Eric Priestley (1943-2021) was an original member of the Watts Writers Workshop founded in 1965 by Bud Schulberg in response to that year's riots. A lifelong resident of Watts, Priestley authored the poetry collection, Abracadabra (Heat Press, 1994), the autobiographical novel, Raw Dog (Holloway House, 1985) and the novel, For Keeps (Otis Books, 2009). Poet Quincey Troupe wrote that "Priestley's poetry captures an exciting pulse of the American language that speaks in multiple dialects of gangster street lingo, Louisiana patois, L.A. Spanglish and African Languages." In a 2022 L.A. Times op-ed, columnist Erin Aubrey Kaplan remembered Priestley as a de facto poet laureate of Los Angeles. Priestley taught writing and literature courses at CSU-Northridge and UC-San Diego.
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