Poets and writers explore the devastation of the cataclysmic 2025 fires in Los Angeles, California, penetrating the unfathomable despair of losing everything, exposing the struggle with the ensuing grief, and, through it all, summoning the courage to rise again.

Fueled by dry conditions and relentless Santa Ana winds rushing over the landscape with speeds upwards of 100 miles per hour, everything bending to the will of the wind, the spark of Los Angeles’s January 2025 fires exploded into an unprecedented gut wrenching apocalypse.

In this superbly curated collection, edited by award-winning L.A. poets S.A. Griffin and Richard Modiano, contemporary poets and writers from L.A. and beyond explore the intense horror of devastating loss, the helplessness of watching from across the country, the grief in the aftermath, and the resolve to rise again together from the ashes.

Contributors include: Susan Auerbach, Lin Nelson Benedek, Mary Anne Berry, Michelle Bitting, Laurel Ann Bogen, Lynne Bronstein, Jeffrey Bryant, Mona Jean Cedar, Teresa Mei Chuc, Jeanette Clough, Brendan Constantine, Iris De Anda, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Rich Ferguson, Kathleen Florence, Land Flowers, Kat Georges, S.A. Griffin, Spencer L. Griffin, Susan Hayden, Steve Hochman, jerry the priest, La Rombé, Tom Laichas, Rick Lupert, Suzanne Lummis, Phoebe MacAdams, Sarah Maclay, kamla maya, Holaday Mason, Ellyn Maybe, Richard Modiano, Bill Mohr, Chris Morris, K.R. Morrison, Majid Naficy, Jim Natal, Harry E. Northup, Cynthia Perello, Puma Perl, Kennon B. Raines, Nicca Ray, Riot Renwick, Marilyn N. Robertson, Beth Ruscio, Cathie Sandstrom, Dan Saucedo, Maryrose Smyth, Mike Sonksen, A.K. Toney, David L. Ulin, jimmy vega, Pam Ward, Dig Wayne, Hilda Weiss, Jessica M. Wilson, Gail Wronsky, and Z.

“A smorgasbord for those who are sick and tired of it.” —Seattle Book Review

“Three Rooms Press doesn’t just preserve Dada—they evolve it . . . In an era dominated by algorithmic taste-making and cautious professionalism, Maintenant stands defiantly outside the gate, throwing ink at the walls and planting flags in dreams.” —Richard Modiano, author, The Forbidden Lunchbox

Politics has taken its turn to arrive at the worst and the creatures involved have become LOLiticians, their every move from either side laughable—that is, if you still believe in truth. In Maintenant 20: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art, we examine the concept of “Improperganda,” with 250 contributors from around the world exploring the idea that without truth, there’s no need for disapproval.

The Maintenant Dada series, established in 2008, explores themes of politics, humanity, philosophy, and current concerns from an antiwar, anarchic (and often eye-opening) perspective. Past issues include work by artists Mark Kostabi, Raymond Pettibon, Joel Hubaut, Heide Hatry, Avelino de Araujo, Pawel Kuczynski, Inas Al-Soqi, Giovanni Fontana, Nicole Eisenmann, Syporca Whandal, and Kazunori Murakami; past writers have included Gerard Malanga, Charles Plymell, Andrei Codrescu, Harry E. Northup, Malik Crumpler, Maw Shein Win, and more, with a strong contingent of artist-writers from the world of punk rock, including Thurston Moore, Mike Watt, Bibbe Hansen and more.

In this powerful new biography, the legendary fin-de-siècle adventuress Isabelle Eberhardt emerges as a radically modern figure who lived on her own terms—crossing boundaries of gender, faith, empire, and identity.

In The Immortal Journeys of Isabelle Eberhardt, acclaimed scholar Hédi D. Jaouad offers a bold reexamination of the Swiss-born writer and adventurer whose short life (1877–1904) has long been romanticized, misread, or exoticized. Unlike previous biographies, this book centers the profound relationship between Eberhardt’s writing and the geographies she crossed—revealing how her identity, art, and inner life were shaped not by chronology, but by place. Her story is not one of linear progress, but of dislocation and expansion—where belonging is fluid, and selfhood is constantly rewritten across deserts, ports, souks, and borderlands.

Divided into two parts—“Isabelle Bound” and “Isabelle Unbound”—the book traces Eberhardt’s evolution from a precocious outcast in Geneva to a shape-shifting wanderer in colonial North Africa who lived disguised as an Arab man, converted to Islam, joined a Sufi brotherhood, and fiercely challenged the moral and political boundaries of her time. Jaouad explores how Eberhardt’s spatial existence—dizzyingly mobile, vividly immersive—fueled a kind of life writing that is inseparable from place writing. Her diaries and sketches reveal a philosophy of motion as meaning: to cross into new terrain was, for her, to cross into new dimensions of self.

Sexually ambiguous, spiritually uncontainable, and politically subversive, Eberhardt's life was lived in deliberate defiance of colonial norms and gendered expectations. Yet she remains difficult to categorize—part saint, part scandal, part cipher. Jaouad’s approach, grounded in both literary analysis and postcolonial insight, clears away the myth and restores Eberhardt’s full human intensity. He neither sanitizes her kif-fueled escapades nor sensationalizes her untimely death in a flash flood at Aïn Séfra. Instead, he shows how her lived experience was always tethered to the landscapes she inhabited.

For readers captivated by outsider lives, feminist iconoclasts, and the search for personal sovereignty, The Immortal Journeys of Isabelle Eberhardt is a landmark biography. It lets Eberhardt emerge not as a symbol or mirage, but as a fiercely real figure—forever on the move, and more relevant now than ever.

Aram Saroyan, minimalist poet, author, and son of William Saroyan, reflects on a life shaped by art, fame, and fractured family with a behind-the-scenes view of American cultural life from the 1950s onward, including rare photos and stories of mingling with creative luminaries from Richard Avedon to Marilyn Monroe.

In Before I Forget: A Memoir, Aram Saroyan, traces the highlights of his creative life in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, and Bolinas. At fourteen he was an after-school apprentice in Richard Avedon's New York studio, taking part in the iconic photographer's fashion and portrait sessions that included Marilyn Monroe. What influences sanctioned his controversial poem “lighght”? An experience after school during high school proves to be an enduring touchstone of his vocation. The son of the beloved author William Saroyan and step-son of Walter Matthau, Saroyan probes the fallout of his father and mother's broken marriage and lessons gleaned in their wake, with memories of his eight-year-old self cast out on the comic sea of Beverly Hills in the fifties. The memoir is capped by two never-before-published minimalist novellas, offering a fictionalized examination of Saroyan's later years. Also included are assorted vintage photos from the author's personal archives.

A bold, unflinching memoir from the front lines of American protest by lifelong activist Nancy Kurshan. “For readers still trying to figure out what the “new left” was about, this is THE book to read.” —Robin Morgan, Author, Activist

In Levitating the Pentagon and Other Uplifting Stories, longtime activist Nancy Kurshan offers a vivid, woman’s-eye view of seven decades of radical social change. From the founding of the Yippies and the theatrical feminist resistance of W.I.T.C.H., to solidarity work with political prisoners and indigenous liberation movements, Kurshan’s life chronicles the evolution of the U.S. Left—from civil rights to antiwar to feminist, abolitionist, and internationalist struggles.

Kurshan was not just a witness—she was a key player. She marched at the first major Vietnam War protest in D.C., co-organized the 1967 "levitation" of the Pentagon, and ran the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. She was in court for the Chicago 8 Conspiracy Trial. She traveled to North Vietnam in 1970, and returned four decades later as an honored guest. This insider’s account brings to life a half-century of resistance—from the shadow of McCarthyism to today’s fights for justice. Along the way, Kurshan reflects on the internal tensions of the movements she helped shape—especially the fraught intersection between radical politics and emergent feminist consciousness.

More than a memoir, Levitating the Pentagon is a vital historical document and a passionate call to action, grounded in an ethic of humility and truth. As African revolutionary Amilcar Cabral once said, “Tell no lies and claim no easy victories”—a motto Kurshan lives up to in life, and in this captivating memoir.

Includes a foreword by Bernardine Dohrn (Weather Underground), preface by José López, (Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Chicago), and afterword by Pat Thomas (Jerry Rubin/Yippies biographer).

“A dazzling tie-dye tapestry that brings a well-covered corner of American history to vivid life. It’s a trip.” —Publishers Weekly

When San Francisco gallery owner Freddie Dorn gets rid of the city’s most ruthless drug dealer in the summer of ’69, he becomes an unlikely player in a deadly game—hunted by the mafia, courted by the cops, and risking everything if his hippie friends learn the truth.

The Summer of Love has soured. What was once a utopia of free-spirited idealism has rotted into a crime-ridden nightmare of heroin overdoses and tainted psychedelics. For Freddie, the breaking point comes when a former girlfriend dies from an overdose, and his best friend Van Monk loses his mind to bad acid. Determined to cleanse his neighborhood of the worst drug scourge, he secretly aligns with the SFPD to target the infamous Rat-Man Rathkin. But when their late-night meeting on the Golden Gate Bridge ends with the accidental death of the dealer, Dorn’s life takes a dangerous turn.

The cops are glad to be rid of the dealer. The West Coast Mob is also satisfied—Rathkin owed them a lot of money. But now both the cops and the mob see Dorn as a useful tool. With art sales lagging and rent due, he reluctantly agrees to serve as a “private third eye” for hire, feeding intel to both sides while vowing to only target the most dangerous criminals. But as he navigates a world of undercover detectives, mobsters, and counterculture cults—rescuing a young woman from a cult, dodging the corrupt “Hippie Frankenstein,” and delivering bribe money between criminals—Dorn’s carefully constructed double life starts to unravel.

Juggling a fractured love life with Alison and a fragile friendship with Van Monk, Freddie lives in constant fear of discovery. Because in 1969, nothing is worse than being outed as a narc. And if the wrong people find out, it won’t just be his reputation at stake—it’ll be his life.

Max Talley is the award-winning author of more than 50 short stories and essays, plus several mystery and horror novels, including Santa Fe Psychosis and Yesterday We Forget Tomorrow. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA.