot.

She also said tickets for BookCon sold out within hours.

“We knew we had an audience for it,” she told LAist. “But I do think the speed at which we sold out was very surprising, even to us.”

The L.A. Times festival, composed of outdoor and indoor events, was launched in 1996.

(

Courtesy Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

)

Mattie Schaffer, the driving force behind the L.A. Times’ festival, said she’s not worried.

“I think BookCon is such a different event,” she told LAist. “There's obviously a little bit of crossover in audience and authors, but I think there's enough room for multiple literary events. I kind of see it as a sign of how vibrant the book world is. It's giving opportunity for folks on both coasts to celebrate reading.”

What book lovers can expect  

On top of panels, workshops and the chance to have their books signed by their favorite writers, book lovers in NYC can expect “ immersive, fully built sets,” Prinzivalli said.

“People love a photo opportunity,” she added. “And, obviously, with the rise of TikTok and Instagram prioritizing reels, video content is also really important. So we want to provide those areas for our fans.”

The New York event will also feature book swaps, where readers can find texts with little notes from their former owners. At Indie Alley, they’ll have a chance to check out work by independent authors.

The L.A. Times event will also feature author panels, local booksellers and the chance to learn from the newsroom’s journalists. Outdoor events will be free to the public. Indoor events will require buying tickets.

“This year, we're really leaning into podcasts and audio books,” Schaffer said. “As people continue to listen more and more to books and podcasts on their phones, we're trying to meet them where they are.”

It’s not known how many authors were invited to both events, but despite a lack of public competitiveness between organizers, some authors have had to make a choice. And an LAist review of each guest list revealed little overlap among the scores of panelists, save for about half a dozen writers.

Julia Whelan’s Coachella   

Julia Whelan is one of the few panelists at both events—a renowned author, screenwriter, actor and audiobook narrator.

Book festivals are her Coachella, she said. “You can just go meander from rockstar to rockstar to rockstar.”

Whelan—whose debut novel, “My Oxford Year,” is now a movie on Netflix—will start her weekend at USC with an 11 a.m. panel titled “Masters of the Mic: The Narrators Defining the Sound of Modern Storytelling.”

After that, she’ll take a red eye flight to New York, where she’ll be part of a panel titled “Narrating Blockbuster Audiobooks.”

Whelan—the recipient of Spotify’s 2025 Narrator of the Year Award (meaning she was the most listened-to narrator globally) and many other prizes— is also the founder of Audiobrary, an audio publisher that aims to ensure artists are properly compensated in the industry.

She’s not looking forward to bouncing from one coast to another, she told LAist. But she is excited for the panels.

“I just can't say no to being able to preach the gospel of audiobooks in front of very keen and excited readers and listeners,” she said.

Which is why the two simultaneous events don’t faze her; the more opportunities to celebrate books and the institutions that serve them, the better. Before and after the festivals, she’ll crisscross the country to speak at various libraries.

“ I have a little soft spot” for the L.A. Times Festival of Books, Julia Whelan (left) said. First-time readers lined up to have her sign her work there in 2018.

(

Courtesy Julia Whelan

)

Whelan, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Middlebury College in Vermont, said she “graduated with a certain idea about what constituted ‘good literature,’ with a capital L.”

Narrating audiobooks “very quickly de-snobbed me,” she added. “Suddenly, I was reading books across all categories and genres that I would've never picked up on my own as I would walk through a bookstore with my nose in the air.”

Now, Whelan said, she reads everything. “I'm interested in every type of storytelling.”

 If left to her own devices at a bookstore—or festival—she said, “I will always find myself in romance, because that's just my happy place. But I love historical fiction. I love historical nonfiction. (I like a lot of dad literature.) . . . I will truly pick up anything.”

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

(

Herman J. Schultheis

/

Los Angeles Public Library

)

Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

(

Los Angeles Public Library

)

Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

(

Los Angeles Public Library

)

A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

(

Larry Leach

/

Los Angeles Public Library

)

“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

(

Los Angeles Public Library

)

Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.