Glitterati Join Literati in Unique Authors’ Forum

Some nights it’s hard to tell the interviewer from the guest author at the Writers Bloc readings series. Detective novelist Elmore Leonard is on stage with British satirist Martin Amis, or actor and author Steve Martin meets playwright Wendy Wasserstein and it is anybody’s guess.

In the months ahead, Israeli pacifist Amos Oz will answer to Rabbi William Cutter, a scholar of contemporary Hebrew literature. And humorist Dave Barry will talk to Richard Riordan. For once the former mayor gets to ask the questions.

Garrison Keillor, Calvin Trillin and A.S. Byatt round out this year’s series, which opened in late September with Joan Didion. “I wanted headliners,” says Andrea Grossman, the program’s director. “People I’d cross town to see.”

It seems like such an obvious idea, to invite famous authors who talk about their work in front of a live audience. Six years ago when Grossman first imagined it, the only programs like it that she knew of were sponsored by museums and universities. “I wanted to reach out to a broader audience,” she says.

She never planned to start a literary institution. She just wanted a good job that let her work at home. Career hops from marketing to television programming to political fund-raising had left her frustrated and burned out. “I needed something of my own,” Grossman says, “where I could call the shots.”

A childhood memory came back to her. “My parents read a book a day, or pretty close to it,” she says. “They’d argue about Shakespeare’s plays and Wordsworth’s poetry at the dinner table.” What if her favorite authors could speak for themselves, she wondered. Would anybody besides her want to listen?

In the time-honored tradition of Los Angeles creative ventures, Writers Bloc got started at a kitchen table. No sponsors, no budget, no staff. What Grossman did have to start with was a hefty list of contacts at publishing houses and movie studios who could reel in the authors she wanted. That, and her three kids and the family’s dog to keep her company while she worked.

Using his tax lawyer skills, her husband, Rick, helped her find a nonprofit business manager for the series. For about $5,000, she hired the first couple of interviewers, sent out the postcards announcing the first several guests, paid the interviewers and rented the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills for a couple of evenings. The series was launched.

That year, six top-rated authors took a chance on her program. Joan Didion was among the first. This year, the list of authors has tripled and the mailing list is up to 7,000 addresses.

The series may not be the oldest or the most prestigious, but it is probably the quirkiest of its kind in the city. There is no set location, no ties to a powerful institution, and Grossman’s family makes up the staff, handling everything from tickets to book sales.

Most of the time, events run smoothly. But there was the night that TV news commentator Robert MacNeil was the guest and the bookstore Grossman was working with forgot to make a delivery. Family members raced from Pasadena to Santa Monica, collecting every available copy of MacNeil’s memoir.

This year’s series got thrown off by world events. Salman Rushdie was supposed to open the series in mid-September, but his appearance was postponed for security reasons, after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “We absolutely have to reschedule Rushdie,” Grossman says. “I ordered a ton of his books.”

Usually, the series meets at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, which holds about 550 people. Sometimes, though, it moves a few blocks away to Temple Emanuel, which can hold about 650 people, or the Skirball Cultural Center in Bel-Air, which seats more than 650.

Grossman’s inclination to “wing it” persists even now. Postcards announcing events are last-minute affairs that occasionally are sent before all the guests have confirmed. There aren’t any promotions, yet, for next year’s series. That far ahead, Grossman doesn’t know who will be available. There aren’t any subscription seats, either. “I’m not that well organized,” she says. Getting word out about next month’s schedule is enough of a challenge. “I’m always rushing to the printer at the last minute, yelling, ‘It’s an emergency,”’ she says.

The first few seasons, Grossman worried about the frequent, last-minute changes of plan. Now she can look at a schedule full of holes and sigh, “Something will work out.”

Grossman comes across as a woman who creates a stir without knowing it. At 45, she seems most comfortable when her daily schedule sounds like a car chase.

Speed and serendipity have worked so far. When Writers Bloc was hardly more than a daydream, Grossman wrote to John Le Carre. His book “Smiley’s People” was one of her all-time favorites. “I wrote and told him how much I love the characters,” she says. “He answered me, himself, and said he’d like to come to Writers Bloc.” He was one of her first guests.

More typically, she calls the publicity departments of Random House, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. and other major publishers to find out who they are bringing to town on tour. She doesn’t pay any authors’ expenses. “If you ask me about the obstacles of working without corporate sponsors,” Grossman says, “funding is one.”

Most of her expenses are covered by ticket sales. There can be 100 people in the audience for a lesser known talent such as David Lodge, who wrote “Small World,” or close to 700 for blockbuster names such as “Nightline” host Ted Koppel. Tickets are always $15. “The big crowds help cover the costs for the smaller audiences,” Grossman says.

Two years ago, she figured out she could expand her audience if she booked interviewers who are as well known as the authors. One of her first famous pairings had “I Love L.A.” composer Randy Newman asking the questions when Sandra Tsing Loh, the cultural commentator, talked about her book “A Year in Van Nuys.” The problems of mixing two big names had nothing to do with egos.

“There was Randy, the quintessential L.A. guy,” Grossman says. “He started talking about famous people he knows, calling them names. The program was being recorded for public radio. I stood in the back of the theater, thinking, ‘Randy, where’s your lawyer? Never mind, where’s my lawyer?”’

Elmore Leonard and Martin Amis were another early attempt at a celebrity match. Amis had reviewed Leonard’s newest detective novel for the London Guardian. “When it works, and the interviewer does his homework,” says Grossman, “the intimacy of the conversation can be very revealing.”

Leonard has been a guest twice, so far, drawn back by listeners who get his allusions. “It’s a very intelligent audience at Writers Bloc,” he says. “If you mention a movie or anything else, they know what you’re saying.”

The audience regulars are loyal to the point that some of them plan their vacations around the series. Dr. Henry Lourie, a retired surgeon, considered canceling his trip when he realized that he will miss three programs while he is away this fall. “I wrote Andrea a note and asked if she’s ever seen a grown man cry,” says Lourie, who drives from Newport Beach with his wife, Judith, for the programs.

“We have a ritual,” he says. “We park the car at the Writers Guild, walk to Kate Mantilini, the restaurant across the street, and eat at the counter. Writers Bloc is like a great big dessert.”

Peter Mehlman, a television writer who develops ideas for Disney, moderated a panel of television writers, “The First Time I Got Paid for It,” for last year’s series. Whenever he goes to one of Grossman’s events, he checks out the line of people waiting to buy a book. It can stretch out the door onto the sidewalk.

“Andrea’s gone a long way toward dispelling a myth,” Mehlman says. “The myth that reading anything literary in Los Angeles can land you in jail.”