LA, Ep. 52

October 18, 2022 — In our grand return to LA, Literary Death Match was back at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater for a whizbang, talent-laden affair that saw Prince Shakur outduel Jean Chen Ho in the debut of the LDM finale "Repeat After Me," winning Shakur the LDM LA, Ep. 52 crown, and literary immortality to go with it. 

Here's the lineup from the brilliant night: 

JUDGES: 
Literary Merit: Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of The Sympathizer, who has also won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, a Gold Medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association. Plus, HBO's turning The Sympathizer into a TV series in 2023 (directed by Park Chan-wook)

Performance: Kristina Wong, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama, a performance artist, comedian, writer and elected representative who has appeared across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She's the mind behind “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord," and her recent “Kristina Wong for Public Office” is a real life stint as the elected Sub-district 5 representative of Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council and rally campaign show, plus she's the winner of this year's Drama Desk, Lortel Award and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Solo Performance

Intangibles: Zach Anner, comedian, TV writer, YouTube brillianteur, host, and author of If at Birth You Don't Succeed 

READERS:

Round 1:
* Jean Chen Ho, author of Fiona and Jane, her writing appears in New York Times Magazine, The Cut, Electric Literature, LA Times, Georgia Review, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Guernica, and more

* Rasheed Newson, author of My Government Means to Kill Me, executive producer and showrunner of Bel-Air (Peacock), he's also written/produced The Chi and Narcos 

Round 2: 
* Amelia Gray, author of Isadora and Threats; winner of NYPL's Young Lion and the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, finalist for a WGA Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and writer for TV's Gaslit, Maniac and Mr. Robot

* Prince Shakur, a queer, Jamaican-American freelance journalist, cultural essayist, grassroots organizer and author of the debut memoir When They Tell You To Be Good, Winner of the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (author of the award-nominated novel Collision Theory)

Where: Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles