Janet Fitch headlines a literary night at L.A.'s Echo

The website the Nervous Breakdown is kicking up its heels Saturday in Echo Park on the early side at the Echo. Since the venue is normally a rock club -- and will be hosting a show later in the evening -- the literary festivities will start at 6 p.m. and wrap up by 8 p.m. Tickets are $5.

On the bill: poets Ellyn Maybe and Steve Abee and spoken word guy Rich Ferguson. The band 50 Cent Haircut will perform, and novelist Janet Fitch, whose most recent book, "Paint it Black," is set in Echo Park in the 1980s, headlines. She'll be reading, I mean, not singing. I'm pretty sure.

The event is co-sponsored by Stories, the bookstore just down the block, which has such a lovely back patio that I hesitate to mention it here. But now you know -- see you there.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Janet Fitch in 2006. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times