Budd Schulberg and Watts

Donna Myrow, the founder and publisher of LA Youth, met the novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg soon after he launched the Watts Writers Workshop following the 1965 riots. He became the godfather of her first child. She posts about the death of her friend at her Don't Print That! blog:

Budd watched the flames and angry mobs on television from his hilltop home in Beverly Hills. He wanted to do more than write about the injustice and poverty in Watts. He posted a notice on the door of a neglected house left standing among the charred ruins on 103rd Street, “Writing Workshop, Wed., 6pm.” Poets and short story writers trickled in and the Watts Writers Workshop was born. Over the next seven years they published anthologies and dramatic scripts for television. The Workshop was replicated in urban communities across the country.

Thus began my six-year association with Budd and the local poets and writers whose work he nurtured. Needless to say, the experience made a powerful impression on me.

Previously on LA Observed:
Schulberg's love of boxing