Car Crash Collective is a project by writers Brittany Menjivar and Erin Satterthwaite. In 2021, Brittany Menjivar was hit by two semi trucks in a car accident that left her inches from death. The first time she ever hung out with Erin, she told her this story... and minutes later, Erin found herself in a less dramatic accident involving an Uber driver and a Hollywood intersection. Forever bonded by their trauma—and, of course, their love of literature—they founded Car Crash, a late-night poetry and prose reading series regularly occurring in Los Angeles and New York (with special appearances in Chicago, Berlin, and a host of other cities). Since its inception in July 2023, Car Crash Collective has featured both legendary and up-and-coming writers, including Richard Hell, Melissa Broder, Jeff Weiss, Tony Tulathimutte, Geoff Rickly, Katherine Faw, Jack Skelley, Alex Kazemi, Peter Vack, Anika Levy, Kate Durbin, Ben Fama, Erin Taylor, Lindsay Lerman, Nada Alic, and Lauren Badillo Milici. Brittany and Erin co-hosted Storyfort Literary Festival in 2024; in 2025, their AWP afterparty made alt-lit history with an attendance of hundreds and a line that stretched down the block.
Read about Car Crash Collective in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, Office, and The Birthday Report.
Listen to Car Crash Collective in conversation on these podcasts: Goth Yearbook | The Internet is Dead
Jack Skelley talks Car Crash Collective with Dennis Cooper in Write or Die Magazine.
Praise for Car Crash Collective…
“Erin and Brittany are two brilliant and stylish LA-based writers at the throbbing heart of the LA literary scene. They make having a career in writing seem like a party, glamorous even—something that hasn’t been true in decades. They’re cool without posturing, intelligent while maintaining friendless. Everything I’ve read of theirs, I’ve loved… For years, their reputation preceded them, almost Gatsby-like in its reach. Whenever I introduced myself as a writer to a particular milieu of Silverlake tattooed (aspiring-whatever) cool-girls, they would respond, ‘Are you friends with those Car Crash Collective girls?’” —Maddie Connors, journalist for the LA Times
“A sexy new reading series on the alternative literature scene […] Car Crash events brim with possibility.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Way back when, Dennis Cooper and our lit/art/music ‘gang’ consciously developed a ‘scene.’ What’s happening today in LA w […] Car Crash Collective […] exceeds in all dimensions.” —Jack Skelley, author of Fear of Kathy Acker
“Very generative moment for LA.” —Matthew Donovan of The Future Left and the Neoliberal Hell Podcast
Car Crash Collective
Top photo by Miranda Watters (styling by Subin Lee)
Bottom photo by Mollie Ophelia