Editor Daniel A. Olivas assembled a cadre of literary luminaries and up-and-coming authors to provide powerful and mesmerizing tales with complex characters that represent the diversity of Southern California. We meet young and old, gay and straight, rich and poor, the newly arrived and the well established. There's a screenwriter pitching an idea and a woman struggling with barrio life, youths trying to avoid gang life and others embracing it. We encounter aggressive journalists, cement pourers, drunken folklórico dancers, curanderos, aging artists, wrestling saints, and many, many others, all set on the stage of Los Angeles.