Raquel Welch became a legendary sex symbol back in the ’60s, and today at age 69, the beautiful lady can still turn heads and make men go “Wow!” That’s what happened when she breezed into a Barnes & Noble bookstore at The Grove in Hollywood with her entourage. She “performed” like the classic star she is, waving and smiling to the fans who had come to buy her book and get it autographed.

Many remember Melissa Anderson as “the blind sister” on frontier family drama Little House on the Prairie. But the sweet lady with the bright blue eyes has done much more, and now she can add “author” to her credits.

The Great Los Angeles Novel, much like the Great American Novel, is certainly its own subgenre, and every aspiring author who has resided in that city for any length of time has felt compelled to write one. It doesn’t mean every aspiring author who has felt compelled to write one indeed should, but that is another matter entirely.

Mary Oliver, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, was back in Los Angeles after five long, barren years, speaking again at historic Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. Presented by UCLA Live, the event was nowhere near the sellout it should have been for a night of such inspirational and beautiful weaving of poetry and prose. Mary Oliver has been writing for over fifty years now, and the stunning growth of her new work proves that she isn’t feeling complacent, nor has she lost her voice, as she reaches her 75th year on the planet.

Eric E. Olson’s novel The Procession of Mollusks begins with a quote from Ween’s The Mollusk. For those not initiated into the mindmeld fuzz-pop euphoria of the legendary underground band, being on the wavelength with a great Ween album is like either being part of the best inside joke you’ve ever heard or realizing that the inside joke isn’t even a joke at all