Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
LA Times’ Main Stage Event features Richard Thompson, in conversation with RJ Smith, who will present and discuss his memoir, Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975.
Richard Thompson is aninternational and longtime beloved musical legend, known for his brilliant songwriting, his extraordinary guitar playing, and his haunting voice. In this long-awaited memoir the British folk musician takes us back to the 1960s, a period of great change and creativity—both for him and the world at large. Thompson is the author of Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice, 1967-1975.
RJ Smith has been a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine. a contributor to Blender, a columnist for Village Voice, a staff writer for Spin, and a writer for many journals, His book, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown, was among the New York Times’ “One Hundred Notable Books of 2012.” He is the interviewer for this event.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Skylight Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-richard-thompson/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
This Moment in Fiction is an event featuring three contemporary writers who reckon with the world around us, exploring the range of human connections whether in real life or online.
Amy Kaufman is a staff writer for the LA Times, where she has covered celebrity and pop culture since 2009. She is the author of the bestselling book, Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure..
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels, Ms. Hemple Chronicles, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, and a story collection, Likes, a finalist for the LA Times book Prize in Fiction.
Patricia Lockwood is the author of two poetry collections, Balloon Pop Outlaw Black and Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals, and the memoir Priestdaddy. Her writing has appeared widely, including in the London Review of Books, where she is a contributing editor.
Lauren Oyler’s essays on books and culture have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, London Review of Books, The Guardian, New York magazine’s The Cut, The New Republic, Bookforum, and elsewhere.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Vroman’s Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-this-moment-in-fiction/
Edward Hirsch, with Kate Daniels, & 100 Poems to Break Your Heart via Book Soup – Online Crowdcast Event
Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem, in conversation with Kate Daniels, will discuss his latest book, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart.
This collection of 100 of the most moving and inspiring poems of the last 200 years from around the world, and is a book that will comfort and enthrall anyone trapped by grief, fear, or loneliness.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Book Soup – Online event
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/edward-hirsch-kate-daniels-discuss-100-poems-break-your-heart or https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/la-times-festival-books-presents-moment-fiction
Amy Gerstler, with Louise Steinman, & Index of Women via Chevalier’s Bookstore – Virtual Event
Author Amy Gerstler, in conversation with Louise Steinman,will discuss her book, Index of Women.
In this book from a poet who is a sly, sophisticated and subversive writer, come a supremely witty, ferociously smart, and emotionally raw new collection of poems about womanhood. In Index of Women, Gerstler is both comic and prayer-like, and wrestles with mortality, love, gender, and what it is to be human.
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/amy-gerstler
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Crime Fiction: Secrets and Suspense is an event featuring a panel of crime fiction writers guided by mystery reviewer Paula L. Woods. Escape the humdrum of everyday life into worlds filled with gangsters, grifters, and gut-wrenching suspense.
Paula L. Woods is a book critic, editor, and author of the Charlotte Justice crime novels. She regularly reviews mysteries for the LA Times.
Christopher Bollen is a writer who lives in New York City and regularly writes about art, literature, and culture. His first novel. Lightning People, was published in 2011, and his second novel, Orient, published in May 2015. He is currently Editor at Large at Interview Magazine,
Tod Goldberg is the author of more than a dozen books, including Gangsterland and Gangster Nation. His book Living Dead Girl, was a finalist for the Los Angele Times Book Prize, and his writing has appeared in the LA Times, among other journals. His latest book is a collection of stories, The Low Desert. He is Director of the low residency MFA program at UC Riverside.
Jennifer Hillier lives in Toronto, Canada and her book. Jar of Hearts, was winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel. She is also the author of Wonderland, and Creep.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Small World Books.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-fiction-secrets-suspense/
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online
The free Monday Night Fiction Workshop led by Raquel Baker is a community writing workshop in which participants are asked to bring copies of 2-3 pages of fiction to read, and for critique and discussion. Registration is required.
Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing form Mills College. She is currently Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Studies and Transnational Literatures at CSU Channel Islands. She also has published poetry and non-fiction, and done readings with the Ventura Poetry Project.
Where: Beyond Baroque online (tickets at Eventbrite)
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7:30pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online
Website: https://beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
The Main Stage event features CNN host and journalist Don Lemon, in conversation with Greg Braxton, discussing his new book, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism.
Don Lemon is the host of CNN Tonight with Don Lemon—America’s only Black prime time anchor. He brings an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, and shows how deep and how often our problems lie, and what we can begin to do to fix them.
Greg Braxton is a Los Angeles resident and has written for the Los Angeles Times for more than three decades. He currently is a staff writer covering television for the Calendar section, and has also written expensively about trends and cultural issues in the entertainment field.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Pages Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-don-lemon/
21st Century Indigenous Poets: Sherwin Bitsui, Santee Frazier & Joan Kane via Scripps – Online Event
In celebration of National Poetry Month, join poets Sherwin Bitsui, Santee Frazier, and this spring’s Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing, Joan Naviyuk Kane, for a reading and discussion of their work.
Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. He is a Dine of the Todich’il’nii, and is a Lannan and Whiting awards recipient, and the author of Shapeshift, Flood Song, and Dissolve.
Santee Frazier is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and is the author of Dark Thirty and Aurum. He currently serves as Director of the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing.
Joan Naviyuk Kane is Inupiaq, with family from Ugiuvak and Qawiaraq. A Whiting and Guggenheim recipient, she is the author of eight collections of poetry and prose, and is currently a Visiting Fellow of Race and Ethnicity at Brown University and the 2021 Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Creative Writing and Journalism at Scripps.
NOTE: Reservations required for this ticketed event at Eventbrite site.
Where: Scripps – Online (see site)
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/198389291763917
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Native American Literature: A Panel Honoring the Legacy of Leslie Marmon Silo, 2020 Robert Kirsch Award Winner features members of the next generation of writers to discuss their works.
Moderator Rigoberto Gonzalez is the author of eighteen books of poetry and prose. He is a critic-at-large for the LA Times and contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, and is series editor of the Camino del Sol Latin Literary Series at the University of Arizona Press.
Danielle Geller’s debut book, Dog Flowers, was published in 2021. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, The New Yorker, and Brevity. She lives in British Columbia where she teaches at the University of Victoria. She is also a faculty mentor for the low residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation.
Brandon Hobson is the author of the novel Where the Dead Sit Talking (2018), a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. His other books include: Desolation of Avenues Untold, the novella Deep Blum, and his work has appeared in many publications. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at New Mexico State University, and teaches in the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation Tribe of Oklahoma.
David Heska Wanbli Weiden is an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation and received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is currently a PEN/America Writing for Social Justice Fellow, and lives in Denver, Colorado.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Small World Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-native-american-literature-panel/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Making History: Media, Stories, History, and Memory, is a panel presented by the USC Stage, and features a lively panel of celebrated USC authors who will discuss their work and the fascinating connections between stories, media, history, and memory. Panelists include:
Moderator Priya Jaikumar is Professor of Cinematic arts at USC. She is the author of two books, CINEMA AT THE END OF EMPIRE (Duke, 2006) and WHERE HISTORIES RESIDE: INDIA AS FILMED SPACE (Duke, 2019), and is co-editor of Teaching Media and Cinema Studies Against the Contemporary Global Right (2018), among other works.
William Deverell is Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and professor of history and culture of the 19th and 20th century American West.
Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Sympathizer, and the recently published sequel, The Committed. He is also the author of the short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War; and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He has also published a children’s book with his son, Chicken of the Sea.
Howard A. Rodman is the author of the novels, The Great Eastern and Destiny Express. He is also screenwriter of Savage Grace, and is past president of the Writers Guild of America West, and professor of screenwriting at USC, and an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is LA Times Bookshop.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-making-history/
Andy Biersack & Ryan J. Downey & They Don’t Need to Understand via Book Soup – Online Crowdcast Event
Author and frontman Andy Biersack, in conversation with co-author Ryan J. Downey, will discuss their book, They Don’t Need to Understand: Stories of Hope, Fear, Family, Life, and Never Giving In.
Before he was the charismatic singer of Black Veil Brides and an accomplished solo artist under the Andy Black moniker, he was Andrew Dennis Biersack, an imaginative and creative kid in Cincinnati, Ohio, struggling with anxiety, fear, loneliness, and the impossible task of fitting in. Here he tells the story of his youth, the discovery of the passions that would shape his life, and his decision to move to Hollywood at age 18. to make his dreams come true.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Book Soup – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Lisa Napoli & NPR’s Founding Mothers via LiveTalks LA – Online Event
Author Lisa Napoli, in conversation with Susan Stamberg, Nina Totenberg & Linda Wertheimer, will discuss her book, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR,
This book is a group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR, and is timed to launch on the 50th anniversary of the debut of “All things Considered.” The author has a long career in journalism and is a columnist/correspondent at MSNBC. Her previous books include Ray & Joan, a memoir on the McDoanld’s heiress.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this ticketed event.
Where: LiveTalks LA – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm PST
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.livetalksla.org/events/lisa_napoli/
Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka & What’s Not to Love via Pages Bookstore – Virtual YA Event
Join us for a virtual book launch with Manhattan Beach authors Emily Wibberly & Austin Siegemund-Broka and hear the discuss their new book, What’s Not to Love
The authors launched their first book, Always Never Yours, at our store in 2018, and this is their fourth novel.
In this book, Alison Sanger and Ethan Malloy have competed on almost everything throughout childhood, and if Alison could avoid Ethan until graduation, she would. But they have all their classes together, and when the principal assigns them the task of planning a ten-year-reunion for another class, with the promise of recommendations for Harvard if they do, they both sign up. But with all the extra time spent together, they soon feel closer, as tension between them builds.
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Pages Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/virtual-book-launch-whats-not-love-tuesday
Group Poetry Event: Peter Filkins, Major Jackson, Didi Jackson & Rowan Ricardo Phillipsvia Vroman’s – Online Crowdcast Event
Four authors and poets will read and discuss their work, featuring:
Peter Filkins is the author of five collections of poetry, the most recent being Water / Music, just out form John Hopkins UP. He teaches writing and literature at Bard College.
Rowan Ricardo Phillips is the author of Heaven (FSG, 2012). His latest, Living Weapon, presents a bracing renewal of civic poetry.
Major Jackson is the author of five books of poetry, including The Absurd Man (2020). He has published in many journals and anthologies, and is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.
Didi Jackson is the author of MOON JAR (Red Hen Press, 2020). She lives in Nashville, TN and teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Vroman’s – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/group-poetry-event
Arthur Sze, with John Evans, & The Glass Constellation via Diesel’s Bookstore – Virtual Event
Author Arthur Sze, in conversation with John Evans,will discuss his book, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems.
Arthur Sze has published ten books of poetry, including Sight Lines, which won the National Book Award, and Compass Rose, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His poems have been published into a dozen languages, and he is professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives.
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Diesel Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Jonathan Ames, with Nick Kroll, & A Man Named Doll via Skylight Books
Join us to hear author Jonathan Ames, in conversation with Nick Kroll, to hear them discuss his new book, A Man Named Doll.
From the creator of HBO’s Bored to Death, comes this deliciously noir novel about an idiosyncratic private detective Happy Doll and his quest to help a dying friend who is running out of time in sun-blinded Los Angeles. A Man Named Doll is more than a fascinating introduction to this character– it is a joyride through Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for tickets and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – Online
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online Event
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Speculative Fiction: The Real and Unreal, Presented by the Ray Bradbury Foundation is an event spanning time and space, psychological thrillers, and familial sacrifices. These acclaimed authors create fantastical worlds while tackling societal moral dilemmas.
Kelly Link is moderator of this event and the author of the collections Stanger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and Get in Trouble. She is co-founder of Small Beer Press.
Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning author of fiction, poetry, and criticism. She is science fiction and fantasy columnist for The New York Times Book Review and co-author of How You Lose the Time War, a novella. She teaches creative writing at the University of Ottawa.
Megan Giddings is a senior features editor at The Rumpus. Her novel Lakewood was published by Amistad in 2020 and was widely voted to be one of the best books of the year. She is a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction. Her second novel, The Woman Could Fly, is forthcoming.
Other panelists: TBA.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Small World Books.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-science-fiction-panel/
Afrofuturism Book Club with Tyree Boyd- Pates & Sinfin via The Last Bookstore – Zoom Online
The Afrofuturism Book Club is led by Tyree Boyd-Pates. Afrofuturism is a vast, forward-looking movement with solid roots in the past, and it spans art, music, theory—everything, and we read new fiction.
This month’s book selection is The Conductors, by author Nicole Glover, a debut novel which combines the history of the Underground Railroad with a magic system both unique and inventive, creating a world where even magic is segregated..
NOTE: All Last Bookstore events are ticketed, so check site for details.
Where: The Last Bookstore – Zoom online (see site)
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: Zoom Online
Website: https://www.lastbookstorela.com/event-details//the-afrofuturism-book-club-with-tyree-boyd-pates-4
Tuesdays at the Virtual Cobalt: Poets Series Presents: Julianna McCarthy & Open Mic – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature poet Julianna McCarthy, plus an open reading.
Julianna McCarthy is the author of the chapbook, Everything Hurts, published by Latitude34 Press. Her poems have been published in numerous journals and she was a Pushcart nominee.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic at Greenway Court Theatre Is Now Virtual – Online
DPL events at the Greenway Court Theatre are postponed until further notice.
But some events are offered via livestream, so check the calendar for information on events offered via the wonderly app link.
We have an open mic every Tuesday night except for the third Tuesday, when we have a poetry slam. There is a sign-up procedure and a three-minute time limit per performer. The event is open to all ages.
Where: Online event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 9 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://dapoetrylounge.com/calendar (Check site to confirm date)
Ayanna Thompson, with Natalie Hopkinson, & Blackface via Skylight Books
Join us to hear author Ayanna Thompson, in conversation with Natalie Hopkinson, to hear them discuss her new book, Blackface.
This book explains what blackface is, why it occurred, and what its legacies are in the 21st century. This event is part of Object Lessons, published in partnership with an essay series in the Atlantic.
NOTE: See site for tickets and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & Malaprop – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event
Middle Grade Book Club & City Spies via Pages Bookstore – Online Kids Event
Join us for the Middle Grade Book Club, when we read new releases of middle grade fiction. This meeting’s selection is City Spies, by James Ponti, who is the creator of the Spy Squad Series. Operating out of a Boarding school base in Scotland, the City Spies are five kids form various parts of the world, who enjoy honing their unique skills, such as computer hacking, and helping in places of espionage where the adults can’t.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Pages Bookstore – Online event
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/middle-grade-book-club-virtual-meeting-10
In Conversation: Aneeka Ayanna Henderson & Tera W. Huntervia CAAM – Online Event
In her book Veil and Vow: Marriage Matters, author Aneeka Ayanna Henderson places familiar, often politicized, questions about Black marriage in conversation with a rich cultural archive that incudes fiction by Terry McMillan and Sister Souljah, music by Anita Baker, and films such as The Best Man. She examines popular texts alongside legislation, which masked the true sources of inequality with crisis-laden myths about African American family formation to grapple with old questions, and make clear how deeply marriage still matters in African American culture.
Henderson is an associate professor at Amherst College,, and will discuss her latest work with Tera W. Hunter, a professor at Princeton University.
NOTE: See site RSVP for Zoom details.
Where: California African American Museum (CAAM) – Online event
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1439999559681151
Hen House at Home: Khalisa Rae, Nikki Moustaki & Allison Josephvia RHP – Online Event
Red Hen Press is excited to bring our virtual series, the Hen House at Home, back to you this spring, on Wednesdays at 4:00 pm.
This event is a poetry special featuring three women warriors who write poetry that identifies with grief, society and injustice, rage, race, and womanhood.
Khalisa Rae is a poet, journalist, and activist, and the author of a debut poetry collection, Ghost in a Black Girls Throat, forthcoming in April 2021 from Red Hen Press.
Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Bird Market of Paris: A Memoir.
Allison Joseph is the author of many collections of poetry, including Confessions of a Barefaced Woman (2018). Her work often joins autobiography to cultural narratives and histories of Afro-Caribbean communities.
NOTE: See site RSVP for Zoom details.
Where: Red Hen Press – Online event
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/884448845459352
Richard Lui & Enough About Me via Vroman’s – Online Crowdcast Event
Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness equips you with practical tools to find meaning and compassion in even the smallest of everyday choices. It is also a look into the Asian-American experience and the “model minority” myth.
Richared Lui did something tough when his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The award-winning news anchor set aside his growing career to care for family. Selflessness did not come easy, and he set out to explore why he struggled. Choice by choice, step by step, the path to a more satisfying and fulfilling journey is right here in the people around us.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Vroman’s – Online event
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/richard-lui
Group Reading: Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers via Skylight Books
Join us to hear The Community of Writers (formerly Community of Writers at Squaw Valley) celebrate fifty years of its annual summer poetry workshop in Olympic Valley, California. The readers from this anthology include:
Lisa Alvarez is the editor of two landmark collections, including the Community of Writers’ Why to These Rocks. She is a fiction writer and poet whose work has appeared widely and her commentary has been featured in the Los Angeles Times. She teaches writing at Irvine Valley College and co-directs the Community of Writers.
Francisco Aragon is the son of Nicaraguan immigrants. After Ruben, his third book, was published last year by Red Hen Press. He directs Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, and taught the poetry workshop in 2017.
Joan Baranow is the author of the Next Life, Living Apart, and two other poetry chapbooks. A VOCA Fellow and member of the Community of Writers, she founded and teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program I Creative Writing at Dominican University of CA.
Katie Ford is the author of four books of poems, most recently, If You Have to Go (Graywolf Press). Her third, Blood Lyrics, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and Rilke Prize. She’s a professor at the University of California Riverside, and taught the poetry workshop in 2012.
Jay A. Fernandez is a Los Angeles-based poet, writer, and editor whose work has appeared widely. He attended the Poetry Workshops Community of Writers in 2018, the Fiction Program there in 2017.
Dorianne Laux is a Pulitzer Prize finalist whose most recent collection is Only As the Day Is Long: New and Selected, W.W. Norton. She teaches poetry at North Carolina State and Pacific University. In 2020 she was selected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets
Lester Graves Lennon is a poet, editor, and investment banker. His first book of poetry, The Upward Curve of the Earth and Heavens, is found in more than 70 public and university libraries.He is poetry editor of Rosebud Magazine, a founding member of the L.A. Mayor’s Poet Laureate Task Force, and board member of the Community of Writers.
Michelle Brittan Rosado is the author of the collection, Why Can’t It Be Tenderness, which won the 2018 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. She has a PhD in creative writing from USC and teaches writing at USC.
Vickie Vertiz is a poet and writer form Bell Gardens, and her writing has appeared widely. Her book, Palm Frond With Its Throat Cut,won the 2018 PEN America literary prize in poetry. She teaches writing at UC, Santa Barbara.
Sholeh Wolpe is an Iranian-born poet, playwright, and literary translator. Her literary work includes five collections of poetry, several plays, three books of translations, and three anthologies. Her new collection of poems, Abacus of Loss, is forthcoming form the University of Arkansas Press in March 2022. She attended the Poetry Workshop in 2004.
Charles Harper Webb has published twelve collections of poetry, and his latest, Sidebend World, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. He teaches creative writing at CSU, Long Beach, and attended the Poetry Workshop in 1991.
NOTE: See site for tickets and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online (see site)
LA Times Community Book Club: Barack Obama, with Ava Duvernay, & A Promised Land via Skylight Bookstore – VirtualEvent
This free virtual community book club event features former president and author Barack Obama, in conversation with filmmaker Ava Duvernay,to discuss his new memoir, A Promised Land.
In this book the author takes us inside his improbable journey: from his political awakening in college, to finding his way as a community organizer and young senator form Chicago, to the day-to-day grind of his campaign to be president.
NOTE: Details, tickets, and event link available at website.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & LA Times – Online event
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm PST
Address: Virtual event (see site)
Live at Dynasty Typewriter: Bess Kalb & Nobody Will tell You This But Me via Skylight Bookstore – VirtualEvent
Author and writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live, Beth Kalb, in conversation with writer Bridger Winegar,will launch the paperback of Nobody Wil Tell You This But Me.
In this book the author recounts both family lore and family secrets through the saved voicemails and correspondence of her grandmother Bobby Bell, who was an irrepressible force, both glamorous and unapologetically opinionated. This virtuosic form of memoir is a reconstruction of her grandmother’s words and wisdom to tell her family’s story with equal parts poignancy and hilarity.
NOTE: Details, tickets, and event link available at website.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & Dynasty Typewriter
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm PST
Address: Virtual event (see site)
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop via The World Stage – Online Event
Join this weekly community workshop founded in 1990, and following a three-part format, by joining in via Zoom every Wednesday night at 7:30 pm.
In its 30th year, the Anansi Writers Workshop is a whop and open mic performance featuring L.A.’s freshest, most inspiring voices speaking their truth in poetry and prose.
Suggested: $5.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery. Check website for Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for further details, and any change in the schedule due to holidays. Contact kaliflowers@gmial.com or call (323) 293-2451
Where: Online event (Eventbrite)
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7:30 pm – 10pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/AnansiVirtual Workshop/ (Check site to confirm date)
Feminist Book Club with Julia Callahan & Vanishing Half via The Last Bookstore – Zoom Online
The Feminist Book Club is led by Julia Callahan, and this club reads an intersectional variety of feminist lit—fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, etc.
This month’s book selection is Vanishing Half, by author Brit Bennett, an intergenerational examination of identity and what its like to grow up in a body you’ve been conditioned to feel ashamed of.
NOTE: All Last Bookstore events are ticketed, so check site for details.
Where: The Last Bookstore – Zoom online (see site)
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: Zoom Online
Website: https://www.lastbookstorela.com/event-details//the-afrofuturism-book-club-with-julia-callahan-3
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop via Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online
Join Beyond Baroque’s longest running free poetry workshop via Zoom online as we welcome new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Facilitators are rotated quarterly, and the current facilitator is Beth Ruscio.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets and information.
Where: Online event (Eventbrite)
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html
The Ugly Mug Open Mic Reading with Julianna McCarthy via Two Idiots Peddling Poetry – Zoom Online
Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and host Ben Trigg presents weekly poetry readings at the Ugly Mug and the events are now virtual.
This week’s feature is poet Julianna McCarthy.
Julianna McCarthy is an award-winning poet based in Los Angeles. Her poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, Catamaran, Nimrod, Hole in the Head, and others. Her first full-length collection, Night Surgery, will debut in April 2021 from Blue Horse Press.
You can join in at the Zoom event via link provided, and sign up to read via Google Sheets at site.
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: Online Zoom event (see site)
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/434946167600341
Meg Medina & Merci Suarez Book Talk & Signingvia Children’s Book World – Online Zoom Event
This is a school event, but the public is welcome with book purchase (order boos below);
Meet award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Meg Medina, for a virtual storytime celebrating her Newberry Award-winning book, Mercy Suarez Changes Gears and its highly awaited sequel, Merci Suarez Can’t Dance
Merci takes on seventh grade, with all of its travails of friendship, family and love. She is tangling again with Edna Santos, who is bossier and more obnoxious than ever, and Wilson Bellevue, a boy she might actually like..
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Children’s Book World – Online event
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 10:30 am
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/exclusive-meg-medina-virtual-book-talk-and-signing
Terry Tempest Williams & Erosion: Essays of Undoingvia ALOUD Reading Series, LAPL – Online Zoom Event
In her new collection of essays, Erosion: Essays of Undoing, author Terry Tempest Williams navigates the emotional, geographical, and communal territories of home. She fiercely examines the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust. One of today’s most important writers and conservationists, in this book she blazes a way forward through dispiriting times to arrive at new truths about the beauty of human nature.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: ALOUD – Online Zoom Event
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://lfla.org/event/erosion-essays-of-undoing/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Terry Crews and Rebecca King Crews, creators of the Audible Original Stronger Together is an event in which the creators will be in conversation with Michael Ordona.
America’s Got Talent host and comic personality Terry Crews and his wife, singer Rebecca King Crews, share the staggering ups and downs of their relationship and how they weathered the myriad crises that have rocked their marriage in their new Audible Original. LA Times writer Michael Ordona guides the conversation.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Audible.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Memoir: Rebuilding Life After Loss is a biography/memoir event, featuring three writers and authors, also joined by author and editor Dinah Lenney to share their stories of love, loss, and healing.
Dinah Lenney, our moderator, is the author of The Object Parade and Bigger Than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, and co-editor of Brief Encounters: a Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction. She serves as core faculty in the Bennington Writing Seminars, and as an editor-at-large for LARB. Her latest book, Coffee, was published in 2020.
Emily Rapp Black is the bestselling author of Poster Child: A Memoir; The Still Point of the Turning World; Sanctuary: a Memoir; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg (forthcoming June 2021). She is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at UC Riverside, where she teaches in the School of Medicine.
Suleika Jaouad wrote the Emmy award winning New York Times column Life, Interrupted. Her essays and feature stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and on NPR. She is also creator of the Isolation Journals, a global project cultivating creativity and community during challenging times. Between Two Kingdoms is her first book.
Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and a professor of physics and planetary science at MIT. She is now at the forefront of the search for the first Earth-like exoplanets and signs of life on them. Her memoir, The Smallest Lights in the Universe, is a finalist for the LA Time Book Prize in Science & Technology.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Pages Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-memoir-rebuilding-after-loss/
Pinata and Poems, featuring Alan Chazaro, MK Chavez & Gris Munoz via LlibroMobile – Online IG Event
LibroMobile presents three featured writers who will read and discuss their work.
Alan Chazaro will read and discuss his book, Pinata Theory.
MK Chavez will read and discuss Mothermorphosis and Dear Animal.
Gris Munoz will read and discuss Coatlicue Girl.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: LibroMobile – Online IG event
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Irv Yalom & A Matter of Death and Life via LiveTalks LA – Online Event
Author Irv Yalom, in conversation with author Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone), will discuss his book, A Matter of Death and Life,
This book reflects a year-long journey by the renowned psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom and his writer wife after her terminal diagnosis, as they contemplate how to love and live without regret.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this ticketed event.
Where: LiveTalks LA – Online event
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm PST
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.livetalksla.org/events/irv-yalom/
Jill & Dave Henry & The Greatest College Health Guide via Vroman’s – Online Crowdcast Event
Authors Jill & Dave Henry will discuss their book, The Greatest College Health Guide You Never Knew You Needed.
In this comprehensive field guide, high school coaches Jill and Dave Henry break down the facts and deliver doable strategies for managing physical and mental health on campus. It includes helpful, interactive graphics and relatable true stories.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Vroman’s – Online event
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/robin-reul
Braintrust Writing Workshop via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
Braintrust is a free generative writing workshop, a virtual version of the original sessions started by The Poetry Lab in a co-work space in Downtown Long Beach in 2013. Meeting twice monthly, the labs covered topics like Diction, tone, and Voice, Poetry of Twitter, and Power of Revision, as well as original creative writing sesssions.
Join us to see what it’s all about. Everyone is welcome!
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Online event
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/braintrust
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Eastside Punks: A Screening and Conversation is a USC Stage event to celebrate the release of Eastside Punks, a series of documentary shorts presented by Razorcake Magazine about first generation East L.A. punk bands.
Dino Everett is the footage archivist of the Eastside Punks series. He has published and presented articles in the moving image field and in film history, and is a founding member of the band The Steetwalkin’ Cheetahs.
Jimmy Alvarado has authored numerous interviews, articles and short films spotlighting the eastside scene. His episode titled The Brat was named Best Documentary Short at the 2020 festival.
Teresa Covarrubias was the vocalist for The Brat.
Tracy Lee (Skull) Garcia was the bass player of Thee Undertakers. Their 1981 debut album Crucify Me melded second wave hardcore bite with first wave art sensibilities.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-usc-eastside-punks/
Celebrating Earth Day with US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo & American Sunrise via Skirball Cultural Center – Zoom Online
The Skirball Cultural Center will celebrate Earth Day with US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, who will read and discuss her work, including her book, American Sunrise. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Harjo is the first Native American to be named Poet Laureate of the United States. Joining her in the conversation will be literary curator Louise Steinman.
Books will be available for purchase from booksoup.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Skirball Cultural Center – Online (see site)
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.skirball.org/programs/words-and-ideas/celebrating-earth-day-us-poet-laureate-joy-harjo
Storytelling, Poetry & Prose Event hosted by Mike Sonksen via My Place Café – YouTube Event
See some of SoCal’s poets and storytellers in this special event hosted by Mike Sonksen, Joshua Jones & Aspen Leavitt.
Appearances by: Marcus Omari, Peter Riehl, Lee Boek, Ashton Cynthia Clark, Kristian Kidd, and Seth Morales.
NOTE: This is a You Tube online event.
Where: Online YouTube event (see site)
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1003066976896505
Sabor y Cultura: fos_thursdays Open Mic– Instagram Event
Please enjoy the Sabor y Cultura Open Mic on Instagram Live on Thursdays at 8pm PST.
This is an Instagram online event.
NOTE: Sign-ups open on Wednesday at 3 pm.
Where: Online event (see site)
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 8 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fos_thursdays/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
History: Racism and Exclusion in the United States is a Politics and History event, featuring a panel of three LA Times Book Prize finalists in history for a discussion that connects America’s past treatment of women, and indigenous and enslaved people with the present, taking a look at the people and politics that brought us to where we are today.
Anna-lisa Grace Cox, our moderator, is the author of the 2018 book, The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality.
Alice Baumgartner is an assistant professor of history at USC and the author of the 2020 book, South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War, which is a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in History.
Walter Johnson is a professor of history at Harvard and the author of several books, including The Broken Heart of America, which is a 2020 finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in History.
Martha S. Jones is a professor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Birthright Citizens, All Bound Up Together and the book How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, a 2020 finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in History.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 11 am
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-history-racism-exclusion/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Gustavo Arellano in Conversation with California MacArthur Fellows is a Newstory event, featuring a conversation with two recent fellows for a wide-ranging look at immigration policy and its historical roots, and the origins and evolution of incarceration and immigrant detention practices in the U.S.
Gustavo Arellano, our moderator, is a columnist for the LA Times, covering Southern California and beyond. He previously was a reporter and editor for Orange County Weekly, where he wrote the column “Ask a Mexican,” and is the author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He is the child of Mexican immigrants.
Kelly Lytle Hernandez is a professor of history at UCLA and one of the nation’s leading scholars of race, immigration, and the rise of mass incarceration. She is the author of several books, including City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles. For her historical and contemporary work she received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2019.
Natalia Molina is a Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC and her work lies at the intersections of race, gender, culture, and citizenship. She is the author of two award-winning books: How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts, and Fit to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939. Her new book, Placemaking at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant in Los Angeles Nourished its Community, is slated for release in 2022. She is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 1 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-gustavo-arellano-macarthur-fellows/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Science and Nature: From the Page to Wilder Places is a Science/Health event, featuring authors of works which are both books of self-discovery and adventures in scientific inquiry.
Mary Forgione, our moderator, is a Travel editor for the LA Times, and writes and edits stories about the outdoors and natural world.
Jonathan Melburg has written reviews, features, and interviews for many publications on the natural world and its chroniclers, and is best-known as leader of the band Shearwater.
Lulu Miller is the co-host of Radiolab, co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia, and a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, VQR, Orion, Electric Literature, Catapult, and beyond.
Jonathan C. Slaght is the Russia and Northeast Asia coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society, where he manages research projects on endangered species and coordinates avian conservation activities from the Arctic to the tropics. His annotated translation of Across the Ussuri Kray, by Vladimir Arsenyev was published in 2016, and his work has been published in many journals. His new book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, was published in 2020.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Pages Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 2 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-science-nature-panel/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
This Fiction Panel Event features the Great Depression and the American Gold Rush as the historical backdrops for a conversation between two bestselling authors and their unforgettable stories of family and the quest for the American Dream.
Patt Morrison, our moderator, has a share in two Pulitzer Prizes as a longtime writer and columnist for the LA Times. As a public television and radio broadcaster she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards. Her first book, Rio LA, about the Los Angeles River, was a bestseller. Her most recent book, Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper, was re-released last year.
Kristen Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels, including The Nightingale, Winter Garden, Night Road, and Firefly Lane. her most recent release is The Four Winds. She is a former lawyer-turned-writer, and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.
C Pam Zhang has lived in thirteen cities across four countries, but is mostly an artifact of the United States, and still looking for home. She’s been awarded support from Tin House, Bread Loaf, Aspen Words, and elsewhere, and currently lives in San Francisco.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Vroman’s Bookstore.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-kristin-hannah-and-c-pam-zhang/
Your Author Series: LeUyen Pham & Outside Inside via LAPL – Online Kids Event
Please welcome author and illustrator LeUyen Pham to the LAPL YouTube channel and Facebook page as she shares her children’s picture book, Outside Inside.
LeUyen has illustrated more than fifty books in various formats, and her work has received many awards/ Her book Bear Came Along is a Caldecott honoree, and before her career as an author she worked at Dreamworks as a layout artist. Those attending will have an opportunity to win a free book!
Where: LAPL – Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online event (see website)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-leuyen-pham
Khalisa Rae & Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat via Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Join author Kalisa Rae to hear her read and discuss her debut book, Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat.
There will be a reading and discussion with Khalisa Rae and other poets and past Frontier contributors: Safina Elhillo, Faylita Hicks, Gabrielle Bates & Terese Pierre, with Denise Nichole Andrews moderating.
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Skylight Books & Frontier Poetry – Online Event
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: Skylight – Online event
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Fiction: The Art of Short Story features the a conversation with a Booker Prize winner and three new voices in fiction presenting their recent story collections
Dorany Pineda, our moderator, writes about books, publishing, and the local literary scene for the LA Times. She also worked for City News Service and was a reporter for the Los Angeles Wave newspaper.
Carribean Fragoza is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and was raised in South El Monte, CA.She co-edits UC Press’s California culture journal, Boom California, and is founder of the South El Monte Arts Posse. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, and she is co-editor of the anthology, East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte, published in 2020. She is also coordinator of the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award at Claremont Graduate University.
Ben Okri is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright, and has written film scripts. He has won numerous prizes, including a Booker Prize for Fiction.
Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2020/2021 Story Prize and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction and the LA Times Book Award for First Fiction. It now is being adapted for TV by HBO Max. She is also a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow.
Shruti Swamy is the author of the story collection, A House Is a Body, which is a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction, and the forthcoming novel, The Archer. She is the winner of two O Henry Awards, and her work has appeared widely. She is a Kundiman Fellow and lives in San Francisco.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Book Soup.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-short-stories/
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Memoir Interview: Brandi Carlile & Broken Horses features the a conversation with the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, in conversation with Mikael Wood.
Mikael Wood, our moderator, writes about pop music, in its ever-quickening splendor, for the LA Times. He also has worked as a freelance contributor to Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, and The village Voice. He was named pop music critic in 2016.
Brandi Carlile is a six-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, performer, and producer. Since her 2004 debut, she has released six studio albums and received numerous awards. Founded in 2008, her Looking Out Foundation amplifies the impact of music b empowering those without a voice, with campaigns focused on children living in war zones, prevention and reduction of incarceration and recidivism, racial justice, violence prevention, food insecurity and more. Beloved by critics and fans alike, Carlile and her band have performed around the world.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is Skylight Books.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-brandi-carlile/
Maria Kuznetsova & Megan Cummins: Something Unbelievable & If the Body Allows via Book Soup – Online Crowdcast Event
Maria Kuznersova’s book, Something Unbelievable, is a novel about the evolving relationship of a stubborn woman in her eighties who is tired of everything except her beloved granddaughter, who has just had a baby and is struggling to balance her many roles. When they begin to share the story of her family’s Soviet wartime escape form the Nazis in Kiev, these lessons from the past echo in their present moments.
Megan Cummins’ book, If the Body Allows, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, is divided into six parts, and it explores illness and its aftermath, guilt and addiction, and the relationships the characters form after they’ve lost everyone else, including themselves. It grapples with the idea that life is always on the brink of never being the same again.
NOTE: See site for details, and to register for this free event.
Where: Book Soup – Online event
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Virtual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: Stories and Ideas 2021 – Online Fiction Event
Join the 26th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, again offered virtually, from April 17 through April 20! Many literary events will be offered, and tickets are FREE!
Romance Fiction: Swept Away features a panel of bestselling historical romance writers to enthrall readers with their captivating stories, including present day issues—like feminism, social justice empowerment, and autonomy—through the lens of history.
Elle Jackson, our moderator, is a designer and writer who fell in love with writing everything from historical dramas to science fiction romance, as creating is her happy place. Renovating dollhouses and designing journals are her latest obsessions.
Amalie Howard is a bestselling author, most notably of The Beast of Beswick, is co-author of the Scottish historical romance, My Rogue, My Ruin and What a Scot Wants, and has also penned several young adult novels. Rules for Heiresses is her forthcoming book this fall. Of Indio-Caribbean descent, she has written articles on multicultural fiction for The Portland Review and others.
Eloisa James is a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author and professor of English literature, whose newest novel is Wilde Child: Wildes of Lindow Castle.
Erica Ridley is a bestselling author of historical romance novels. She loves to read and write romances.
Vanessa Riley is an award-wining author of Regency and Historical Romances featuring dazzling multi-culture communities and powerful persons of color. She is a frequent speaker at women’s events, and lives in Georgia with her military husband and teenager.
NOTE: The bookseller for this event is The Ripped Bodice.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online events (see details & tickets available at Eventbrite link)
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/project/2021-event-fiction-swept-away-by-romance/
Creative Writing Workshop via LAwritersgroup.com – Online Event
Get words on the page and meet other writers in this online creative writing workshop.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details. Tickets are available via Eventbrite.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10 am – 12:30 pm
Address: Online event (see website)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1256929531349153/
Get Lit Saturday Class via Get Lit – Words Ignite – Online Teen Event
Join the Get Lit Saturday Class, a weekly poetry workshop that is free and open to all teens!
Learn writing techniques, performance training, and confidence-building every Saturday morning, via Zoom. This is a FREE writing technique, performance training and confidence building workshop for poets of all experience levels, ages 13-19.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: Get Lit – Words Ignite – Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Address: Online event (see website)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/670785730461842/
Independent Bookstore Day Celebration via Flintridge Bookstore – Outdoor Event
Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day (outside and inside) at Flintridge bookstore, with special activities in keeping with Covid precautions. Our featured guests will be greeting people outside the store, so see details of local author appearances at schedule at site.
Authors participating include: Ann Kelly, Chip Jacobs, Louise Wannier, and many more. There will be games and giveaways too.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore – Outdoor event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10:30 am – 4:30 pm
Address: Outdoor event (see website)
Creative Writing Workshop: Being Honest with bridgette bianca via Beyond Baroque – Online Event
Poems are Where I Tell the Truth: Being Honest is an intensive one-day workshop with L.A. poet and professor bridgette bianca.
There’s something about poetry that begs you to be honest. No matter how silly or serious the subject, join us for a workshop where we will say things we never thought we’d say through poetry. We’ll look at poems form folks who are good at being honest about what hurts and heals them, what makes them smile fondly, or wince dramatically. And we will dig into our own truths and tuck some of them into poems.
NOTE: See website for costs, online link and further details. Tickets are available via Eventbrite.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am – 2 pm
Address: Online event (see website)
Qasim Rashid & Shannon Hale Storytime Eevent via Chevalier’s Books – Online Kids Event
Qasim Rashid is a human rights lawyer and the author of Hannah and the Ramadan Gift, a book which tells how Hannah learns about Ramadan and the power of good deeds.
Author Shannon Hale and illustrator LeUyen Pham present Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn, a delightful kitty and unicorn story that celebrates the magic of friendship—and being exactly who you want to be.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore – Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online event (see website)
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/qasimrashid-shannonhale
Emerging Writers Fellowship via Get Lit – Online Teen Event
Get Lit’s FREE 15-week Emerging Writers Fellowship is an online publishing course held for teens on Saturdays from 1-3pm PST.
The course is designated for youth (ages 13-19) who are interested in creating their own poetry chapbooks, as well as learning more about submission and media marketing. No previous experience necessary! Priority to LA youth but all are welcome.
Contact Raul@getlit.org with any questions.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: Get Lit – Words Ignite – Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Address: Online event (see website)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/418997725979817/
Celebrate Indie Bookstore Day & Twentynine Palms via Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Crowdcast Event
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking book, Twentynine Palms, author Gayle Brandeis hosts a conversation with author Deanne Stillman. The event also includes Tony Gilkyson, noted singer-songwrtier, who will debut new songs based on Twentynine Palms.
Deanne Stillman is the author of Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave and Blood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, among other.
Gayle Brandeis is the author of Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Speak in Chorus, and The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide, among others.
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Vroman’s Live – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm
Address: Crowdcast Live – Online event
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/deanne-stillman-gayle-brandeis-tony-gilkysonv
Spoken Word/Spoken Art Series: Above the Human Nerve Domain: Poetry & Conversation with Surrealist Poet Will Alexander and Mike Sonksen via Long Beach Public Library – Online Event
The Miller Special Collections Room at the Billie Jean King Main Library is pleased to present our next Spoken Word/Spoken art Series event, entitled Above the Human Nerve Domain: Poetry and Conversation with Surrealist Poet Will Alexander and Mike Sonksen.
Join us for an afternoon of creative expression with two notable southland poets, which will take place online via Zoom and registration is required to attend. To register please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/above-the-human-nerve-domain-poetry-with-will-alexander-mike-sonksen-tickets-148848410603
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Long Beach Public Library – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: LBPL – Online event
Website: http://longbeach.gov/library-calendar-day?cid=35385&filterdate=4/24/2021
Saturday Afternoon Poetry & The Big Winners via Zoom Online
Join Saturday Afternoon Poetry for The Big Winners, hosted by Don Kingfisher and Marvinlouis Dorsey. Prizes are available for all contest participants.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm– 5 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com
Celebrate Indie Bookstore Day: Namina Frona & Amelie Wen Zhaovia Book Soup – Online Event
To celebrate the 2021 Independent Bookstore Day, join us for a special conversation with Namina Frona & Amelie Wen Zhao, about their new novels, the creative process, and what it’s like to release books during a global pandemic.
Namina Frona is the author of The Gilded Ones, who live in a world where girls who are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice, must get ready for battle. This book is the start of a bold and immersive fantasy series.
Amelie Wen Zhao is the author of Red Tigress (Blood Heir #2), an epic fantasy series about a princess hiding a dark secret and the con man she must trust to liberate her empire from a dark reign,
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Book Soup – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Book Soup – Online event
Foglifter Spring 2021 Issue Launch & Group Readingvia Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Join the Foglifter Spring 2021 Issue Launch and a group reading, featuring:
Jaime Balboa is an editor for Flash Magazine, and his writing has been published innumerous journals.
Jody Chan is a drummer, organizer, and therapist based in Toronto, and is the author of haunt (Damaged Goods Press), all our futures (PANK), and sick, winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book award.
Tea Franco is a fiction writer based in Ohio, and sometimes writes poetry. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in numerous journals.
Donika Kelly is the author of the chapbook AVIARIUM, and the full-length collections THE RENUNCIATIONS and BEASTIARY, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, among others. She is currently a professor at the University of Iowa.
N/A Oparah is a queer, first-generation Nigerina-American writer and artist from Atlanta, GA. She works as the Director of Community Programs at StoryCenter, a digital nonprofit in Berkeley, CA, and her latest novella is thick skin.
NOTE: Details, registration and event link available at website.
Where: Skylight Books & Foglifter Journal & Press – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Skylight – Online event
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/live-crowdcast-foglifter-spring-2021-issue-launch
Burning Issues Book Club & The Sixth Extinction via Bel Canto Books – Zoom Online
Join the Bel Canto Burning Issues Book Club (BIBC) and plan to discuss with us our April book selection, The Sixth Extinction, by The New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert.
The sixth mass extinction is the biggest story on earth, period, and the author tells it with imagination, rigor, and deep reporting and a capacious curiosity about all the wondrous creatures and ecosystems that exist, or have existed, on our planet.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://belcantobooks.net/book-clubs
Family Day Poetry Workshop led by Marlys West via the Wende Museum – Zoom Online
Join the Wende Museum foe a Virtual Family Day Poetry Workshop led by award-winning poet and writer Marlys West.
Find your creative spark through exploratory reflection in the Wende’s Virtual Tour and small group feedback sessions. Participants of all ability levels and ages, especially young visitors and families, are encouraged to join in this free program.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 1 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/471186194166713
La Palabra Poetry Reading Series & Vanessa Chica, Brian Sonia-Wallace, Jessica M. Wilson via Avenue 50 Studio – Zoom Online
Join us for the free La Palabra Poetry Readings of 2021, hosted by Angelina Saenz, and offered generally on every fourth Sunday of the month, and today featuring poets: Vanessa Chica, Brian Sonia-Wallace, and Jessica M. Wilson.
Vanessa Chica is a NYC poet, educator, and poetry editor for The Ice Colony. She is now working on a woman led creative play entitled “We Could Never Be Small,” a poetry anthology, and a children’s book.
Brian Sonia-Wallace is a poet and writer, the current Poet Laureate of West Hollywood, and the author of The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America (Harper Collins, 2020).
Jessica M. Wilson is an East LA –born Navajo poet, an educator and activist, and the author of Serious Longing. She is a long time curator of literary and open mic reading events, co-founder and organizer of the L.A. Poets Society, and leader of writing workshops for all ages.
Where: Online event: Zoom: 881 0616 8718
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: Online event
Website: http://avenue50studio.org/event/la-palabra-april-25-2021
Fourth Sundays Reading Series: Vandana Khanna & Doug Van Gundy via Claremont Public Library – Online Event
Join us for the Fourth Sundays Reading Series, hosted by the Claremont Library and today featuring poets: Vandana Khanna & Doug Van Gundy.
Vandana Kahnna is the author of two collections of poetry, Train to Agra and Afternoon Masala, and the chapbook, The Goddess Monologues. She is a poetry editor with the Los Angeles Review.
Doug Van Gundy dirests the low-residency MFA in writing program at West Virginia Wesleyan College, and his poems and reviews have appeared in many publications. He is co-editor of the anthology Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary Writing from West Virginia and the author of a collection of poems, A Life Above Water, published by Red Hen Press.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1585509498300468 or https://www.facebook.com/fourthsundayspoetry
Book Talk with Peter Baldwin & Fighting the First Wave via the Wende Museum – Zoom Online
Join the Wende Museum foe a Virtual Book Talk with UCLA history professor and author Peter Baldwin, author of Fighting the First Wave: Why the Coronoavirus Was Tackled So Differently Across the Globe.
The author will be joined in conversation by Justinian Jampol, executive director of the Wende Museum. This program is presented in conjunction with the 38th Cold War Spaces interview with Andreas Bernard, professor at Leuphana Univeristy, Luneberg, Germany on ”Pandemic Space: Medical Knowledge and Data Organization.”
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 3 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/507747563570535
Malcolm Gladwell , with Walter Isaacson, & The Bomber Mafia via Live Talks LA – Zoom Online
Join LiveTalks Los Angeles to hear author Malcolm Gladwell, in conversation with author Walter Isaacson, to discuss his latest book, The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War.
Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book offers an exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war. He is the author of six New York Times bestselling books, and co-founder and president of Pushkin Industries, an audio book and podcast company, among other endeavors.
Walter Isaacson is a professor of history at Tulane University, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He is the author most recently of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race.
NOTE: This is a ticked event so check site for details.
Where: LiveTalks LA -Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/gladwell/
Beatnik Café: Poetry Open Mic & Susan Browne via Hey Hey – Online Event
Beatnik Café presents another night of hearing truth from lesser heard perspectives!
Susan Browne is our feature tonight. Her poetry has appeared widely and she is the author of three books of poetry, Her third book, Just Living, recently won the Catamaran Poetry Prize.
6:40 – 7 pm – Open Mic Sign-up
7 pm – 7:15 pm – Poetry Open Mic
7:15 – 7:30 pm – Susan Browne Reading
7:30 pm – 9 pm – Poetry Open Mic
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Beatnik Cafe – Online event
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm PST
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/281519890108014
The Thing in the Labyrinth Book Club via The Last Bookstore
The Thing in the Labyrinth Book Club, led by Kathryn E, McGee, reads horror and all kinds of bad scenarios in literature.
Our current event is sold out, so check back later.
Where: The Last Bookstore – Online event
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: Online events (see site)
Los Angeles Literature 