Speakeasy/Open Mic Night
It’s the first Monday of the month, and The Last Bookstore’s got their open mic night happening! Remember to come early to get a good spot in line! This open mic night is quite popular.
Where: The Last Bookstore
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7:45 pm – 10:45 pm
Address: 453 S Spring St – Ground Floor, Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: http://lastbookstorela.com/events/speakeasy-open-mic-night-2/
Author Talk
David E. Hayes-Bautista will join us to talk about his book “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition” which discusses how and why Cinco De Mayo celebrations took root in the United States. He is currently Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the School of Medicine, UCLA. Dr. Hayes-Bautista’s research focuses on the dynamics and processes of the health of the Latino population using both quantitative data sets and qualitative observations.
Where: Santa Monica Library, Pico Branch
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2201 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: http://calendar.smgov.net/library/eventcalendar.asp?df=calendar&lib=ALL&EventType=Author%20Talks
Brian DeLeeuw Reads From His Newest Novel “The Dismantling”
In “The Dismantling,” troubled med-school dropout Simon is faced with the grim reality of failure and massive student loans. Haunted by the accidental death of his sister, he accepts a lucrative job at Health Solutions as a black market organ broker, arranging the sales of kidneys and livers from donors who need the money to recipients whose time on the transplant list is running out. Brian DeLeeuw is a novelist and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Princeton University and received his MFA in fiction from The New School. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Brian was an editor for Tin House magazine. His first novel, In This Way I Was Saved, was published in 2009 and long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize, with editions published in the UK, Germany, and France.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 730 pm
Address: 1818 N Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, CA 90027
Website: http://www.skylightbooks.com/event/brian-deleeuw-reads-his-newest-novel-dismantling
Writer at Stories
Its Cinco De MacDonell. The one and only Allan MacDonell will be here to regale in his unique and engaging way. Q&A and signing will follow the reading. Set along Hollywood Boulevard at the birth of punk and the death of the 1970s, the thirty-three melancholic, comic laments of Punk Elegies are a mesmerizing concoction of delusion and revelation. A cultural moment, a marriage and one young man’s mind and soul spiral through a series of boundless possibilities and arrive at a harrowing finality.
Where: Stories Books & Cafe
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Eco Park, CA
Website: http://storiesla.com/blogs/events/19342403-tuesday-may-5th-7-30pm
Luis Rodríguez at CSUN
CSUN will honor L.A. City Poet Laureate, Luis Rodríguez during a special program, featuring a student spoken-word performance and reading from the honoree himself. He is the author of the well-known memoir: “Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., founding editor of Tía Chucha Press and Co-founder of Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore in Sylmar, CA. Note: RSVP email: Juana Mora at juana.mora@csun.edu
Where: CSU Northridge—Northridge Center Complex, USU
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330
Website: http://www.csun.edu/csun-eop/events/csun-honors-laureate-poet-luis-rodriguez
Poetry Reading: V. Penelope Pelizzon
Penelope Pelizzon’s latest book is “Whose Flesh Is Flame, Whose Bone Is Time.” Her first book, “Nostos,” won the Hollis Summers Prize and the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award and the poems are intentionally domesticated in the way people become in pictures, and she uses photographic memory to resonant effect. Pelizzon’s other awards include an Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, a Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, and a “Discovery”/ The Nation Award.
Where: Hammer Museum—Annex
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, CA 90024
Website: http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2015/05/poetry-v-penelope-pelizzon/
Shakespeare at the Woodland Hills Library
Join educator/actor Richard MacPherson as he reads aloud “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare.
Where: Woodland Hills Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 22200 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA
Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/read-aloud-shakespeare-twelfth-night-0
Author at the Glendale Library: One Book/One Glendale Selection For Teens
Teens, meet New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Niven, author of “All the Bright Places,” the first ever One Book/One Glendale selection for teens. All the Bright Places is an exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
Where: Glendale Central Library
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale, CA
Website: http://www.glendaleca.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/7136/125?curm=5&cury=2015
Writer at Cal Arts: Writing Now Reading Series
Writing Now Reading Series: A conversation with Jeffery Vallance, best known for projections that blur the lines between object making, installation, performance, curation & anthropological study Also, he will address how his writing integrates with visual and performative modalities, and how it enters his work in relation to his dyslexia.
Where: Cal Arts-Butler Building #4
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 24700 McBean Pkwy, Valencia, CA 91355
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
In the Words of Womyn
In the Words of Womyn strives to create and foster a safe space in which womyn explore and develop her identity as a writer. ITWOW empowers womyn “to give sound to our story and volume to our voice,” through the practice and sharing of written and spoken-word arts.
Where: Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 13197 Gladstone Ave, Unit A | Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: http://www.tiachucha.org/calendarevents/ or www.inthewordsofwomyn.com
Mario Moroni
Italian poet Mario Moroni’s performance, in Italian (English translations available in print to the audience), consists of three parts: in the first, Moroni will just read his work; in the second, the poet will give a recital of four short poems arranged for electronic music and computer images by composer Jon Hallstrom; in the third part, Moroni will recite a poem inspired by the tragic events of September 11th, 2001 in New York, with music for piano by composer David Gaita, performed by pianist Yago Vazquez.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90201
Admission: Regular Admission $10, Students & Seniors $6, Members Free
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
Talking Back: Voices of Color
This dynamic new anthology features writings by youth, political prisoners, immigrants, and history-makers. Essays and interviews advance the views of a multi-racial, inter-generational mix of 30 Black, Latina/o, Indigenous, Asian Pacific American, Palestinian and LGBTQ community organizers. Topics include quality education and environmental justice, indigenous land rights and international solidarity, community mobilizing against police abuse, film and book reviews, hidden histories of women of color, and tales of endurance and survival. Readers: Yolanda Alaniz, Karla Alegria, Christine Browning, Yuisa Gimeno, Moisés Montoya, Lillian Thompson, Noel Perez, Nellie Wong
Where: The Last Bookstore
Date: Satudray the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 453 S Spring St – Ground Floor, Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: http://lastbookstorela.com/events/talking-back-voices-of-color/
UC Irvine MFA Students Read From Their Work
Please join the UC Irvine MFA Programs in Writing Reading Series for their third event of the spring 2015 quarter. The reading will feature poets Nicholas Reiner and Lynn Wang and fiction writers Jill Kato and Jennifer Milton. Please come and enjoy the work of these emerging voices.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 5pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, CA90027
Website: http://www.skylightbooks.com/event/uc-irvine-mfa-students-read-their-work-2
Wide Awake Anthology Reading
Wide Awake: Poets Of Los Angeles And Beyond Publication Reading Join Beyond Baroque for the Ultimate L.A. Poetry Release Party! The new anthology from the Pacific Coast Poetry Series Beyond Baroque Books/The Pacific Coast Poetry Series features 112 poets in what may be the most ambitious anthology of poetry in many years.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 4 pm – 6:30 pm
Admission: Regular Admission $10, Students & Seniors $6, Members Free.
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90201 Regular
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
Author Talk & Book Signing: Jennifer Caloyeras
Jennifer Caloyeras will sign her new young adult novel, “Strays,” about a girl with anger management issues who is sentenced to a summer rehabilitating aggressive dogs. Sixteen-year-old Iris believes she is nothing like Roman, the three-legged pit bull who is struggling to overcome his own dark past, not to mention the other humans in the program. But when Roman’s life is on the line, Iris learns that counting on the help of others may be the only way to save him. With sparkling prose and delightful humor, Jennifer Caloyeras’s novel beautifully portrays the human-animal bond. Come speak with the author and find out how you can win a doggie gift bag. Jennifer is a Los Angeles – based writer of short fiction and young adult fiction.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 2:30 pm
Address: 10580 1/2 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90064
Website: http://www.childrensbookworld.com/Calendar/calendar.htm
Soap Box Poets Open Reading
This is your home. Bring your words. The mic is yours. Sign ups begin at 1:45 PM. There is a 7-minute limit. This month’s feature: Fernando Castro. Hosted by Jessica Wilson. Note: Suggested donation $5.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center-Mike Kelly Gallery
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90201
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
Editor Tom Nolan presents Ross Macdonald: 4 Crime Novels of the 1950’s
At last, the brilliant successor to Hammett and Chandler in a definitive collector’s edition: Revered by such contemporary masters as Sue Grafton, George Pelecanos, and James Ellroy, Ross Macdonald (the pseudonym of Kenneth Millar) brought to the crime novel new levels of social realism and psychological depth, while honing a unique gift for intricately involving mystery narratives. For his centennial year, The Library of America inaugurates its Macdonald edition with four novels from the 1950s, all featuring his incomparable protagonist, private investigator Lew Archer: “The Way Some People Die,” “The Barbarous Coast,” “The Galton Case,” and “The Doomsters.”
Where: Book Soup
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 8818 W Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: http://booksoup.com/tom-nolan-2015
Los Angeles Literature 