The fifth issue of Black Clock, the literary journal edited by Steve Erickson and published by California Institute of the Arts, focuses on Los Angeles fiction reaching from "the Hollywood Sign and Pacific Palisades to Echo Park Lake and the far reaches of the San Fernando Valley." Pieces are from a variety of writers. The media release says that Tom Carson, critic for Esquire and GQ, "collapses all of Hollywood history into 'The Victor Muet Mansion, 6601 Callia Lily Canyon Road, Brentwood: A Brief History.' Rachel Resnick encapsulates everyone's idea of L.A. hedonism into the orgiastic beach club of all our fantasies (or nightmares) - the Shanghai Pleasure Palace. Howard A. Rodman and Alan Rifkin satirize what everyone thinks L.A. is supposed to be and Susan Straight and Lou Mathews write about what everyone forgets L.A. really is -- the geographical and social fringes of Greater Los Angeles. Francesca Lia Block contributes an elegiac love story told by the city itself, in its various neighborhoods and incarnations, and Mary Yukari Waters writes about why she can't write about Los Angeles."

Joy Nicholson, Yxta Maya Murray, Lynell George, Bruce Bauman and Jonathan Lethem also appear—among others. Black Clock 5 arrives on newsstands and in bookstores in May. Looking ahead, Black Clock 6 will be devoted to poetry and number seven will focus on fiction about sex.

Photo: Black Clock