NOTE: There Are Both Online and Virtual Events Listed Here
World Literature Book Club: Story Selections via Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a spirited discussion of the world’s best short stories! All selections are from The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story (New York, 2021) ed. John Freeman. This month’s selections are:
April 11: Water Child by Edwidge Danticat (2000)
April 18: The American Embassy by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2003)
April 25: The Conductor by Aleksandar Hemon (2005)
NOTE: See site for event details and Zoom link.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online event
Date: Monday the 11th
Time: 10 am
Address: LAPL – Online Event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-literature-book-club-32
Teen Book Club Bonanza: Let’s Celebrate Poetry via Central Library, LAPL – Online Teen Event
Join LAPL for a celebration of poetry during National Poetry Month. We will pick a book to read via hoopla and discuss whether to select novels in verse or nonfiction poetry.
On April 11 we will discuss read-alikes on the book(s) we’ve chosen; on April 18th we will share poetry activities; and on April 25th we will have our book discussion on the book(s) chosen.
NOTE: See site for event details and Zoom link.
Where: Central Library, LAPL – Online Teen Event
Date: Monday the 11th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: LAPL – Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-bonanza-lets-celebrate-poetry
M. Chris Fabricant, with Jason Flom & Adam Conover, & Junk Science at Book Soup – In-person Event
Join us to hear M. Chris Fabricant, in conversation with Jason Flom & Adam Conover, discuss his book, Junk Science and the American Criminal System.
Innocence Project attorney M. Chris Fabricant presents an insider’s journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role junk science plays in maintaining the status quo.
In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became the author’s clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the “science” that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond.
At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider’s perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant’s true crime narrative. (Akashic Books)
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 11th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90069
At Skylight: Gathering: A Women Who Submit Anthology at Skylight Bookstore – In-person Event
Skylight is thrilled to present an evening celebrating contributors to Gathering: A Women Who Submit Anthology, featuring: Angela M. Franklin, Cecilia Caballero, Désirée Zamorano, Kate Maruyama, Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley and Sandy Yang.
GATHERING is a collection of poems, essays, stories, and plays by Women Who Submit (WWS) members from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, San Antonio, Bay Area, Long Beach, Westside, and Los Angeles chapters. It is a way for members in our literary community to acknowledge the traumas of the past year and offer hope in the face of unprecedented challenges. In spite of all that has plagued the world in 2020-2021, WWS members continued to gather across the country, share resources, encourage literary submissions, and support each other with claps and cheers. This gathering of literary voices celebrates WWS’s commitment to empowering women and nonbinary writers over the last 10 years.
NOTE: See site for event details link.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Monday the 11th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-gathering-women-who-submit-anthology
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online Event
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 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 11th
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-314716584777
Rebecca Jordan-Glum Book Launch & KITTY via Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Kids In-person Event
Local author Rebecca Jordan-Glum will present her new picture book, KITTY, about a case of mistaken identity involving a Kitty raccoon who causes chaos when Granny comes to visit.
After Granny misplaces her glasses, she accidentally lets the cat out…and a raccoon in…a raccoon that looks like a cat/ Granny gets very upset and the raccoon is very satisfied with the situation.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Kids Event
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/kitty
Susan Cain, with Angela Duckworth, & Bittersweet via Live Talks LA – In-Person Event
Author Susan Cain, in conversation with Angela Duckworth (GRIT), will present her new book, Bittersweet: How Sorry and Longing Make Us Whole, from the author of Quiet.
Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Live Talks LA – Online Event
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Live Talk LA – Online (see site)
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/susan-cain/
Silver Lake Book Club: The Other Americans by Laila Lalami at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-person Patio Event
Join LAPL for the Silver Lake Book Club discussion of The Other Americans, by Laila Lalami.
Copies are available through the library catalog and are available for download with the Libby app for Overdirve. Email silver@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Tuesday 12th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: LAPL – Online (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/silver-lake-book-club
Joan Collins & My Unapologetic Diaries at Book Soup – In-person Event
Joan Collins will present and discuss her memoir, My Unapologetic Diaries.
Dame Joan Collins, actress, author, columnist, producer, entrepreneur and celebrity, has been a diarist since age twelve. She dictated most of the entries in real time into a mini-tape recorder at the end of the day, and now she’s spilling the beans here, with what she wrote between 1989 and 2009.
My Unapologetic Diaries is a witty and intimate book, which doesn’t pull punches!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/joan-collins-signs-my-unapologetic-diaries
Women of Walt Disney Imagineering: Five Imagineers Reflect at Village Well Bookstore – In-person Event
Join us to hear five inspiring Walt Disney Imagineers chat about their careers in theme park design to create a world of wonder that millions of families and children know and love! Join us for a conversation and Q + A to get insight on how Disneyland came to life.
Becky Bishop – Area Development Executive
Peggie Fariss – Executive, Creative Development
Tori Atencio McCullough – Director, Interior Design
Pam Rank – Principal Show Lighting Designer
Kathy Rogers – Executive Show Producer
In this book a dozen female Imagineers recount their trailblazing careers! Illustrated with the women’s personal drawings and photos in addition to archival Imagineering images, the book represents a broad swath of Imagineering’s creative disciplines during a time of unprecedented expansion. Intertwined with memories of Disney legends are glimpses of what it takes behind the scenes to create a theme park, and the struggles unique to women who were becoming more and more important, visible and powerful in a workplace that was overwhelmingly male. Each chapter is unique, from a unique Imagineer’s perspective and experience.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/16838
Mystery Book Club & Five Decembers at Pages Bookstore – In-person Event on Patio
This Mystery Book Club meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, and this month’s selection is the novel, Five Decembers, by author James Kestrel.
December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. Because the trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn’t know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor.
This extraordinary novel is so much more than just a gripping crime story—it’s a story of survival against all odds, of love and loss and the human cost of war. Spanning the entirety of World War II, This book is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.
Where: Pages Bookstore – on the Patio
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-3
Vroman’s Live: Dean Sluyter & The Dharma Bum’s Guide to Western Literature: Finding Nirvana in the Classics at Vroman’s – In-person Event
Dean Sluyter will present and discuss his new book, The Dharma Bum’s Guide to Western Literature: Finding Nirvana in the Classics.
In this book, author Dean Sluyter, with droll humor and irreverent wisdom, unpacks the Dharma of more than twenty major writers, from William Blake to Dr. Seuss, inspiring readers to deepen their own spiritual life and see literature in a fresh, new way: as a path of awakening. (New World Library) After a lifetime of teaching Dharma—authentic, traditional approaches to meditation and awakening—he is like the long ago one English teacher who helped us fall in love with books,
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado St., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/dean-sluyter-discusses-he-dharma-bums-guide-to-western-literature
At Skylight: Melissa Chadburn, with & Amelia Gray, & A Tiny Upward Shove at Skylight Bookstore – In-person Event
Melissa Chadburn, in conversation with Amelia Gray, will discuss her new book, A Tiny Upward Shove.
This debut novel, inspired by the author’s Filipino heritage and its folklore, traces the too-short life of a young, cast-off woman transformed by death into an agent of justice and mercy. She charts the heartbreaking journeys of two of society’s castoffs as they make their way to each other and their roles as criminal and victim. What does it mean to be on the brink? When are those moments that change not only our lives but our very selves? And how, in this impossible world, full of cruelty and negligence, can we rouse ourselves toward mercy?
Marina Salles’s life does not end the day she wakes up dead.
Instead, in just a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories—an aswang, a creature of mystery and vengeance. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known—even her killer—as she accesses their memories and sees anew the meaning of her own. In her nine days as an aswang, while she considers whether to exact vengeance on her killer, she also traces back, finally able to see what led these two lost souls to a crushingly inevitable conclusion.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Skylight Books – Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-melissa-chadburn-presents-tiny-upward-shove-amelia-gray
Elissa Sussman, with Kate Spencer, & Funny You Should Ask at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-person Event
Join us to hear author Elissa Sussman, in conversation with Kate Spencer, discuss her book, Funny You Should Ask.
Twenty-something writer Chani Horowitz is stuck. While her former MFA classmates are nabbing high-profile book deals, all she does is churn out puff pieces. Then she’s hired to write a profile of movie star Gabe Parker: her number one celebrity crush and the latest James Bond. All Chani wants to do is keep her cool and nail the piece. But what comes next proves to be life changing in ways she never saw coming, as the interview turns into a whirlwind weekend that has the tabloids buzzing—and Chani getting closer to Gabe than she had planned.
Now. Ten years later, after a brutal divorce and a healthy dose of therapy, Chani is back in Los Angeles as a successful writer with the career of her dreams. Except that no matter what new essay collection or online editorial she’s promoting, someone always asks about The Profile. It always comes back to Gabe. So when his PR team requests that they reunite for a second interview, she wants to say no. She wants to pretend that she’s forgotten about the time they spent together. But the truth is that Chani wants to know if those seventy-two hours were as memorable to Gabe as they were to her. And so . . . she says yes.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/copy-of-april-1-julissa-arce
Tuesdays at the Virtual Cobalt: Poets Series Presents: Open Reading & Roya Marsh – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest poet Roya Marsh.
Roya Marsh is a Bronx, New York, native and a nationally recognized poet, performer, educator, and activist. She is the Poet-in-Residence at Urban Word NYC and the awardee of the 2021 Lotus Foundation Prize for Poetry.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
Da Poetry Lounge Tuesday Open Mic – IG Live Event
Open Mic Tuesdays at Da Poetry Lounge are back! Catch us live on IG Livestream. Hosted by Alysha Wise and Matthew “Cuban” Hernandez.
Where: IG Live
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: N/A
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CYvULkirZCx/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/CbX26Z5lrTD/
SOM Tuesdays Open Mic at Di Piazza’s Pizza, Long Beach
SOM Open Mic Tuesdays at Di Piazza’s are back! Come and share music, comedy, and poetry with us.
Where: Di Piazza’s Pizza (Check to verify)
Date: Tuesday the 12th
Time: 9 pm – 12 am
Address: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy, Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1253012675206165/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22surface%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22permalink%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D
Creative Writing Workshop with Tony DuShane at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join LAPL for a Creative Writing Workshop with Tony DuShane, UCLA instructor and the author of the novel Confessions of a Teenage Jerk, which is now a major motion picture.
This class is free and open to all skill levels.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Wednesday 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: LAPL Online (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-5
Poetry Speaks: A Poetry Panel with Local Voices via OCPL – Online Event
Join OCPL online, for the second event in our Poetry Speaks Reading Series, with a Poetry Panel with poets Kim Dower, Steven Reigns, and Ellen Webre for a conversation about writing, inspiration, and what it means to be a poet today. Come listen to the discussion and then get the chance to ask the poets questions about their work.
Kim Dower is the author of four poetry collections, all from Red Hen Press: Air Kissing on Mars (2010); Slice of Moon (2013), nominated for a Pushcart Prize; Last Train to the Missing Planet (2016); and Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave (2019). She was city poet laureate of West Hollywood from 2016 to 2018 and teaches at Antioch University.
Steven Reigns is a poet and educator who was the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. HE has authored seven chapbooks, edited books, and his latest book is A Quilt for David, which is a hidden history of a vulnerable gay man whose life and death were tabloid fodder in the 1990s, during the AIDS era of fear.
Ellen Webre is an Orange County poet and works as a social media specialist for Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and Moon Tide Press. Her debut poetry publication is titled A Burning Lake of Paper Suns (Moon Tide Press, 2021).
NOTE: To get the Zoom link, email readoc@occr.ocgov.com.
Where: OC Poet Laureate Event – Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: OCPL – Online Event (see site)
Website: https://ocpl.org/poetryspeaks
Vroman’s Live: Gina Sorell, with Jennifer Robertson, & The Wise Women at Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Event
Gina Sorell, in conversation with Jennifer Robertson, will discuss her novel, The Wise Women, which is about three women who confront the disappointments and heartaches that have accumulated between them over the years, and discover that while the future may look entirely different from the one that they’ve expected, it may be even brighter than they’d hoped. (Harper)
Popular advice columnist Wendy Wise has been skillfully advising the women who write to her seeking help for four decades, so why are her own daughters’ lives such a mess? Clementine, the working mother of a six-year-old boy, has just discovered that she is actually renting the Queens home that she thought she owned, because her husband Steve secretly funneled their money into his flailing start-up. Meanwhile, her sister Barb has overextended herself at her architecture firm and reunited semi-unhappily with her cheating girlfriend. When Wendy swoops in to help, the girls discover she’s been hiding problems of hew own
NOTE: See site for RSVP and event details.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Vroman’s – Online (sees site)
Robbie Couch, with Margot Wood, & Blaine for the Win via Skylight Bookstore – Online YA Event
Join us to hear author Robbie Counch, in conversation with Margot Wood, discuss his new YA novel, Blaine for the Win.
After being dumped so his boyfriend can pursue more “serious” guys, a teen boy decides to prove he can be serious, too, by running for senior class president in this joyful romp from the author of The Sky Blues.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 13th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Skylight – Online (see site)
Jim Ruland & Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records at Book Soup – In-person Event
Author and music journalist Jim Ruland will join us to discuss his latest book, Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records.
Greg Ginn started SST Records in the sleepy beach town of Hermosa Beach, CA, to supply ham radio enthusiasts with tuners and transmitters. But when Ginn wanted to launch his band, Black Flag, no one was willing to take them on. Determined to bring his music to the masses, Ginn turned SST into a record label. On the back of Black Flag’s relentless touring, guerilla marketing, and refusal to back down, SST became the sound of the underground.
In Corporate Rock Sucks, music journalist Jim Ruland relays the unvarnished story of SST Records, from its remarkable rise in notoriety to its infamous downfall. With records by Black Flag, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden, and scores of obscure yet influential bands, SST was the most popular indie label by the mid-80s–until a tsunami of legal jeopardy, financial peril, and dysfunctional management brought the empire tumbling down. Throughout this investigative deep-dive, Ruland leads readers through SST’s tumultuous history and epic catalog.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jim-ruland-discusses-corporate-rock-sucks
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, at vkaliflowers@gmail.com.
• 7:30p.m.–8:30p.m. — Formal workshop;
• 8:30p.m.–9:00p.m. — Featured reader;
• 9:05p.m.–10:00p.m. — Open mic
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 the13th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Dengan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/events.html
Live Talks LA: Carl Bernstein, with Josh Singer, & Chasing History at Wilshire Boulevard Temple– In-person Event
Live Talks LA will present Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Bernstein (All the President’s Men), in conversation with film and TV writer Josh Singer, at Wilshire Boulevard Temple to discuss his new memoir, Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom.
The author is a pioneer of investigative journalism, and here he recalls his beginnings as an audacious teenage reporter in the nation’s capital. This is a winning tale of scrapes, gumshoeing, and American bedlam.
NOTE: Details, tickets, and guidelines at event link.
Where: Live Talks LA – Off-site at Wilshire Boulevard Temple
Date: Wednesday the 13th
Time: 8 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3643 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/carl-bernstein-with-josh-singer/
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 13th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry & Kelsey Bryan-Zwick Book Launch 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 Kelsey Bryan-Zwick.
Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is the author of a debut collection of poems form Moon Tide Press titled Here Go the Knives. The author is a queer, bilingual, disabled American poet based in Los Angeles, and the author of four chapbooks, including Bone Water, which is a collection on scoliosis.
Kelsey also is the founder and editor of the micro-press BindYourOwnBooks which creates handmade journals, poetry collections, and snail-mail art cards.
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
Date: Wednesday the 13th
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/23001953541
Robin Roberts & Brighter By the Day at Vroman’s – Online Event
Robin Roberts, co-anchor of Good Morning America, will present and discuss her latest book, Brighter By the Day: Waking Up to New Hopes and Dreams.
In this book the author shares with readers the guidance she’s received, her own hard-won wisdom, and eye-opening experiences that have helped her find the good in the world and usher in light–even on the darkest days.
Drawing on advice and knowledge she gleaned from conversations with loved ones, spiritual practices, and life experiences, Robin offers a window into how she feeds her own mind, spirit, and soul and invites readers to do the same. With a deeply personal touch, she explains that just like any skill, optimism requires practice and demonstrates how we can shift our mindsets and give ourselves permission to let our best intentions take root and be true.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 3:30pmPST
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/robin-roberts-discusses-brighter-by-the-day
National Poetry Month Series: I Am America at Wil & Ariel Durant Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us virtually during National Poetry Month to hear local and national poets share poems about their diverse and rich cultural heritages representing everyday people who live, work, and build America from its past to its present and future. Five of the ten poets are based in Los Angeles.
Alixen Pham, poet/writer/artist, hosts this four-week Virtual Public Poetry Reading Series showcasing the following poets:
Brian Sonia-Wallace is the current Poet laureate of West Hollywood and is the author of the book The Poetry of Strangers, a deep dive into what communities across America reply when asked, “what do you need a poem about?” The author found there is a deep desire to be heard.
Angela Franklin is a poet, essayist, and visual artist. And has published one book in a YA series.
Shannon Jackson is ascholar in Performance Studies. Author of many essays in journals of theater, performance studies, and cultural studies. Currently completing two book projects on theatre and the visual arts and on new media theatre for Routledge and M.I.T. Press respectively.
Romaine Washington is the author of the poetry collection, Purgatory Has an Address, (Bamboo Dart Press, 2021) nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Sirens in Her Belly, (Jamii, 2015). Washington’s poetry has appeared in local and national publications including New Direction: Howard University, Lullwater Review: Emory University, The Black Scholar and California English.
Arthur Kayzakian is a poet, editor and teacher who lives in California. He was born in Tehran, Iran. His family sought political asylum in London when he was three years old to escape the Iranian Revolution. He earned his MFA from San Diego State University. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International. His chapbook, My Burning City, was a finalist for the Locked Horn Press Chapbook Prize and Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize.
He is a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship, and his poems and translations have appeared in or are forthcoming from several publications
Paula Comer N/A
Alexis Rhone Fancher has been published in over 200 literary magazines, journals and anthologies, and has received or been nominated for numerous awards. Her most recent book is titled The Dead Kid Poems. She hosts the monthly Second Sunday Poetry and Open Mic series.
Tanya Ko Hong is a Korean American bilingual poet, translator and curator, and the author of the Korean Diaspora literature. Weaving together two cultures, her poetry gives voice to multiple generations of Korean and Korean-American women. Her most recent collection, The War Still Within includes a well-researched and vividly imagined sequence of poems based on the experiences of the Korean “comfort women” who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
Cecilia Caballero is an Afro-Chicana writer, single other, and teaching artist, whose work appears in Dryland, Epiphany, Raising Mothers, The Acentos Review, and gathering: a Women Who Submit Anthology.
Nazelah Jamison is a poet, actress and vocalist based in Oakland, CA. She discovered Poetry Slam in 1999, with great success, as a performer and coach, as well as host at spoken word events.
Register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Will & Ariel Durant Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Thursday 14th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: LAPL Online (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/national-poetry-month-series-i-am-america
Poets Translate Poets: Translating the Avant-Garde Across Borders at Beyond Baroque – Online Event
Join Beyond Baroque online for Poets Translate Poets, a reading and discussion with five authors whose work encompasses translating poetry and prose that pushes literary boundaries and experimental work in avant-garde movements from Latin America. This program explores the richness and complexity of poetry in Spanish and English as five exceptional poet-translators from the United States and Mexico read and discuss poetry and the art of translation.
Featured participants include Tedi López Mills, Jerome Rothenberg, Anthony Seidman, Roberto Tejada, and Mónica de la Torre. Each author will read from their own poetry and discuss work that they’ve translated. Following the presentations, there will be a Q&A from the audience.
Tedi López Mills was born in Mexico City. She is the author of more than a dozen books, including both poetry and essays, several of which have received national literary prizes. Three books have been published in English: While Light Is Built (anthology of poems), Death on Rua Augusta (book that won the prestigious Premio Xavier Villaurrutia de Escritores para Escritores in 2009) and Against the Current (Premio Nacional de Literatura José Fuentes Mares, 2008). In the coming months, Deep Vellum will be bringing out Book of Explanations, a volume of essays.
Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally celebrated poet, translator and performer with over ninety books of poetry and twelve assemblages of traditional and avant-garde poetry such as Technicians of the Sacred and Poems for the Millennium, volumes 1-3. In addition to the numerous translations that appeared in these anthologies, his work as a translator, beginning with New Young German Poets in 1959, has included books of translations from Lorca, Nezval, Schwitters, Gomringer, and Picasso, many of them brought together in Writing Through: Translations and Variations in 2004. His most recent big books are Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader and Barbaric Vast & Wild (Poems for the Millennium, volume 5), both published by Black Widow Press. A new book of poems, A Field on Mars: Poems 2000-2015 was recently published by Jusqu’à (To) Publishers, Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, in joint English and French editions. He is currently completing, with Mexican poet Javier Taboada, an anthology of North and South American poetry “from [pre-historic] origins to the present,” scheduled for publication next year by University of California Press.
Anthony Seidman is a poet translator from Los Angeles. His poetry, reviews, short fiction, and translations have appeared in publications like World Literature Today, Huizache, Latin American Literature Today, Bitter Oleander, Poetry International, the anthologies The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press), Poetics for the More-Than-Human World (Disptaches Editions), and in journals from England, France and Latin America, like Ambit, Black Herald, Critica, and Periodico de Poesia of the UNAM. His most recent full-length translations include A Stab in the Dark (LARB Classics) by Facundo Bernal, Caribbean Ants: Selected Poems of Homero Pumarol (Spuyten Duyvil) and, most recently, Contra Natura (Cardboard House Press), by Rodolfo Hinostroza, which won a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation. Seidman’s collections of original poetry include the recent Cosmic Weather (Spuyten Duyvil) and the chapbook The Defining Crisis of Your Lifetime is Utopia (Trainwreck Press).
Roberto Tejada is the author of poetry collections Why the Assembly Disbanded (2022), Todo en el ahora (2015), Full Foreground (2012), Exposition Park (2010), and Mirrors for Gold (2006), as well as Still Nowhere in an Empty Vastness (2019), a LatinX poetics on colonial settlement and cultural counter-conquest in art and literature of the Americas. His writings on art and media history include the books National Camera: Photography and Mexico’s Image Environment (2009) and Celia Alvarez Muñoz (2009), as well as catalog essays in Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980 (Hammer Museum, 2011) and Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon (The Menil Collection, 2021). He was awarded The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Poetry (2021) and serves as the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston where he teaches Creative Writing and Art History.
Mónica de la Torre is a poet whose creative practice involves working with and between languages in various disciplines. De la Torre’s published works include The Happy End/All Welcome (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017); Public Domain (Roof Books, 2009); and Talk Shows (Switchback Books, 2007). She is also the author of several books in Spanish, among them the image/text volume Taller de Taquimecanografía (Tumbona Ediciones, 2011), an exquisite corpse assembled with the eponymous women’s art collective she cofounded with Aura Estrada, Gabriela Jauregui, and Laureana Toledo in the mid-2000s; Sociedad Anónima (Bonobos Editores/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2010); and Acúfenos (Taller Ditoria, 2006). De la Torre holds a B.A. from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. From 2007-2016, de la Torre served as senior editor for BOMB; she remains a contributing editor to the publication. Prior to that, she was the first poetry editor at The Brooklyn Rail. Her critical writing and poetry have appeared in Artforum, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, A Public Space, and The Paris Review, among other publications. She teaches poetry at Brooklyn College.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, Zoom link, and event details.
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poets-translate-poets-translating-the-avant-garde-across-borders-tickets-311440566117
Visual Iconicity Workshop: Facilitated by Voth via Sims Library of Poetry – Zoom Online Event
Join us online for a Visual Iconicity Workshop, facilitated by Voth.
As poets, we often limit our creativity to stanzas, meter, rhyme, and so forth, but there are endless possibilities for poetry.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, details and information.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/visual-iconicity-workshop
Jonathan Van Ness, with Emily Bossak & Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life at Book Soup Off-site at Colburn School – In-person Event
Author and Queer Eye stylist Jonathan Van Nesswill join us to discuss his book, Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life.
In this book following his memoir, Over the Top, Van Ness describes how he had to learn how to thrive by pushing past his shame and fear of being his true self. To embark on this journey he had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. In these essays he encourages readers to examine their assumptions and expand their horizons, and to learn to love our stories.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Book Soup at Colburn School, Zipper Hall
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 200 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Book Launch: James Cox & Silver or Lead at Flintridge Bookstore – In–person Event
Author James Cox will join us to launch his exciting thriller, Silver or Lead.
In this debut novel, a regular meeting of two old friends at a café/bookstore turns from the mundane to the mind-boggling when an explosion propels them on a journey inhabited by a drug cartel warlord who loves animals, an eight year old cancer patient with a penchant for C.S. Lewis, a faux Cajun FBI Agent, and a plant manager of a historic hospital who also dabbles in “decorative corpses”…all culminating in a race to save a young woman who just might have to kill them for their trouble.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Canada Flintridge, CA 91020
Website: https://www.flintridgebooks.com/instore-events/2022/4/14/book-launch-james-cox-silver-or-lead
Trenches Full of Poets: Matt Sedillo. Karo Ska & Sandra De Andaat Page Agianst the Machine (PATM) Bookstore – In-person Event
Trenches Full of Poets is a new reading series, hosted by poet Nikolai Garcia at PATM Bookstore.
Matt Sedillo has been described as the “best political poet in America” as well as “the poet laureate of the struggle” by academics, poets, and journalists alike. He has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, at numerous conferences and forums such as the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including the University of Cambridge, among many others. He is the current literary director of the dA Center for the Arts and author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (Flowersong Press, 2019), which is currently being taught at California State University at Northridge and Monterey Bay, as well as at Mission College. His Three Act Poem structure has been taught as capstones of coursework at UCLA and Occidental College. His new poetry collection, City on the Second Floor, will be published January 2021.
Karo Ska is a Southeast Asian & Eastern European non-binary femme poet who migrated here from Warsaw Poland in 1996. She delivers an ensemble of poetic magic in her highly anticipated book, loving my salt-drenched bones. A 3-time 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2020 semi-finalist in the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, and a 2021 Cal Arts Fellow., their first chapbook, gathering grandmothers’ bones was released on February 29th, 2020. Their full collection, loving my salt-drenched bones was published through World Stage Press on February 23, 2022.
Sandra De Anda is an emerging local poet, activist and comedian. Her featured piece, “Communion,” deals with the idea of home. “Someone recently asked me where home was,” the poem reads, “and all I could say / it is that time when we weren’t afraid.”
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: N/A
Poetry Reading: Richie Hoffman & A Hundred Lovers at Hammer Museum – In-person Event
Author and poet Richie Hoffmanwill join us to read from his work, A Hundred Lovers (2022) and Second Empire (2015).
Hoffman is winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award and a recipient of the Pushcart Prize and the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, among other honors. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Yale Review, and the New York Review of Books. A 2017-19 Wallace Stegner Fellow, he is currently Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University.
Organized and hosted by poet, literary critic, and UCLA distinguished service professor Stephen Yenser. Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of English and UCLA Recreation.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Hammer Museum
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2022/poetry-richie-hofmann
At Skylight: Kate Folk, with Lisa Locascio, & Out There at Skylight Bookstore – In-person Event
Join us to hear author Kate Folk, in conversation with Lisa locascio, present and discuss her debut book, Out There: Stories.
With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk’s debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment.
Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N, Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-kate-folk-presents-out-there-lisa-locascio-nighthawk
FOS–Thursdays & FOST Artistic Collective present: Freedom of Speech Open Mic with Sabor y Cultura Café – In-person & Online IG Event
Please help FOS’s in-person venue Sabor y Cultura with the link in the bio. Open Mic is currently only on IG Live at 8 pm PST, with sign-ups open on Wednesday at 3pm PST.
NOTE: See site for cost, event details.
Where: Freedom of Speech (FOS) Open Mic – In-Person & Online IG event
Date: Thursday the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 665 N. Heliotrope Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fos_thursdays/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/CbQpRzPv5qe/
Your Author Series: Emma Steinkellner & The Okay Witch via Central Library, LAPL – Online Middle Grade Event
Join us to hear author, illustrator, and cartoonist Emma Steinkeller present her middle grade graphic novel, The Okay Witch.
In the Okay Witch and the Hungry Shadow, the hilarious and heartwarming sequel to The Okay Witch, half-witch Moth Hush uses magic to boost her confidence with disastrous results. Emma has also illustrated projects with her sister, writer Kit Steinkellner, including the teen rom-com webcomic Aces, and the Eisner-nominated superhero coming-of-age story Quince.
NOTE: See site for book purchase and event details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Friday the 15th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-emma-steinkeller
Bookish Event: Presented by SoCal News Groups & Host Sandra Tsing Lohvia Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Event
Bookish is a monthly literary discussion event hosted by actress, author, and radio personality Sandra Tsing Loh, and presented by Southern California News Group. Today’s event features three authors:
David Baldacci is the author of forty novels and will present and discuss his latest, Archer Novel #3, Dream Town. In this novel, PI and World War II veteran Aloysius Archer heads to Los Angeles, the city where dreams are made and shattered, and is ensnared in a lethal case.
Steve Almond is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, including Candyfreak and Against Football. His latest novel is titled All the Secrets of the World, is set in 1981 Sacramento. and is a shape-shifting social novel that offers an unflinching vision of the powerful and powerless colliding. Filled with pathos, humor, and the moral complexities and scope of our evolving times, it shows the author at the height of his powers.
Maggie Shipstead won the LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction, among other awards, and is a New York Times bestselling author of Seating Arrangements, Astonish Me, and Great Circle. Your latest book is titled You Have a Friend in 10A: Stories.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time & Bookish (Online Event)
Date: Friday the 15th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Bookish & Once Upon a Time – Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/bookish-april-2022
The Poetry Brothel LA: Forbidden Fruit – In-person Event
Join the Poetry Brothel LA: Forbidden Fruit for a three-hour roster of vaudeville variety entertainment and words, words, words. The El Cid Kitchen and bar will be available to serve you throughout.
Hosted by your favorite Mistress of Ceremonies: Linda Ravenswood as Dr. Ach, Suzette!
Live Music by Blue Wagon Trio.
Featuring Poetry by Raphella the Swan, Kiri Callaghan as Echo, Vesta Vaingloria as Herself, Brian Sonia Wallace as Vallachinsk, Rachel Appelbaum as Duberry, Tiffany Hudgins as Honey Locale, Ian Anderson as Von Hohenheim, Christian Perfas as Kid Rexx, Terence LeClere as Jacques Used, and more to be announced.
Mystics: Zachariah the Witch and Chanelle
Madam Tallula presents a rotating cast of poets who impart their work as purveyors of private poetry readings in secret, hidden, well-appointed chambers. You may avail yourself of your choice of poet for tokens at any time during the event.
On the patio, the troupe presents Tarot readings, poetic souvenirs, live typewriter poetry, and occasional dance and musical performances.
NOTE: See site for costs, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Poetry Brothel at El Cid
Date: Friday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4212 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90029
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/674874457170169
Teatro Americas Open Mic Night with Angelina Leanos in Oxnard – In-person Event
Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate Angelina Leanos hosts the Teatro Americas monthly Open Mic Night in Oxnard at Teatro de las Americas, a bilingual theatre company.
Featured guests TBA.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Teatro Americas
Date: Friday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 10 pm
Address: 321 W. 6th St., Oxnard, CA 93030
Website: N/A
At Skylight: Ben Shattuck, with Jenny Slate, & Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau at Skylight Bookstore – In-person Event
Join us to hear author Ben Shattuck, in conversation with actor and author Jenny Slate (Little Weirds), present and discuss his debut nonfiction book, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau.
In this intimate, entertaining, and beautifully crafted book the author pays tribute to the ways walking in nature can inspire us all. Echoing Thoreau’s reflections with his own, he distills the healing power of nature in lovely prose.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Friday the 15th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series, with host Elena Secota, via Rapp Saloon – Online Event
Join Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon Open Mic & Featured Readers, offered every 3rd Friday of the month by host Elena Secota.
Their featured guest poets and artists this month TBA
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are at 8:15 pm. Zoom ID posted 3 hours prior to event.
NOTE: See site for event details. (CHECK to Verify)
Where: Rapp Saloon – Online Event
Date: Friday the 15th
Time: 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Address: Online Zoom event
Storytime for Kids: Jill Nordquist & The Bear in the Bed at Village Well Bookstore – In-person Event
Join us for a cozy Storytime for Kids with children’s author Jill Nordquist, who will be reading her book, The Bear in the Bed!
Follow one little child’s hilarious journey as he tries to catch a glimpse of the bear that is sleeping in his parents’ room and keeping his mom up all night with its loud snoring. The Bear in the Bed is a sweet story about a family whose sleep is disrupted by a loud bear and the laughter that ensues.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Village Well Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 11 am
Address:: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/15572
Grand Re-Opening of RE/ARTE in Boyle Heights – In-person Event
Join them to celebrate the Grand Re-opening of RE/ARTE centro literario & bookstore at a new location in Boyle Heights!
Hosted by Viva Padilla and friends!
Where: Re/Arte centro literario
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 12 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/509610210799159?ref=newsfeed
Indigenous Storytelling and the Digital Space Live Stream – Online Event
Join us to hear the Indigenous Storytelling and Digital Space Symposium to engage in dynamic dialogue from both the Native and Indigenous Storytelling communities and the digital VR/AR industries to learn of exciting new initiatives and groundbreaking work in the field.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Native Voices at the Autry Museum
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 3 pm
Address: Autry – Online Event
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1290342848121088/
Lummis Day Poetry Reading & 4 Poets via Arroyo Seco Regional Library, LAPL – Online Zoom Event
The annual Lummis Day Poetry event returns to the Arroyo Seco branch with an excellent slate of poets. Join us to hear work from Laurel Ann Bogen, Jack Grapes, Elisabeth Adwin Edwards and Angela Peñaredondo.
Laurel Ann Bogen is the author of 11 books of poetry and short fiction, most recently Psychosis in the Produce Department: New and Selected Poems from Red Hen Press. A native of Los Angeles, she was an instructor of poetry and performance at the Writer’s Program at UCLA Extension from 1990 – 2021 where she also received an Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award. Well-known for her lively readings and a founding member of the acclaimed poetry performance troupe, Nearly Fatal Women, Bogen has read/performed in venues as diverse as Cornell University, The Savannah College of Art and Design and The Knitting Factory (NYC). Her work has appeared in more than 100 literary magazines and anthologies.
Jack Grapes teaches writing based on his two books Method Writing and Advanced Method Writing. His poetry books include The Naked Eye: New & Selected Poems, All the Sad Angels, Poems So Far So Far So Good So Far To Go; Any Style and Wide Road to the Edge of the World. His forthcoming works are poetry book Exit Music and two non-fiction books, How To Read Like a Writer and Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes, a study of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. Grapes also wrote and starred in Circle of Will, a metaphysical comedy about the “lost years” of William Shakespeare, which ran for several years and won theater critic awards for Best Actor and Best Comedy.
Elisabeth Adwin Edwards shifted her focus to poetry after a successful 20-year career as a regional theater actor. Her poems have appeared in publications including The Tampa Review, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The American Journal of Poetry and A-Minor Magazine. Her prose has been published in Hobart, CutBank, On The Seawall and other journals. Edwards’ work has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. A native of Massachusetts, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and teen daughter in an apartment filled with books.
Angela Peñaredondo is a queer nonbinary Filipinx interdisciplinary writer, artist and educator. They are author of Maroon (Jamii Publications), All Things Lose Thousands of Times (Inlandia Institute) winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Poetry Prize. Their work has appeared in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, Southern Humanities Review, Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. They live in unceded Kivh territory and work as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at California State University, San Bernardino. Their next book A Nature to Be but Never Apprehended is forthcoming on Noemi Press (2023).
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Arroyo Seco Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 3 pm
Address: LAPL – Onllne Zoom Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/lummis-day-poetry-reading
Saturday Afternoon Poetry & Publishing Party – Off-Site In-person Event & Via Zoom
Join us at Saturday Afternoon Poetry off-site at Zorthian Ranch for a Publishing Party for SCENES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: A Directory of So Cal Poets hosted by DKC.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Zorthian Ranch & via ZOOM online
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 3990N. Fair Oaks Ave., Altadena, CA
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Book Signing: Tom Laichas & Susan Suntree at The Book Jewel Bookstore – In-person Event
Join us to hear authors Tom Laichas and Susan Suntree present and sign their book of history and memoir through the art of photography and writing.
Tom Liachas is the author of Sixty-Three Photographs at the End of a War, which is part photo essay, memoir, and prose poem. This book resurrects a past that was never fully buried.
Susan Suntree is the author of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California, which is a history with equal parts science and mythology, offering a rare poetic vision of a world composed of dynamic natural forces and mythic characters. Suntree tells the story of the evolution of Southern California landscape, reflecting the riches of both Native knowledge and Western scientific thought. She will also be presenting and signing copies of her newest book, Dear Traveler.
Where: The Book Jewel, Westchester
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.thebookjewel.com/book-signing-tom-l-susan-s
Pages on Stages: Poets on Payroll Reading at Sims Library of Poetry – In-person Event
Join us for an amazing show featuring the CLI & Library staff, plus an Open Mic. This is a hybrid event so make sure to RSVP. Featuring:
Anne Marie Wells is an award-winning, queer poet, playwright, and storyteller navigating the world with a chronic illness. She is a faculty member of the Community Literature Initiative through the Sims Library of Poetry. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Platform Review, Ninth Letter, Plath Profiles, Brain Mill Press, Santa Fe Writers Project, and others. She was the 2020 recipient of the Milestone Award presented by Wyoming Writers Inc., and the Rising Star Award presented by the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce. She was the 2021 recipient of the Peter K. Hixson Memorial Award in poetry and was nominated as a Wyoming Woman of Influence in the arts category for her work in amplifying the voices of the LGBTQ and disabled communities in Wyoming through her writing.
Carlos Ornelas is a Los Angeles native, a Mexican American poet, and the author of Ketchup. He has been writing poetry since high school.
Eboni Echols is a Christian artist who uses her voice for speaking, poetry and singing, and her testimony inspires the lives of many.
Kuahmel Allah is a Los Angeles native, poet and writer, and the admissions representative at Community Literature Initiative (CLI)
AKoldPiece is a poet, educator, spoken word artist and host. He is author of The Weather Report.
Camari Carter-Hawkins is a journal writer turned poet and fiction writer. She typically writes about justice for children, racial justice, and self-reflection. She is the author of the collection, Death by Comb.
Sandra Sanchez is a writer of poems, quotations, and biography.
Alex Petunia is a poet and writer, and the author of Tending My Wild, a collection that braves a trail unmarked by running away on all fours back to a forgotten self.
Ravina Wadhwani is a poet and writer, and the author of Yellow, a collection of poetry and prose about the rebirth of seeds in different soil.
Tommy Domino is a spoken blues poet from Northwest Pasadena now residing in Long Beach area. He started preforming at open mics starting with the Griot Café out of Long Beach in 2003. In 2012, he joined the Still Waters Writers Collective at Vibrations in Inglewood.
Karo Ska (she/they) is a South Asian & Eastern European non-binary femme poet, living on unceded Tongva Land. They migrated here in 1996 from Warsaw, Poland. Some of their other work appears in Dryland Lit, Resurrection Magazine, the Intercultural Press, Altadena Poetry Review, Cultural Daily, Marías at Sampaguitas, and Ayaskala Magazine. They are a 3-time 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2020 semi-finalist in the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, and a 2021 Cal Arts Fellow. Their first chapbook, gathering grandmothers’ bones was released on February 29th, 2020. Their full collection, loving my salt-drenched bones was published through World Stage Press on February 23, 2022.
Andy Sanchez N/A
& more!
$5 at the Door (But no one will be turned away for lack of funds)
NOTE: See site for costs, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 5 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/poets-on-payroll
Selected Artist & Writer Collaborations: Reading and Roundtable Discussion at Beyond Baroque – In-person & Virtual Event
Join Beyond Baroque for our second night of in-person readings in tandem with the “7×7.LA: Artist & Writer Collaborations” exhibit at Beyond Baroque’s Mike Kelley Gallery. Ashaki M. Jackson and Jasper Nighthawks will present their collaborative works with visual artists Ned Evans and Corinne Chaix, respectively. Each 7×7 collaboration invites one visual artist and one writer to engage in a two-week creative conversation. The format, inspired by Surrealist games of the early 20th century, challenges participants to improvise, in their respective disciplines, a spontaneous story that pushes into ever-wilder imaginative terrain. Every finished 7×7 is singular, unclassifiable, and wholly original. This exhibition and reading is curated by Axel Wilhite, Co-founder of 7×7.LA.
If you would like to join us virtually, the readings will be live-streamed via Beyond Baroque’s YouTube page at 7 pm.
Ashaki M. Jackson, Ph.D., is a social psychologist, program evaluator and poet. She has worked with youth moving through the juvenile justice system through research, evaluation and creative arts mentoring for one decade. Her work has appeared in CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, Pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. Writ Large Press published her chapbook, Surveillance, in March 2016, and a second chapbook, Language Lesson, was published by MIEL, August 2016. Jackson is also an executive editor at The Offing online magazine and co-founder of Women Who Submit, a community that supports women in submitting their literary works to top tier journals. She earned her MFA (poetry) from Antioch University Los Angeles and her doctorate (social psychology) from Claremont Graduate University. She lives in Los Angeles.
Ned Evans Born in Burbank, California in 1950, with an MFA from UC Irvine in 1974, Ned Evans has lived in Venice, California since the early 1970s. Working primarily in painting in acrylic and mixed media on canvas, he has also spent years exploring photography, collage, and mixed media sculptural reliefs. He has shown throughout the United States and Europe.
Jasper Nighthawk is a writer, teacher, and designer. His writing has appeared in Joyland, Juked, 7×7.LA, Lunch Ticket, and Your Impossible Voice. It also appears in Lightplay, his free email newsletter. He works as the University Storyteller of Antioch University. He has an AB from Harvard College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch Los Angeles. He lives in Los Angeles and on the Mendocino Coast with his partner and their cat.
Corinne Chaix is an artist who lives and works in Venice, California. She was born in Paris, France, where she studied fine arts and computer science. Her love for storytelling and French writer, Jules Verne, infuses Chaix’s body of works, drawings, paintings and installations. Chaix’s work has been featured in many gallery exhibitions and is included in prestigious private collections worldwide.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 16th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/77la-artist-writer-collaborations-tickets-311344528867
Los Angeles Literature 