Authors Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons have sold Gay L.A., "a history of the gay culture that took root on the Western frontier in the mid-19th century and evolved with the growth of the film industry," to Basic for publication in spring 2006. Also via Publishers Lunch, James Ellroy will be the guest editor for Best American Crime Writing 2005.

Today at 2:30 p.m. on KCRW, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair (suddenly he appears on L.A. Observed three times in a week!) talks about his new book, Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror with Elvis Mitchell on "The Treatment." Thursday on "Bookworm," Michael Silverblatt converses with Karen Joy Fowler about her comic romance, The Jane Austen Book Club. Also on Thursday, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp drives down to the Central Library to discuss her new book, FUll Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. That's free at 7 p.m.

Newly out: Slick by Daniel Price, set in the world of L.A. crisis PR. His book, as you can see in the right-hand column, is the first to take advantage of the special new low ad rates available for authors, bookstores, bloggers and non-profit groups.

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