Co-presented with Angel City Press, the event will be a meditation on memory, landscape and the myth of Los Angeles through the lens of the four classical elements. In Elements of Los Angeles, Waldie has assembled a panorama of a city both tragic and intensely moving. With his signature clarity and compassion, he draws from history, personal memory, and the city’s cultural fabric to explore such moments as the forgotten legacy of the Hass avocado, the devastation of the St. Francis Dam collapse, the peculiar endurance contest that left a woman buried alive, and the comforting voice of Vin Scully echoing across the summer air. Using the four classical elements as his structure, Waldie delves into the complex essence of Los Angeles—a city of natural beauty and environmental precarity, of dreams pursued and illusions faded.

Called “A writer of pithy grace, compassion, and insight,” by the Los Angeles Times and “one of the most artful authors writing about Los Angeles today” by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Waldie elegantly blends history, memoir, and contemplative observation, providing a portrait of the elements that illuminates the city as a whole.