By Sammy Ginsberg
This is crazyzyyzyzyzyyY!!! 74 people are heerreee!! We moved into Pattaya Bay and it all worked and is lovely magical so many writer people.
Learning that we are here every weekkK!!
That guy that I keep running into all over LA that has very hipster glasses is here flirting with two girls while we are supposed to be quietly writing. It’s kind of funny. I won’t shush them, but I will eavesdrop!
But I created this whole festival for flirting! Well not flirting but connecting and often connecting and flirting happen in the same room. So many peoole to meet so many people to connect connecting around writing! Love of writing doing the writing we are doing the writing.
The glamour of writing, the glamour of being a successful writer, the glamour of being successful.
For some reason I keep thinking of the Bob Dylan movie that just came out, well that came out last year. Where he is like – people don’t like me, they just wish they were me, they are like – why him? Why him over me? Why weren’t my poems and songs and stories chosen to electrify people into money and fame and stadiums of fans and biopics and mythoss!!!
That’s what I’ve been thinking about as so many people are here and these validated orgs are validating this festival and to have created something worthy of being validated. I understand the high. I understand why people pay $400,000 for a degree from an ivy league and feel validated, and doors open that wouldn’t open and people listen who before didn’t listen.
And isn’t that why I loved writing, why I craved writing?! This childhood fantasy. I read that book about emotional immaturity and often we create these fantasies that are really the root of our trauma. Like – if this one thing happened, then people would finally listen to me and respect my ideas and take my thoughts seriously.
And for me, that has always been – when I publish a book and have a PhD then people will listen to me and respect me and my ideas and take my thoughts seriously.
She says while wearing hot pink thick-rimmed glasses and birkenstocks and my Lil Clitty t-shirt.
But recently after 7 years of therapy and three mental health crises and over 50 self-help books and 5 years of working with teenagers and teachers every day – I realized that even if I never publish a book, even if I don’t have a PhD – I deserve to be listened to and respected and that my thoughts need to be taken seriously.
Not by everyone! But by the people who share rooms with me, people who I pay and who pay me – people whose job it is to represent me, who say they love and care for me, people I need to see every day to live, to function. And it doesn’t matter how old I am or how young I look or if I am confusing or you don’t like what I’m saying or you don’t agree with what I’m saying or I haven’t read the book or article or instagram post taht you are referring to, fucking help me. Ask questions. Provide the text. Give me time to read so I can engage as a fucking equal.
That I think is the power of writing and why I care so much about people loving writing and enjoying writing and communing around writing. Writing is a tool for self-validation and self-respect and self-listening.
I remember myself at 24 at SAGE Publishing fucking depressed, angry, and traumatized – and feeling powerless and like no one would listen to me. No one would help me.
So I listened to myself. I took action for myself. I imagined the solution to my problems and to the problems in society that made me angry and I started to do the work.
And now I’m 32 – the same age as Charlotte in Sex and the City!! Can you believe that! ME?!
And finally, slowly, we are moving in the direction of our vision!
And it’s 8pm and I’m gonna get ready to be like – it’s been an hour except that it’s 20 minutes until then so there is time!
Okay! Thanks for reading my ramble that i wrote during the Los Feliz Writers Festival 2026 Opening Party where 74 people are gathered around writing and magical self-validating beauty is happening.
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