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Everyone's a Writer at Factory Made LA

In its latest installment, a launch party for Madeline Cash's collection of short stories, "Earth Angel," readers stood on a roof-like terrace above attentive listeners, sharing journal passages, short stories, and anecdotal recollections — illuminated by the light of their iPhones. "The focus of the series is to take readings out of traditional contexts and test the limits of the literary paradigm. I typically select artists who work in different mediums to read alongside more obscure writers because that's where subversion lies." the LA native notes.

 

What began in a Pollo a la Brasa parking lot, due to being thrown out of Johnson's studio apartment prior, Factory Made's first reading was a testament to the urgency of establishing space for writers or anyone who has something to say, though surpassing the means available. Since its inception, the reading series has blurred the line between afterparty and reading circle, where a story about office banter or capitalistic exhaustion meets the blare of a DJ speaker. This underground disposition makes sense for the bodies in attendance, where sleaze is in and clean-cut is a faux pas. "My reading series–Factory Made–is a cross-genre pollination of dyslexic debutantes, transgressive twinks, ketafiend starlets, and the like," Johnson explains.

Madeline Cash reads a short story out of her newly released book, Earth Angel, published by Clash Books.
Factory Made founder, Jasmine Johnson, reads to the crowd at the FM Earth Angel launch.

Making way through the crowd obscured by cigarette smoke and balenci city bags at Factory Made's recent affair, there's an energy that can't be felt elsewhere. The house party contextualizes each reading, where at any moment, the police could shut it down, but it almost feels like that's the plan the whole time— a party worth shutting down. As figures move in tandem to hyper rap and electronic deep cuts, DJs, like Boiler Room rostered Gbenga, play mix after mix, where the previous reading about a singular testicle and a kale salad fades in and out of your mind.

 

"Factory Made was created to disrupt contemporary literature," Johnson adds to the end of the Google Doc. With intentions of keeping the reading series as fluid and raw as possible, intellectual prowess and linear ways of thinking are subdued, allowing the medium to act as a vessel rather than a rulebook. 

Factory Made was created to disrupt contemporary literature.

While many writers' introduction to the craft has been academic exposure or countless nights reading as a child, Johnson began exploring the medium only recently, informing the intention behind Factory Made, where anyone can write. Though the sentiment is necessary, the Los Angeles-based multi-hyphenate has an unmatched wit and way with words, where a run-on sentence is a universe of its own. Because of this, married with a knack for hosting and general openness to people and their perspectives, Jasmine Johnson succeeds in creating space for writers to be weird, unfiltered, and individual, exemplifying what the Los Angeles literary scene can — and will be. 

Flyers by Forever Emblem displayed across the designated Nos table.
A cigarette break in between readings.
The scene at the recent FM "Earth Angel" launch party turned house party.
Ami Ami wine kept the crowd hydrated.
A quick capture of the dance floor.
The crowd made room for the existential.
Moriah Star Vega onlooking the readers at the recent FM “Earth Angel” launch.
Factory Made regulars onlooking the scene at the recent FM “Earth Angel” launch.

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