Historically, short stories were a rich source of successful movies and significant films. Classics such as Rear Window, High Noon, Psycho, All About Eve, and Blade Runner began as short stories. Unfortunately, many of the major venues for discovering new talent—The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, and Mademoiselle—are gone. Today, short stories are again becoming an important basis for major motion pictures and television, with films such as Brokeback Mountain, Good Will Hunting, and Minority Report. One reason short stories are making a Hollywood comeback is Next Stop Hollywood, an organization dedicated to finding both new talent and terrific material. This volume, selected by more than sixty movie-buff readers and advised by an editorial board of Hollywood insiders, picks up where those magazines left off. These very same stories may be at a theater near you in the near future. For anyone who has been disappointed by the movies of our day compared to those of the Golden Era of Hollywood, refresh yourself with these exciting short stories, and the possibilities they hold.

Created by the folks behind the very successful Eat: Los Angeles guidebook, Drink: Los Angeles is a nifty pocket guide to the best pubs, cocktail bars, coffeehouses, wine bars, dive bars, tea houses, juice cafes, boba spots, and neighborhood watering holes across Los Angeles. Smart, curated, honest, and reliable. Colleen Dunn Bates is the editor of Eat: Los Angeles, a longtime restaurant critic for Westways, the former editor of the Gault Millau gourmet guides, and the founding editor of Prospect Park Books.

Vince Luca is just like any other high school guy. His best friend, Alex, is trying to score vicariously through him; his brother is a giant pain; and his father keeps bugging him to get motivated. There is just one thing that really sets him apart for other kids—his father happens to be the head of a powerful crime organization. Needless to say, while Vince''s family''s connections can be handy for certain things (like when teachers are afraid to give him a bad grade), they can put a serious crimp in his dating life. How is he supposed to explain to a girl what his father does for a living? But when Vince meets a girl who finally seems to be worth the trouble, her family turns out to be the biggest problem of all. Because her father is an FBI agent—the one who wants to put his father away for good.

Marilyn Monroe continues to be an identifiable cultural figure over 50 years after her death. Marilyn is a photographic history of her career, from Norma Jeane to stardom.