Adrienne Crew

We're constantly surprised to discover that people with the darkest sensibilities live in this blindingly bright city. Somehow these individuals learn to survive and thrive in an area famous for its sunshine. For example, artist/musician Dame Darcy chooses to live in our city instead of more appropriately goth-inspiring spots like San Francisco or New York or Prague. Darcy is a startlingly prolific author whose style can best be described as "Francesca Lia Block meets...

Born in Japan as the only child of a Japanese mother and Anglo American father, novelist Nina Revoyr now makes her home in Los Angeles. Nina mines childhood experiences living in South Central to craft exquisite novels about the historical interrelationships between Angelenos of Asian American and African American descent. Indeed, her second novel, Southland, literally explores the historical connection between the two communities as the book's protagonist tries to solve a family mystery involving...

William Jones is an experimental filmmaker and photographer. While he primarily focuses on issues of gay identity, he's always keen to document his fascination with film and music subcultures. In 2004, he made the film Is It Really So Strange, a documentary about the SoCal subculture of Morrissey devotees. William's work has been displayed all over the world, including England, Brazil, Austria, Slovenia and Singapore. An exhibit of his videos will open at David Kordansky...

John Sylvain produces websites, films and theater. He is also a writer, actor, director and father. John possesses a singular talent for organizing performing arts troupes; a knack that enriches us all. Fresh out of college, he helped found The Annex Theater in Seattle. After moving down to Los Angeles in the '90s, he started the Sacred Fools Theatre Company, one of Los Angeles's most prolific and innovative theater companies. How can you not love...

It's a moment every writer either dreads or dreams of — the appearance of your very own fan base. It's even more mind-blowing when a fan base coalesces around a book that hasn't even been published yet. Such is the dilemma facing LAist.com's resident provocateur, Paul Davidson. One of Paul's loyal readers, Kevin Apgar, has organized a "Grassroots Blogger Book Marketing Campaign" or GBBMC to promote Paul's latest book, "The Lost Blogs: From Jesus...

Vanessa Grigoriadis is a fearless and whip-smart journalist whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, New York and Radar magazines. A recent LA transplant, Vanessa excels at writing influential trend analyses and razor sharp profiles. In 1998, she authored the infamous New York feature "Power Girls," about Lizzie Grubman and other power publicists/socialites. Lizzie Grubman subsequently appropriated the article's title and made it the basis of her own reality series on MTV. It hasn't taken...

Southern California is so big that it's easy to lose sight of all its treasures, especially living ones. In our myopia, we tend to think that most writers identified with our region all live west of I-15 and south of I-405. Novelist Susan Straight challenges that presumption just as her work challenges so many other notions about race, class and Californian culture. A lifelong resident of Riverside, Susan has authored five novels, including "Highwire...

Austin Young is our final respondent from the Fallen Fruit Project, which, incidentally, is about more than a couple of guys wandering the streets with a fruit picker and paper bags. This group also makes art. Their work is on view at these locations through the end of the month: http://www.artleak.org/civicmatters/">Civic Matters exhibit at LACE and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art downtown. Co-founder Austin Young is a photographer and filmmaker. His work...

This is part two of our three part LAist Interview with the founders of the Fallen Fruit Project. Dave, Mathias and Austin fight for the betterment of Los Angeles on a number of fronts. In addition to their work with the Fallen Fruit Project, the collaborators submitted a proposal for an Endless Orchard to the Grand Intervention Grand Avenue park design competition organized by the Norman Lear Project and the Los Angeles Times. Dave...

Spring is less than 7 days away. What better way to greet the new season's arrival than to focus on the Fallen Fruit Project, which distributes maps of places where people can pick free fruit throughout Los Angeles. The collective also hosts foraging sorties. You can check their website for info on upcoming sorties and maps. Dave Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young started the organization as an art project for "The Journal of Aesthetics...