LA, Ep. 54

May 23, 2026 — To kick off Literary Death Match's 20th Anniversary celebrations, we partnered with the WeHo Pride Arts Festival to put on a West Hollywood spectacular for the ages at The Renberg Theatre that saw Rasheed Newson outduel co-finalist Mac Crane in a thrilling game of Arithme-Lit to win Newson the LDM LA, Ep. 54 crown, and literary immortality to go with it. 

Here's the lineup from the night-of: 

JUDGES: 

Literary Merit: Steven Reigns, poet, educator and author of A Quilt for David, Outliving Michael and Inheritance, and was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood 

Performance: Melissa Chadburn, author of A Tiny Upward Shove (longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award), she's also done extensive reporting on the child welfare system and appears in the Netflix docuseries "The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez"

Intangibles: Rex Ogle, award-winning author of more than a hundred books, comics, graphic novels and memoirs including Free Lunch (winner of the ALA/YALSA award for Excellence in Non-Fiction), Abuela Don’t Forget Me (ALA/YALSA award for Excellence in Non-Fiction finalist) and Road Home (a Micheal Printz Honor and Stonewall Honor book)

READERS:
Round 1:
* Myriam Gurba, writer and activist, her collection Dahlia Season, won the Edmund White Award for debut fiction, her true-crime memoir Mean named one of the "Best LGBTQ Books of All Time," and her essay collection Creep: Accusations and Confessions won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction

* Mac Crane, a jock, sweatpants enthusiast and author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself (a New York Times Editors’ Pick, Indie Next Pick, and winner of the LAMBDA Literary Award for Speculative Fiction). Their sophomore novel, A Sharp Endless Need, was featured on NYT Paperback Row and a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction. Their debut short story collection, Perverts, comes out July 7.

Round 2: 
* Rasheed Newson, author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me, named one of New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2022," and the follow-up There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood which releases on June 2. He's also a TV writer, producer and showrunner

* Isle McElroy, author of two novels including The Atmospherians, a New York Times Editors' Choice, and People Collide, named a best book by Vulture, NPR, Vogue and was a New York Times Critics' Pick

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (author of the award-nominated novel Collision Theory)