Writing
A new Substack page
In June 2024, Calbi moved to Barcelona. A year later, he began writing an update from Spain. Topics that interest him include regional foods found across the country, the legacy of fascism that shadows everything, the nerd spiral of literary craft he is studying while working on a novel set in a beach town in Southern California, the differences between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and between oceans and seas.
The page is here: evancalbi.substack.com
Featured Writing
Cathedral Rock, Valparaiso Fiction Review
”While he sits at a picnic table at a riverside campsite, Noll tells his younger brother about the day he swam the town rapids alone.”
A Walking Tour of V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street, Los Angeles Review of Books
”Today, Luis Street has no outward signs of having inspired Naipaul's novel Miguel Street. This is, I would guess, how Naipaul would want it.”
A Spectacular Night at the 2024 Grammy Awards, USC News
”On music’s biggest night, a nomination can often be as important as a win, particularly for young musicians, and both are highlighted here.”
Books & Literary Journals
L.A. Exile; A Guide to Los Angeles Writing, 1932-1998
Calbi is the co-editor of an anthology about Los Angeles from the perspective of writers and poets born elsewhere.
From the book cover: “There are cities writers have sought as inspiration; Paris in the ‘20s, or New York or San Francisco in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Then there is Los Angeles, a place poets and writers have avoided or at least never expected to end up in. Once arrived, many found themselves remarkably productive, intrigued with the city and a life that often struggles to be heroically elsewhere. L.A. Exile is a guide to the literature, the writers and the physical spaces that have made for what composer Igor Stravinsky called “splendid isolation.”
Eudice Shapiro, A Life in Music
He is the author of a commemorative book about celebrated violinist Eudice Shapiro, the first female concertmaster of a Hollywood orchestra.
Rhizome; A Language You Can Think In
He co-founded a literary journal that featured the work of emerging writers as well as established names like Amiri Baraka, Barbara Guest, Adriano Spatola, and others.