Han Vance discusses and signs Golden State Misadventures
Golden State Misadventures chronicles an amusing and ultimately life-altering quest of a soon-to-be-divorced father from Atlanta as he travels turn of the millennium California, immersing himself in the urban grittiness of the Bay Area, glitzy yet morally ambiguous quirkiness of Hollywood and slow burn reclusiveness of the Emerald Triangle. Han Vance is an Atlanta-based American culture reporter: writer (author/journalist/poet/blogger).
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 7:00 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: http://www.booksoup.com/event/han-vance-discusses-and-signs-golden-state-misadventures
John Scalzi & The End of All Things
New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi presents his latest book in his Old Man’s War series, The End of all Things, which takes over where The Human Division left off. In Scalzi’s universe humans have expanded into space, only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. John Scalzi’s debut Old Man’s War won him science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, his most recent novel Lock In, and also Redshirts, which won 2013’s Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely-read blog The Whatever (whatever.scalzi.com) has earned him two additional Hugo Awards as well.
Where: The Last Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 453 S. Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: http://www.http://lastbookstorela.com/events/john-scalzi-the-end-of-all-things/
David Shields discusses and signs That Thing You Do with Your Mouth
In That Thing You Do With Your Mouth, actress and voice-over artist Samantha Matthews offers in the form of an extended monologue, prompted and arranged by New York Times bestselling author (and Matthews’s cousin once removed) David Shields a vivid investigation of her startling sexual history. From her abuse at the hands of a family member to her present-day life in Barcelona, where she briefly moonlighted as a dubber of Italian pornography into English, Matthews reveals herself to be a darkly funny, deeply contemporary woman with a keen awareness of how her body has been routinely hijacked, and how she has been formatted by her early trauma. Her story is a study of her uneasy relationships with female desire, her tormentors, and her lovers with whom she seeks out both the infliction and receipt of harm. This book is an attempt, sometimes self-thwarted, to break down barriers: sexual and emotional for Matthews, literary for Shields. For them, the only response to the unspeakable is to speak, to do that thing you do with your mouth, as directly and honestly as possible. (McSweeney’s Books)
Believer author Karolina Waclawiak will be joining David as reader for the evening.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 25th
Time: 7:00 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Personal Prose and Poetry: A Writing Class for Adults
Participants in this class will have an opportunity to write in class and share what they have written, getting positive feedback as well as suggestions for revision. They will also have an opportunity to bring pieces they have already written to share. Register by calling Chevy Chase Library at 818-548-2046. Class is limited to 15.
Where: Chevy Chase Branch of Glendale Library
Date: Wednesday the 26th
Time: 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 3301 E. Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale, CA 91206
Website: http://www.glendaleca.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/7354/125
Writer Wednesday
Happens each Wednesday night. Step up to your mic! Each Wednesday is a celebration where the creative community of North Hollywood thrives, shares, and enjoys creative performances. We see tap dancers, ukelele players, Poet Magicians, Song Poets, Musicians, Flutists, Harmonica Players, Storytellers, Visual Artists and so many more at our mic! 7 minutes given, open to all creative genres!
Where: Sugar & Cream Cafe
Date: Wednesday the 19th
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 10719 Burbank Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91604
Website: http://www.losangelespoetsociety.org/#!writer-wednesday/ct71
Sue Grafton in conversation with Denise Hamilton
Sue Grafton’s X, perhaps her darkest and most chilling novel, it features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this sociopath. The test is whether Kinsey can prove her case against him before she becomes his next victim. NOTE: You may purchase your tickets online at vromansbookstore.com or by calling the Will Call department at 626-449-5320.
Tickets and books will be available for pick-up from the store location beginning the date of the book’s release, Tuesday, August 25.
Tickets cannot be shipped. Reserved tickets and books may also be picked up at the Will Call table at the venue the evening of the event. Tickets and books may be available for purchase at the venue, while supplies last.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 27th
Time: 7:00 pm
Address: Note event address offsite: All Saints Church, 132 N, Euclid Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101
Cost: Tickets are $30.00 + tax and include one ticket and one copy of X. Tickets cannot be shipped.
Website: http://www.vromansbookstore.com/sue-grafton-august-2015
Coffee House Writer’s Group Workshop Night!
Authors Shop Talk with Andrew Turner: Writing the Perfect First Paragraph
This will be a workshop/session covering first paragraphs and focusing on the contract between reader and writer and what sort of story the reader expects from the first paragraph or two (or longer for novels). The class is designed around what publishers are looking for in fiction and how to craft a first paragraph that lays the foundation for the rest of the story.
Attendees may submit ahead of time (at least 24 hours in advance of the workshop), an ambitious paragraph of their own fiction or nonfiction. We will choose the FIRST THREE people who send the email address below. We will …closely analyze them in addition to paragraphs by highly-regarded authors, making note of as many technical and intellectual maneuvers in each paragraph as possible. Your paragraph will be reworked, by all of us, until we’re satisfied that it can serve as a model for you. NOTE: You can email your paragraphs to katurner@kandrewturner.com Remember to include “FIRST PARAGRAPH WORKSHOP” in the subject line of the email.
Date: Thursday the 27th
Time: 5:30-7:00 pm
Address: 5535 E. Spring St., Long Beach, CA 90808
Website: http://www.gatsbybooks.com/events/
Open Mic Night of Music & Spoken Word
Tía Chucha’s Open Mic is a welcoming, creative sanctuary where people are encouraged to share their thoughts, feelings and talents through various styles of expression. This can be a poem, story, song, joke, freestyle, or just something they feel the need to express. Everyone is welcome to be themselves. It’s FREE. Participants sign up on arrival. Donations are accepted. Hosted by Jeffrey Martin.
Where: Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Friday the 28th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 13197 Gladstone Ave, Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: http://www.tiachucha.org/calendarevents/
Author at Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House
Celia Bonaduce launches her new novel: Welcome to Fat Chance, Texas.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House
Date: Saturday the 29th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 1010 Foothill Blvd., La Canada, CA 90069
Website: http://www.flintridgebooks.com
National Beat Poetry Festival Event
Celebrate our Venice Beat heritage with readings by one of the original Venice Beats FRANK T. RIOS, and S.A. GRIFFIN, HARRY NORTHUP, HOLLY PRADO, PEGARTY LONG, and MICHAEL C FORD, reading selections from other Beats including Stuart Z. Perkoff, Tony Scibella, William Margolis, Philomene Long, and Alexander Tocchi as well as their own original work.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 29th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 681 Venice Boulevard, Venice, California 90291
Cost: Nonmembers: $10, Students & Seniors $6. Members Free.
Website: http://www.http://beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
Scraps to Scribes Reading!
Scraps to Scribes is an eight writing workshop led by Jen Hitchcock that is now five sessions old!!! To celebrate, workshop members past and present are getting together to read their work… TO YOU!!! Scraps to Scribes is a workshop environment that provides a supportive atmosphere and a guided framework for helping participants to finish a short piece of writing by the end of the session. Each session of Scraps To Scribes culminates in a fanzine compiling the group’s work. Book Show publishes and distributes the fanzine, available exclusively at the shop! Reading for us tonight: ERIN ANADKAT, HEATHER CHAPMAN, JEN HITCHCOCK, KIM KOEHLER, NOELLE KUKENAS, TANYA RIVERO, CHRISTINA TRINCALE, ARI DESANO
Where: Bookshow LA
Date: Saturday the 29th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 5503 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: http://www.http://bookshowla.com/event/scraps-to-scribes-reading/ or http://bookshowla.com/workshops-groups-2/
Paul Lieber and Kita Shantiris
Los Angeles poets PAUL LIEBER and KITA SHANTIRIS explore trauma, love and loss with fierce honesty, tenderness and humor. An actor and producer/host of KPFK’s “Why Poetry?”, Lieber has a “cunning way with words,” while Shantiris, a psychologist who runs Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, writes “with a refreshing delight in language.”
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 681 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: http://beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html
Brentwood Publication Party for Peter Lefcourt’s Purgatory Gardens
Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood welcomes author Peter Lefcourt to the store to discuss and sign his humorous crime novel, Purgatory Garden. Sammy Dee is a mid-level Long Island mafioso in witness protection. Didier Onyekachukwu was the corrupt minister of finance of the former Upper Volta. Both men find themselves in middle age, living in the Southern California version of genteel poverty in a down-market condo complex called Paradise Gardens. Enter Marcy Gray, a mature actress barely getting by on a meager SAG pension. She is looking for a guy to help her through the duration and, frankly, at this point her standards are not as high as they should be; she’d settle for someone who doesn’t pick his teeth at the table and who drives at night. Occasional sex and some travel wouldn’t hurt. Her search has narrowed to two fellow residents: Sammy and Didier. Once both men realize that the other is the primary obstacle to Marcy’s affections, each decides to put a hit on the other, and winds up unknowingly hiring the same father-son demolition squad.
Where: Diesel Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 225 26th St, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: http://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/brentwood-publication-party-peter-lefcourts-purgatory-gardens
Uptown Word Reading Series
UPTOWN WORD is a poetry and storytelling reading series featuring published writers in an effort to promote literacy, enliven the arts scene, and engage the local community and beyond in Uptown Long Beach. One of their goals is to obtain funding to offer free one-day community creative and essay writing workshops facilitated by published writers that will culminate in public readings. The workshop participants will also be coached on how to present their work to a public audience. Please join Liz Gonzalez, Host and Curator, in bringing the literary arts to and promoting literacy in Uptown. Featured writers are: Olga García Echeverría, Ángel Garcia, Keayva Mitchell and Mike Sonksen. These writers live in or have ties to Long Beach. There will also be an open mic that is first come first served: 4-minute max, including introductions. Please rehearse and time yourself.
Where: Uptown Long Beach Business District
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 5643 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90805
Los Angeles Literature 