Many/Most Events Are Online/Virtual DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS
At Skylight: Daniel Alexander Jones & Omi Osun Joni L. Jones Present: Love Like Light & Particle and Wave at Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Daniel Alexander Jones in conversation with Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, will present the books: Love Like Light and Particle and Wave, respectively.
Daniel Alexander Jones’ Love Like Light: Plays and Performance Texts (53rd Street Press) collects the author’s texts of Bel Canto, Black Light, Blood: Shock: Boogie, clayangels, Duat, Phoenix Fabrik, and The Book of Daniel into a shifting transformational body of work. Each play is a provocation to the possibility of a more just and loving world. It’s a reunion of the avant-guards of New York, Austin, and Minneapolis, among others, and includes an interview and essays by others.
Particle and Wave: A Conversation (53rd State Press) is a companion volume, and features a book-length conversation between Daniel Alexander Jones and poet, scholar, and activist Alexis Pauline Gumbs about Love Like Light, and the ways that love, like lights, suffuses everything and is the condition and power of change in the world.
Joni Osum Joni L. Jones is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs black feminist aesthetics and theatrical jazz principles in her performance work, her pedagogy, and her facilitation. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Ase, and the Power for the Present Moment (Ohio State University Press). She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas, at Austin.
NOTE: See Site for book purchases, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Date: Monday the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online
This 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 to use 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 from 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 7th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online
Website: https://beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-255432695067
Scripps Presents: Robert Jones Jr. & The Prophets via PEN Out Loud & Scripps – Online Event
Join debut author and National Book Award finalist Robert Jones, Jr. to celebrate the paperback release of his New York Times bestselling novel,The Prophets.
This stirring and lyrical novel tells the love story between two enslaved men, and the endurance of their relationship amid increasing tensions and violence on the plantation where they live. Jones Jr. will be joined in conversation with fellow New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck, Mateo Askaripour.
NOTE; See site for RSVP and event details.
Where: Scripps Presents & PEN Out Loud – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 4 pm PST
Address: Online (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/491376062546952
Christina Lauren, AKA Christina Hobbs & Lauren Billings, & The Soulmate Equation via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to hear writing partners and best friends, Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, who write under their combined pen name, discuss their new book, The Soulmate Equation.
In this novel, single mom Jess Davis is a data and statistics wizard, but no amount of number crunching can convince her to step back into the dating world. Jess holds her loved ones close but working constantly to stay afloat is hard…and lonely.
But then Jess hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new DNA-based matchmaking company that’s predicted to change dating forever. Finding a soulmate through DNA? The reliability of numbers: This Jess understands.
At least she thought she did, until her test shows a 98 percent compatibility with another subject in the database: GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Peña. This is one number she can’t wrap her head around, because she already knows Dr. Peña. The stuck-up, stubborn man is without a doubt not her soulmate. But she learns there might be more to the scientist—and the science behind a soulmate—than she thought
NOTE: See site for book purchase, link, and event details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 5 pm PST
Address: Bel Canto Bookstore – Online event (see site)
Website: https://belcantobooks.net/events or https://www.crowdcast.io/e/christina-lauren/register
Isaac Butler, with Dana Schwartz, & The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act via Book Soup – Online Event
Join author, critic, and theatre director Isaac Butler, in conversation with Dana Schwartz, to hear him discuss his book, The Method: How the Twentieth Century Leaned to Act.
What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago Konstantin Stanislavski asked these very questions, and his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theatre. Now Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative and how a cohort of American mavericks—including Stella Adler, lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre—refashioned these ideas for a depression-plagued nation that had yet to become an artistic powerhouse. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on American theatre, and this is a spirited history of ideas and stories.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and event details.
Where: Book Soup – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Book Soup – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/isaac-butler
Braintrust Workshop: Bookbinding for Poets & kelsey bryan-zwick – The Poetry Lab Event
Join The Poetry Lab for a Braintrust Workshop: Bookbinding for Poets: Simple Ways to Bring Our Poems to the 3rd Dimension, led by kelsey bryan-zwick.
In this workshop we will create single page books to help you distribute your poems in the physical world.
We will also discuss low cost aesthetic techniques to draw attention to your words. Please join us!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 6 pm
Address: The Poetry Lab – Zoom Online
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/braintrust or https://www.thepoetrylab.com/register/braintrust/february-8
Vroman’s Live: Lisa Lutz, with Chris Pavone, & The Accomplice via Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Live Event
Join author Lisa Lutz, in conversation with Chris Pavone, to hear her discuss her novel, The Accomplice.
Owen Mann is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they form a bond the moment they meet in college.
They’re still best friends years later, when Luna finds Owen’s wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds light on some long-hidden secrets, but it can’t penetrate the wall of mystery that surrounds Owen. To get to the heart of what happened and why, Luna has to dig up the one secret she’s spent her whole life burying.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and event details.
Where: Vroman’s – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Vroman’s – Online (see site)
Gregg Hurwitz & Dark Horse: An Orphan X Novel via Diesel Bookstore – On-site Live Event
Join author Gregg Hurwitz to hear him present and discuss his novel, Dark Horse: An Orphan X Novel.
Evan Smoak is a man with many identities and a challenging past. As Orphan X, he was a government assassin for the off-the-books Orphan Program. After he broke with the Program, he adopted a new name and a new mission–The Nowhere Man, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble.
Having just survived an attack on his life and the complete devastation of his base of operations, as well as his complicated (and deepening) relationship with his neighbor Mia Hall, Evan isn’t interested in taking on a new mission. But one finds him anyway. Aragon Urrea is a kingpin of a major drug-dealing operation in South Texas. He’s also the patron of the local area–supplying employment in legitimate operations, providing help to the helpless, rough justice to the downtrodden, and a future to a people normally with little hope. He is helpless when one of the most vicious cartels kidnaps his innocent, eighteen-year-old daughter. With no other way to rescue his daughter, he turns to The Nowhere Man.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore – On-site event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/dark-horse
Book of the Month Book Club (BOTM) & Station Eleven via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Event
Join our BOTM Book Club to read and discuss the novel, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.
This audacious glittering novel is set in the eerie days following civilization’s collapse. It tells the story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and event details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Bel Canto Books – Online (see site)
Website: https://belcantobooks.net/book-clubs or https://shopthehangout.com/products/bcb-station-eleven
Tuesdays at the Virtual Cobalt: Poets Series Presents: Open Reading & Julian Matthews – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest poet Julian Matthews.
Julian Matthews is a poet and a former journalist and trainer, and is also a writer of short stories, essays and creative non-fiction from Maylasia.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
At Skylight: Racquel Marie, with Nina Varela, & Ophelia After All at Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Racquel Marie, in conversation with Nina Varela, will present her new YA book: Ophelia After All.
Ophelia After All is a story about a teen girl navigating friendship drama, the end of high school, and discovering her queerness, in a hilarious and heartfelt contemporary YA debut. Having been teased for her many crushes on boys, she must soon make a choice between clinging to the fantasy version of herself she’s always imagined or upending everyone’s expectations to rediscover who she really is, after all.
NOTE: See Site for book purchases, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-racquel-marie-presents-ophelia-after-all-nina-varela
Da Poetry Lounge Tuesday Open Mic via Da Poetry Lounge – IG Online
Open Mic Tuesdays at Da Poetry Lounge are back! Catch us live on IG for our first Open Mic of the season and hear updates about the 2022 season.
Where: DA Poetry Lounge – IG Online
Date: Tuesday the 8th
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CYvULkirZCx/
Wade Hudson Virtual School Talk & Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South via Children’s Book World – Online Kids & Family Event
Join us to hear acclaimed children’s author Wade Hudson, in conversation with Cheryl Willis Hudson, to discuss his new memoir, Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South.
This book is the new memoir of author Wade Hudson, recognized as an anthology honoring and amplifying Black life. Books being discussed will include his award-winning trilogy of books written in collaboration with his partner and wife, Cheryl Willis Hudson, who will join him as a guest speaker.
This is a school event but the public is invited with the purchase of any of the books listed from CBW. Sign-ups form schools and the public are available at site.
Where: Children’s Book World Bookstore – Zoom online
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 10 am – 10:45 am
Address: Children’s Book World – Online Event
Erich Schwartzel & Red Carpet at Book Soup – Online Event
Join author and journalist Erich Schwartzel to hear him discuss his new book, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy
This book by Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel explains how the latest battle in the tense and complex rivalry between two world powers includes the film and movie industry—in addition to trade, technology and military might.
NOTE: Please see details and link at website link.
Where: Book Soup – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Book Soup – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/erich-schwartzel
Poetry Night: Lynne Thompson, Nan Cohen, Angelina Saenz, Sonia Sanchez via Chevalier’s Bookstore – Online Event
Join Poetry Night via Chevalier’s Bookstore hear four wonderful poets read and discuss their work.
Lynne Thompson is the current LA Poet Laureate, and is the author of three award winning books: Fretwork, Start with a Small Guitar, and Beg No Pardon. A lawyer by training, she sits on the boards of The Los Angeles Review of Books and Cave Canem, and is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College, her alma mater. She facilitates workshops and conferences at numerous events and schools.
Nan Cohen is a poet and authorof Unfinished City (Gunpowder Press, 2017) and Rope Bridge (Cherry Grove Collections, 2005).Cohen has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and Stanford University, among others. She currently directs the poetry program at the Napa Valley Writers Conference and lives in Los Angeles, California.
Angelina Saenz is an award-winning teacher and poet, and the author of the debut collection, Edgecliff (FlowerSong Press, 2022). She is curator and host of La Palabra Poetry Reading Series at Avenue 50 Studios.
Sonia Sanchez is a poet, activist and scholar, and the author of sixteen books. She was the Laura Cornell Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Temple University. She received the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, and is one of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement.
NOTE: Please see details and Zoom link RSVP at website link.
Where: Chevalier’s Books – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Chevalier’s Books – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/calendar or https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UDrmnKq8S9GBTuk1owZztw
Vroman’s Live: Kim Fay, with J. Ryan Stradal, & Love and Saffron at Vroman’s – Online Event
Kim Fay, in conversation with J. Ryan Stradal, will discuss her book Love and Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love.
This witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.
When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter–as well as a gift of saffron–to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic–exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.
Food and a good life–they can’t be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen’s decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen’s friendship–a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.
J. Ryan Stradal is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest and national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota. Both novels were prize-winning releases. His shorter writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Granta, Hobart, The Rumpus, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other places.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Vroman’s – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/vromans-live-kim-fay-discussing-love-and-saffron
Matt Sedillo & The Three Act Poem Writers Workshop at Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-person Event
Please join our Poet-in Residence, author and Chicano political poet Matt Sedillo, to participate in his Writers Workshop: The Three Act Political Poem.
Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (Flowersong Press, 2018) and City on the Second Floor (Flowersong Press, 2022), and is a Chicano political activist and speaker who has performed at colleges and universities nationally and world-wide. This workshop has been taught in many educational venues.
NOTE: See site for guidelines & event details.
Where: Re/Arte centro literario – In-person Event
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Where: 2014 ½ E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Skylight Live: Sophia Terazawa and Dot Devota Present Their Books via Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to hear author Sophia Terazawa and author Dot Devota present and discuss their books, Winter Phoenix: Testimonies in Verse and Pms: A Journal in Verse, respectively.
Sophia Terazawa’s Winter Phoenix: Testimonies in Verse is a poetry collection written loosely after the form of an international war crimes tribunal. Ultimately the poet, a daughter of a Vietnamese refugee, navigates the epigenetics of trauma passed down, and across, the archives of war, dislocation, and witness, as she repeatedly asks, “Why did you just stand there and say nothing?” Here, the space of accusation becomes both lyric and machine, but ultimately it is a document of resilience. Language decays. A ceremony eclipses its trial, and the radical possibilities of a single scream rises from annihilation.
Dot Devota’s Pms: A Journal in Verse is her newest collection of explosive, visionary rage-songs sung form her private space of a journal to the public space of community. This is a formidable, darkly humorous collection fueled by the intelligence of the electric, revelatory state.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, link, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 6:30 pm PST
Address: Skylight – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/live-crowdcast-sophia-terazawa-and-dot-devota
Obed Sliva’s Book Launch & The Death of My Father the Pope via Cal State LA – Online Event
Please join author and Cal State LA alum, Obed Silva, in conversation with LA poet Mike Sonksen, to hear him celebrate and discuss his new memoir The Death of My Father the Pope.
Obed Silva’s acclaimed debut memoir, The Death of My Father the Pope, examines his extremely conflicted relationship with his father, whose legacy was addiction and neglect. This story weaves back and forth in time, using memory and language to shade or expose the complexities of the father-son relationship, the escalating waves of violence and abuse the author suffered, and the need to confront and forgive before one can heal and move on.
All are welcome to join this riveting event online!
NOTE: See site for link registration & event details.
Where: Cal State LA & Statement Magazine – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Where: Cal State LA – Zoom Online
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php/?fbid=10160041227958993
Mystery Book Club & The Maid at Pages Bookstore – On-site on Patio
Join our monthly Mystery Book Club meeting, when we will discuss the newly released novel The Maid, by author Nita Prose.
This story is a Clue-like, locked room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit–and explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different.
Molly Gray struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter–she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect.
NOTE: Please see guidelines and details at website link.
Where: Pages Bookstore – on the Patio
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-1
At Skylight: Sarah Manguso, with Ross Simonini, & Very Cold People via Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to hear author Sarah Manguso, in conversation with Ross Simonini (The Book of Fornication), present and discuss her book, Very Cold People: A Novel, her eagerly anticipated debut novel about the crossroads of history and social class.
In this story on growing up and suffering the constraints of a small-town America, we see the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts through Ruthie’s eyes. As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm–from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 7:30 pm PST
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-sarah-manguso-presents-very-cold-people-ross-simonini
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop at 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.
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 9th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Dengan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/events.html
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 Pam Ward.
Pam Ward is the author most recently of Between Good Men and No Man at All (World Stage Press, 2022). Author of two novels, Want Some Get Some, and Bad Girls Burn Slow, she is a California Arts Council Fellow, Pushcart nominee, and Art Center instructor/designer. Her poetry has been published in Calyx, Chiron, The Santa Monica Review, Voices of Leimert Park, and The Los Angeles Times. Pam’s writing sings of her beloved city in prismatic color.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets and information.
Where: Online event (Eventbrite)
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-261945304457
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry & Sarah ChristianScher at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Join Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights.
The format is to welcome a featured poet for a reading, and also have an Open Mic reading. Tonight’s featured artist is Sarah ChristianScher.
Sarah Christianscher is a poet trapped inside the body of a biologist. Her poetry has appeared in Dark Ink: A Poetry Anthology Inspired by Horror, Like a Girl: Perspectives on Feminiism, and Short Poems Ain’t Got Nobody to Love. She has also been featured on the Silver Birch Press poetry blog, Voicemail Poems, and as Moon Tide Press Poet of the Month. To catch a glimpse of Sarah in her natural poetic habitat, find her at Two Idiots Peddling Poetry open mic in Orange, CA.
See site for details and/or to verify.
$4 cover fee, cash only. Masks are required unless eating or drinking.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines & information.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange – In-person event
Date: Wednesday the 9th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/Two-Idiot-Peddling_poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/337146491617212
Bilingual Poetry Workshop with Yesika Salgado: XOXO besos y abrazos via Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – Online Event
Join us online for a free online Bilingual Poetry Workshop with poetry queen and author Yesika Salgado.
You may know Yesika Salgado from her poetry books, Corazon, Tesoro, and Hermosa, or from hearing her at Da Poetry Lounge or at one of Tia Chucha’s Celebrating Words festivals. Now, let your worlds flourish alongside hers through this Zoom event.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Tai Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – Online Zoom event
Date: Thursday the 10th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: Tia Chucha’s – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=poetry%20workshop%20febraury%2010%202022 or https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/yesikasalgado
LGBTQ+ Youth Poetry Workshop Part 2 (Ages 14-24) with Johnny Valero via QueerLand Center – Online Event
Join QueerLAnd for Part 2 of an evening of youth poetry (ages 14 – 24) and LGBTQ+ support, led by social worker and poet Johnny Valera.
This workshop in its first session explored several poetry pieces and dissected the feelings that might have motivated each piece, with the idea that through exploring the works of others, we further our own ability to put our own feelings into words.
In this second meeting, we will explore these feelings further and write our own poems. Don’t forget to submit your pieces to the QueerLand zine (theme: Resilience) at link.
NOTE: See site for more information & event details. Tickets are free at Eventbrite link.
Where: QueerLand – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 10th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: QueerLand (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/652952262559509
SHOUT! The Open Mic, featuring Ellen Webre at Half Off Books – In-person Event
Join SHOUT! The Open Mic and host and editor Eric Moraga to welcome poet and author Ellen Webre, for a reading of her work and an Open Mic. She will be reading from her debut collection of poems, A Burning Lake of Paper Suns.
Sign-ups for the Open Mic go up no later than 6:30 pm and the list closes at the start of the reading.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and event details.
Where: Half Off Bookstore – In-person event
Date: Thursday the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 141 W. Wilshire Ave., Suite A, Fullerton, CA 92832
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/368982595002266/
At Skylight: Fatima Tobing Rony & How Do We Look? at Skylight Bookstore – On-site Event
Join us to hear author Fatima Tobing Rony present and discuss her book How Do We Look?: Resisting Visual Biopolitics.
In How Do We Look? author Fatima Tobing Rony draws on transnational images of Indonesian women as a way to theorize what she calls visual biopolitics–the ways visual representation determines which lives are made to matter more than others. Rony outlines the mechanisms of visual biopolitics by examining Paul Gauguin’s 1893 portrait of Annah la Javanaise–as well as US ethnographic and documentary films. By theorizing the mechanisms of visual biopolitics, Rony elucidates both its violence and its vulnerability.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight – On-site event
Date: Thursday the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-fatimah-tobing-rony-presents-how-do-we-look
At The Huntington: Mapping Fiction Exhibit & How Do We Look? At The Huntington Museum – On-site Event
Join us at The Huntington Museum to view the Mapping Fiction exhibit, ongoing now through May 2, 2022, located in the Library, West Hall.
In this exhibit and through a series of special events, we document the ways authors and mapmakers have built compelling fictional worlds. On view in the Library’s West Hall, the exhibition is timed to coincide with the centennial of the publication of James Joyce’s groundbreaking 1922 modernist novel, Ulysses.
Drawn entirely from The Huntington’s collections, “Mapping Fiction” includes a first edition of Joyce’s novel and a typescript draft of one of its chapters, cartographically inspired intaglio prints of Dublin as described in the book, other mappings of the novel and the famous texts to which it alludes, and materials related to the annual celebration of Bloomsday in Dublin on June 16–the single day in 1904 during which the novel takes place.
About 70 items will be on view, focused on novels and maps from the 16th through the 20th century–largely early editions of books that include elaborate maps of imaginary worlds.
NOTE: See site for guide, guidelines, and related event details.
Where: Huntington Museum – On-site event
Date: Friday the 11th
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Address: 1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino, CA 91108
Website: https://www.huntington.org/mapping-fiction/
Sin Verguenza/Without Shame: A Bilingual Poetry Reading Event via Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online
Join Beyond Baroque for a bilingual poetry reading in English and Spanish titled Sin Verguenza/Without Shame, featuring four esteemed poets and authors: Lisbeth Coiman, Leonora Simonivis, Iris De Anda, & Olga Garcia Echeverria.
Their voices brazenly reveal the injustices of corrupt governments, political exile, forced displacement, as well as unabashedly celebrating the joys and complexities of their multicultural heritage. Through their literary work, each poet explores their own personal histories, passionate desires, and their own journeys across America.
Lisbeth Coiman is a Venezuelan poet, and author of the recently published collection Uprising/Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press).
Leonora Simonovia is a Venezuelan poet, and author of Study of the Raft, winner of the 2021 Colorado Prize for Poetry.
Iris De Anda is a Mexican-Salvadoran poet, and author most recently of Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent (Flowersong Press).
Olga Garcia Echeverria is an East L.A.–born poet, and author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemes (Calaca Press).
NOTE: See site for further details and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online event (Eventbrite)
Date: Friday the 11th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online event – Zoom link to be shared 24 hours before and on the day of the reading.
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sin-verguenzawithout-shame-tickets-254840503807
Social Justice Book Club for Kids via Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids Event
Join children’s librarians from LAPL to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family. Participants of all ages are welcome.
This month’s selection for reading and discussion is Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg’s call to save the planet, by Jeanette Winter.
NOTE: See site for event link and details. Email cquinn@lapl.org for the link.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 10 am
Address: LAPL – Online (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/social-justice-book-club
Enchanted Strings: Bob Baker Marionette Theater & Randal Metz via Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Kids & Family Event
Since 1963, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater has enchanted families in Los Angeles and beyond with their delightful marionette performances. Now, for the first time ever, the visual history of the theater has been captured in the pages of a book, from Bob Baker’s earliest days to the theater’s transformation into a thriving non-profit. The text describes a theater at the height of its powers, hosting performances for school children and collaborating with Disney on live-action films. The images bring some of the Bob Baker’s most beloved shows to life, featuring new and vintage photographs of performances, introducing iconic characters like “The Black Cat” and “Bobo the Clown”.
Enchanted Stings, by Randal Metz, is perfect for a devotee of the performing arts or anyone who is a child at heart! (Angel City Press)
NOTE: See site for event link and details.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Kids & Family Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 1 pm
Address: Vroman’s – Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/vromans-live-randal-j-metz-presents-enchated-strings
45th Annual UCR Writers Week Festival via UC Riverside – Online Event
Join the 45th Annual UCR Writers Week Festival of Events: February 12 and 14-18, 2022. This series of events is online, free and open to the public, (captioned & ASL translated), and you may register at site link or on any session time listed there.
DAY 1 of 6, EVENTS:
Session 1: 1 pm PST:
Gordon Lee Johnson is the author of Bird Songs Don’t Lie (Hey Day). Cahuilla/Cupeno, he lives and writes on the Pala Indian Res. A former newspaperman, he was last a columnist and feature writer for the Press-Enterprise, covering Southern California’s Inland Empire. He is the author of three books: Rez Dogs Eat Beans, Fast Cars and Frybread, and Bird Songs Don’t Lie.
Kim Shuck is the author of Exile Heart. Shuck is widely published in journals, anthologies and a couple of solo books. She enjoys volunteering in SFUSD elementary school classrooms to share her loves of origami, poetry and basket making… in other words, math of various kinds. In 2019 Shuck was awarded an inaugural National Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, and a PEN Oakland Censorship Award.
Lewis deSoto is an artist and the author most recently of Tired of Eternity: An Autobiography by Coyote (Magnolia Editions). Long thought to be a mythical being, Coyote has come out of the shadows and written a gripping tale of his lives in outer space, nature, and humanity. This book challenges our ideas of time, existance the nature of love, and the size of the universe.
Session 2: 3 pm PST: XLA POETS / Tlacuilx Contributors
Session 3: 6:30 pm PST
Kyle Lucia Wu is a Managing Director at Kundiman and teaches Creative Writing at Catapult and Fordham University. She is the author of Win Me Something: A Novel (Tin House), a meditation on the often porous lines between work and real life.
Rajiv Mohabir is an Assistant Professor at Emerson College and is the author of Antman: A Hybrid Memoir, the poetry collection Cultish, three other multilingual chapbooks. He is currently Translations Editor at Waxwing Journal, and has won numerous prizes for his work.
Molly Fisk is an artist and the author of California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology and The More Difficult Beauty. She is a writer about many subjects, including love, death, grammar, small towns, lingerie, and the natural world. She was Inaugural Poet Laureate of Nevada County, CA and Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow.
NOTE: See site for event link and details.
Where: UC Riverside Writers Week – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 1 pm – 5 pm (Day 1)
Address: UC Riverside – Online (see site)
Website: https://writersweek.ucr.edu/schedule22 or https://www.crowdcast.io/e/pdi5kcdq/register?utm_source=profile
Writer’s Workshop with Viva Padilla via Re/Arte Centro Literario – 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 Centro Literario – In-person Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 2014 ½ E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Afternoon Poetry: F. Douglas Brown Reading at My Place Café – In-person Event
Join our Afternoon Poetry Reading featuring a Poets and Allies readings standout, F. Douglas Brown.
F. Douglas Brown is a Black and Filipino poet and the author of ICON (Writ Large Press/Accomplices, 2018), and Zero to Thirty (University of Georgia Press, 2014). He is a writer, educator, and curator of the Sandra Bland reading series, among other endeavors,
The Poets and Allies poetry reading series was hosted by 2020-2022 Altadena Poet Laureate, Khadija Anderson, and held at Sidewalk Café HTS.
NOTE: See website for further details.
Where: My Place Café – In-person Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 2057 N. Los Robles Ave., Unit #10, Pasadena, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/941510969819043/
Exploring Art Through the Poetry of Shel Silverstein: Workshop by Sara Pavsner-Mael at Sims Library of Poetry – On-site Kids Event
Join Sara Pevsner-Mael for a Children’s Workshop (ages 5-12) titled Exploring Art Through the Poetry of Shel Silverstein.
Every session children will paint, sculpt, build, draw, print and create works of art to go with a poem from Shel Silverstein’s epic work, Where the Sidewalk Ends.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, event guidelines and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry – Kids Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 0043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/events or https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/exploring-art-through-the-poetry-of-shel-silverstein-workshop-1
Saturday Afternoon Poetry & Deep Critique Writing Workshop with G.T. Foster – Online Event
Join us at Saturday Afternoon Poetry for a Deep Critique Writing Workshop led by G.T. Foster.
(Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than150 lines for Spectrum Online Edition).
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Zoom Online Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Elana K. Arnold & Erin Entrada Kelly Present: Just Harriet and Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Kids Event
Please join Bel Canto Bookstore to hear two children’s authors present their new books:
Elana K. Arnold writes books for and about children and teens. She holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing/Fiction from the University of California, Davis where she has taught Creative Writing and Adolescent Literature. She will present and discuss her book, Just Harriet.
Erin Entrada Kelly is a Filipino-American writer of children’s literature. She was awarded the 2018 John Newberry Medal by the Association for Library Service to Children for her third novel, Hello Universe. She will present and discuss her book, Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey.
NOTE: See website for further details.
Where: Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Date: Sunday the 13th
Time: 11 am
Address: Bel Canto Books – Online (see site)
Website: https://belcantobooks.net/event or https://www.crowdcast.io/e/elana-k–arnold-for-just/register
Olga Tokarczuk & The Books of Jacob: The Story of Eighteenth Century Cult Leader Jacob Frank via Skirball Cultural Center – Online Event
Please join Skirball Cultural Center’s next Words and Ideas Program to hear author Olga Tokarczuk present and discuss her magnum opus, The Books of Jacob, with the novel’s Polish-to-English translator Jennifer Croft, and LA’s favorite literary curator, Louise Steinman.
This sweeping story follows the comet-like rise and fall of Jacob Frank, a real-life messianic religious figure, as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe. Narrated through the perspectives of his contemporaries—those who revere him, those who revile him—The Books of Jacob captures a world on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence.
NOTE: See website for RSVP and further details. Books available through Book Soup.
Where: Skirball Cultural Center – Online Event
Date: Sunday the 13th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Skirball – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.skirball.org/programs/words-and-ideas/olga-tokarczuk-books-jacob
Café con Libros Book Club at Café con Libros Press – In-person Event
Join us for a Café con Libros Book Club, offered every 2nd Saturday of the month at 2pm, either online or in-store.
Our selection this month is Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, by Adrienne Maree Brown.
NOTE: See website for further details.
Where: Café con LIbros Press – In-person Event
Date: Saturday the 12th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 92766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calendar/
Sheila Darcey & Sketch by Sketch via Diesel Bookstore – In-person Event
Join author Sheila Darcey to hear her present and sign her book, Sketch by Sketch: A Creative Path to Emotional Healing and Transformation.
The drawing and sketching practice presented by Sheila Darcey in this book will help anyone shift from negative thinking and spiraling emotions into the realm of possibility. She believes we are all creators, and this book contains over 40 sketching prompts on a variety of topics to help readers practice mindfulness, negotiate change, and produce experiences in a powerful new way, without self-judgment and anxiety which may impede growth.
NOTE; See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore – In-person Courtyard event
Date: Sunday the 13th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/sketch-by-sketch
Graphic Novel Draw Off with Zach Smith and David Fremontvia Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Event
Join two talented author/illustrators who will talk briefly about their graphic novel series and the draw laugh-out-loud cartoons in a draw–off for the ages.
Zach Smith will represent team Dolphin Girl.
David Fremont will represent team Carlton Crumple Creature Catcher.
This is a great event for readers ages 7+.
NOTE; See site for link and event details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Zoom event
Date: Sunday the 13th
Time: 2 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/graphic-draw-off
Second Sunday Poetry Series: Beverly M. Collins and Linda Singer & Open Mic at Studio Theatre at St. Denis – On-site Event
Join us to hear poets and writers Beverly M. Collins and Linda Singer share their work at the Second Sunday Poetry Series & Open Mic at the Studio Theatre at St. Denis buildings in West Los Angeles.
Beverly M. Collins is the author of the books Quiet Observations: Diary thought, Whimsy and Rhyme and Mud In Magic.
Linda Singer is the author of Wingless, a poetry collection published by Los Nietos Press.
NOTE; See site for link and event details.
Where: Studio Theatre at St Denis
Date: Sunday the 13th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd., W., Los Angeles, CA 90068
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/267217938888429
At Skylight: Tina Horn, with Katie Skelly, & SFSX, Volume 2: Terms of Service at Skylight Books – On-site Event.
Writer/creatorand podcast host Tina Horn and artist G. Romero-Johnson team up again for the latest SFSX (SAFE SEX) cyberpunk thriller graphic novel, SF/SX, Volume 2: Terms of Service. The author will be in conversation with Katie Skelly (Maids, My Pretty Vampire, The Agency, Nurse Nurse).
After their previous adventures in sex, love, and torture left them separated and traumatized, the Dirty Mind heroes must face the totalitarian Party’s latest “social program”–one involving uncanny sexpots and a twisted men’s rights movement. This intelligent and colorful dystopian satire is perfect for fans of Ex Machina, San Junipero, and Pose. Pick up the latest instalment in the critically acclaimed series SyFy Wire says, “effortlessly captures the feeling of this revolutionary and terrifying moment in time.”
NOTE: See site for event guidelines and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 136h
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-tina-horn-presents-sfsx-katie-skelly
WokeStock Event Benefit for miraculouslovekids.org at The Redwood Bar by EStudio GodzAmma – On-site Event.
Join us for a mini-performing arts fest, featuring poetry, dance, and rock n roll, in a benefit event by EStudio GodzAmma and featuring:
Rich Ferguson – Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. Ferguson’s newest poetry collection, Everything is Radiant Between the Hates.
Milo Martin – has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Educated at San Francisco State University and the University of Southern California, he currently resides in Los Angeles.
Mike Mollett – is the author of Twisted Cadillac.
Iris De Anda – is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A womyn of color of Mexican and Salvadorean descent. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. Her new book of poetry is Roots of Redemption (Flowersong Press, 2022).
Doug Knott – has been writing and performing poetry in Southern California for more than thirty years. He his the author of Small Dogs Bark Cartoons and Switchblade.
Kennon B. Raines – has traveled both nationally & internationally performing her own original poetry in nightclubs, galleries, theaters & festivals.
Richard Modiano – is the former executive director of the Beyond Baroque Foundation based in Venice, California. He’s a rank and file member of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Briana Munoz – is a writer from Southern California. Raised in San Diego, she spent a lot of her time at her mother’s Mexican folklore dance classes and at ranches where her father trained horses into the sunset. She is the author of Loose Lips, a poetry collection published by Prickly Pear Publishing (2019). Her most recent poetry collection is Everything is Returned to the Soil/Todo Vuelve a la Tierra (Flowersong Press, 2021).
And more!
NOTE: See site for tickets, event guidelines and details.
Where: The Redwood Bar
Date: Sunday the 136h
Time: 8 pm – 2 am
Address: 316 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1069487373783755/
Los Angeles Literature 