Lifestyle
Is print dead? Not at this indie bookstore publishing L.A.'s untold stories
Donato Martinez reads his poetry at the Libros Lincoln Heights bookshop.
On a Saturday evening in late April, the door of the Libros Lincoln Heights is propped open. Inside, 18 local poets pack the narrow single-room bookstore, waiting for a chance to read a poem or two at this month’s open mic in front of an enthusiastic audience.
Donato Martinez, an English professor at Santa Ana College, is the third poet to take the podium. He reads from a stack of loose papers, his hands moving in time with the stanzas he spits like rap bars.
“All street vendors are allowed. / taco stands that never get shut down / Free zone any time / Patrolled by our own. That means Elotes. Churros. Bacon wrapped hot dogs / Fruit cocktails anytime,” Martinez recites from his new poem, titled “If I Was God I Would Visit the Hood.”
The audience snaps and hums, layering their own harmony over the soft whir of the ceiling fan and the cars rushing down North Broadway.
Martinez’s poetry collection “Touch the Sky” can be found on the surrounding shelves, along with collections from three other of the night’s readers. Their presence speaks to the driving ethos behind the Libros: 80% to 90% of the merchandise on the bookstore’s mismatched shelves are written by residents of Lincoln Heights and nearby neighborhoods.
“I don’t just have one little shelf for local authors. The whole place is local authors,” Jesse Marez, the owner of the Libros, said. “It blends in with the neighborhood.”
Marez, an electrical engineer by trade and lifelong book lover, opened the Libros last November, in an effort to consolidate the bookshelves he’d been curating at cafes across the Eastside since late 2021. He estimates that it is the first bookstore in Lincoln Heights in upwards of 70 years.
A sticker for the Libros on the doorway of the shop.
Beverages at the open mic poetry reading.
Growing up in Lincoln Heights and neighboring El Sereno, where his family settled after immigrating from Mexico in 1969, Marez experienced this paucity firsthand. Now he’s determined to be at least one place where local authors can share their stories and readers can find a book across a variety of languages and genres.
“We didn’t grow up going to a bookstore or having books, so for me I think it’s valuable for a child,” Marez paused, ducking his head to wipe away tears. “I think it’s important for them to know they can have a book of their own, and it not to be a used book because we’re all used to hand-me-downs. I think in a neighborhood like this, people need to know that they can get a new book, especially at an early age.”
In the months since opening, the Libros has become a neighborhood hub, spotlighting books and authors that can’t always be found on the shelves of other bookstores. Collections of self-published poetry and family histories of Lincoln Heights sit alongside multi-award-winning books by Viet Thanh Nguyen and Kelly Lytle Hernández (also L.A. residents). On a table in the center of the room are copies of “Violet’s First Big Goodbye,” a picture book written by the bookstore’s youngest author, 8-year-old Luna Yanez-Cuestas.
Yanez-Cuestas, who lives in Burbank, wrote and self-published the book with her mother, Adriana Cuestas, to share the grief she felt after saying goodbye to her old neighborhood.
“It’s about saying goodbye to what you really love,” Yanez-Cuestas said.
A signed copy of “Violet’s First Big Goodbye” by Luna Yanez-Cuestas lies on a table at the Libros bookshop.
Customers come to the store for this wide selection of books, many of which have been signed by their authors. Marez said most of the books sell quickly because they are local.
Readers aren’t the only ones who frequent the store. Authors regularly stop by with books tucked under their arms, shyly asking whether Marez will sell their memoir or poetry collection. His answer is always an enthusiastic yes, even as shelf space becomes increasingly limited.
Marez has a knack for finding local writers, too. He met Lluvia Arras, L.A.-based author of “A Kids Book About Blended Families,” when their sons were playing soccer together. A few months later, he connected with Joseph Robledo at an exhibit on the Olympic Auditorium at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
Robledo is the author of “Blood on the Canvas,” a book commemorating his father, local boxing legend Canto ‘TNT’ Robledo. The son of Mexican immigrants, the elder Robledo became an amateur boxer at 15, turned pro at 16 and won the Pacific Coast Bantamweight Championship at 19. He was on his way to the world championship when a series of injuries left him permanently blind.
“Blood on the Canvas,” guides readers through backyard gyms in South Pasadena to the World Boxing Hall of Fame to tell the story of his father’s transformation from would-be champion to inspirational trainer who touched the lives of hundreds.
Attendees write poems during a poetry reading and open mic night at the Libros bookshop.
Attendees place their poems on plants outside the Libros bookshop.
Meeting authors like Robledo and Arras has drawn Marez into L.A.’s literary world and taught him tricks of a trade that is often opaque to outsiders.
Behind each book on the store’s shelves is a journey scattered with roadblocks. It’s challenging to break into the mainstream publishing world and, according to a new survey, the industry remains overwhelmingly white.
“I was obsessed with self-publishing because I thought based on how I hear things go for authors in our society, it just didn’t seem fair to give such a big part of your work to another person,” said Cuestas.
For these reasons, authors like Cuestas turn to independent or self-publishing to get their books out into the world. The latter, which has recently become increasingly popular, gives authors creative control and the potential to earn a greater share of the profits, said Brenda Vaca, an author based in Whittier who created her own publishing house to publish her poetry collection titled “Riot of Roses.”
But that creative control comes at the cost of donning all the hats: writer, publisher, distributor and marketer. Stewart J. Zully, who self-published a memoir about the 40 years he spent vending in Yankee Stadium, says he’s spent a large part of his writing career hustling alone and hoping for a break.
“The creativity and the work [to get] it done is one side of the brain and then the business side is completely different,” Zully said.
At the Libros, Marez is trying to lift a few of these hats off the authors’ heads by launching his own publishing company, Legacy Publications.
A paper bag with a sign that reads “We publish authors, talk to us” sits atop a shelf at the Libros bookshop.
“What we’re trying to do is help these authors with the distribution and the printing and the publishing,” he said. “Because they’re more worried about how to make a dollar or how to do the distribution, where they should be worried about their second book.”
Like the bookstore, Legacy Publications is deeply rooted in Marez’s pride for the Eastside neighborhoods he grew up in.
“I want to feature people that have actually made our community,” Marez said. “We want to talk about people who have left a legacy in our neighborhoods.’”
In launching this new branch of the business, Marez aims to highlight local voices, help authors make a profit and ensure the books themselves are made with high-quality materials. He prioritizes working with local printers such as Litho Press and Paperleaf Press and plans to release at least three books by the new year.
In his dual roles, Marez is filling Lincoln Heights with books that take readers to distant countries and eras, opening up new worlds. Alongside them, are stories that bring readers home with untold histories of the neighborhoods that have raised them and their families. The authors themselves find solace in knowing that, at least at the Libros, their books will be read and shared.
“Our books, they don’t appear at Barnes & Noble,” Martinez said, referencing how stories by authors of color have largely been kept out of mainstream publishing, and thus bookstores, for generations. “I wish they did and I think our stories belong there. If they’re not at Barnes & Noble, we need these independent bookstores to house our books. We support Libros and then Libros provides a safe space for the writers and poets. I think that right there is a relationship.”
Millie Bobby Brown in the final season of Stranger Things.
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Netflix
After five seasons and almost ten years, the saga of Netflix’s Stranger Things has reached its end. In a two-hour finale, we found out what happened to our heroes (including Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard) when they set out to battle the forces of evil. The final season had new faces and new revelations, along with moments of friendship and conflict among the folks we’ve known and loved since the night Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) first disappeared. But did it stick the landing?
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JasonMartin
Adin Ross Disrespecting Doechii …
Will Not Be Tolerated!!!
Published
TMZ.com
JasonMartin is putting his foot down after hearing Adin Ross call Doechii a “bitch” one too many times … the culture’s not going for it in 2026!!!
TMZ Hip Hop caught up with JM in L.A. this week, and he says Adin being aggressively addressed is vital to preventing outsiders of Black culture from toeing the line in the future.
Adin Ross is lying about Doechii and one of the biggest Twitter Accounts is behind it… pic.twitter.com/VoAwGJefyV
— Mike Tee (@ItsMikeTee) January 5, 2026
@ItsMikeTee
Adin maintains Doechii targeted him on her new track, “Girl, Get Up,” when she blasted people labeling her “an industry plant” … and blamed Complex magazine for helping fuel the fire.
Joe Budden, Glasses Malone, Wack 100, and Top Dawg Entertainment execs have all chimed in on Adin’s comments, and Jason says it’s bigger than internet tough talk … and won’t allow Adin to hide behind religion or freedom of speech to drag Black women.
Adin went on to collaborate with Tekashi 6ix9ine and Cuff Em on an anti-Lil Tjay and Doechii song, but has since said he’ll stay out of the beef; his chat doesn’t matter to him, and it’s not that deep to him.
TMZ.com
War mongering isn’t Jason’s only goal this year. He released 5 albums — “A Hit Dog Gon Holla,“ “I Told You So,“ “Mafia Cafe,“ “O.T.,“ and “A Lonely Winter” — to close out the 4th quarter and just may be in the “Snowfall” reboot with his buddy, Buddy!!!
A firefighter works as homes burn during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles County, Calif., on Jan. 7, 2025.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
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Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
On New Year’s Eve 2024, journalist Jacob Soboroff was sitting around a campfire with a friend when he made an offhand comment that would come back to haunt him: The last thing he wanted to do in the new year, Soboroff said, was cover a story that would require donning a fire-safe yellow suit.
Just one week later, Soboroff was dressed in the yellow suit, reporting live from a street corner in Los Angeles as fire tore through the Pacific Palisades, the community where he was raised.
“This was a place that I could navigate with my eyes closed,” Soboroff says of the neighborhood. “Every hallmark of my childhood I was watching carbonize in front of me. … There were firefighters there and first responders and other journalists there, but it was an extremely lonely, isolating experience to be standing there as everything I knew burned down around me in real time.”
In his new book, Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster, Soboroff offers a minute-by-minute account of the catastrophe, told through the voices of firefighters, evacuees, scientists and political leaders. He says covering the wildfires was the most important assignment he’s ever undertaken.
“The experience of doing this is something that I don’t wish on anybody, but in a way I wish everybody could experience,” he says. “It’s given me insane reverence for our colleagues in the local news community here, who, I think, definitionally were exercising a public service in the street-level journalism that they were doing and are still doing. … It was actually beautiful to watch because they are as much a first responder on a frontline as anybody else.”
Interview highlights
On the experience of reporting from the fires
You’re choking with the smoke. And I almost feel guilty describing it from my vantage point because the firefighters would say things to me like: “My eyeballs were burning. We were laying flat on our stomach in the middle of the concrete street because it was so hot, it was the only way that we could open the hoses full bore and try to save anything that we could.” …
I could feel the heat on the back of my neck as we stood in front of these houses that I remember as the houses that cars and people would line up in front of for the annual Fourth of July parade or the road race that we would run through town. Trees were on fire behind us — we were at risk of structures falling at any given minute. It was pretty surreal because this is a place I had spent so much time as a child and going back to as an adult. … I had no choice but to just open my mouth and say what I saw to the millions of people that were watching us around the country.
On undocumented immigrants being central to rebuilding the city
These types of massive both humanitarian and natural disasters give us X-ray vision for a time into sort of the fissures that are underneath the surface in our society. And Los Angeles, in addition to being one of the most unequal cities between the rich and the poor, has more undocumented people than virtually any other city in the United States of America. Governor Newsom knew that with the policies of the incoming administration, some of the very people that would be responsible for the cleanup and the rebuilding of Los Angeles may end up in the crosshairs of national immigration policy. And I think that that was an understatement. …
Pablo Alvarado in the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said to me that often the first people into a disaster — the second responders after the first — are the day laborers. They went to Florida after Hurricane Andrew, to New Orleans after Katrina, and they’d be ready to go in Los Angeles. And I went out and I cleaned up Altadena and Pasadena with some of them in real time.
And only months later did this wide-scale immigration enforcement campaign begin … on the streets of LA as sort of the Petri dish, the guinea pig for expanding this across the country. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that the parking lots of Home Depots, where workers [were] looking to get involved in the rebuilding of Los Angeles, has been ground zero for that enforcement campaign.
On efforts to rebuild
The pace is slow and it’s sort of a hopscotch of development. And I think for people who do come back, for people who can afford to come back, it’s going to be a long road ahead. You’re going to have half the houses on your street under construction for years to come. And for people that do inhabit those homes, it’s going to an isolating experience. But there’s an effort underway to rebuild. …
There’s also a lot of for-sale signs. And that’s the sad reality of this, is that there are people who, whether it’s that they can’t afford to come back … or that they just can’t stomach it, I think, sadly, a lot people are not going to be returning to their homes.
On what the Palisades and Altadena look like today
They both look like very big construction sites in a way. There are still some facades, some ruins of the more historic buildings in the Palisades. … But mostly it’s just empty lots. And in Altadena, the same thing. If you drive by the hardware store, the outside is still there. But it’s a patchwork of empty lots. Homes now under construction. And lots and lots of workers. … There are still a handful of people who are living in both the Palisades and in Altadena, but for the most part, these are communities where you’ve got workers going in during the day and coming out at night. …
We have designed this community to be one that’s in the crosshairs of a fire just like the one we experienced and that we will certainly, certainly experience again, because nobody’s packing it up and leaving Los Angeles. People may not return to their communities after they’ve lost their homes, but the ship has sailed on living in the wildland urban interface in the second largest city in the country.
On seeing this story, personally, as his “most important assignment”
Jacob Soboroff is a correspondent for MS NOW, formerly MSNBC.
Jason Frank Rothenberg/HarperCollins
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Jason Frank Rothenberg/HarperCollins
I don’t think I realized at the time how badly I needed the connections that I made in the wake of the fire, both with the people who have lost homes and the firefighters, first responders who were out there, but also honestly with my own family, my immediate family, my wife and my kids, my mom and my dad and my siblings and myself. I think that this was a really hard year in LA, and I think in the wake of the fire, I was experiencing some level of despair as well. Then the ICE raids happened here and sort of turned our city upside down. And this book for me was just this amazing cathartic blessing of an opportunity to find community with people I don’t think I ever would have otherwise spent time with, and to reconnect with people who I hadn’t seen or heard from in forever.
Anna Bauman and Nico Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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