Many/Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
Sheetal Sheth, with Nazanin Boniadi, & Bravo Anjali! via Diesel Bookstore – Online Kids IG Live Event
Join us to hear author Sheetal,in conversation with Nazanin Boniadi, present and discuss her new children’s book, Bravo Anjali!
Playing the tuba comes naturally to Anjali. When the boys in her class give her a hard time for being better than them, she messes up on purpose. It’s her dream to win the upcoming music contest, so she will need a lesson in confidence to hit the right notes. This is an important story for to remind children to never dim their light.
NOTE: See Site for details and Eventbrite registration.
Where: Diesel Bookstore – Online IG Event
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm PT
Address: Online (see site)
Anthony Doerr, with Janel Malony, & Cloud Cuckoo Land via Barnes and Nobel – Online Event
Join us to hear Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See),in conversation with actress Janel Maloney, present and discuss his new novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world, who find resilience, hope, and story—and a book.
Cloud Cuckoo Land is a magnificent novel about the power of the written word. Set in Constantinople in the 15th century, in a small town in present day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, this tapestry of times and places reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone. Lead characters Anna, an orphan in Constantinople, Zeno, an octogenarian who works with children in the library, and Konstance, who lives in space and copies a story of the sacking of Aethon, are all dreamers, and outsiders who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of gravest danger. Their lives are gloriously intertwined in a story about stewardship, which is dedicated to librarians throughout time.
NOTE: See Site for details and Eventbrite registration.
Where: Barnes and Nobel – Online Zoom Event
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Jay Jay French, with Steve Farber & Twisted Business via Book Soup – Online Event
Author and Twisted Sister founder and musician Jay Jay French, in conversation with Steve Farber, will present and discuss his book, Twisted Business: Lessons from My LIfe in Rock ‘n Roll.
This book by one of the top entrepreneurs in entertainment is an unexpected whirlwind of transformation and redemption. Together with his mentor, Steve Farber, Jay Jay French offers unique business tips, while being provocative, funny, and informative.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Book Soup – Online Event
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Local Author Day: David F. D’Orazi & Vicki Childs via Vroman’s – Online Event
Join us to hear two local authors present and discuss their books:
David F. D’Orazi willpresent and discuss his new biography, The In-Between Artist: The Story of Tony D’Orazi, the first-ever biography of “the first cartoonist of the air.” From his early days as a child prodigy, to his ascension as an award-winning artist, to working for Disney and becoming the radio and TV personality Uncle Tony O’Dare, his personal struggles would often threaten to derail his artistic ambitions, but the art would always persevere.
Vickie Childs will present and discuss her novel, Rachel’s Butterflies, about three girls growing up in an elite British private school, to be inseparable, and to find that some bonds last forever. When a sudden tragedy reunites the childhood friends, each is forced to re-examine themselves and to make some life-altering decisions.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Vroman’s – Online Event
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Virtual Book Club & Mexican Gothic via Sherman Oaks Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join this Virtual Book Club to read and discuss Silvia Moreno Garcia’s New York Times bestselling novel, Mexican Gothic.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemi Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemi knows little about the region. There are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemi digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
NOTE: See site for event details and event link.
Where: Sherman Oaks Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: See Site
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/virtual-book-club-0
At Skylight: William Jones & I Should Have Known Better via Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
William E Jones will read from I Should Have Known Better, the sequel to the sleeper hit I’m Open to Anything (2019), expanding the original’s scope and ambition. The narrator’s friends convince him to leave his dead end job for art school, where he takes a dim view of academia but discovers talented fellow artists who become his friends. His most instructive experiences occur off-campus, where he finds a lover, and they explore their sexual limits in scenes of bracing explicitness.
NOTE: See site for tickets & event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-william-e-jones-reads-i-should-have-known-better
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 event (tickets at Eventbrite)
Date: Monday the 27th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online
Website: https://beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html
Anderson Cooper, with Lisa Ling & Vanderbilt via Live Talks LA at Aratani Theater – In-Person Event
Live Talks LA presents CNN anchor and CBS journalist Anderson Cooper, in conversation with CNN host and journalist Lisa Ling, to present and discuss his new memoir, Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, co-authored with Katherine Howe.
This book captures the beginnings of the author’s maternal family dynasty, a shipping and railroads empire built by her grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, during the so-called Gilded Age of the 1800s, which made him the richest man in America. This is a rollicking story told by “the Commodore’s” great-great-great grandson, Cooper, and his co-author Howe, which explores both the building and the dissipation of the outsized income and influence of this family, from its beginnings to the present day.
NOTE: See site for tickets, requirements, and details.
Where: Live Talks LA at Aratani Theatre – In-Person event (tickets at Eventbrite)
Date: Monday the 27th (Virtual version of this event airs at 6 pm PDT September 29th)
Time: 8 pm
Address: 244 San Pedro St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/anderson-cooper/
Schele Williams Virtual Book Launch & Your Legacy via Bel Canto Bookstore, Children’s Book World & Once Upon a Time Bookstores – Kids Online Event
Please join us for the virtual book launch of author and Broadway director Schele Williams’ and Award-winning illustrator Tonya Engel’s children book, Your Legacy.
Your Legacy: A Bold Reclaiming of Our Enslaved History is a bold, proud and empowering introduction to African American history for children that celebrates and honors enslaved ancestors. It tells readers that while their ancestors’ freedom was taken from them, their spirit was not. This book celebrates their accomplishments, acknowledges their sacrifices, and defines how they should be remembered– and how their stories should be taught.
NOTE: See site for details and book purchase.
Where: Bel Canto Books, Children’s Book World & Once Upon a Time Books – Online Crowdcast event (tickets at Eventbrite)
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-book-launch-for-your-legacy-by-schele-williams-tickets-169855479311 or https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/exclusive-virtual-event-your-legacy-bold-reclaiming-our-enslaved-history or https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/your-legacy
Quantum Book Club & The City We Became via The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
The Book Jewel’s Quantum Book Club held every last Monday of the month. For our September selection we will read and discuss N.K. Jemison’s The City We Became.
N.K. Jemison is one of the most celebrated fantasy and science fiction writers of her generation. The City We Became is a novel about five New Yorkers who must come together to defend their city from an ancient evil. This roiling evil stirs in the halls of power, threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Book Jewel – In-Person Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.facebook.com/BookJewelBookstore
Jayne Allen, with Emily Henry, & Black Girls Must Die Exhausted via Book Soup – Online Event
Author and Book Genius founder Jayne Allen, in conversation with Emily Henry, will present and discuss her book, Black Girls Must Die Exhausted.
This novel is about Tabitha Walker, a Black woman with a plan to “have it all.” At age 33, her checklist for the life of her dreams is well underway when she receives an unexpected diagnosis and suddenly must make an impossible choice between career, home and family. With help from her friends, she explores the reaches of modern medicine and tests the limits of her relationships, hoping to salvage her future dreams, and forcing an honest reckoning in her life.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Book Soup – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Scripps Presents: Kat Chow in Conversation & Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir via Skylight Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Kat Chow, in conversation with KPCC correspondent Josie Huang, will discuss her new book, Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir, which is an intimate and haunting portrait of grief and the search for meaning as told through the prism of three generations of her Chinese family. This is a meditation on who we will become after facing loss, and it examines the grief that has followed her family from Hong Kong to Cuba and America after her mother died unexpectedly from cancer.
NOTE: See site for tickets & event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & Scripps Presents – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event – see site
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/scripps-presents-kat-chow-and-josie-huang-conversation
Writers Bloc & Skylight Books Present: Karl Ove Knausgaard, with Brandon Taylor, & The Morning Star via Skylight Bookstore – Online Prerecorded Event
Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of the nenowned My Struggle series, will present his new book, The Morning Star, translated by Martin Aitken. He will be in conversation with author Brandon Allen (Real Life).
The Morning Star is an astonishing, ambitious, and rich novel about what we don’t understand and our attempts to make sense of the world nonetheless. After seeing a sudden, unexplained and unknown star in the sky while on an August vacation, interest peaks and then subsides, and each character comes to understand the experience differently, as all face new struggles in their lives. This book follows what happens when dark forces in the world are set free.
NOTE: See site for tickets & event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & Writers Bloc Present – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event – see site
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/writers-bloc-presents-karl-ove-knausgaard
L.A. Times Book Club Presents: Jaime Lowe, with Erika D. Smith, & Breathing Fire via Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Jaime Lowe will present his new book, Breathing Fire, in conversation with L.A. Times columnist Erika D. Smith.
Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California Wildfires is based on five years spent by the author documenting the lives of the women assigned to the state’s Conservation Camp program. She tells their stories against the backdrop of climate change and California’s increasingly extreme wildfires, and the unique circumstances of these operations.
Jaime Lowe is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and has contributed to This American Life and Radiolab. She was born and raised in California, and is also the author of Mental and Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB.
NOTE: See site for book purchase & event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore & LA Times Book Club – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event – see site
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/la-times-book-club-jaime-lowe-author-breathing-fire
Jay Coles, with Dave Connis, & Things We Couldn’t Say via Vroman’s Bookstore – Online YA Event
Join us to hear author Jay Coles, in conversation with Dave Connis, present and discuss his new YA novel, Things We Couldn’t Say.
Things We Couldn’t Say is about Gio, a bi Black boy finding first love… and facing the return of the mother who abandoned his preacher family when he was nine. This story shows there are no easy answers to love—whether its family love, friend love, or romantic love. Gio is a guy trying to navigate love in all its ambiguity—hoping at the other end he’ll be able to figure out who he is and who he should be.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Adam Jay Epstein & Ruth Chan: Have You Seen Gordon? via Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Kids Event
Join us for the book launch of a new seek-and-find book, Adam Jay Epstein & Ruth Chan’s Have You Seen Gordon?
Have You Seen Gordon? is a silly and heartfelt story.It’s packed with vibrant and dizzying artwork, and young children will be laughing out loud as the narrator struggles to get the characters to play along. While he tries to get Gordon to play hide and seek, Gordon just wants to stand out.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/have-you-seen-gordon
Non-Fiction Book Club 5th Anniversary & Somebody’s Daughter via Pages Bookstore – In-Person Event
Pages’ Non-Fiction Book Clubmeets monthly and reads non-fiction selections chosen via email prior to each meeting. This event is facilitated by Mark Polak.
This month’s selection for our 5th anniversary discussion is Ashley C, Ford’s Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir.
This extraordinarily powerful memoir is a story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of the author’s incarcerated father. Growing up a poor Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, she explores how isolating and complex her journey was, as she tried to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Pages Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/non-fiction-book-club-5th-anniversary-person
Ryka Aoki Presents Light From Uncommon Stars, in conversation with Sarah Gailey via Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Ryka Aoki, in conversation with author Sarah Gailey (The Echo Wife, Magic for Liars), will present and discuss her book, Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California’s San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. And when Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches her ear with her wild talent, she can almost feel the curse lifting. But then she meets Lan Tran, an unlikely candidate, in a donut shop off a bustling highway, and the lives of three women become entangled by chance and fate.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – Online Crowdcast Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: Online – See Site
Gothic Book Club & Dream House via The Last Bookstore – Online Event
The Gothic Book Club is hosted by John Plaisano, and reads many genres and art forms, from horror to architecture to shoes—those books with a lasting allure.
This month’s selection is Carmen Marie Machado’s Dream House. In this shattering memoir, the author’s girlfriend moves in shortly after they meet, and a cozy abode soon turns into a harrowing locus of emotional abuse.
NOTE: All bookstore events are ticketed, so check site for details.
Where: The Last Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Website: https://www.lastbookstorela.com/event-details-gothic-book-club-with-john-palisano-5/
Tuesdays at the Virtual Cobalt: Poets Series Presents: Open Reading & Chen Chen – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest poet Chen Chen.
Chen Chen’s debut poetry collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017) was selected by Jericho Brown to win an A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize and was long listed for the National Book Award. He teaches at Brandeis University and at two low residency MFA programs.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
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 – IG Online
DPL events at the Greenway Court Theatre are postponed until further notice.
DPL has an open mic every Tuesday night. There is a sign-up procedure and a three-minute time limit per performer.
Where: Online IG event
Date: Tuesday the 28th
Time: 8 pm
Address: Online event (Check to verify)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/da_poetry_lounge/ (Check to verify)
Gabrielle Union, with Jemele Hill & You got anything Stronger? via Live Talks LA at Aratani Theater – In-Person Event
Live Talks LA presents actress and author Gabrielle Union, in conversation with journalist and writer Jemele Hill (The Atlantic),to present and discuss her new memoir, You Got Anything Stronger?
This book follows the author’s book, We’re Going to Need More Wine, and here she chronicles the events of the four years since that publication, and her need to reach out further, to open up about her surrogacy journey, and the birth of her daughter, her fight to take on the racist institutions and practices in the entertainment industry, and the fight for equity and real accountability. She has found strength in that vulnerability, and wants to share that power through this book.
NOTE: See site for tickets, requirements, and details.
Where: Live Talks LA at Aratani Theatre – In-Person event (tickets at Eventbrite)
Date: Monday the 27th (Virtual version of this event airs at 6 pm PDT September 30th)
Time: 8 pm
Address: 244 San Pedro St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/gabrielle-union/
Virtual School Book Talk with Kate DiCamillo & The Beatryce Prophecy via Children’s Book World – Online Event
Join award-winning children’s author Kate DiCamillo for the launch of her newest children’s book, The Beatryce Prophecy!
The author writes children’s fiction for all reading levels, usually featuring animals, and has won two Newbery Awards for her work. This book is an unforgettable medieval epic that illustrates the magical and myriad ways that love and stories change the world. Delightfully unexpected allies find profound connection through a common belief in compassion and friendship.
This is a school event, but the public is invites with a purchase of The Beatryce Prophecy from Children’s Book World.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Children’s Book World – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online – See Site
Ruth Ozeki, with Katie Kitamura, & The Book of Form and Emptiness via Vroman’s & Bookshop Santa Cruz – Online Zoom Event
Join us to hear bestselling novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki (A Tale for the Time Being), in conversation with author Katie Kitamura (A Separation), present and discuss her new book, The Book of Form and Emptiness.
This is a brilliantly inventive story about loss, growing up, and our relationships with things. One year after the death of his father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices, which belong to things in his house. Although he doesn’t understand them, he can sense their emotional tone, and that they are growing more clamorous and unavoidable. Soon he finds refuge in the library, where he finds his own voice among the many. He meets his very own Book—a talking thing—who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Vroman’s & Bookshop Santa Cruz – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Writing Workshop with Matt Sedillo via Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Join us for a writing workshop, hosted by Chicano Political Poet, Matt Sedillo.
Matt Sedillo is an El Sereno native, a political activist, speaker, and writer, and author of the poetry collection, Mowing Leaves of Grass (Flowersong Press, 2019).
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Re/Arte centro literario – In-Person event
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 2014 ½ E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 900333
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Megan MIlks, with Sofia Samatar, & Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body via Skylight Bookstore – Online Crowdcast Event
Megan Milks, in conversation with authors Sofia Samatar (Monster Portraits) and Jordy Rosenberg (Confessions of the Fox),will present and discuss her debut book, Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body, which reimagines nineties adolescence in a queer and trans coming-of-age tale like no other.
This book is about twelve-year-old Margaret, the former head of the mystery club Girls Can solve Anything. But now that she’s entered high school, the club has disbanded, and she wishes she and her friends didn’t have to grow up. Instead, she develops an eating disorder that quickly takes over her life, and lands in a treatment center. There she pursues a string of new mysteries and her path to recovery.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – Online Crowdcast Event
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online – See Site
Lisa Morton & Leslie Klinger & Weird Women 2 via Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear anthologists and editors Lisa Morton & Leslie Klinger present and discuss their new book, Weird Women 2, another offering of overlooked masterworks from early female horror writers, including George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Edith Wharton.
There are ghost stories in this book, but also tales of vampirism, mesmerism, demonic entities, and journey into the afterlife. Introduced and annotated for modern readers, the authors have curated more stories sure to provide entertaining, scary reads.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person event
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Ave., Los Angeles , CA 90004
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/september-29-weird-women
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop via The World Stage – In-Person 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.
We return to the building after a 15-month, Covid-19 imposed exile, where the faithful met weekly via Zoom online. We are currently working on the process to continue to include our online community each session. WELCOME HOME!
In its 30th year, the Anansi Writers Workshop is a workshop 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.
NOTE: See site for further details, and any change in the schedule. Contact kaliflowers@gmial.com or call (323) 293-2451
Where: The World Stage (Eventbrite)
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Dengan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/events.html or https://www.facebook.com/events/2956323637961145/
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 Joseph Rios.
Joseph Rios is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations (Omnidawn), winner of the American Book Award, and was named one of the notable debut poets by Poets & Writers Magazine for 2017. He is currently attending the low residency MFA program at Bennington College.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets and information.
Where: Online event (Eventbrite)
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html
The Ugly Mug Presents: Eric Moraga’s Birthday Bash via Two Idiots Peddling Poetry – Zoom Online
Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and host Ben Trigg presents weekly poetry readings by the Ugly Mug and the events are now virtual.
This week’s Ugly Mug event will feature Eric Moraga, as we celebrate his 60th birthday at the Ugly Mug with a special guest via Zoom, plus cake and other shenanigans.
Eric Moraga is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominated poet who believes performance carries as much importance on the page, as it does off. Currently he hosts a monthly reading series, teaches writing workshops, and serves as an associate editor for the online literary journal, FreezeRay Poetry. Eric is the author of What We Ache For (Moon Tide Press) and Feasting on Sky (Paper Plane Pilots). He has an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach and lives in Los Angeles, California.
You can join in at the Zoom event via link provided.
NOTE: See site for further details. $4 cover fee, cash only.
Where: Online Zoom event (see site)
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1011928642924006/
Book Talk: Deborah Tuerkheimer & Credible via American Jewish University – Online Event
Join us for a Book Talk with author Deborah Tuerkheimer, who will present her book, Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers, and be in conversation about how we decide who is telling the truth in accusations of sexual misconduct.
The invisible forces that warp credibility judgments of even the most well-intentioned among us, what can we do to change them? We are all shaped by a set of false assumptions and hidden biases embedded in our culture, our legal system, and our psyches. The #MeToo movement has exposed how victims have been badly served by a system designed not to protect them, and credibility lies at the heart of the system. To achieve lasting progress, we must shift our approach to belief.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: American Jewish University – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 12 pm – 12:45 pm
Address: See Site
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/558651461927712
Journal of My Life Writing Workshop via DSTL Arts & LAPL Adult Services – Online Zoom Event
Join us for a new DSTL Arts Writing Workshop Series (in progress), presented with LAPL Adult Lit Services: Journal of My Life Writing Workshop. This series of events is open to all experience levels, and participants’ life stories may be published in an anthology and released at a special reading during Poetry Month, 2022.
Dates for this class are: September 9, 16, 23, & 30 and October 7.
Additional series offerings also will begin in mid-October and mid-January.
NOTE: See site for details and registration.
Where: DSTL Arts – Online Zoom Event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/calendar
R.J. Palacio, with Josh Radnor, & Pony via Pages Bookstore – Online Kids Event
Children’s author R.J. Palacio, in conversation with actor Josh Radnor, will talk about her latest middle grade novel, Pony.
From the author of Wonder comes a new American classic about a boy on a quest to find his father, guided by a ghost and a mysterious pony, an enthralling story of adventure, friendship, and the invisible bonds that connect us.
Twelve-year-old Silas is awoken in the night by three horsemen who arrive unannounced to take his father away. He is left shaken, scared and alone, except for his companion, Mittenwool– who also happens to be a ghost. When a pony shows up at the door, he must set out on a perilous journey to find his father, which ultimately connects him to his past, and future, and the mysteries of the world around him.
NOTE: See site for event details, tickets, and to purchase book.
Where: Pages Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/virtual-event-rj-palacio
Mary Roach, with Patt Morrison, & Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law via LA Times Ideas Exchange & Diesel Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Mary Roach, science writer and bestselling author, in conversation with LA Times columnist and author Patt Morrison, will discuss her new book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, which presents an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet.
This is a look at the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, and the author follows forensics investigators, conflict specialists, and a variety of scientists worldwide to test conservation genetics, and nature’s lawbreakers, and finally offers hope for compassionate co-existance in our ever-expanding human habitat.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and event details.
Where: LA Times Ideas Exchange & Diesel Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event
Theo Ellsworth, with Jeff Vandermeer, & Secret Life via Skylight Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Theo Ellsworth, in conversation with author Jeff Vandermeer (The Southern Reach Trilogy), will discuss his new book, Secret Life, which observes the sinister individualism of bureaucratic settings in contrast with an unconcerned natural world.
This is a mind-bending narrative that changes the mundanity of office work and makes the arcane rituals of The Building home. When his manager borrows a pen from for a presentation, a man is driven to unspeakable acts as he questions the role the pen has played in his workplace success. Despised denizens of the second floor develop their own tongue, insurgency quickly penetrates every corner of the building, and this secret life is revealed as uncannily similar to our own.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/live-zoom-theo-ellsworth-discusses-secret-life-jeff-vandermeer
James Queally, with Michael Connelly, & All These Ashes via Book Soup – Online Crowdcast Event
Join us to hear author James Queally, in conversation with bestselling author Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch) discuss his sequel to the critically acclaimed Line of Sight, his next book about laid-off reporter turned PI Russell Avery: All These Ashes.
In this book, Russell is as elated, but skeptical, when a detective shows up on his doorstep, asking him to look into one of the Brick City’s most haunting mysteries: The Twilight Four Killings. If the wrong man was convicted for the brutal arson murders that claimed four teenagers’ lives, he’ll have the kind of story most reporters stake their careers on. But he soon runs into opposition from City Hall and finds himself enmeshed in the contentious mayoral race, while the real killer seeks to reduce him to ash.
NOTE: See site for event details and to purchase book.
Where: Book Soup – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 6 pm
Address: See Site
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/james-queally-conversation-michael-connelly-discusses-all-these-ashes
Margaret & David Talbot & By the Light of Burning Dreams via Chevalier’s Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to hear authors Margaret & David Talbot, in conversation with Jon Weiner (Set the Night on Fire), present and discuss their new book, By the Light of Burning Dreams, a look at “America’s second revolutionary generation”.
The political landscape of the 1960s and 1970s was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in this country’s history, shaped by the fight for civil rights, women’s liberation, Black power, and the end to the Vietnam War. In many ways, this second American revolution was a belated fulfillment of the betrayed promises of the first, striving to extend the full protections of the Bill of Rights to non-white, non-male, non-elite Americans excluded by the nation’s founders.
America is still absorbing—and reacting against—the revolutionary forces of this tumultuous period. The change these leaders enacted demanded much of American society and the human imagination. By the Light of Burning Dreams is an immersive and compelling chronicle of seven lighting rods of change and the generation that engraved itself in American narrative—and set the stage for those today, fighting to bend forward the arc of history.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore – Online Zoom event
Date: Thursday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/sept-30-talbot
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 30th
Time: 8 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fos_thursdays/ (Confirm at site)
Stevie Van Zandt, with Chris Columbus, & Unrequited Infatuations via Book Soup & Colburn School – In-Person Event
Join us to hear musician and author Stevie Van Zandt, in conversation with filmmaker Chris Columbus, discuss his book, Unrequited Infatuations.
Unrequited Infatuations chronicles the twists and turns of artist and musician Stevie Van Zandt’s surprising life and unique individuality. When the author traded his devotion to the Baptist religion for an obsession for Rock and Roll, the new music changed him forever. He anchored the E Street Band, then stepped away to embark on a new adventure as Little Steven, and refashioned himself as an artist/journalist and activist. In the ‘90s he joined the new TV show The Sopranos, as Silvio Dante, and then founded groundbreaking radio shows on Sirius FM and developed a musical curriculum to teach all ages.
NOTE: See Site for details, guidelines, and registration.
Where: Colburn School, Zipper Hall – In-Person Event
Date: Friday the 1st
Time: 6 pm (doors) 7 pm start
Address: 200 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/book-soup-stevie-van-zandt
NERVOUS Event with Deenah Vollmer via Stories Bookstore & Cafe – In-Person Event
Join us for NERVOUS, an event hosted by Deenah Vollmer and special guest Jet Eveleth, featuring:
Ian Bratschie is an actor, comedian, and writer, known for Modern Family (2009), Criminal MInds: Beyond Borders (2016) and Chicago PD (2014).
Ava Bogle is an actress and comedian who likes to talk and write about sex and feminism in her blog, Diary of a Slutty Feminist. Her short films have screened internationally, and won awards, and her most recent short, Meryl Fuckin Streep, is playing the festival circuit.
Andy Roberts is a writer of fantasy fiction, and the author of A Foolish Wind, Albion Dreaming, Divine Rascal, among others.
Charlie McCrackin is a writer and actor, known for A.P. Bio (2018), Heel and 25 years of Improv Comedy.
Diana Siegel is an author and writer at Los Angeles Magazine.
The Highland Park Clowns
NOTE: See Site for details and registration.
Where: Stories Books & Cafe
Date: Friday the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/?q=h.calevents
Jackson Bliss, with Aimee Bender, & Counter Factual Love Stories via Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Jackson Bliss, in conversation with author Aimee Bender (The Butterfly Lampshade), will present and discuss his new book from Noemi Press, Counter Factual Love Stories & Other Experiments. These stories are not just an exploration of mixed-race/hapa identity in Michigan (and the American Midwest), but also of the infinite ways in which stories can be told, challenge, celebrated, and subverted. They are language driven stories, in a variety of forms and focus, and filled with “… inspiring vitality and perception,” according to Aimee Bender.
Jackson Bliss is a (non) fiction writer, librettist, screenwriter and composer. He is the mixed-race/hapa author of: June Bugs (2022), Dream Pop Origami (2022), and the speculative fiction hypertext, Dukkha My Love (2017).
Aimee Bender is the author of six books of fiction, including The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and most recently, The Butterfly Lampshade. Her short fiction has been widely published, and she teaches creative writing at USC.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: Online event (see details at website link)
Date: Friday the 1st
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Readings by Gabrielle Civil & Janice Lee via Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
Authors and poets Gabrielle Civil and Janice Lee will read and discuss their work.
Gabrielle Civil is a Black feminist performance artist, poet and writer from Detroit MI, who has performed fifty performance art works around the world, most recently Jupiter (2021) and Vigil (2021). Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish (2017), Experiments in Joy (2019), (ghost gestures) (2021), and the deja vu (2022). A 2019 Rema Hort Mann LA Emerging artist, she teaches at California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.
Janice Lee is a Korean American writer, editor, teacher and shamanic healer. She is the author of seven books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, most recently The Sky Isn’t Blue (2016), Imagine a Death (2021), and Separation Anxiety (2022). She writes about interspecies communication, plants and personhood, inherited trauma, and many other subjects, and asks the question, how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy? She is founder and executive editor of Entropy, co-founder of The Accomplices LLC, and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau in the 2220 Arts + Archives
Date: Friday the 1st
Time: 8 pm
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/590607902134003/
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 2nd
Time: 10 am – 12:30 pm
Address: Online event (see website)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1256929644682475/
Western Edge Writers Workshop via Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Zoom Event
Join us where writers and aspiring writers meet to support endeavors of all genres. We offer prompted exercises and constructive critiques of your work.
Email shannon@lapl.org for the Zoom link.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: LAPL – Online Zoom event (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Zoom event (see website)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/western-edge-writers
The 44 Poetry Class (Level 1) via Sims Library of Poetry – Online Zoom Event
The 44 Poetry Class is a collaboration between the Community Literature Initiative and the Sims Library of Poetry focused on teaching writers how to improve their poetry and giving them space to write and recite their work. This class is for beginner poets, who are looking to enhance their craft.
You will learn about: literary devices; rhythm, meter, rhyme, syllabic count; poetic forms; and performance poetry/spoken word.
NOTE: See website link for tuition costs, registration, perks & details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry – Online Zoom event
Date: Saturday the 2nd (every 1st & 3rd Saturday of the month, starting on Oct. 2nd)
Time: 10 am
Address: See site
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/44-poetry-class
Beyond Witness: Innovative Forms Towards Accountability: A Poetry Workshop with Sara Borjas via Beyond Baroque – Online Event
Beyond Baroque offers an intensive poetry writing workshop with author and educator Sara Borjas: Beyond Witness: Innovative Forms Towards Accountability.
In this exploratory and generative workshop you will move beyond the role of witness, and become participants. Definitions of “poetry of witness” are changing, and poets are interrogating the safety accorded by privilege, time and distance, engaging in legacies of trauma in order to confront the past and their own participation. We will present ways to stretch the sonnet and survey innovative forms, and excavate layers of engagement and participation, towards an active accountability.
Sara Borjas is a Xicanx pocha and a Fresno poet. Her debut collection, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff, was published by Noemi Press in 2019 and received an American Book Award in 2020.
NOTE: See Site for details, cost, and registration.
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 11 am – 2 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Website: http://beyondbaroque.org/intensive_workshops.html
Ashlyn Anstee & Shelby & Watts: Tide Pool Troubles via Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Zoom Kids Event
Join us to hear children’s author Ashley Anstee introduce her graphic novel series for children and readers ages 6 and up: Shelby & Watts; Tide Pool Troubles. Shelby & Watts are a new detective team who love a good mystery. When Shelby gets a letter from Fred the hermit crab claiming that all the shells are missing from the beach, they are just the duo to help him. They take on one environmental mystery at a time.
NOTE: See Site for details and registration.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/tide-pool-troubles
Writer’s Workshop with Viva Padilla via Re/Arte – In-Person Event
Join us for an introduction to submitting your writing to journals and magazines. Incudes career advice, and writing feedback. Bring your work and a notebook.
NOTE: See website for registration, donation, and further details.
Where: Re/Arte– In-Person Event
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 2014 ½ E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Author Talk: Daniel Fuselier & In Pursuit of Calm via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Zoom Event
Join us for an Author Talk with Daniel Fuselier, who will present and discuss his memoir, In Pursuit of Calm. From jail to NASA and from addiction to recovery and back again, psychologist Fuselier takes us on a journey across the country from the bayous of Louisiana to the coasts of California in this debut memoir. He knows and re-learns that addiction is a lifelong ghost, but so is not following your true passion.
NOTE: See website for RSVP, link, and further details.
Where: LAPL – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: Westwood Branch Library (Online event)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-daniel-fuselier
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Writing Workshop – via Zoom Online
Join Saturday Afternoon Poetry for a Poetry Writing Workshop led by Don Kingfisher Campbell. (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines for Spectrum29: The Dead and the Divine. See site for details.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Online Zoom Event
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Stephen Reigns, with Ann Magnuson, & A Quilt for David via Skylight Bookstore Off-site at St. Felix Hollywood – In-Person Event
Author, Los Angeles poet and educator, and first West Hollywood Poet Laureate Stephen Reigns, in conversation with writer and actress Ann Magnuson, will present and discuss his new book from City Lights Books, A Quilt for David.
A Quilt for David is the hidden history of a vulnerable gay man whose life and death were turned into tabloid fodder. With a poet’s eulogistic and psychological intensity, Reigns covers the life and death of Florida dentist Dr. David Acer, who was accused in the early ‘90s of infecting his patients with his “gayness” and the AIDs virus. It’s impossible not to make connections between this story and how our present pandemic has also been defined by medical misinformation and cultural bias.
NOTE: See website for online link and further details.
Where: St. Felix Hollywood (see details at website link)
Date: Saturday the 2nd
Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 1602 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Kristen Bedford & Cruise Night via Autry Museum & Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Join us for the book release of Cruise Night, by Kristen Bedford, at the lowrider car show at the Autry Museum.
Cruise Night is a book of photographs, and an intimate and un-staged exploration of Mexican American lowrider car culture in Los Angeles. From 2014-2019 the author attended hundreds of lowrider cruise nights, car shows, and special events to capture cars as mobile canvases and the legendary community that creates them. She explores race, visual stereotypes, and communal self-expression, and reconsiders narratives around cultural and spiritual movements.
NOTE: See website for online link, further details and to purchase book.
Where: Autry Museum – In-Person event (see details & guidelines at website link)
Date: Sunday the 3rd
Time: 10 am – 4 pm
Address: Griffith Park, 4700 Western Heritage Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/offsite-event-cruise-night-kristin-bedford-autry-museum
Readings by Harmony Holiday & Jackie Wang via Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
Authors and poets Harmony Holiday & Jackie Wang will read and discuss their work.
Harmony Holiday is a writer, dancer, activist, and the author of five collections of poetry, including Hollywood Forever and the forthcoming Maafa (Winter 2021). She curates an archive of griot poetics and a related performance at LA’s MOCA, and has received numerous awards and fellowships. She’s currently showing a film commissioned for Made in LA 2020-21, and working on a collection of essays and a biography of Abbey Lincoln, in addition to other projects.
Jackie Wang is a poet, scholar, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity at USC, where she teaches race, surveillance technology, and the political economy of prisons and police. She is the author of Carceral Capitalism (2018), the poetry collection The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void (2021), and the forthcoming experimental essay collection Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun (2022).
NOTE: See website for further details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau in the 2220 Arts + Archives
Date: Sunday the 3rd
Time: 5 pm
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/541818603547381/
At Skylight: Ian Brennan, with Jaron Lanier, & Muse-Sick via Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Ian Brennan, in conversation with Jaron Lanier, present and discuss his book, Muse-Sick: a music manifesto in fifty-nine notes (PM Press).
Muse-Sick is the seventh book by Grammy-winning music producer Ian Brennan, and it acts as a primer on how mass production and commercialization have corrupted the arts. Broken down into a series of core points and action plans, this book follows up on his two previous missives: How Music Dies (or Lives): Field Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts and Silenced by Sound: The Music Meritocracy Myth.
Here Brennan reveals how corporate media has constricted local culture and individual creativity, leading to a lack of diversity within “diversity.” Narrative portions are made corporeal via his ongoing field recording chronicles with widely disparate groups, and Marilena Umuhoza Delli’s striking photos bring to life each tale.
NOTE: See website for online link, further details and to purchase book.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – In-Person event (see details & guidelines at website link)
Date: Sunday the 3rd
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Los Angeles Literature 