Producing Bukowski

The short stories that changed my life at 14 and at 54

I produced an audiobook imprint for Audible for 12 years: The Bright List.

One of my great pleasures in the early days, when digital audio was green, was to seek out classic authors I wanted to listen to.

After all, I’d been reading their words aloud in my bedroom, and memorizing their verses in my shower, all my life!

One of them was Charles Bukowski.

Charles Bukowski : A Primer

I first read Tales of Ordinary Madness at 14, one of those classic “raid-your-parents’-bookshelves” maneuvers. I’m glad to say I’m the better writer for it.

Bukowski was an Angeleno, and so was I, at the time. He published a weekly column in the LA Free Press. He was the author who inspired Jon and Barbara Martin’s Black Sparrow Press. He was a habitué of Hollywood, downtown LA, Venice.

You could easily run into “Hank" (as Bukowski was known) at Papa Bach’s, the classic beat bookshop on Pico, or down in Venice, drinking Colt 45’s with the rest of the Wednesday night poets who read their latest typewritten draft…