NOTE: There Are Both Online and Virtual Events Listed Here
World Literature Book Club via West Valley Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join this Book Club for a spirited and engaging 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:
- June 6 – The Great Silence by Ted Chiang (2015)
- June 13 – The Midnight Zone by Lauren Groff (2016)
This group meets every Monday morning (excluding holidays).
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: LAPL Online event
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-literature-book-club-40
Book Club Bonanza: Let’s Celebrate LGBTQIA Voices! via Central Library, LAPL – Online Teens Event
Join us for a Book Club event for LGBTQIA Pride Month as part of our Book Club Bonanza series.
Please email teens@lapl.org from your school email address at least one hour before the program to request the link. Homeschool students, note the program name and “Homeschool” in the email subject line, make sure to include your name and grade level.
Description:
- June 6: Let’s meet and pick a YA Fiction or Non-Fiction book to read this month featuring LGBTQIA voices from hoopla.
- June 13: Join us for read-alikes on the book chosen.
- June 20: Join us for an activity based on the book chosen.
- June 27: Book discussion on the book chosen.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: LAPL Online event
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-bonanza-lets-celebrate-lbgtqia-voices
Colton Haynes & Miss Memory Lane at Book Soup – Online Event
Colton Haynes will present and discuss his new book: Miss Memory Lane: A Memoir (Atria Books).
Four years ago, Colton Haynes woke up in a hospital. He’d had two seizures, lost the sight in one eye, almost ruptured a kidney, and been put on an involuntary psychiatric hold. Not yet thirty, he knew he had to take stock of his life and make some serious changes if he wanted to see his next birthday.
By sixteen, he had been signed by the world’s top modeling agency and his face appeared on billboards. But he was still a broke, lonely, confused teenager, surrounded by people telling him he could be a star, as long as he never let anyone see his true self. As his career in television took off, the stress of wearing so many masks and trying to please so many different people turned his use of drugs and alcohol into full-blown addiction.
A lyrical and intimate confession, apology, and cautionary tale, Miss Memory Lane is an unforgettable story of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled; of a family torn apart and rebuilt; and of a man stepping into the light, as no one but himself.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online (see site)
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/colton-haynes-signs-miss-memory-lane-memoir
David Sedaris Presents: Happy-Go-Lucky with Cindy House, at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author David Sedaris, with opening act Cindy House, will present his new publication, Happy-Go-Lucky.
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper and wearing a mask–or not–was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.
As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.
The Opening Act for this evening’s event will be essayist and author of Mother Noise: A Memoir – Cindy House!!
Cindy House is an essayist, short story writer, artist, and a regular opener for David Sedaris on his tours across the country. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned an MFA from Lesley University in 2017. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her husband and son.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/david-sedaris-presents-happy-go-lucky
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 nonfiction and done readings with the Ventura Poetry Project.
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online event (tickets at Eventbrite)
Date: Monday the 6th
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-348202853107
David Koepp, with Lawrence Kasdan, & Aurora: A Novel at Live Talks LA – Off-Site In-Person Event
David Koepp, writer of more than two dozen feature films, will present his new novel, Aurora, soon to be a major motion picture from Netflix and Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow. He will discuss his novel and his work with Lawrence Kasden, writer and producer of 24 motion pictures.
In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son.
Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.
Across the country lives Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.
But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings—which not everyone will survive.
Aurora is suspenseful storytelling—both large scale and small—at its finest.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Gloria Kaufman Performing Arts Center
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 3200 Motor Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90034
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/david-koepp-with-lawrence-kasdan/
New Classics Book Club & The Dutch House by Ann Patchett at Diesel Bookstore – In-Person Event
The New Classics Book Club will meet to discuss The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett.
We’re excited to announce our new Classics/Modern book club. We’ll meet once a month, alternating every month between a classic work and a modern work. We’ll talk about the intersection of ideas and the breadth of writerly influence across literary, historical, philosophical, and political spectra. Sign up for profound conversation and a chance to read those books that have been on your list forever (or experience books you know and love in an entirely new way).
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore, in the Courtyard
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 2 pm & 4 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/new-classics-dutch-house
Braintrust Workshop: Finding the Poem in the Pain with Anne Marie Wells via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
Anne Marie Wells will present a one-time class presented as part of our generative writing workshop series, Braintrust.
Carrie Fisher is attributed to saying, “Take your broken heart, make it into art.” But how does one start? Using examples from poets Danez Smith, Harryette Mullen, Sandy Pool, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, and Tanaya Winder, this generative workshop will present different techniques for transforming past hurts into poetry in a safe and supportive space. Opportunities to share work aloud will be available but is completely voluntary and not required.
NOTE: See site for registration, cost scale, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: The Poetry Lab Online (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/register/braintrust/june-7
Feminist Book Club & Firekeeper’s Daughter at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Feminist Book Club meets monthly and ill discuss Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley.
This is a suspenseful YA novel and a crime thriller packed with Ojibewe culture, knowledge and politics, by an author who is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/feminist-book-club-firekeepers-daughter
Book Club Discussion: The Sound and the Fury via Palms Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a Book Club event discussion of a classic, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
The Sound and the Fury tells the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: LAPL Online event
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-discussions
Taylor Hahn, with Jennifer Close, & The Lifestyle via The Ripped Bodice Bookstore – Online Event
Join us for a virtual event to hear authors Taylor Hahn, in conversation with Jennifer Close, celebrate and discuss her debut novel, The Lifestyle.
They will discuss their new romance novels, The Lifestyle, and Marrying the Ketchups, respectively.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
WeHo Reads 2022: Road to Joy, Pride and Joy in the Matrix via City of West Hollywood – Online Event
Join us for a virtual event in the WeHo Reads Series: Road to Joy.
We look for joy in the digital ether with Isle McElroy, Patrick Nathan, and Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett and guided writing with Amy Spies.
LGBTQ+ authors are taking a hard look at society IRL and virtually, pinpointing the ways we come up short in connecting with and loving each other.
Patrick Nathan examines the culture of fascistic images that pervade the online media landscape in his book Image Control (Counterpoint Press 2021).
Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett uses short fiction, including his volume of short stories Dark Corners (Running Wild Press 2019), to illuminate the ways we can be marginalized as well as how we can fight back and lose some virtue in the process.
Isle McElroy writes about diet culture, masculinity, nonbinary identity, basketball, scammers, books, and body dysmorphia. Their debut novel, The Atmospherians, was published in 2021 (Atria Books). Together, they’ll discuss online spaces, the challenges of creating joy online—is it even possible?—and the role of critique and creativity in shifting culture.
A moment of guided meditation and mindful writing will be led by Amy Spies, a writer and teacher in the film, television, and new media industries.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: WeHo Reads – Online event
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Kristin Marguerite Doidge & Nora Ephron: A Biography at Diesel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Kristin Marguerite Doidge will read from and sign her new book, Nora Ephron: a Biography.
This book is the first comprehensive portrait of the Manhattan-born girl who forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration from critics and fans alike. Author Kristin Marguerite Doidge explores the tremendous successes and disappointing failures Ephron sustained in her career and examines the private life she tried to keep in balance with her insatiable ambition. Ephron’s career spanned five decades of smart, successful writing in nearly every medium: magazines, essays, movies, plays, books, and even blogs. Based on rare archival research and numerous interviews with some of her closest friends, collaborators, and esteemed colleagues including actors Tom Hanks and Caroline Aaron, comedian Martin Short, composer George Fenton, and lifelong friends from Wellesley to New York to Hollywood– as well as interviews Ephron herself gave throughout her career—award-winning journalist and cultural critic Doidge has written a captivating story of the life of a creative writer whose passion for the perfect one-liner and ferocious drive to succeed revolutionized journalism, comedy, and film.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore, in the Courtyard
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/kmd-nora-ephron
Bilingual Reading Group via RE/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
This event is offered every other Tuesday and is currently reading El Capital Vol.1, by Carlos Marx. The discussion is facilitated by Jose Prado, PhD, Professor of Sociology at CSUDH.
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Tuesday the 7th & 21st
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Jonathan Alexander & Dear Queer Self via Book Soup – Online Event
Jonathan Alexander will discuss her new book, Dear Queer Self: an Experiment in Memoir.
In this unconventional memoir, Jonathan Alexander addresses wry and affecting missives to a conflicted younger self. Focusing on three years—1989, 1993, and 1996—Dear Queer Self follows the author through the homophobic heights of the AIDS epidemic, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Bill Clinton, and the steady advancements in gay rights that followed. With humor and wit afforded by hindsight, Alexander relives his closeted college years, his experiments with his sexuality in graduate school, his first marriage to a woman, and his budding career as a college professor.
As he moves from tortured self-denial to hard-won self-acceptance, the author confronts the deeply uncomfortable ways he is implicated in his own story. More than just a coming-out narrative, Dear Queer Self is both an intimate psychological exploration and a cultural examination—a meshing of inner and outer realities and a personal reckoning with how we sometimes torture the truth to make a life. It is also a love letter, an homage to a decade of rapid change, and a playlist of the sounds, sights, and feelings of a difficult, but ultimately transformative, time.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Book Soup – Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jonathan-alexander-discusses-dear-queer-self-experiment-memoir
Tom Phillips & The Curious League of Detectives and Thieves at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Event
Tom Phillips will discuss his new book, The Curious League of Detectives and Thieves.
Grand adventure awaits in the start of a new mystery series The Curious League of Detectives and Thieves: Egypt’s Fire. This debut book will take middle grade readers on a wild ride full of humor and mystery and is a great choice for fans of Spy School and Enola Holmes.
After twelve-year-old John Boarhog’s mom dies, the last thing he wants is to be schlepped off to the Jersey Home for Boys, where kids are forced to make skinny jeans for hipsters and are fed nothing but kale. Instead, he makes himself a snug home in the ceiling of the New York Museum of Natural History, where he reads anything he get his hands on and explores the artifacts afterhours.
But when a rare Egyptian ruby—the highlight of the museum’s new exhibit—goes missing, John is accused of the crime. That is until the unpredictable Inspector Toadius McGee sweeps in to wrestle control of the case, certain that the true culprit is a notorious criminal he’s been tracking for years.
John quickly becomes the Watson to Toadius’s Holmes as they race from Broadway to back alleys to a speak-easy that only serves root beer. And along the way, John uncovers secrets about his own past, including that he’s a lot more involved in this web of endearing ne’er-do-wells than he ever could have imagined.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/curious-league
Nina LaCour & Yerba Burena at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Nina LaCour will present and discuss her new book, Yerba Buena: A Novel.
The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara’s old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts.
At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a love story for our time and a propulsive journey through the lives of two women trying to find somewhere, or someone, to call home.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/nina-lacour-discusses-yerba-buena
At Skylight: Anna Dorn, with Nicola Fumo, & Exalted at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Anna Dorn, in conversation with Nicola Fumo, will present and discuss her second novel, Exalted.
Emily Forrest runs Exalted, the hottest astrology account on Instagram, from her studio apartment in Los Angeles. Burned out on meme-making and listicles, Emily’s passion for astrology is waning despite her gift for deciphering the signs, until she comes across a birth-chart that could potentially change her mind.
Meanwhile in Riverside, Dawn Webster has been dumped once again. At 48, she is forced to return to the same restaurant where she started waiting tables at 18. With no girlfriend, no career, and her only son gone to Hollywood, the once-vivacious Dawn is aimless and alone. Persona non-grata at the local gay bar, she guzzles cheap champagne and checks Exalted to feel seen. She is a fiery Leo, and one day she will get her due.
Alternating between Emily and Dawn’s very different points of view, Exalted is a deliciously dark novel that explores desire, the projection of our need for love, and what we’re really searching for when we keep scrolling. Anna Dorn’s signature wit and biting social commentary takes readers across Southern California until Emily and Dawn’s shocking connection is finally revealed.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-anna-dorn-presents-exalted-nicola-fumo
Tuesdays at the Virtual Cobalt: Poets Series Presents: Open Reading & Linda Ravenwood – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest host Linda Ravenswood.
Linda Ravenswood is a poet and writer, mainly a poet, and visual artist (CalArts, 2000) with gallery shows focusing on fine art, performance and installation. She has been evolving an arts practice that holds a strong and defining musical and theatrical course. Her collaborative project, the roving sonic-art-installation-play Bike Odyssey L.A. (2014) won a grant from the NEA; her visual programme How to Make a Monster (2015, Highways Performance Space) has been named among the Best of Los Angeles Arts. Recent work (2014-2015) has appeared at Cornell University, The Artery (Los Angeles), The Bootleg Theatre (Los Angeles), Gallery 16 (San Francisco), The Lancaster Museum, and Craftswoman House. She has been published in 30 literary journals, and her music compositions and singing has appeared in 3 documentary films (PBS). With 4 books in print, (Sybaritic Press, Mouthfeel Press, Gallery 16 Press, LACMA Press – forthcoming), Linda has twice been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. A lecturer and workshop presenter, she has taught and lectured at Occidental College and Ventura College. She is a PhD candidate at The Pacifica Graduate Institute.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html or https://www.facebook.com/events/1706681646331221/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22discovery_top_tab%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmark%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D
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 7th (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 7th
Time: 9 pm – 12 am
Address: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, CA
Website: Facebook
Mystery Book Club Discussion: The Woman in the Window via West Valley Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a Mystery Book Club event discussion of The Woman in the Window, by A. J. Finn.
The Woman in the Window tells the story of an agoraphobic woman living alone in New York who begins spying on her two neighbors, only to witness a disturbing act of violence.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: LAPL Online event
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 10:30 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-5
Creative Writing Workshop with Tony DuShane via Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a free Creative Writing Workshop with UCLA Extension instructor Tony DuShane.
Instructor Dushane is the author of the novel Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, now a major motion picture from director Eric Stoltz.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: LAPL Online event
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane
traci kato-kiriyama, with T.K. Le, & Navigatng With(out) Instruments at Bel Canto Bookstore at The Hangout – In-Person Garden Event
Join Bel Canto Bookstore at The Hangout to hear author and mulit-disciplinary artist traci kato-kiriyama, in conversation with T. K. Le, present and discuss her collection, Navigating With(out) Instruments
With their second book, Navigating With(out) Instruments, traci kato-kiriyama uses her present-political unrest, family love and loss, her own cancer diagnosis-to join the traumas of the past generations with the hope of the future ones.
Often seamless, often with a loud bang, kato-kiriyama moves from genre to genre, from poetry to essays to plays and to letters, framed by the history of US colonialism and war mongering, to urge readers to protect and to share their legacies, both personal and communal, as a means of global survival.
traci kato-kiriyama (they+she), author of Navigating With(out) Instruments—based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles—is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, and community organizer. An artivist in practice, traci is a core organizer with the Nikkei Progressives/NCRR joint Reparations Committee; a longtime member of the Okaeri Nikkei LGBTQ+ Network; a core artist with Vigilant Love and the Solidarity Arts Fellowship, bridging Muslim and Japanese American young adults; and is the Director/Co-Founder of Tuesday Night Project—longtime connector of art+community and presenter of Tuesday Night Cafe, at 24 years, the longest-running Asian American-produced public arts series in the nation.
T.K. Lê (she/her) writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her essay, “Part of Memory is Forgetting,” appears in the W.W. Norton anthology, Inheriting the War. She is an alum of the VONA/Voices summer writing workshop and the UCLA Asian American Studies MA program. She was a 2019 PEN America Emerging Voices fellow and is working on a book. She currently lives in Long Beach, CA.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore at The Hangout – outdoors in the garden
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2122 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://shoptheha90824ngout.com/products/bcb-author-event-traci-kato-kiriyama-t-k-le-6-8-6pm
Book Club Discussion: Wish You Were Here via Pacoima Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for our Book Club discussion of this month’s selection, Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult.
This is a novel is about the Covid pandemic and is an evocative tale about a couple separated by the shutdown, just before their reunion and planned life together, and how they find resilience and a triumph of the spirit.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and details.
Where: LAPL Online event
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/pacoima-book-club-0
Adam Frost & The Damned Lovely at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Adam Frost discuss his new novel, The Damned Lovely.
“She wasn’t pretty but she was ours…” Sandwiched between seedy businesses in the scorching east LA suburb of Glendale, The Damned Lovely is a dive bar is as scarred as its regulars: ex-cops, misfits and loners. And for Sam Goss, it’s a refuge from the promising life he’s walked away from, a place to write and a hole to hide in.
But when a beautiful and mysterious new patron to the bar turns up murdered, Sam can’t stop himself from getting involved. Despite their fleeting interaction, or perhaps because of it, something about her ghost won’t let go.
Armed with the playbook from the burned-out ex-cops, Sam challenges the police’s theory on the killing, butting heads with hardened detectives and asking questions nobody wants to answer. As his obsession takes hold so does his sense of purpose-as if uncovering the truth about the killer might heal some part of his own broken life. But the chase sets him on a collision course with a crooked charity, violent fundamentalists, corrupt cops, brazen embezzlers and someone dangerously close to home-all who want to make sure the truth never comes out.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines and event details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/adam-frost-discusses-damned-lovely
Shaun Thompson and Noah benShea & The Surfer and the Sage, at Pages Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome back former world champion surfer Shaun Tomson and co-author Noah benShea to present and discuss their new book, The Surfer and the Sage: A Guide to Ride and Survive Life’s Waves.
This beautiful collaboration offers life advice from a World Surfing Champion and mentor, and a Pulitzer Prize nominated poet/author, all wrapped up in a gorgeous package sure to make your life better.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: Pages Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/shaun-tomson-and-noah-benshea
At the Ace Hotel: Nabil Ayers, with Hrishikesh Hirway, & My Life in the Sunshine at Skylight Bookstore at the Ace Hotel – In-Person Event
Author Nabil Ayers, in conversation with Hrishikesh Hirway, will present and discuss his new book, Ny Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family.
Multi-talented music industry entrepreneur Nabil Ayers launched a book tour in support of his memoir, My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family, which will include several Ace Hotel locations throughout the U.S.
Nabil’s tour will stop at Ace Hotel Los Angeles on June 8th where he will be conversation with special guest host, singer and songwriter Hrishikesh Hirway in partnership with Skylight Books.
This book is a memoir about one man’s journey to connect with his musician father, ultimately re-drawing the lines that define family and race.
Throughout his adult life, whether he was opening a Seattle record store in the ’90s or touring the world as the only non-white band member in alternative rock bands, Nabil Ayers felt the shadow and legacy of his father’s musical genius, and his race, everywhere.
In 1971, a white, Jewish, former ballerina, chose to have a child with the famous Black jazz musician Roy Ayers, fully expecting and agreeing that he would not be involved in the child’s life. In this highly original memoir, their son, Nabil Ayers, recounts a life spent living with the aftermath of that decision, and his journey to build an identity of his own despite and in spite of his father’s absence.
Despite his father’s absence, Nabil, through sheer will and a drive to understand his roots, re-draws the lines that define family and race.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore at the Ace Hotel
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/ace-hotel-nabil-ayers-presents-my-life-sunshine
Carter Bays, with Rachel Bloom, & The Mutual Friend at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Carter Bays, in conversation with Rachel Bloom, discuss his new book, The Mutual Friend.
It’s the summer of 2015, and Alice Quick needs to get to work. She’s twenty-eight years old, grieving her mother, barely scraping by as a nanny, and freshly kicked out of her apartment. If she can just get her act together and sign up for the MCAT, she can start chasing her dream of becoming a doctor…but in the Age of Distraction, the distractions are so distracting. There’s her tech millionaire brother’s religious awakening. His picture-perfect wife’s emotional breakdown. Her chaotic new roommate’s thirst for adventure. And, of course, there’s the biggest distraction of all: Love.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines and event details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/carter-bays-discusses-the-mutual-friend
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 8th
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 8th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-355175368087
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry & Linda V. E. Crawford 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 features poet Linda V. E. Crawford.
Linda V. E. Crawford is a poet who writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, stretch voices like others dance words. She’s been a journalist, copywriter, website manager, and email marketer. Poetry won’t let go. Born and raised in Barbados, the lilt of the Caribbean infuses her poems. Her work has appeared in national and international journals and anthologies.
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 8th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/718156425987721
Drawn + Quarterly Live Presents: Luke Healy, with Connor Ratliff, & The Con Artists at Skylight Bookstore – Online Event
Luke Healy, in conversation with Connor Ratliff, will launch and discuss his third graphic novel, The Con Artists, a quintessentially millennial tale about friendship and the quest for self-actualization.
This is going to be Frank’s year. He’s going to do it all: find love, become a famous comedian, and responsibly parent his plants. But then, Giorgio gets hit by a bus.
Self-assured and utterly entitled, Giorgio has always seemed like “Frank, but better.” Moving in with and caring for his estranged childhood friend quickly starts to chip away at Frank’s sense of self, as well as Giogio’s carefully curated online persona. Is Giorgio’s penchant for overindulgence truly aspirational? Or is it ultimately a red flag? The further Frank is pulled into Giorgio’s orbit, the quicker his existential dread blooms. Expectation and reality soon collide in a singular tale about trust and confidence.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 10 am
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-anna-dorn-presents-exalted-nicola-fumo
Kids Book Club & Premeditated Myrtle at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person YA Event
Join us for the Kids Book Club to read Premeditated Myrtle (Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery #1) by Elizabeth C. Bunce.
Set in Victorian England, this YA mystery gleefully overturns sexist norms and celebrates independent women of intellect, with Myrtle Hardcastle leading the charge.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside
Date: Thursday 9th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/kids-book-club-premeditated-myrtle
Author Event: John Paul Brammer & Hola Papi! at Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a LGBTQIA Pride Month & LA Made event with author John Paul Brammer who will present and discuss his new book, Hola Papi!
LGBTQ advice columnist John Paul Brammer writes a wise and charming memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey from a queer, mixed-race kid in America’s heartland to becoming the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation. Join him for this virtual only program as he attempts to answer some of life’s most challenging questions including, “How do I let go of the past? How do I become the person I want to be? Is there such a thing as being too gay?”
Participants viewing the program will have an opportunity to win a free copy of JP’s book, Hola Papi.
Streaming live on the library’s YouTube channel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: LAPL
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 4 pm
Address: LAPL (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/hola-papi-author-john-paul-brammer
Mystery Book Club & Poodle Springs at Venice-Abbot Kinney Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us on the second Thursday of the month for a suspenseful discussion of our latest mystery pick.
This month we are discussing Poodle Springs, by classic noir author Raymond Chandler.
Copies of each month’s selection will be available for check out at the Circulation Desk. New members are always welcome! Email venice@lapl.org for Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: LAPL
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 5 pm
Address: LAPL (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club
RCC Muse Magazine Spring Launch Party at Back to the Grind Coffee & Teas – In-Person Event
Join us and get your copy of MUSE art + literary journal for Spring 2022 at a special price at the Book Launch celebration event at Back to the Grind Coffee & Teas.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: RCC Muse at Back to the Grind
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 3575 University Ave., Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.facebook.com/RCCMUSEMagazine
In Conversation: Saul Williams & Hamza Walker at California African American Museum (CAAM) – In-Person Event
Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams has been breaking ground for more than 20 years. After gaining global fame for his poetry and writings at the turn of the century, Williams has performed in over 30 countries and read in over 300 universities, with invitations from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, the Louvre, the Getty Center, and Queen Elizabeth Hall to countless villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world. Join Williams for a reading and conversation with LAXART Director and art scholar, Hamza Walker, about the intersection of art and politics in America, as part of the Power to the People! festival.
Presented in collaboration with the LA Philharmonic.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: CAAM
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, CA 90037
Website: https://caamuseum.org/programs/talks-and-workshops/in-conversation-saul-williams
In Conversation: Poetry Night with Pam Ward, Lynne Thompson & Zaha Zainabu via Chevalier’s – Online Event
Pam Ward is an artist, activist and writer, and the author of Between Good Men and No Men at All, among others.
Lynne Thompson is the Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, and the author of three collections, including Fretwork.
Zaha Zainabu is a poet and artist and the author most recently of the collection I’m Writing to Tell You.
Click link to join https://us02web.zoom.us/w/81143090194…
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Chevalier’s Online
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://us02web.zoom.us/w/81143090194…
Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series: Jonathan Humanoid, Mike Sonksen & Alex Petunia at Page Against the Machine Bookstore – In-Person Event
Trenches Full of Poets is a new reading series held every 2nd Thursday of the month at PATM in Long Beach and hosted by poets Nikolai Garcia and Mauricio Andres Moreno. Guest poets tonight include:
Jonathan Humanoid is a poet and fiction writer from Fullerton, CA. His work has appeared both online and in print, most recently in Fight Evil With Poetry‘ first anthology, and Shit Men Say To Me! An Anthology Challenging Toxic Masculinity. He also put two DIY chapbooks called I Was Never Going to be Normal and Deconstructing Borderline Personality Disorder and his first full length collection of poetry Decomposition of the Living will be released through Silver Star Labs.
Mike Sonksen is a 3rd generation Los Angeles native poet, essayist and educator, and professor at Woodbury University. He has published over 500 essays and poems with publications and websites and his KCET essays have received an award for excellences form the Los Angeles Press Club. His books include Letters to My City.
Alex Petunia is a poet and author of the collection Tending My Wild (World Stage Press). As a queer, multiracial child in a home of broken bottles, a fearful soul longing to belong roars into an unshackled lovebeast blooming with vibrant self-worth and deepening purpose. Tending My Wild stirs the howling heart to sit at future’s welcoming table where together we can honor the harsh rapids and cooing stillness of nature echoing in us all
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2714 4th St., Long Beach, CA
Cookie Mueller & Semiotext(e) at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
Semiotext(e) partners with Dirty Looks + Poetic Research Bureau to launch the first collected edition of legendary writer, actress, and adventurer Cookie Mueller. Featuring the entire contents of her 1990 book Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, this new title contains more than two dozen other writings, many previously unpublished. Join readers Michelle Tea, Nikki Darling, Ron Athey, Drew Arriola-Sands, and DL Alvarez as we celebrate a life lived on the edge, with previously unscreened footage of Mueller’s last reading at the Poetry Project in 1989.
Legendary as an underground actress, female adventurer, and East Village raconteur, Cookie Mueller’s first calling was to the written word: “I started writing when I was six and have never stopped completely,” she once confessed. Mueller’s 1990 Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, the first volume of the Semiotext(e) Native Agents series, was the largest collection of stories she compiled during her life. But it presented only a slice of Mueller’s prolific work as a writer. This new, landmark volume collects all of her stories: from the original contents of Clear Water, to additional stories discovered by Amy Scholder for the posthumous anthology Ask Dr. Mueller, to selections from Mueller’s art and advice columns for Details and the East Village Eye, to still “new” stories collected and published here for the first time. Olivia Laing’s new introduction situates Mueller’s writing within the context of her life—and our times.
Michelle Tea is the author of over a dozen books, including the cult classic Valencia and the essay collection Against Memoir, winner of an award from PEN/America. Her memoir Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My In/Fertility will be published this August. She is the co-creator of many literary interventions including Drag Queen Story Hour and the international Sister Spit performance tours, which will hit the road this year to celebrate its 25th anniversary. She’s a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow.
Nikki Darling holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from USC. Her debut novel, Fade Into You, was published by Feminist Press in 2018, and is currently being adapted into a scripted series. She is completing her second book, The Call Is Coming From Inside the House. She lives in L.A. with her cat, small dog, and partner.
Ron Athey is an artist, self-taught in the LA underground music and queer art scenes of the late 1970s. He has exhibited work internationally like the 1992 performance Martyrs & Saints at LACE, 4 Scenes In A Harsh Life (1994) and The Solar Anus (1998). Acephalous Monster, his 2018 PSNY commission recently completed a 7-city UK tour and a sold-out run at REDCAT in 2021. Queer Communion, a touring retrospective of his performance objects, props and ephemera opened in February 2021 at Participant Inc, before traveling to ICA Los Angeles.
Drew Arriola-Sands is a musician and artist and currently the lead singer of L.A. queercore punk band Trap Girl. Drew is also the founder and main organizer of Transgress Fest which is the first music festival in the U.S. to center around trans identifying musicians that has run since 2016. Drew is also a writer of the popular zines Im a trap girl and The transgender experience part 1&2. Drew’s past projects include The Andrea Dangerfield Band and Commando from San Francisco.
DL Alvarez works with narrative in multiple mediums. They’ve shown internationally (Venice Biennale, New York MoMA, Armand Hammer Museum…), and were published most recently in Impossible Voices, Panda’s Friends, and Crooked Fagzine.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/cookie-mueller-amp-semiotexte
At Skylight: James Spooner, with Justin Warfield, & The High Desert – In-Person Event
Author James Spooner, in conversation with Justin Warfield, will present and discuss The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere.
This book is a formative coming-of-age graphic memoir by the creator of Afro-punk: a young man’s immersive reckoning with identity, racism, clumsy teen love and belonging in an isolated California desert, and a search for salvation and community through punk.
Apple Valley, California, in the late eighties, is a thirsty, miserable desert.
Teenage James Spooner hates that he and his mom are back in town after years away. The one silver lining—new school, new you, right? But the few Black kids at school seem to be gangbanging, and the other kids fall on a spectrum of micro-aggressors to future Neo-Nazis. Mixed race, acutely aware of his Blackness, James doesn’t know where he fits until he meets Ty, a young Black punk who introduces him to the school outsiders—skaters, unhappy young rebels, caught up in the punk groundswell sweeping the country.
A haircut, a few Sex Pistols, Misfits and Black Flag records later: suddenly, James has friends, romantic prospects, and knows the difference between a bass and a guitar. But this desolate landscape hides brutal, building undercurrents: a classmate overdoses, a friend must prove himself to his white supremacist brother and the local Aryan brotherhood through a show of violence. Everything and everyone are set to collide at one of the year’s biggest shows in town.
Weaving in the Black roots of punk rock and a vivid interlude in the thriving eighties DIY scene in New York’s East Village, this is the memoir of a budding punk, artist, and activist.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-james-spooner-presents-high-desert-justin-warfield
Poetry Readings by Laynie Browne, Kate Durbin and Any Gerstler at Stories Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
Join us to hear readings from three poets featured tonight:
Laynie Browne is a poet, prose writer, teacher and editor. She is author of fourteen collections of poems and four books of fiction. Recent publications include a Translations of the Lilies Back into Lists, In Garments Worn by Lindens; a novel, Periodic Companions; and a book of short fiction, The Book of Moments. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and at Swarthmore College.
Kate Durbin is a Los Angeles-based writer and artist. Her books of poetry include Hoarders, E! Entertainment, The Ravenous Audience, and ABRA. Her art and writing have been featured in The New York Times, Art in America, Art Forum, The Believer, BOMB, and elsewhere. She has shown her artwork nationally and internationally at The Frye Museum in Seattle, The Pulse Art Fair in Miami, MOCA Los Angeles, and more.
Amy Gerstler‘s book of poem Index of Women was published in April, 2021 by Penguin Random House. Her other books include Scattered at Sea, Dearest Creature, Ghost Girl and Medicine. She is currently working on a musical play with composer/actor/arranger Steve Gunderson. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, and several volumes of Best American Poetry.
NOTE: See site for book purchases and event details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Fos–Thursday & FOST Artistic Collective Presents: Freedom of Speech Open Mic with Sabir 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 9th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 665 N. Heliotrope Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fos_thursdays/
Your Author Series: ManOne & Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix at Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Artist, curator, multi-award-winning illustrator, mentor, and entrepreneur, ManOne believes in the transformational power of art, its power to save lives, and make the world a better place. ManOne will help kick off the Summer Reading Challenge by discussing his work on illustrating Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix.
Streaming live on the library’s YouTube channel.
Those attending the virtual program will have an opportunity to win a free book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: LAPL
Date: Friday the 10th
Time: 4 pm
Address: LAPL (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-manone
Jacey Duprie & Liking Myself Back at Diesel Bookstore Off-site at Capitol – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Jacey Duprie discuss and sign her book, Liking Myself Back: An Influencer’s Journey from Self-Doubt to Self-Acceptance.
With millions of followers and a thriving lifestyle brand, Damsel in Dior, Jacey Duprie is one of today’s top fashion influencers. Her beautiful Instagram photos capture a life of glamour, luxury and elegance. But Jacey’s life offline has been far from perfect.
In this candid memoir, Jacey reveals that behind her gorgeously curated photos was a woman struggling with deep insecurities. She shares intimate details of a difficult childhood growing up in rural Texas with an alcoholic father and her own battles with PTSD and mental health. Through resilience, hard work and self-reflection, Jacey eventually triumphed to become the strong, empowered woman she is today.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Capitol in the Brentwood Country Mart
Date: Friday the 10th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/jacey-duprie-at-capitol
Adam Novak & Rat Park at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Adam Novak present and discuss his new novel, Rat Park.
Enter Rat Park at your own risk. Lose the cage. Find yourself. An L.A. power couple orders an A.I. sex droid to escape their marital prison. What happens to them could happen to you. With his fourth novel, Adam Novak shows us how it takes a village of automatons to augment your humanity, feed your deceptive compulsive sexual addiction, and forget why you ever got married in the first place. (Red Giant Books)
NOTE: See site for book purchase, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/adam-novak-discusses-rat-park
At Skylight: Lars Horn, with Jaquira Daiz, & Voice of the Fish at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Lars Horn, in conversation with Jaquira Diaz, discuss his new book, Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay.
This book is an interwoven essay collection that explores the trans experience through themes of water, fish, and mythology, set against the backdrop of travels in Russia and a debilitating back injury that left Horn temporarily unable to speak. In Horn’s adept hands, the collection takes shape as a unified book: short vignettes about fish, reliquaries, and antiquities serve as interludes between longer essays, knitting together a sinuous, wave-like form that flows across the book.
Horn swims through a range of subjects, roving across marine history, theology, questions of the body and gender, sexuality, transmasculinity, and illness. From Horn’s upbringing with a mother who used them as a model in photos and art installations—memorably in a photography session in an ice bath with dead squid—to Horn’s travels before they were out as trans, these essays are linked by a desire to interrogate liminal physicalities. Horn reexamines the oft-presumed uniformity of bodily experience, breaking down the implied singularity of “the body” as cultural and scientific object. The essays instead privilege ways of seeing and being that resist binaries, ways that falter, fracture, mutate. A sui generis work of nonfiction, Voice of the Fish blends the aquatic, mystical, and physical to reach a place beyond them all.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Friday the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-lars-horn-presents-voice-fish-jaquira-d%C3%ADaz
Brigid Kemmerer Forging Silver into Stars at Vroman’s – In-Person YA Event
Please join author Brigid Kemmerer to hear her present her new fantasy YA novel, Forging Silver into Stars
Magic has been banished in the land of Syhl Shallow for as long as best friends Jax and Callyn can remember. They once loved the stories of the powerful magesmiths and mythical scravers who could conjure fire or control ice, but now they’ve learned that magic only leads to danger: magic is what killed Callyn’s parents, leaving her alone to raise her younger sister. Magic never helped Jax, whose leg was crushed in an accident that his father has been punishing him for ever since. Magic won’t save either of them when the tax collector comes calling, threatening to take their homes if they can’t pay what they owe.
Meanwhile, Jax and Callyn are astonished to learn magic has already returned to Syhl Shallow—In the form of a magesmith who’s now married to their queen. Now, the people of Syhl Shallow are expected to allow dangerous magic in their midst, and no one is happy about it.
When a stranger rides into town offering Jax and Callyn silver in exchange for holding secret messages for an anti-magic faction, the choice is obvious—even if it means they may be aiding in a plot to destroy their new king. It’s a risk they’re both willing to take. That is, until another visitor arrives: handsome Lord Tycho, the King’s Courier, the man who’s been tasked with discovering who’s conspiring against the throne.
Suddenly, Jax and Callyn find themselves embroiled in a world of shifting alliances, dangerous flirtations, and ancient magic…where even the deepest loyalties will be tested.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Friday the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/brigid-kemmerer-discusses-forging-silver-into-stars
9th Annual Fine Arts Film Festival (FAFF) at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – Hybrid Event
Join Beyond Baroque for the 9th Annual Fine Arts Film Festival.
The 9th Annual Fine Arts Film Festival (FAFF) returns to Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and presents 101 films from 32 countries. Films will be shown for in person audiences June 10 – 11, (7 pm to 11 pm on Friday June 10, and 12 noon to 11 pm on Saturday, June 11, 2022) and online from June 10 – 19. The Festival is dedicated to showing selected films about art, photography, collectors and artists of all mediums in and out of their st udios, galleries, museums, public art, and alternative art spaces – many premiering for the first time anywhere. For the schedule, tickets, and more information, visit www.veniceica.org/fine arts film festival.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday 10th & Saturday the 11th
Time: See details at Site. Dates & Times Vary
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291 & Online
Website: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html or https://www.veniceica.org/fineartsfilmfestival
Social Justice Book Club & Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table via Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL– Online Event
Literature can transform the way we look at the world. Join children’s librarians from the Los Angeles Public Library to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family. Participants of all ages are welcome.
On June 11th we will discuss Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 10 am – 12 pm
Address: LAPL Online (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/social-justice-book-club
Westwood Book Club & An Officer and a Spy via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL– Online Event
Please read the Book Club selection and join our monthly book discussion by contacting wwood@lapl.org,
On June 11th we will discuss An Officer and a Spy, by Robert Harris.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, Zoom link, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: LAPL Online (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-12
Treehouse and Punk Rock Marthas present: Marika McCoola and Aatmaja Pandya & SLIP via Skylight Bookstore – Online Kids Event
Join us virtually to hear Eisner-Award nominated writer Marika McCoola and debut artist Aatmaja Pandya, discuss their book SLIP, an emotional coming-of-age graphic novel for fans of Bloom and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me.
Right before Jade is about to leave for a summer art intensive, her best friend, Phoebe, attempts suicide. How is Jade supposed to focus on herself right now?
But at the Art Farm, Jade has artistic opportunities she’s been waiting for her whole life. And as she gets to know her classmates, she begins to fall for whimsical, upbeat, comfortable-in-her-own-skin Mary. Jade pours herself into making ceramic monsters that vent her stress and insecurities, but when she puts her creatures in the kiln, something unreal happens: they come to life. And they’re taking a stand: if Jade won’t confront her problems, her problems are going to confront her, including the scariest of them all—if Jade grows, prospers, and even falls in love this summer, is she leaving Phoebe behind?
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/treehouse-and-punk-rock-marthas-present-slip-marika-mccoola-and-aatmaja-pandya
Pride Poets Hotline: Call in for a Custom Poem! Via RENT Poet & Brian Sonia-Wallace – Online FB Event
On June 11, 11am-2pm (& afterhours 11pm-2am the next day!) call our hotline at 202-998-3510 get a free custom poem from an LGBTQ+ poet!
ABOUT PRIDE POETS
Since 2019, RENT Poet has worked with the City of West Hollywood to recruit, train, and employ dozens of LGBTQ+ poets in pop-ups for Pride month, writing custom poems celebrating love and the LGBTQ+ community for over 1000 individuals.
This year, you can speak to one of 25 LGBTQ+ poets, share your story, and receive a custom, one-of-a-kind poem, written just for you on a manual typewriter, in-person at Pride on June 4-5 and via our poetry hotline on June 11 (call 202-998-3510 between 11am-2pm and afterhours 11pm-2am).
HOW TO GET A POEM
This year’s theme is Pledge: come share your allegiances with us!
Our poets interview you, so don’t worry if you don’t know what you want a poem about — we’ll find the perfect subject for your poem. Poems will be written live on the hotline(!) with poetry as hold music and will be read to you by the writer. Afterward, you may choose to have a copy of the poem emailed to you. The whole process takes 10 minutes and will change your day. You can also listen on the line to our Permeable Poetry Project, pre-recorded poems by living LGBTQ+ poets.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: RENT Poet & Brian Sonia-Wallace
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 11 am – 2 pm
Address: RENT Poet Online
Book Launch for Dolly! & Ellen Surrey at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author and illustrator Ellen Surrey discuss her book, Dolly!, a rhythmically told and vibrantly illustrated picture book biography of Dolly Parton, an American icon loved by all.
You’ve likely heard of the performer Dolly Parton. But do you know where this dazzling songwriter and musician draws her roots? As one of twelve children growing up in rural Tennessee, Dolly was determined to be seen and heard. From her front porch to her church choir, every stage was an opportunity to perform and share her many talents. While balancing farm chores with schoolwork, Dolly never lost sight of her dreams, composing her first song at age five and performing at the Grand Ole Opry at age thirteen.
With lilting language and vibrant artwork, this childhood story captures the unique gifts of Dolly Parton, while also honoring the measures of her success: resilience, confidence, family, and kindness.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and event details.
Where: One Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Saturday 11th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/dolly
Saturday Afternoon Deep Critique Writing Workshop with G.T. Foster – Online Event Via Zoom
Join us at Saturday Afternoon Poetry off-site for a Deep Critique Poetry Writing Workshop with poet and writer G. T. Foster.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online via Zoom link (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
At Skylight: Exposition Review Vol VII “Flux” Launch Reading at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Exposition Review to hear contributors read from Exposition Review Vol VII, “Flux.”
Lynda V. E. Crawford has lived in the U.S. longer than her childhood home Barbados. Both homes sway and punctuate her writing. She writes poetry vignettes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, stretch voices like others dance words. She’s been a journalist, copywriter, website manager, and email marketer. Poetry won’t let go. Her work has appeared in online literary journals including The Galway Review and The Bookends Review, in anthologies including Los Angeles Poets for Justice: A Document for the People, and at Moonstone Arts Center’s International Women’s Day 2022.
Zachary C. Guerra is a poet and playwright living in Detroit, Michigan. Recently, he completed The Literal Challenge’s 28 Plays Later. His play Two for 19 will premiere at The Highland Blush Theatre in Alma, Michigan, this June. He is preoccupied with pink nostalgia, the romantic apocalypse, and the end of the end of history. He has a theater degree from Central Michigan University.
Since graduating from Syracuse University in May of 2014, Nate Hapke has written, directed, and/or produced sixteen short films and his debut feature film Two Dash One One. His film work has received more than 20 awards, and his work in television has made him a three-time Daytime Emmy winner. Nate is currently in preproduction on his second feature film, an ensemble comedy entitled Surprise!, which shoots in July, and Good Grief, a dramedy short film fully funded by the CNY Arts grant, which shoots in the fall.
Uma Incrocci’s play A Christmas Pickle was a finalist in the Samuel French OOB Festival in 2020. She also co-wrote the Hallmark Channel movies A Christmas Carousel and Nature of Love. She’s a member of the Playground LA writing pool, and her short plays have been performed in Los Angeles, New York, and around the country. Her acting credits include appearances on Modern Family, How to Get Away with Murder, Jane the Virgin, Bored to Death, and Lipstick Jungle.
Charles Jensen (he/him) is the author of the poetry collection Nanopedia and six chapbooks of poems. His third collection, Instructions Between Takeoff and Landing, was published by the University of Akron Press in 2022. He received the 2020 OutWrite Nonfiction Chapbook Competition for Cross-Cutting, a diptych of essays that hybridize memoir and film criticism. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs designated him a 2019–2020 Cultural Trailblazer, and he is the recipient of the 2018 Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, the 2007 Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award, and an Artist’s Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Journal, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner, and his essays have appeared in 45th Parallel, American Literary Review, and The Florida Review. He founded the online poetry magazine LOCUSPOINT, which explored creative work on a city-by-city basis. He hosts The Write Process, a podcast in which one writer tells the story of crafting one work from concept to completion, and with Jovonnie Anaya co-hosts You Wanna Be on Top?, an episode-by-episode retrospective of America’s Next Top Model. He lives in Los Angeles and directs the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.
Alejandra Medina is a Latina poet. She is a recipient of a Scholastic Art & Writing Award, and her work has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, WriteGirl’s Lines & Breaks, Unpublished Magazine, and The Incandescent Review, among other places. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
Kylee Webb (she/her) is editor-in-chief of Last Resort Literary Review. She’s a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude with a major in English from ASU and a double minor in Spanish and political science. She’s primarily interested in absurdist, surrealist, and feminist works, and enjoys the films of David Lynch, Ari Aster, Luis Buñuel, and literally any feminist director. Her work has appeared in volume three of Allegory Ridge’s Archipelago fiction anthology, Maudlin House, Tangled Locks Journal, On the Run, and Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, and will be appearing at Drunk Monkeys. You can find her on Twitter @KyleeNikole13.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-exposition-review-vol-vii-flux-launch-reading
Navigating With(out) Instruments: a workshop with traci kato-kiriyama at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us for a Writing Workshop led by traci kato-kiriyama, author of Navigating With(out) Instruments.
How do we navigate through the many layers of our Self while trying to create? How do we write through our constant transformations that include processes of reckoning, relearning, excavation, healing? How do we honor our life experience(s) within the context of Other / the community / the world? Navigating With(out) Instruments is a collection of “poetry, micro essays, and notes to self” authored by multi-disciplinary artist, traci kato-kiriyama.
The NWI workshop will focus on: 1) themes of memory, belonging, “Death Moments” and transformation; and 2) the very real and difficult process behind any soul-baring, creative project – from a single poem to an entire collection of writing. traci will discuss some of her hard-earned process in developing NWI over many years, and offer prompts and exercises (from letters to dialogue to a “Table Of Contents”) to stimulate and support the continuance of your writing and creative journey.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, costs, and event details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Sunday 12th
Time: 12 pm – 4 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291 & Onli
Storybuilding Essentials Writing Workshop at Ripped Bodice Bookstore – In-Person Event at The Ripped Bodice Bookstore
Writing a successful, marketable romance novel involves so much more than getting the love story right! Start your romance writing journey off strong or learn how to revise a work in progress in our Storybuilding Essential course. We’ll analyze the essential building blocks of your romance novel, provide worksheets and lessons to test if your building blocks are fully developed and strong enough, and will explore ways to fix broken stories in this interactive class. If you’re writing a romance and are stuck, bring your questions! New and experienced writers are welcome.
About your instructor: Jeanne De Vita, also known as the Book Genie, has edited hundreds of books for writers of multiple genres over her 10+ year career in publishing, including several New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance and erotica authors who have books on the shelves of The Ripped Bodice! Jeanne is a Developmental Editor and book coach, and has worked as an acquiring editor and managing director of an indie publisher, a freelance editor, and is an author/ bestselling ghostwriter herself. She loves seeing authors’ dreams come true and sharing her experience and passion through teaching at UCLA, The Ripped Bodice, and in many other groups/places.
NOTE: See site for tickets and event details.
Where: Ripped Bodice Bookstore
Date: Sunday 12th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City CA 90232
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Cellar Door Book Club & Transcendent Kingdom at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us for the Cellar Door Book Club to read Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi.
This book is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanian immigrants who are ravaged by depression, addiction and grief, and is a powerful follow-up to the author’s debut novel, Homegoing.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside
Date: Sunday 12th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-book-club-transcendent-kingdom
Annabel Monaghan & Nora Goes Off Script at Diesel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Annabel Monaghan will present and discuss her book: Nora Goes Off Script.
Monaghan’s musings sparked the idea for Nora Goes Off Script, which centers on Nora Hamilton, a recently divorced romance channel screenwriter whose script about her marriage’s collapse offers her a chance to reclaim her life and find love. But finding herself in the kind of romantic comedy she always wrote about will force Nora to reevaluate her expectations for what love really is. Perfect for readers of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Beach Read, Nora Goes Off Script is the best kind of love story—the real kind where love is complicated by work, kids and the emotional baggage that comes with life. For Nora, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore – in the Courtyard
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 225 26th St., #33., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/annabel-monaghan-author-signing
Slow Lightening Lit Event Hosted by Peggy Dobreer at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
Slow Lightening Lit will feature readings by poets Michelle Bitting, Alexis Rhone Fancher, and Petty Chavez, and be hosted by Peggy Dobreer.
There will be a new venue for Distinguished Voices and an Open Reading.
Michelle Bitting is a poet and writer, formerly a line cook, chef, outreach worker and pre-school assistant. in 2001, she returned to creative writing and since then has taught poetry in the U.C.L.A. Extension Writer’s Program, led master classes and lectures at universities, high schools, and literary centers across California and beyond, including dozens of hours at Twin Towers prison, DTLA, and for ten years was an active California Poet in the Schools, reaching over 500 student poets per year. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University, Oregon, an MA in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Depth Psychology, and a PhD in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Michelle is the Poet Laureate of Pacific Palisades and has won multiple grants from the Optimists Club and Poets & Writers Magazine for her teaching work in Los Angeles. A mother of two, she is married to the actor, Phil Abrams. Her numerous books include Nightmares and Miracles.
Alexis Rhone Fancher has been published in more than 200 literary journals and magazines, and her photographs published world-wide. Since 2013 Alexis has been nominated 29 times for the Pushcart Prize, 1 Best Short Fiction award, 1 Best Micro-Fiction award, and 6 Best of the Net awards. She is the host and curator of Second Sunday Poetry Event Series. In 2018 she won The Pangolin Prize for Poetry. She and her husband live and collaborate on the bluffs of San Pedro, CA, twenty-five miles from downtown L.A.
Petty Chavez is a poet and musician.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 6259 West 87th St., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/400040025388018?ref=newsfeed
All We Can Save Project Book Club: Chapter 6 Feel at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us for the All We Can Save Project Book Club to read All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions to the Climate Crisis, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Kathleen K. Wilkinson.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside
Date: Sunday 12th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/all-we-can-save-project-book-club-chapter-6-feel
Julie Clark Book Launch, with Kaira Rouda &The Lies I Tell via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Event
Join us to hear Julie Clark, in conversation with Kaira Rouda, author of Somebody’s Home, discuss her new book, The Lies I Tell.
Born and raised in Santa Monica, California, Julie Clark grew up reading books on the beach while everyone else surfed. After attending college at University of the Pacific, she returned home to Santa Monica to teach. She now lives there with her two young sons and a golden doodle with poor impulse control. Her previous book, The Last Flight, was an instant New York Times bestseller.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/julie-clark-for-the-lies/register
Second Sunday Poetry Series & Open Mic at The Studio Theatre at St Denis Building – In-Person Event
Join host Alex M. Frankel for the Second Sunday Poetry Reading Series and Open Mic event at the Studio Theatre. Today’s featured poets include:
Rolland Vasin (Vachine) is a poet and third-generation American writer. Rolland Vasin (pen name Vachine) is published in the journals Open Minds Quarterly, Gnome, and Found and Lost, was honored as a Newer Poet by the Los Angeles Library Foundation’s Aloud Series and is an active open-mic-reader at venues from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Big Sur, California. He has featured at Los Angeles’ World Stage, The Rapp Saloon, and Cobalt Cafe, among others, and dabbles in improvisational theater and stand-up comedy for which he was recognized as the Laugh Factory’s 1992 3rd Funniest CPA in Los Angeles. As a day job, Rolland’s CPA corporation audits youth and family charities.
Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles; listed on Poets & Writers, founder of POETRY people youth writing workshops; publisher of Spectrum magazine; leader of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California. Mr. Campbell has taught Creative Writing in the Upward Bound program at Occidental College and been a Guest Teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 36 years. Want a poet in your classroom, library, bookstore, coffeehouse, or event? Please email: donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com
NOTE: Masks and vaccinations are required. See Site for details.
Where: Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building (near Universal Studios)
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles, CA 90068
Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/index.html
Cuties Los Angeles Presents: Readings at Sunset, a queer poetry night – In-Person Event
Join host Cuties Los Angeles for Readings at Sunset, a queer poetry night. This is a Black & queer-owned community space providing resources and events, both virtually and in-person, to the LGBTQIA+ community. Based in Los Angeles, CA, Cuties began as a coffee shop and safe space focused on providing queer community and a place to gather that wasn’t centered around alcohol.
After losing the physical space in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuties founder and former owner, Virginia Bauman, transferred ownership to now CEO Sasha Jones, and the organization has continued under her guidance. Cuties’ goal continues to be to provide resources, joy, and healing to queer, trans, and gender non-conforming folks, with special focus and offerings exclusively for our QTBIPOC family.
NOTE: See Site for details, guidelines, and costs.
Where: Private Residence
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 6 pm 8 pm
Address: Douglas St., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Library Girl Presents: A Celebration of Moon Tide Press – In-Person Event
Join Library Girl Reading Series and Susan Hayden to celebrate Moon Tide Press with readings by Editor-in-Chief Eric Moraga and writers Jerry Garcia, Gustavo Hernandez, Aruni Wijesinghe, Donna Hilbert, and Ellen Webre.
Eric Moraga is a poet, writer, and editor-and-chief of Moon Tide Press. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach and is the author of What We Ache For (Moon Tide Press) and Feasting on Sky (Paper Plane Pilots).
Jerry Garcia is a poet, photographer, and filmmaker. He was raised in the corner of East Los Angeles that became Monterey Park in Southern California. Garcia is author most recently of Trumpets in the Sky.
Gustavo Hernandez was born in Jalisco, Mexico and lives in Southern California. He is the author of the collection Flower Grand First and the micro-chapbook Form His Arms.
Aruni Wijesinghe is a project manager, ESL teacher, erstwhile belly dance instructor and occasional sous chef. She lives a quiet life in Orange County with Jeff, Jack and Josie while exploring identity, culture and decolonization. She is the author of 2 Revere Place.
Donna Hilbert is a poet and writer, and the author of Threnody, form Moon Tide Press.
Ellen Webre is a biracial poet and photographer from Southern California who has had the blessing of a well traveled life. She is the author of Burning Lake of Paper Suns.
Where: Ruskin Group Theatre
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3000 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Los Angeles Literature 