NOTE: There Are Both Online and Virtual Events Listed Here
Luncheon with Emma Straub: Book Launch of This Time Tomorrow at Slay Italian Kitchen – In-Person Event
Pages hosts a luncheon to celebrate the publication of Emma Straub’s’ new book, This Time Tomorrow at Slay’s Italian Kitchen. The author will be in conversation with Janelle Brown, author of I’ll Be You.
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Pages Bookstore at Slay Italian Kitchen
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 11:30 am- 1 pm
Address: 1001 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/emma-straub-slay
Book Club Bonanza: Let’s Celebrate Asian Pacific Voices via Central Library, LAPL – Online Teen Event
Teens may join our The Big Read online to celebrate and discuss the books The Best We Could Do, by Thi Bui and Flamer, by Mike Curato, to celebrate Asian Pacific voices in YA literature..
Watch past episodes on YouTube for more book recommendations.
NOTE: See site for RSVP & event details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: LAPL – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-bonanza-lets-celebrate-asian-pacific-voices
Vroman’s Local Author Day: Beverley Whitaker Rodgers & Shawn Brown-Blumfield at Vroman’s Bookstore – Online Event
Local authors Beverley Whitaker Rodgers & Shawln Brown-Blumfield will present their new books: Reflections from Box 150 and The purpose Driven School, respectively.
Beverley Whitaker Rodgers’ book, Reflections from Box 150: Chronicles of a Childhood Growing Up in the U.S. Horticultural Field Station near Torrey Pines, La Jolla, California, captures a bygone era through short stories and vignettes from the 1930s to 1952. Beverley’s father, Dr. Thomas W. Whitaker, became an accomplished ethnobotanist, experimenting with growing vegetation in the dry, Southern California terrain, specializing in iceberg lettuce and Cucurbits (melons and gourds). He instilled in Beverley an inherent interest in agriculture. Her mother instilled in Beverley an insatiable interest in history. These stories are told with humor, wit and historical accuracy, weaving narratives that will hold the reader’s attention, passing on tales of a more innocent time.
Shawn Brown-Blumfield’s book, The Purpose Driven School, is a guide to creating vitality in schools—allowing our educational institutions to have purposeful existence and to thrive long-term. With chapters on vision, hiring practices, leadership, the achievement gap, distance learning, and more, This book will help educational leaders build great schools that contribute to a better America.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/local-author-day-5-23
In-Store Book Talk: Bryonn Rolly Bain, with Dean Pedro Noguera, & Rebel Speak: A Justice Movement Mixtape at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Bryonn Rollt Bain, in conversation with Dean Pedro Noguera, will present and discuss his new book, Rebel Speak: A Justice Movement Mixtape.
This book is a literary mixtape of transformative dialogues on justice with a cast of visionary rebel activists, organizers, artists, culture workers, thought leaders, and movement builders.
Rebel Speak sounds the alarm for a global movement to end systemic injustice led by people doing the day-to-day rebel work in the prison capital of the world. Prison activist, artist, scholar, and author Bain brings us transformative oral history ciphers, rooted in the tradition of call-and-response, to lay bare the struggle and sacrifice on the front lines of the fight to abolish the prison industrial complex.
With raw insight and radical introspection, Rebel Speak embodies the growing call for “credible messengers” on prisons, policing, racial justice, abolitionist politics, and transformative organizing. Reimagining the role of the writer and scholar as a DJ and MC, the author moves the crowd with this unforgettable mix of those working within the belly of the beast to change the world.
Bryonn Rolly Bain. is a prison activist, artist, scholar, and author of four books including The Ugly Side of Beautiful: Rethinking Race and Prison in America. Learn more about his critically acclaimed hip hop theater and spoken word multimedia production, Lyrics from Lockdown, and his Emmy Award-winning work on LA Stories, at http://www.bryonn.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
At Skylight: Kelly Lytle Hernandez, with Marissa Lopez, & Bad Mexicans at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Kelly Lytle Hernandez, in conversation with Marissa Lopez, will present and discuss her new book, Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire and Revolution in the Borderlands, a groundbreaking narrative of revolution in the borderlands.
Bad Mexicans tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magón, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers—and American dissidents—to their cause. Determined to oust Mexico’s dictator, Porfirio Díaz, who encouraged the plunder of his country by U.S. imperialists such as Guggenheim and Rockefeller, the rebels had to outrun and outsmart the swarm of U. S. authorities vested in protecting the Diaz regime. The U.S. Departments of War, State, Treasury, and Justice as well as police, sheriffs, and spies, hunted the magonistas across the country. Capturing Ricardo Flores Magón was one of the FBI’s first cases.
Long ignored by textbooks, the magonistas threatened to undo the rise of Anglo-American power, on both sides of the border, and inspired a revolution that gave birth to the Mexican-American population, making the magonistas’ story integral to modern American life.
Kelly Lytle Hernández is The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading scholars of race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press 2010) and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). She reframes our understanding of U.S. history in her groundbreaking book, Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (W.W. Norton, May 2022). In 2019, Professor Lytle Hernández was named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow for her historical and contemporary work.
Marissa López is Associate Graduate Dean and Professor of English and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, researching Chicanx literature from the 19th century to the present with an emphasis on 19th century Mexican California. She has written two books: Chicano Nations (NYU 2011) is about nationalism and Chicanx literature from the early-1800s to post-9/11; Racial Immanence (NYU 2019) explores uses of the body and affect in Chicanx cultural production. She recently completed a year-long residency at the Los Angeles Public Library as a Scholars & Society fellow with the American Council of Learned Societies.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
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 23rd
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-342741046697
Keep Calm + Write On: Braintrust Workshop with Kris Kaila via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
What happens when we put our “self” on the back burner, and our identity becomes tangled with outside expectations. Finding time to do something for our soul can be a balancing act in our busy lives. Let’s invest some time together to take a small journey of self-discovery through reading and writing. Looking at poems like “Healing” by Nayo Jones, “Ode to the Thrift Store” by Ariana Brown, and “The Fat Girl” by Rheonna Nicole we will ask ourselves about self-love, compassion, recovery and discovery. This will be a space to be seen and heard. Please join us!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: The Poetry Lab – Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/upcoming-events/2022/braintrust/may-24
Words & Ideas: Marie Yovanovich, with Angela Stent, & Lessons from the Edge via Skirball Cultural Center – Online Event
Author and former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich, in discussion will Angela Stent, will discuss her book, Lessons from the Edge.
The author recounts her nonpartisan experience in the Foreign Service, rising to the top ranks, and serving in hot spots of the world. The story of her time in Ukraine—and being sent home—is harrowing. Recall her steady and undaunted testimony in the first impeachment trial, as she faced intimidation and subsequent betrayal as well as what it tells us about American diplomacy writ large. .
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Skirball Cultural Center & Writers Bloc
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Skirball Online event (see site)
Emma Straub, with Antoine Wilson, & This Time Tomorrow at Diesel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Emma Straub, in discussion will Antoine Wilson (Mouth to Mouth, Panorama City, The Interloper), will discuss her new novel, This Time Tomorrow.
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore, in the Courtyard
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/emma-straub-this-time-tomorrow
Lynne Cox & Book Launch of Tales of Ak: The Water Rescue Dog at Pages Bookstore – In-Person Event
Pages welcomes back author and celebrated open water swimmer Lynne Cox, who will discuss her new book, Tales of Al: The Water Rescue Dog.
In this book, Lynne Cox tells the story of her adventures in Italy’s picturesque Lake Idroscalo, where she witnesses the training of one of the spectacular dogs at SICS, the famed school that taught hundreds of dog owners how to train their dogs for rescue operations.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Pages Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 1001 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/lynne-cox
Candice Iloh, with Asha Grant, & Book Launch of Break This House at Salt Eaters Bookstore – In-Person Event
Salt Eaters Bookstore welcomes National Book Award Finalist and Printz Award Honoree Candice Iloh, in conversation with Asha Grant, to celebrate their book launch of the YA novel, Break This House.
This will be the first (!!) in-person book launch at Salt Eaters, and there will be tea, coffee, and light refreshments form the Sip and Sonder family included with ticket purchase, and books will be available for purchase and pre-order.
We also announced new extended hours of operation at Salt Eaters, Wednesday – Saturday.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Salt Eaters Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm (doors); 7pm (start)
Address: 302 E. Queens St., Inglewood, CA 90301
AAPI Book Club & Victoria Chang’s Dear Memory: Letter on Writing, Silence, and Grief via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
AAPI Book Club will discuss Victoria Chang’s book, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief.
In this book, author and poet Victoria Chang offers a collection of literary letters and mementos on the art of remembering across generations, and the understanding of a process of shaping and being shaped, a model for what it looks like to find ourselves in our stories.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://bookshop.org/books/dear-memory-letters-on-writing-silence-and-grief/9781571313928
Shawn Levy & In on the Joke: The Original Queens of Standup Comedy, at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Shawn Levy present and discuss her book, In on the Joke: The Original Queens of Standup Comedy.
This book is the story of a group of unforgettable women who knocked down the doors of stand-up comedy so other women could get a shot. It spans decades and genres, and tells of women who refused to be typed, and faced own indifference, puzzlement, and hostility to persevere and succeed. Meticulously researched and irresistibly drawn, this group portrait has lots of laughs along the way.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/shawn-levy-discusses-joke-original-queens-standup-comedy
Non-Fiction Book Club & Crying in H Mart at Pages Bookstore – In-Person Event
Pages Non-Fiction Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner, facilitated by Mark Polak.
In this book, a powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, about family food, and grief, and endurance, the author tells her story of growing up in Eugene Oregon, struggling with her mother’s high expectations of her, getting through a painful adolescence, and bonding with her mother in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul. After finally forging a new life and career, it was her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis that forced a final reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts her mother had given her.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and details.
Where: Pages Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1001 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/non-fiction-book-club-3
Christina Lauren, in Conversation with Alisha Rai, Discusses Something Wilder – In-Person Event
The writing duo of Christian Hobbs and Lauren Billings is behind the pen name of Christina Lauren, author of the new novel, Something Wilder. They will be in conversation with Alisha Rai.
Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession – or money in the bank. But Lily is resourceful and uses Duke’s hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah. When a specific trip goes terribly wrong, she finds a chance to right the wrongs of Duke’s past and her own on the adventure of a lifetime.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Christina-Lauren-discusses-Something-Wilder
The Artist’s Way Workshop (6 weeks) with Judith Martin-Shaw at Village Well Bookstore – In-Person Event
Fans of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way will enjoy participating in this six-week version of the workshop, led by Judith Martin-Shaw.
Judith Martin-Straw has years of experience teaching the Artist’s Way and recommends it to everyone. She is a poet, short story writer and journalist, the publisher of Culver City Crossroads local news, and sits on the advisory board of the Culver Arts Foundation. She’s been teaching yoga and meditation for decades, and taught classes at the Culver-Palms YMCA from 2002 to 2019.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, costs, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Village Well Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/17620
Tuesdays at the Virtual Cobalt: Poets Series Presents: Open Reading & John Wesick – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest host Jon Wesick.
Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Pirene’s Fountain, Slipstream, Space and Time, and Tales of the Talisman. The editors of Knot Magazine nominated his stories “The Visitor” and “A Story for the Rest of Us” for Pushcart Prizes. His poem “Meditation Instruction” won the Editor’s Choice Award in the 2016 Spirit First Contest. Another poem “Bread and Circuses” won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists Contest. “Richard Feynman’s Commute” shared third place in the 2017 Rhysling Award’s short poem category. Jon is the author of the poetry collections Words of Power, Dances of Freedom and A Foreigner Wherever I Go as well as several novels and short story collections. His most recent novel is The Prague Deception.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/cale ndar.html
Da Poetry Lounge IG Live Open MIc Night – IG Live Event
Every Tuesday (except for 3rd Tuesdays and special events) Da Poetry Lounge holds open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in the audience.
See sites for details.
Where: DA Poetry Lounge
Date: Tuesday the 24th (Check to Verify details).
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: IG Live (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/dapoetrylounge_com/
SOM Tuesdays Open Mic at Di Piazza’s Pizza, Long Beach – In-Person Event
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 24th
Time: 9 pm – 12 am
Address: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, CA
Mystery Book Club & Snow, by John Banville at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us for our monthly Mystery Book Club discussion when we meet to discuss Snow, by John Banville.
John Banville’s Snow is the story of a family and the secrets in the family which resurface when a parish priest is found murdered in their ancestral home.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchases, and event details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore – in the circle in front of Star Café
Date: Wednesday 25th
Time: 9 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-snow-john-banville
Quest Book Club & After Dark, by Haruki Murakami, at The Book Jewel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Quest Book Club meets on every last Wednesday of the month at The Book Jewel Bookstore and participants read a variety of literature, alternating between fiction and nonfiction.
May’s book selection for discussion is After Dark, by Haruki Murakami
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.facebook.com/BookJewelBookstore/
Korean American Authors Talk YA for AANHPI Heritage Month at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear 4 Korean American YA authors talk AANHPI Heritage, YA literature, and present their new books. Featuring authors:
Kat Cho Kat Cho (she/her) used to hide books under the bathroom sink and then sneak in there to read after bedtime. Her parents pretended not to know. This helped when she decided to write a dinosaur time-travel novel at the tender age of nine. Sadly, that book was not published. She currently lives and works in NYC and spends her free time trying to figure out what kind of puppy to adopt. Kat is the international bestselling author of Wicked Fox and Vicious Spirits (Putnam/Peguin). As well as the webcomic, Free Hexel, and the YA romcom, Once Upon a K-Prom (Disney).
Stephan Lee is a journalist, author, and multi-fandom K-pop stan. He currently works as Senior Editor at Bustle after a five-year stretch covering books and movies at Entertainment Weekly. At EW, he traveled to Seoul for three weeks to write a feature about Korean entertainment’s world domination, interviewing K-pop idols, filmmakers, and drama writers. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. His debut novel is K-POP CONFIDENTIAL.
Grace K. Shim grew up in Tulsa Oklahoma as one of two Korean-Americans at her high school (her sister was the other one). Today, Grace writes books with Korean-American protagonists that she wished she had read about as a teen. When she’s not plotting (the writing kind, not the world domination kind), you can find her wearing a Korean sheet mask, baking French macarons, and unintentionally killing house plants & succulents. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and three kids. She is the author of The Noh Family.
Susan Lee has built a career as a Human Resources executive at successful startups such as Spotify and Warby Parker. Her biggest job takeaway: we are all, for the most part, ridiculous. And she channels this into her writing of light-hearted, quirky novels about the oftentimes hilarious human condition. Susan is a 2018 PitchWars alum, a 2019 & 2020 PitchWars mentor, a 2019 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® winner, and an avid K-pop and K-drama fan. Her bias is V/Taehyung, which for those in the know, explains it all. She is the author of Seoulmates.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines and event details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/korean-american-authors
Mothers/Madres Write Workshop with Rosalilia M. Mendoza via LA Poet Society – Online Zoom Event
Join us for a Mothers/Madres Who Write Workshop led by Rosalilia M. Mendoza to share our personal stories and transform Arte. Our time is sacred, and our voice beautiful as we collectively dedicate space to t he writing poetry, testimonio, short story, or anything you want to share as a mother/caregiver.
Rosalilia M. Mendoza has volunteered, helped organize several arts and music programs, and taught music for youth and families at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and bookstore. Born and raised in the northeastern valley, after she graduated from the master’s program in Counseling Psychology and Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian studies from WI, Madison, Rosalilia had a strong desire to return to her community to create, transform, and build using the arts for healing and growth.
NOTE: See Site for link and details.
Where: LAPS – Zoom Online: Zoom: 838 8376 8977
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: LAPS Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety/
David Yoon, with John Cho, & City of Orange, at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear David Yoon, in conversation with actor and author John Cho, discuss his new book, City of Orange.
A man wakes up in an unknown landscape, injured and alone. He used to live in a place called California, but how did he wind up here with a head wound and a bottle of pill sin his pocket? His confusions have only begun…
Harrowing and haunting, but also humorous in the face of the unfathomable, David Yoon’s new novel is about reassembling the things that make us who we are, and finding the way home again.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines and event details.
Where: Vroman’s, outside on the Paseo
Date: Wednesday 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/david-yoon-in-conversation-with-john-cho-discusses-city-of-orange
Gal Beckerman & The Quiet Before at Page Against the Machine Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author and senior editor for books at The Atlantic Gal Beckerman will discuss his new book, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas.
From pen-to-paper days of letter writing and petition signing in the 17th and 18th centuries, through artistic manifestos and Riot Grrrl zines of the 20th century to present day Twitter revolutionaries and Black Lives Matter hashtags, this book takes us on a creative and incisive historical tour of how social movements were built, and why some stalled and others gained traction.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine (PATM) Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
At Skylight: Anna Carey, with Tahereh Mafi, & This Is Not the Real World at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Anna Carey, in conversation with Tahereh Mafi, will discuss her book, This Is Not the Real World (Quirk Books).
Nineties nostalgia takes a dark turn in this thrilling sequel to This is Not the Jess Show.
Months after Jess escaped from the set of Stuck in the ‘90s, the nostalgic reality show she believed was her real life, the teen star is getting to know the outside world for the first time. But she can’t outrun her fictional life forever– or the media empire that owns it. After Like-Life productions tracks her down, she teams up with an underground network fighting to uncover their schemes. But now the plan is for her to take down the company form the inside, which might just cost her everything.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-anna-carey-presents-this-is-not-the-real-world
Lynne Cox & Tales of Al: The Water Rescue Dog at Village Well Bookstore – In-Person Event
Lynne Cox, swimming champion and best-selling author of Swimming to Antarctica, will discuss her new book, Tales of Al: The Water Rescue Dog.
In this book, Lynne Cox tells the story of her adventures in Italy’s picturesque Lake Idroscalo, where she witnesses the training of one of the spectacular dogs at SICS, the famed school that taught hundreds of dog owners how to train their dogs for rescue operations.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Village Well Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/16913
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 the 25th
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 Jose Hernandez Diaz.
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Colorado Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology 2011. He teaches creative writing online and edits for Frontier Poetry.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets and information.
Where: Online event (Eventbrite)
Date: Wednesday the 26th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-345010685247
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry & The George Floyd Anthology at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Join Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Night.
The format is to welcome a featured poet for a reading, and an Open Mic reading. Tonight’s featured event is the George Floyd Anthology. See comments for details:
“The tragic and unnecessary death of George Floyd has allowed poets, and artists to memorialize him and other Black men and women who’ve been victims of police brutality. This is our job: we language things to grow, and grow up from that moment, that incident. It’s how we transcend the sorrow and the unbelievability of injustice against us.”
—Shonda Buchanan Poet / Publisher Black Indian
“A little over 100 years ago, Countee Cullen wrote his stirring poem, “If We Must Die,” which served as a signifier to speak against injustices facing African Americans. Itwas a healing poem. Thus, the Harlem Renaissance was born as a mechanism to address racism while sharing beauty and grace. In similar fashion, the words found in this tome spark the imagination, expressing frustration, pain, action, change, hope. In this anthology, these words fight back and dignify George Floyd’s legacy. Flip to any poem and let the healing begin. Flip to any poem to find Floyd’s urgency calling out towards you.”
— F. Douglas Brown
Teacher / Poet
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 25th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: Facebook
Drawn + Quarterly Live: Rumi Hara, with Rina Ayuyang, & The Peanutbutter Sisters: And Other American Stories – Online Event
Author Rumi Hara, in conversation with Rina Ayuyang, will present and discuss The Peanutbutter Sisters: And Other American Stories.
Following her uncategorizable debut, Nori, Rumi Hara weaves a new immigrant story in a surreal Americana, complete with a balance of contradictions, science fiction, and slice of life tales from the Queens-Brooklyn border of New York.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 9 am
Address: Skylight Livestream Online (see site)
Cover to Cover Book Club & The Dutch House by Anne Patchett via Mid–Valley Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
Please join us for our Cover to Cover Book Club discussion of May’s selection, The Dutch House, by Anne Patchett.
In this novel, a brother and sister who grew up in a mansion known as the Dutch House share and recount their lives and changes over five decades, and the central role of the home in their sense of self and in their imaginations.
Please e-mail npholana @lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Mid-Valley Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cove- book-club-2
LA Times Book Club: Letter to a Stranger with Pico Iyer, Maggie Shipstead, Michelle Tea & Colleen Kinder via Los Angeles Times – Online Livestream Event
Please join the LA Times Book Club event to discuss this month’s selection, Letters to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us, with authors Pico Iyer, Maggie Shipstead, Michelle Tea in conversation with editor Collen Kinder, and Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds.
This book is a new collection of travel stories that guide readers across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection. Kinder organized the collection around such themes as Gratitude, Wonder, Chemistry, Remorse and Farewell.
Colleen Kinder is the cofounder of Off Assignment, a nonprofit reading series that grew into an online magazine, and she started ”Letters to a Stranger” as a regular column. She teaches at the Yale summer Session in France and has published her work in numerous journals.
Pico Iyer is the author of 15 books translated into 23 languages,including Autumn Light and A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, both published in 2019. He has contributed to and written for the Los Angeles Times for more than a quarter century.
Maggie Shipstead is the author of Great Circle, Astonish Me, and Seating Arrangements, which won the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Her work has appeared in numerous journals.
Michelle Tea‘s collection of essays, Against Memoir, is the recipient of the 2019 PEN/Diamonsiein Spielvogel Award fpr the Art of the Essay. She is the author of more than a dozen books in in various genres, including Valencia, which won the Lambda Award for Best Lterary Fiction, and most recently the Astro Baby children’s astrology series.
NOTE: See site for link, RSVP, and event details.
Where: Los Angeles Times – Online Event
Date: Thursday 26th
Time: 6 pm
Address: LA Times – Online (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-times-may-book-club-letter-to-a-stranger-tickets-329194889777
Three Idiots Shouting Poetry Presents Judy Kronenfeld!
Join Ben Trigg and Three Idiots Shouting Poetry at the virtual Ugly Mug on Thursday night to welcome featured poet Judy Kronenfeld.
Groaning and Singing is Judy Kronenfeld’s fifth full-length collection of poetry. Her four previous collections include Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, (2nd ed. Antrim House, 2012), winner of the Litchfield Review poetry book prize for 2007. Her poems have appeared in Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Ghost Town, New Ohio Review, One (Jacar Press), Rattle, Slant, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verdad, Your Daily Poem and other journals, and in over three dozen anthologies. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Under the Sun, Hippocampus, and other magazines, and her more occasional short fiction in Literary Mama, The Loch Raven Review, and elsewhere. Judy is Lecturer Emerita, Department of Creative Writing, UC Riverside, and an Associate Editor of Poemeleon.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines & information.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/Two-Idiot-Peddling_poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/1713147419027283
Rick Reilly & So Help Me Golf: Why We Love Golf, at Pages Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author and journalist Rick Reilly present and discuss his new book, So Help Me golf: Why We Love Golf.
In this book the author channels his insatiable curiosity, sense of humor, and vast knowledge of the game into a treasure trove of original pieces about what the game of golf has meant to him and others. Mixed with stories of personal experiences, as well as those of the greats in the game, he creates an interwoven homage to lives lived and games played.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Pages Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 269h
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/rick-reilly-why-we-love-golf
Book Talk: Natalie Owusu & Aftershocks at UC Irvine – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Natalie Owusu present a book talk and discussion of her new book, Aftershocks, winner of the 2019 Whiting Award.
In this memoir Owusu tells a powerful story of a life upended. When Natalie was 7 years old and living in Rome with her father, stepmother and younger sister, two events occurred on one day that changed things forever. She describes what it meant to be rooted and rootless in a multiple mixed-race family, and to have not one mother but two: a birth mother who left the family when she was only two, and a stepmother who could be possessive and cruel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: UC Irvine School of Humanities – Center for Armenian Studies
Date: Thursday the 269h
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 4000 Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA 92797
Website: https://hq.humanities.uci.edu/SOH/calendar/event_details.php?eid=9577
Selma Blair, with Megan Mullally, & Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up, at Book Soup off-site at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles – In-Person Event
Join us to hear actress and author Selma Blair, in conversation with actor and comedian Megan Mullallly, to hear them present and discuss her book, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up.
Following Selma Blair’s family reputation as being a “mean baby,” she went on to become a celebrated actress and model, but was prone to suffering great bouts of darkness, and secretly drank to escape her fears and problems. In this book she lays bare her addiction to alcohol, her devotion ot her complicated mother, and the moments she flirted with death. Finally there was the surprising salvation of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. This is a deeply human memoir and a true literary achievement.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Book Soup at First Congregational Church
Date: Thursday the 269h
Time: 6:30 pm (doors) & Event at 7 pm
Address: 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90020
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/book-soup-presents-selma-blair
Alexandra Shapiro, with Lauren Brill, & Presumed Guilty at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Alexandra Shapiro, in conversation with litigator Lauren Brill, to hear them present and discuss her book, Presumed Guilty: A Novel.
On March 14, 2012 hedge fund manager Emma Simpson dashed off a routine e-mail which comes back to aunt her and change her world a year later when it becomes a focal point in a criminal investigation by ambitious federal prosecutors. This book follows her journey as the atrge tof a white collar criminal prosecution, and how she had to fight to prove her innocence , protect her family, and preserve her reputation.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 269h
Time: 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Obed Silva, with Greg Boyle, & The Death of My Father the Pope, at Vroman’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Obed Silva, in conversation with author and founder of Home Boy Industries, Fr. Greg Boyle, to hear them present and discuss his book, The Death of My Father the Pope.
Weaving between preparations for his father’s funeral and memories of life on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, the author chronicles his father’s lifelong battle with alcoholism, and the havoc it wreaked on his family. Told with cynicism, anger, and a classical frame of reference, he channels the heartbreaks of mourning and resentment, frustration and addiction in the power of language and memoir.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 269h
Time: 7 pm
Address: 694 E. Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 91101
At Skylight: Steve Toltz, with Steve Hely, & Here Goes Nothing – In-Person Event
Author Steve Toltz, in conversation with Steve Hely will present and discuss Here Goes Nothing (Melville House).
Here Goes Nothing is a wildly inventive, savagely funny and topical novel about love, mortality and the afterlife, from the author of The Booker-shortlisted author of A Fraction of the Whole.
Angus is a reformed ne’er-do-well looking forward to the birth of his first child when he’s murdered by a man who is in love with his pregnant wife Gracie. Having never believed in God, heaven or hell, Angus finds himself in the afterlife – a place that provides more questions than answers. As a worldwide pandemic finally reaches the shores of Australia, the afterlife starts to get very crowded and Angus finds a way to reconnect with his wife Gracie and maybe even seek revenge on his murderer.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-steve-toltz-conversation-steve-hely
Identity Beyond Culture: Latinx Poets & Writers of The World Stage Press at Village Well Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join World Stage Press authors for special reading of poetry and prose to highlight the voices of the Latinx community!
In 2013, Hiram Sims and Conney Williams were inspired to grow the mission of the World Stage and create a full time press dedicated as a place for the community to access its own stories. World Stage Press continues to pay homage to its history and roots by identifying, supporting, and promoting creatives within the community by providing resources and a platform for community based literature. The Press does so through education (Community Literature Initiative), publication (World Stage Press), and preservation (The Sims Library).
This event is a reading by some of the amazing poets who have emerged through the efforts and support of World Stage Press, including::
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer, educator, cultural commentator md rezandera from venezuela. As a bilingual poet, Coiman strives to magnify the voices of the struggle in Venezuela, those who migrate out of despair, and those who stay behind to fight a thousand battles for freedom. She is the author of the collection, Uprising/Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press, 2021), and the memoir I Ask the Blue Heron.
Cynthia Guardado is a Salvadorian-American poet and Professor of English at Fullerton College. She is the managing editor of LiveWire, a literary arts magazine at Fullerton College. Her debut poetry collection, ENDEAVOR was published in 2017 by World Stage Press. Her second collection Cenizas will be released later this year from the Univerity of Arizona Press.
Alex Petunia is a nurse and poet who has worn a kaleidoscope of hats, like drumming in an all-girl rock band, hippo-ing in a space ship, and road tripping with the moon and her poetry. Her writing invites you to hug a tree, frolic barefoot in with the Earth and share a breath with yourself. She is the author of Tending My wild, a collection about running away on all fours back to a forgotten self.
Poet Astrid is a Salvadoran-American poet and journalist based in Los Angeles. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Here, she was captain of the slam poetry team and president of the poetry club, F.L.O.W. Astrid has since become a beacon in L.A.’s writing community, shining through with her annual showcase Talk That Sh!t while having highly esteemed featured performances at Take the Mic, Unplugd LA, Sela Arts Festival, and LitFest Pasadena just to name a few. She is the author of Through the Soil in My Skin.
Carolina Rivera Escamilla Carolina Rivera Escamilla — educator, writer, theater actor, and documentarian — lives in Los Angeles, California. Born in El Salvador, she went into exile in Canada in the mid 1980s. She is the author of the collection …after… and A Day of Life, Un dia en la vida, and director and producer of the documentary, “Manlio Argueta, Poets and Volcanoes.”
Andy Sanchez (they/he), is a trans masculine poet born in Mexico City, México. He migrated to the U.S. at the age of 5 and grew up in Southern California and Las Vegas, NV. Andrés moved to Los Angeles, California 7 years ago. It was here that he began to get involved with the poetry community. His book, This Body was published by World Stage in December 2020.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Village Well Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/17095
TNM: HUMAN ZOOM-IN with Shari Foos via The Narrative Method – Online Zoom Event
Please join Shari Foos every Thursday for The Narrative Method: Human Zoom-In to expand perspectives through storytelling and real connections.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, event details.
Where: Shari Foos TNM Workshop – Online Zoom event
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 8:15 pm
Address: Online via Zoom (see site)
Website: Facebook
Fos–Thursday & 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, with sign-ups open on Wednesday at 3pm.
NOTE: See site for cost, event details.
Where: Freedom of Speech (FOS) Open Mic – In-Person & Online IG event
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 665 N. Heliotrope Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fos_thursdays/
NoHo Book Club & The Book of Salt by Monique Truong via North Hollywood Regional Library, LAPL – Online Kids Event
Please join us for our NoHo Book Club discussion of May’s selection, The Book of Salt, by Monique Truong.
In this debut novel, the author presents a narrative through the eyes if Binh, a Vietnamese cook,
Please e-mail nohlwd @lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: North Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/noho- book-club
Don Chaon, with Alissa Nutting, & Sleepwalk at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Don Chaon present and discuss his new book, Sleepwalk.
Sleepwalk’s hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. AT age 50 he’s been living off the grid for half his life and spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running shady and often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation. Out of the blue he gets a call on a burner phone from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his daughter and asking for help. In this setting the author examines the connections that bind us, no matter where we’ve been and where we are going.
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/dan-chaon-conversation-alissa-nutting-discusses-sleepwalk
A Celebration of New Works by Writers Kevin Ridgeway, Jose Hernandez and Mathieu Cailer at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – Online Event
Join Beyond Baroque for an in-person reading of new works by L.A. poets and writers Kevin Ridgeway, Jose Hernandez Diaz, and Matthieu Carlier.
Kevin Ridgeway is the author of 21 books, including Too Young to Know.
Jose Hernandez Diaz is the author the chapbook, The Fire Eaters,
Matthieu Carlier is the author ofHeaven and Other Zip Codes: A Novel.
Check site later for corrected and complete information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday 27th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mathieu-cailler-kevin-ridgeway-zara-lisbon-jose-hernandez-diaz-tickets-334729534047?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Mystery Book Club: Ghostman by Roger Hobbs via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Please join us for our Mystery Book Club discussion of Ghostman, (A Jack White Novel) by Roger Hobbs.
In this first novel in the Jack White series, two crooks rob a casino, but now they’re on the run with a bundle loaded with explosives.
Please e-mail wwood@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-3
AAPI Big Read: Intergenerational Trauma with Stacey Ma Dubois & Yen Sau via Central Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Please join us for a discussion of Intergenerational Trauma with Stacey Ma Dubois & Yen Sau as they talk about how it has impacted Asian American refugees. This event is part of our series of events for AAPI Month and the Big Read selection of the graphic novel, The Best We Could Do, by author Thi Bui.
Stacy Ma Dubois is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with a Master’s from Columbia University School of Social Work. She has worked in the mental health field for the past 16 years and is dedicated to mental health awareness, suicide prevention and integrated behavioral health care. She is also a mother of 3 children, an immigrant to the US at a young age, and passionate about individuals having a strong cultural awareness and ownership of their cultural background while living in the US.
Yen Sau is a wife, mother, and social worker. She was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S in 1993. She has high hopes that mental health will not be a taboo subject within the Asian-American community and that we can live in a world where kindness is the norm.
Please register in advance for this meeting.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 1 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-intergenerational-trauma
Kate Sweeney, with Amy Spaulding, in Conversation via Wil & Ariel Durant Branch Library, LAPL – Online Teen Event
Please join us for a discussion between YA author, Kate Sweeney and Amy Spalding on Kate’s first novel, Catch the Light. Kate and Amy will discuss their writing processes, publishing and promoting their books out into the world.
Kate Sweeney was born in Athens, GA, and has since lived in many places, including Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Cambridge, NY, and Salt Lake City, UT. She began writing when she was sixteen. Her father, a novelist, and screenwriter had died five years prior. Through writing, she found a way of bringing his voice back to her ears. For the past ten years, she has resided in the Bay Area where she spends her time making music with her bands, Magic Magic Roses and July, teaching literacy, and working with her husband at the family art-framing business.
Amy Spalding is the author of several novels, including the bestselling We Used to Be Friends and The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), which was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, the Boston Globe, Kirkus, and more. She grew up in St. Louis and now lives in Los Angeles with two cats.
Please register in advance for this meeting.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL – Online Teen Event
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/kate-sweeney-conversation-amy-spaulding
Fourth Saturdays Poetry Event: Daniel Romo & Elena Karina Byrne at Claremont Library, Pomona – In-Person Event
Please join the Friends of the Claremont Library for Fourth Sundays Poetry (formerly Fourth Sundays Poetry) to hear poets Daniel Romo and Elena Karina Byrne share, discuss, and read their work.
Danel Romo is the author of Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach, 2021), Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press, 2019), When Kerosene’s Involved (Mojave River Press, 2014), and Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press, 2013). His writing and photography can be found in The Los Angeles Review, PANK, The Good Men Project, Yemassee, and elsewhere. He received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives and teaches in Long Beach, CA. More at danieljromo.com.
Elena Karina Byrne works as a private editor, a freelance lecturer, Programming Consultant & Poetry Stage Manager for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and Literary Programs Director for the historic Ruskin Art Club. A Pushcart Prize and Best American recipient, her books include If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn, 2021), No Don’t (What Books Press, 2020), Squander (Omnidawn, 2016), MASQUE (Tupelo Press, 2008), and The Flammable Bird, (Zoo Press, 2002). Her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews can be found in Poetry, The Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Plume, LARB, Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies, BOMB, and elsewhere. She’s writing screenplays while completing her collection of “interrupted” essays entitled Voyeur Hour.
Please RSVP in advance for this meeting.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Claremont Helen Resnick Library
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont, CA
Website: https://happeningnext.com/event/fourth-saturdays-elena-karina-byrne-andamp-daniel-romo-eid3a08pe2g20
Toni Bentley, with Leslie Zemeckis, & Serenade at Diesel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Toni Bentley, in conversation with author Leslie Zemeckis, will present and discuss her book: Serenade: A Balanchine Story.
At age seventeen, Toni Bentley was chosen by Balanchine, then in his final years, to join the New York City Ballet. From backstage and onstage, she carries us through both the serendipitous history and physical intricacies and demands of Serenade: its dazzling opening, with seventeen women in a double-diamond pattern; its radical, even jazzy, use of the highly refined language that is ballet; its place in the choreographer’s own dramatic story of immigration to the United States from Soviet Russia; its profound influence on the art form internationally.
Bentley takes us inside the rarefied, intense, and thrilling world Balanchine created through his lifelong devotion to celebrating and expanding female beauty and strength—a world that, inevitably, passed upon his death.
Toni Bentley danced with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet for ten years. She is the author of five books, all named “Notable” by the New York Times, which include Winter Season: A Dancer’s Journal, Holding On to the Air (the autobiography of Suzanne Farrell, co-authored with Farrell), Costumes by Karinska, Sisters of Salome, and The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir. Bentley is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and her work has appeared in Best American Essays, as well as in many periodicals, among them the New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Playboy, The Daily Beast, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.
Leslie Zemeckis is a best-selling author, actress, and award-winning documentarian. She is the author of three best-sellers, Behind the Burly Q, Goddess of Love Incarnate; the Life of Stripteuse Lili St. Cyr. and Feuding Fan Dancers. Zemeckis is the founder of the program “Stories Matter,” female storytellers mentoring underserved future female storytellers. She is the founder and curator of the ENTITY Magazine book club. She is currently at work on her fourth book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore – in the Courtyard
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 225 26th St., #33., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/toni-bentley-serenade
Saturday Afternoon Poetry & Print & Internet Publishing Workshop with Linda Ravenswood & Spectrum Poetry Readings – Off-Site In-Person Event & Via Zoom
Join us at Saturday Afternoon Poetry off-site for a Poetry Publishing Workshop with poet and writer Linda Ravenswood, and a Poetry Publication Reading hosted by SPECTRUM poets.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Rosebud Coffee & via ZOOM portal online
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 2302 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA (and via Zoom link)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
At Skylight: UC Riverside MFA Program Group Reading at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Please join us to hear students in the UC Riverside MFA writing program read from their work. Readers include”
Esther Banegas Gatica, Charlie Belusa, Nicholas Domich, Emily Doyle, Sara Fowler, Soleil Garneau, Lily Hart, Sarah Helms, Ryan Klachko, Gennyvera Pacheco, Rachael McLaughlin, Hannah Roberts, Eileen Waggoner, and Daniel Williamson.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-uc-riverside-mfa-program-reading
The Deja Vu: Live Performance by Gabrielle Civil at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join Beyond Baroque for a Deja-Vu Live Performance by Gabrielle Civil, with flashbacks and premonitions: black dreams & black time. Incorporating reading and storytelling, movement and moving images, the déjà vu–live will blur boundaries between the page and the stage, embodying memory, grief, and love; then and now.
Gabrielle Civil is a black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer, originally from Detroit, MI. She has premiered over fifty performance art works around the world, most recently Jupiter for the Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival (2021) and Vigil for Northern Spark (2021). Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish (2017), Experiments in Joy (2019), (ghost gestures) (2021), and the déjà vu (2022). A 2019 Rema Hort Mann LA Emerging Artist, she teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday 28th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-deja-vulive-a-performance-by-gabrielle-civil-tickets-334923002717
At Skylight: Tree House & Punk Rock Marthas Present: John Parra & Growing an Artist at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Join us to celebrate John Parra’s new children’s book, Growing an Artist: The Story of a Landscaper and His Son.
Award-winning artist John Parra will read from and discuss his stunning and deceptively simple picture book based on his childhood experiences between a father and son, hard work, and the links between nature, art, and creativity.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Burning Issues Book Club & Disability Visibility at Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to discuss our selection for May, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong.
One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent–but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people.
NOTE: See Site for further details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Bel Canto Online (see site)
Always Running Book Festival at LA Poet Society Location in Pacoima – In-Person Event
Join us for the first ever Always Running Book Festival, inspired by Luis J. Rodriguez’s memoir, Always Running. We will celebrate the power of literacy and resilience! Luis Javier Rodriguez is a legacy to be celebrated and we are so excited to put this festival together to honor him..
NOTE: See Site for guidelines and details.
Where: LAPS Location in Pacoima
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 12 pm – 5 pm
Address: 10335 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Pacoima, CA 91331
Website: https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety/
Matt Roberts & More Humans of Long Beach at Gatsby’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Matt Roberts present his and discuss his new book, More Humans of Long Beach.
Matt Roberts’ extraordinary book celebrates the eclectic people who make Long Beach the greatest city of all time.
NOTE: See Site for guidelines and details.
Where: Gatsby’s Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5535 E. Spring St., Long Beach, CA 90808
Website: https://www.gatsbybooks.com/events
Los Angeles Literature 