NOTE: There Are Both Online and Virtual Events Listed Here
Sara Woster, with Jackie Kashian, & Painting Can Save Your Life at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Sara Woster, in conversation with Jackie Kashian, discuss and sign her book, Painting Can Save Your Life: How and Why We Paint.
Artist and founder of The Painting School Sara Woster invites readers into the vibrant world of painting as a creative practice powerful enough to transform our lives.
Weaving soup-to-nuts instruction on how to paint–from choosing the right materials to painting the human body–with her own story of discovering a passion for painting, this book includes:
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Monday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Book Club Discussion & Infinite Country via Sherman Oaks Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us as we discuss our August selection, Infinite Country, by Patricia Engel, Winner of the 2021 New American Voices Award, Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal, and a National Endowment of the Arts Big Read Selection.
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family.
How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents, Mauro and Elena, fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions that lead to Mauro’s deportation and the family’s splintering—the costs they’ve all been living with ever since.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 22nd
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: LAPL (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/sherman-oaks-book-club-infinite-country
At Skylight: Rasheed Newson & My Government Means to Kill Me at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Rasheed Newson present and discuss his debut novel, My Government Means to Kill Me.
Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, Earl “Trey” Singleton III leaves his overbearing parents and their expectations behind by running away to New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships—all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death.
Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson’s My Government Means to Kill Me is an exhilarating, fast-paced coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning.
Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California with his husband and two children. My Government Means to Kill Me is his debut novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Monday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-rasheed-newson-presents-my-government-means-kill-me
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) (check to verify)
Date: Monday the 22nd
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-399564537287
Phy-Sci Book Club & This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join the Phy-Sci Book Club for a discussion of this month’s selection, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: the Cyberweapons Arms Race, by author, Nicole Perlroth.
This book is the untold story of the cyberweapons market—the most secretive, government-backed market on earth—and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare.
Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy’s arsenal, a zero day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter an election, and shut down the electric grid (just ask Ukraine).
Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers, and a few unsung heroes, written like a thriller and a reference, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing feat of journalism. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, The New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Create Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/phy-sci-book-club-how-they-tell-me-world-ends
The Mic at Micky’s Open Mic, with Moon Tide Press and Hosts Brian Sonia-Wallace & Nate Lovett at Micky’s Nightclub & Bar – In-Person Event
Join The Mic at Micky’s Open Mic and Literary Readings, featuring Moon Tide Press publishers and YOU, and hosted by West Hollywood Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace and Nate Lovett.
This is is a weekly event for creatives to collaborate and write something for the Mic and/or sign up for the Open Mic, limited to 3-5 minutes per person, and offering poems, stories, and music.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Micky’s Nightclub & Bar in West Hollywood
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 8857 Santa Monica, CA 90069
Website: https://www.mickys.com/tc-events/the-mic-at-mickys-aug-23rd/
Poetry of Place Braintrust Workshop with Anne Marie Wells via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
Anne Marie Wells is the author of this Braintrust Generative Writing Workshop, an entry-level class.
Using the poetry of Dorothy Barresi, Juan J. Morales, Liz Howard, and Arhm Choi Wild as guides, in this generative workshop participants will explore elements that impact a poet’s relationship with a place and use those insights to inspire poems centered around locations that are meaningful to them.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/upcoming-events/2022/
Author Talk: The Summer of Christmas, by Juliet & Keith Giglio via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The Palisades Branch Library presents an Author Talk with Juliet & Keith Gigllio, to discuss their debut novel The Summer of Christmas. The book draws on the Giglios’ experience as screenwriters as it tells the story of up-and-coming L.A. screenwriter Ivy Green who is about to have her life turned upside down when she returns to her hometown to film a Christmas movie in July, which is based on the story of her and her high school sweetheart.
Email palsds@lapl.org for the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for link, and details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-summer-christmas
Natasha Sizlo & All Signs Point to Paris: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Destiny at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Natasha Sizlo will present and discuss her book, All Signs Point to Paris: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Destiny.
Divorced, broke, and heartsick, it seems like things can’t get worse for Natasha Sizlo—then she learns her beloved father is dying.
So, when she’s gifted a session with LA’s most sought-after astrologist, Natasha has nothing to lose. She doesn’t believe in astrology, but the reading is eerily, impossibly accurate. As her misgivings give way, Natasha asks about her emotionally unavailable, yet terribly handsome ex-boyfriend, the one she can’t seem to get over.
To Natasha’s surprise, the astrologist tells her he is The One. His birthdate and birthplace—November 2, 1968 in Paris, France—line up with Natasha’s astrological point of destiny. The word husband comes up in the reading.
Natasha feels faint. Was her ex really the big soul love she was destined for?
Then, she has a lightning bolt of an idea: he couldn’t possibly be the only available man born on November 2, 1968 in Paris. Her soulmate is still out there—she just has to find him. (Mariner Books)
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Keith Corbin, with LA Time Editor Daniel Hernandez, & California Soul: An American Epic of Cooking and Survival – In-Person & Virtual Event
Keith Corbin, innovative soul food chef and rising star in the food world and co-owner of Alta Adams, will presents his memoir, California Soul: An American Epic of Cooking and Survival, in conversation with LA Times food editor Daniel Hernandez.
Corbin writes about success, failure, family, and addiction, and how he created his version of California soul food in Los Angeles. “Though he went on to become the chef and face of Alta Adams, a fine-dining restaurant in the city, Corbin reveals his path to success as an ex-felon was far from easy,” says Publisher’s Weekly in a starred review. “Readers shouldn’t miss this.”
NOTE: See site for registration, guidelines, and details. Autographed copies of Corbin’s book are available through Deisel Bookstore
Where: LA Time Book Club at ASU California Center
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1111 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Archways Edition 5 Contributors at Stories Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
Archways Edition 5 contributors will read from this edition, and include: Evan Evans, Naomi Falk, Sam Fishman, Caitlin Forst, Jean Kyoung Frazier, Moira O’Neill and Sarah Sophia Yanni.
Archway’s mission statement is “to publish the finest authors, at all stages of their careers, who write material which is at odds with the prevailing status quo, both legendary and emerging. This series is designed to be a literary compliment to the trailblazing artbooks of powerHouse Books proper, pocket-sized texts that are guaranteed to alter the way you see the world.”
Published or forthcoming titles include Ishmael Reed’s The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed and Alice Notley’s Runes & Chords. The imprint is genre-blind with a goal to publish unconventional books for the widest possible audience.
Archways is the accompanying reading series, which aims to bring that into practice. Works from each event are compiled into anthologies of the same name. This is the fifth iteration and first in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Stories Books & Cafe
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Mimi Slawoff & Oldest Los Angeles at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Mimi Slawoff present and discuss her book, Oldest Los Angeles.
Blending history and some local travel, Oldest Los Angeles takes readers on a journey through the past to the oldest buildings, businesses, and neighborhoods in the City of Angels. The pages open with a walking tour of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, a district that marks the city’s birthplace in 1781 when a group of 44 immigrants formed a farming community. What started as a humble pueblo evolved into a vibrant metropolis that’s home to over 10 million people and 185 languages. Learn about the whimsical Looff Hippodrome on the Santa Monica Pier, why Pink’s Hot Dogs names some menu items after celebrities, and where to find a 250-year-old grapevine (still producing grapes!). Visit the gated Rockhaven women’s sanitarium in a residential neighborhood, and California’s surprising gold discovery in Santa Clarita—also home to a nearly forgotten ghost town. Read touching family stories about the first Mexican restaurant, El Cholo; the oldest confectionary shop, Fugetsu-Do; and why the Palacios were determined to save the oldest children’s bookstore against all odds.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/mimi-slawoff-discusses-oldest-los-angeles
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Angelique Jamail – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Angelique Jamai.
Angleique Jamail is an American author whose poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in over two dozen anthologies and journals, including New Reader Magazine, Waxwing, Time-Slice, Improbable Worlds, Pluck Magazine, The Milk of Female Kindness––An Anthology of Honest Motherhood, Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston, Femmeliterate, Bayou City Magazine, and The Enchantment of the Ordinary. Her short story “Mother” was published in 2019 by Spider Road Press and nominated for Best Small Fictions. Her work was selected as a Finalist for the New Letters Prize in Poetry (2011). Her magic realism novelette Finis. (Odeon Press), first published in 2014, has been praised by fiction writer Ari Marmell as having “some of the most real people I’ve encountered via text in a long time,” and by poet Marie Marshall as “a witty tale of conformity, prejudice, and transformation, in a world that is disturbing as much for its familiarity as for its strangeness.” Her poetry collection The Sharp Edges of Water (Odeon Press) came out in 2018. She teaches Creative Writing and English in Houston and began serving on the Board of Directors for Mutabilis Press in December 2019. Find her online at her blog Sappho’s Torque (www.SapphosTorque.com) and on social media.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
Da Poetry Lounge Tuesday Open Mic at Greenway Court – In Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 24 years strong. It takes place every Tuesday and is open to all ages. Third Tuesdays are SLAM NIGHTS! A slam is a poetry competition.
$10 donation. Do NOT lineup prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theatre.
See sites for details.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre and YouTube Live Stream
Date: Tuesday the 23rd
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/admission
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 23rd
Time: 9 pm – 12 am
Address: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, CA
Website: Facebook or https://dipiazzas.com/tickets-%26-events
Mystery Book Group: The Last Flight, by Julie Clark at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us at the Bookstore’s Mystery Book Club discussion of Julie Clark’s novel, The Last Flight.
Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns bright and he’s not above using his staff to track Claire’s every move.
What he doesn’t know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish. A plan that takes her to the airport, poised to run from it all. But a chance meeting in the airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision.
The two women switch tickets, with Claire taking Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico crashes, Claire realizes it’s no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva’s identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.
Whether you loved it, hated it, or haven’t finished it, they want to see you at their Mystery Book Group at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!
They will be meeting to discuss the book outside of the shop in the circle in front of Star Cafe. You may still email your thoughts to share with their club if you are unable to attend in-person.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, book purchase, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 9 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Avenue, Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-last-flight-julie-clark
Classics Book Club Discussion: Speak, by Laurie Anderson via Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – Online Adult & YA Event
The Classics Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, the powerful YA novel, Speak, by Laurie Anderson.
Please email grnhls@lapl.org for the invitation link
NOTE: See site for link, and details.
Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 1:30 pm – 3 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/classics-book-club-discussion-speak
Beverly Jenkins, with Rebekah Witherspoon, & To Catch a Raven Launch at The Ripped Bodice Bookstore – Online Event
Join us for the launch of To Catch a Raven, by author Beverly Jenkins, who will be in conversation with Rebekah Witherspoon.
The two speakers will discuss the latest in the Women Who Dare series, which features a fearless grifter who goes undercover to reclaim the stolen Declaration of Independence.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online FB Event (see site)
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Altadena Poets Laureate Premiere Event at Altadena Library District – In-Person Event
Come one, come all to the first Poets Laureate program of the season. This in-person event will include readings by the 2022-2024 Co-Laureates Peter J. Harris, Poet Laureate Editor in Chief & Carla R. Sameth, Poet Laureate for Community Events.
There will also be:
— Readings by former Altadena Poets Laureate & founder of the Poets Laureate program
— Programming season schedule announcement
— First call for Altadena Poetry Review submissions
Event will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/altadenalibrary
Peter J. Harris is the author of Bless the Ashes, poetry (Tia Chucha Press), winner of the 2015 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My ‘Unalienable Right,’ a book of personal essays, winner of a 2015 American Book Award. In 2022, FlowerSong Press published Harris’ Safe Arms: 20 Love & Erotic Poems (w/an Ooh Baby Baby moan), with Spanish translations by Francisco Letelier.
Harris is founding director of The Black Man of Happiness Project, a creative, intellectual and artistic exploration of Black men and joy. Harris writes the blog WREAKING HAPPINESS: A Joyful Living Journal.
Carla Sameth is the co-Poet Laureate for Altadena, CA for 2022-2024. Her award-winning memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, was published July 2019 by Black Rose. The book will be reissued in November 2022 by Golden Foothills Press. Her essay, “If This Is So, Why Am I” (which is included in her memoir) was listed as a notable in Best American Essays 2019. “Mother’s Day Triptych” was listed as a notable in Best American Essays 2020.
Her chapbook, What Is Left, was published December 2021 by dancing girl press.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Altadena Library
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 600 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, CA 91001
Belinda Huijuan Tang, with Taneum Bambrick, & A Map for the Missing via Bel Canto Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Bel Canto Books as we welcome Belinda Huijuan Tang, author of the acclaimed debut novel A Map For The Missing, in conversation with poet Taneum Bambrick, author of the forthcoming Intimacies, Received. Reading/discussion followed by book signing.
Belinda Huijuan Tang is a 2021 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow and recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. She holds a BA from Stanford University and was a 2019 work-study fellow at the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She lived in China from 2016 to 2018 and, while there, received an MA from Peking University in Beijing. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
Taneum Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received (Copper Canyon Press, Sept 2022) and Vantage, which was selected by Sharon Olds for the 2019 American Poetry Review/Honickman first book award (APR 2019). Her poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in The Nation, The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, PEN, and elsewhere. A 2020 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she is a Dornsife Fellow in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California, and Co-Book Reviews Editor for Pleiades Magazine.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore at The Hangout
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2122 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://shopthehangout.com/products/bcb-author-event-belinda-huijuan-tang-wed-8-24-6pm
Cecily Wong, with Ilana Masad, & Kaleidoscope via Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Cecily Wong, in conversation with Ilana Masad, discuss her book Kaleidoscope.
From rags to riches, sleepy Oregon to haute New York, they are the biracial Chinese American family that built Kaleidoscope, a glittering, ‘global bohemian’ shopping empire sourcing luxury goods from around the world. Statuesque, design savant, and family pet–eldest daughter Morgan Brighton is most celebrated of all. Yet despite her favored status, both within the family and in the press, nobody loves her more than Riley. Smart and nervy Riley Brighton—whose existence is forever eclipsed by her older sister’s presence. When a catastrophic event dismantles the Brightons’ world, it is Riley who’s left with questions about her family that challenge her memory, identity, and loyalty. She sets off across the globe with an unlikely companion to seek truths about the people she thought she knew best—herself included.
Using the brightly colored, shifting mosaic patterns of a kaleidoscope as its guide, and told in arresting, addictive fragments, Kaleidoscope is at once a reckoning with one family’s flawed American Dream, and an examination of the precious bond between sisters.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/cecily-wong-conversation-ilana-masad-discusses-kaleidoscope
At Skylight: Daniel Nieh, with Jade Chang, & Take No Names at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Daniel Nieh in conversation with Jade Chang (The Wangs vs. the World), will present and discuss his new book, Take No Names.
Victor Li is a man without a past. To his new employer, Mark, he’s just an anonymous hired hand to help with the dirty work. Together, they break into storage units that contain the possessions of the recently deported, pocketing whatever is worth selling. Only Victor and his sister, Jules, know that he’s a wanted man.
Amid the backpacks and suitcases, Victor makes the find of a lifetime: a gem rare and valuable enough to change his fortunes in an instant. But selling it on the sly? Nearly impossible. Thankfully, its former owner, a woman named Song Fei, also left a book of cryptic notes—including the name of a gemstone dealer in Mexico City…
In addition to writing novels, Daniel Nieh also works as a translator. He grew up in Oregon and has lived in China, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Mexico. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-daniel-nieh-presents-take-no-names-jade-chang
Benno Herz, with Michaela Ullmann, & Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Benno Herz, in conversation with Michaela Ullmann, present and discuss his book, Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles: Stories from Exile 1940-1952.
After fleeing Nazi Germany, writer and Nobel Prizewinner Thomas Mann found refuge for himself and his family in the Pacific Palisades, a quiet residential neighborhood in Los Angeles between Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. Mann was one of many European intellectuals who fled to Los Angeles, forming a community known as the “Weimar on the Pacific.”
Thomas Mann’s Los Angeles: Stories from Exile 1940-1952 explores Mann’s connections to the city and the network of intellectuals he found there, including writers such as Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley and musicians such as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. Short texts accompanied by maps, a rich selection of historic images, contemporary photographs and vivid anecdotes guide the reader through this fascinating community. Stories from both scholars, well-known writers such as the New Yorker’s Alex Ross and Lawrence Weschler, produce a captivating read for fans of literature, history, and Los Angeles.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/benno-herz-presents-thomas-manns-los-angeles
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
Date: Wednesday the 24th
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
Date: Wednesday the 24th
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-404725794747
Flight School Open Mic Has Returned! at Playground Hookah Lounge – In-Person Event
Join us for the return of the weekly Flight School Open Mic, offered every Wednesday from 8pm – 12pm.
All arts are welcome: singing, dance, poetry, improv, comedy, music, and we learn to fly together, all balanced by host O. Smith and a full live band and DJ D-Major.
$10 Entry at the door. $8 tickets at Eventbrite.
NOTE: Check site for further details, updates, and information.
Where: Flight School Open Mic at the Playground
Date: Wednesday the 24th
Time: 8 pm – 12 am
Address: 630 N. La Brea Ave., Inglewood, CA 90302
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/flight-school-open-mic-tickets-362732902877?aff=erelpanelorg
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry & Christian Perfas at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Join Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Night for our Reading & Open Mic, featuring Christian Perfas.
The format is to welcome a featured poet for a reading, and an Open Mic reading. Tonight’s featured reader is Christian Perfas.
Christian Perfas is a second generation Filipino-American poet and teaching artist who goes by the moniker, “Soul Stuf.” His catalogue of work covers a wide range of material, from the seemingly mundane to the heart-wrenchingly familiar. Raised with a background in theatre, improv, and hip-hop, he has been honing his poetic craft for the past five years and has been blessed with the opportunity to work with some amazing artistic institutions, such as the Melrose Poetry Bureau, Spoken Literature Art Movement, Asian Creative Network – Los Angeles, Palms Up Academy, Get Lit! Words Ignite, the Poetry Lab, and the Poetry Brothel, among others. His debut collection of poems is set to release later this year in collaboration with the Community Literature Initiative and his publisher, the World Stage Press, alongside his first ever poetry album produced by Fictitious Professor. Christian loves good quality boba and is often distracted by small to medium-sized dogs.
$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 24th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/1233812084059254
LGBTQ Club & Matrix: A Novel at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join the LGTBQ Book Club for a discussion of this month’s selection, Matrix: A Novel, by author, Lauren Groff.
In this historical fiction novel, the author offers a character study to rival Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell, according to USA Today.
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie’s vision be bulwark enough?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Create Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/lgbtq-book-club-matrix
Three Idiots Shouting Poetry Presents: Matthew Wimberly by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry – Online Event
Join Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry for our Three Idiots Shouting Poetry Reading, featuring Matthew Wimberly.
Matthew Wimberly lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His latest collection, Daniel Boone’s Window, was published by LSU Press in 2021. His collection All the Great Territories won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. His poems have appeared in Blackbird, Orion, Poem-A-Day, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.
Zoom Link: https://wested.zoom.us/j/97099098907
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines & information.
Where: Three Idiot Shouting Poetry
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1366095430546623
Pedram Navab, with David Rocklin, & The Claw of the Magnolia at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Pedram Navab, in conversation with David Rocklin, discuss his book, The Claw of the Magnolia.
Against the haunted, Gothic landscape of New England, an elusive manuscript of a renowned Muslim professor, who died under mysterious circumstances, is stolen from a university library’s special collections. The manuscript reveals an irreconcilable metaphysical phenomenon that the professor experienced shortly before her death. Twenty-six years later, this document connects the fates of other individuals, including a homeless drifter, an emergency room resident physician, an aspiring runway model, and a man who is intent on exculpating himself from a heinous crime. A depiction of the ways in which our past problematizes and blurs the manner in which we see, or desire to see, things, The Claw of the Magnolia examines the ways in which we justify desire, trauma, suffering, and killing in order to absolve our troubled ghosts and secrets while continuing to live.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/pedram-navab-conversation-david-rocklin-discusses-claw-magnolia
At Skylight: Jesse Leon, with Dr, Pedro Noguera, & I’m Not Broken: A Memoir at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Jesse Leon, in conversation with Dr. Pedro Noguera, discuss and sign I’m Not Broken: A Memoir.
Born to indigenous working-class Mexican immigrants in San Diego in the 1970s, Jesse Leon’s childhood was violently ruptured. A dangerous and harrowing encounter at a local gift shop when he was eleven years old left Jesse with a deadly secret. Hurt, alone, and scared for his life, Jesse numbed his pain by losing himself in the hyper-masculine culture of the streets and wherever else he could find it—in alcohol, drugs, and prostitution. Overlooked by state-sanctioned institutions and systems intended to help victims of abuse, neglected like many other low-income Latinos, Jesse spiraled into cycles of suicide and substance abuse.
I’m Not Broken is the heartbreaking and remarkable story of the journey Jesse takes to win back his life, leading him to the steps of Harvard University. From being the lone young person of color in Narcotics Anonymous meetings to coming to terms with his own sexual identity, to becoming an engaged mentor for incarcerated youth, Jesse finds the will to live with the love and support of his family, friends, and mentors. Recounting the extraordinary circumstances of his life, Jesse offers a powerful, raw testament to the possibilities of self-transformation and self-acceptance.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-jesse-leon-presents-im-not-broken-dr-pedro-noguera
Bill Lascher & The Golden Fortress at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Bill Lascher discuss his book, The Golden Fortress: California’s Border War on Dust Bowl Refugees.
In February 1936, Los Angeles police officers drove hundreds of miles to California’s state borders with one mission: turn back anyone deemed too poor to enter.
Myths of the Golden State’s abundance enticed thousands of Americans uprooted by the Depression, but those who created those myths saw only invading criminal “hordes” that they believed just one man could stop: James “Two-Gun” Davis, Los Angeles’s authoritarian police chief.
The Golden Fortress tells the story of Davis’s audacious deployment of hand-picked armed police slamming California’s door on America’s Dust Bowl refugees and Depression-displaced migrants. It depicts the sometimes deadly consequences of law enforcement politicized and weaponized against the poor, even in remote places like Modoc County, where a sheriff’s opposition to the blockade inflamed an already smoldering feud between an itinerant newsman and a publisher obsessed with her California heritage.
Davis, blessed by his city’s ruling business class and fueled by his own wild claims of communist conspiracies undermining America, deployed his “Foreign Legion” to California’s state lines, threatening democracy even as the nation’s cities and rural communities juggled the burdens of economic recovery, migrant aid, and public safety.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Sunset Ecos—Poesia del Sol (poetry & sunset) at Stories Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
Sunset Ecos is a new literary platform curated by Mexican-born poets & organizers Iván Salinas & Karla Lamb. Created with the intent to incite conversation, empower, & amplify creative voices in Echo Park & beyond.
Join us for the 2nd installment showcasing a powerhouse lineup of local & regional talent featuring prolific poets:
Jessica Abughattas is an American poet. Her debut poetry collection, Strip, was the winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and was published by University of Arkansas Press. Abughattas is of Palestinian heritage, and was born and raised in California. She has a BFA in Journalism from Pepperdine University where she was Editor-in-Chief of the student paper. She received her MFA from Antioch University and is a member of RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers).
Vanessa Bernice De La Cruz is an emerging writer and artist from Los Angeles, California. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in Puerto del Sol, Carve Magazine, MEAT FOR TEA: The Valley Review and in the anthologies In Isolation and Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century.
Leah Moth is an actor, filmmaker, writer and witch based in Los Angeles, whose purpose in life is the act of creative expression.
Nikolai Garcia is co-host of Trenches Full of Poets literary reading series, and is the author of the chapbook, Nuclear Shadows of Palm Trees.
Oombi Flores N/A
SUNSET ECOS (Spanish for echos) will be MC’d by local bruja Ms. Amanda Rose, with musical guest Cate Selna.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Stories Books & Cafe
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Yuvi Zalkow, with Seth Fischer, & I Only Cry with Emoticons at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Yuvi Zalkow, in conversation with Seth Fischer, to present and discuss his novel, I Only Cry with Emoticons.
I Only Cry with Emoticons is a quirky comedy that reveals the cost of being disconnected—even when we’re using a dozen apps on our devices to communicate—and an awkward man’s search for real connections, on and offline.
Yuvi Zalkow is the author of the novel, I Only Cry with Emoticons (Red Hen, 2022). His stories have been published in Narrative Magazine, Carve Magazine, Rosebud, The LA Review, and others. Yuvi received an MFA from Antioch University. He uses his poor drawing skills to make videos and apps that ooze with his worries and anxiety. To learn too much about him, visit https://yuvizalkow.com
Seth Fischer is currently a Dornsife PhD Fellow at the University of Southern California, and he’s been awarded fellowships and residencies by Ucross, Lambda Literary, Jentel, and Ragdale. Seth’s writing has twice been listed in The Best American Essays and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize by several publications, including Guernica. His publications have appeared in Ninth Letter, The Rumpus, Buzzfeed, Joyland, and elsewhere. He was the founding Sunday Editor at The Rumpus and was nonfiction editor at The Nervous Breakdown.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/18915
Fos–Thursday & FOST Artistic Collective Presents: 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 25th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 665 N. Heliotrope Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.instagram.com/fos_thursdays/
Spectacular Storytime for Children at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Spectacular Storytime is offered every Friday morning at 9:30 am. It is ready to delight and dazzle with troubadour Maddie, it and is geared for children ages 3-6.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 26th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-2
NoHo Online Book Club: Snow, by John Banville via North Hollywood Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for the NoHo Online Book Club to discuss this week‘s selection, Snow, by author John Banville.
Snow is a master class on the art of a mystery novel. It is the story of a family whose secrets resurface when a parish priest is found murdered in their ancestral home.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: North Hollywood Regional Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 26th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/noho-book-club
2nd and 3rd Grade Book Club: Magic Tree House #3 by Mary Pope Osborne at Pages Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Join us for the 2nd and 3rd Grade Book Club for Kids to discuss this month‘s selection, Magic Tree House #3: Mummies in the Morning (Graphic Novel), by author Mary Pope Osborne.
In the pyramid, a real-life mummy is waiting…The magic tree house has whisked Jack and Annie to ancient Egypt. Inside a pyramid, Jack and Annie find a long-dead queen who needs their help solving a centuries-old riddle. If only they can find their way through the pyramid’s maze!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and event details.
Where: Pages Bookstore – in the Courtyard
Date: Friday the 26th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/book/9780593174791
Queer Open Mic Night at Café con Libros Press Pomona – In-Person Event
Liam and Charlie host a fun LGTBQ+ meeting every 4th Friday of the month at Café con Libros Pomona.
Share in a poem (serious, fun, or saucy) or enjoy a fun round of Best Story Wins!
NOTE: See site for link, guidelines, and details.
Where: Café con Libros Press, Pomona
Date: Friday the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona CA 91766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calendar/
At Skylight: Safia Elhillo, with Morgan Parker, & Girls That Neven Die: Poems at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Even
Join us to hear Safia Elhillo, in conversation with Morgan Parker, discuss and sign Girls That Never Die: Poems.
In Girls That Never Die, award-winning poet Safia Elhillo reinvents the epic to explore Muslim girlhood and shame, the dangers of being a woman, and the myriad violences enacted and imagined against women’s bodies. Drawing from her own life and family histories, as well as cultural myths and news stories about honor killings and genital mutilation, she interlaces the everyday traumas of growing up a girl under patriarchy with magical realist imaginings of rebellion, autonomy, and power.
Elhillo writes a new world: women escape their stonings by birds that carry the rocks away; slain girls grow into two, like the hydra of lore, sprouting too numerous to ever be eradicated; circles of women are deemed holy, protected. Ultimately, Girls That Never Die is about wrestling ourselves from the threats of violence that constrain our lives, and instead looking to freedom and questioning:
Sudanese by way of D.C., Safia Elhillo is the author of The January Children and Home Is Not a Country and co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me. Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, the Arab American Book Award, and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, she is also the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from The Poetry Foundation. Her work has appeared in POETRY Magazine, The Atlantic, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, among others, and has been translated into several languages.
Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. Parker’s debut book of nonfiction is forthcoming from One World. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.”
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Friday the 26th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-safia-elhillo-presents-girls-never-die-morgan-parker
NDA Autofiction Reading with Wendy C, Ortiz, Mary Boo Anderson, Jasmine Johnson, Leah Clancy, and Justin Hantz at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories’ autofiction reading series, is inspired by the forthcoming anthology from Archway Editions. This event includes readings from:
Wendy C Ortiz is an American essayist, creative nonfiction writer, fiction writer, psychotherapist, and poet. Ortiz is the author of three books: Excavation: A Memoir, (Future Tense Books, 2014), Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2015), and Bruja (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016).
Mary Boo Anderson, is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her work has been featured in Spy Kids Review, Peach Mag,
Jasmine Johnson is a self-published fantasy author. Jasmine has self-published 6 books since 2019. A lifelong lover of sci-fi and mythology, Jasmine lives for a good story. She aims to write the type of story everyone can find themselves in, despite their race, sexual orientation, or gender. She is the author of Nyx’s Chosen, Getting To Know Me: A Guided Journal, and The Event Horizon: Sins & Virtues Series.
Leah Clancy is a poet living in Los Angeles. She is a cofounding editor of Potluck Mag and the future poet laureate of your heart. She’s been previously published on Ohio Edit, Electric Cereal, FORTH magazine, in Funhouse Magazine & more.
Justin Hantz N/A
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday the 26th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Indie Bookstore Field Trip Series # 7 (Orange County) by Bel Canto Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Bel Canto’s FREE Indie Bookstore Field Trip #7 to two stores in Orange County: Arvida Book Co., in Tustin and LibroMobile in Santa Ana.
What They’ll Do:
Once a month, we’ll host a FREE Saturday morning meetup at 1–2 bookstores in varying neighborhoods around SoCal. We’ll begin with free browsing time and end by circling up outside to introduce ourselves and share about any new books we bought or discovered. In certain months, we may even be given private tours by the bookshop owners, as well!
What to Bring:
A mask and your curiosity.
Field Trip #7: Arvida Book Co in Tustin CA / LibroMobile Bookstore
Time: Meet at 10am at Arvida Book Company (115 W Main St, Tustin, CA 92780; look for the #22in22 sign).
The Plan: We’ll browse, chat, and then pose for a group photo at 11am, before we head to LibroMobile Bookstore (1150 S Bristol St A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704; about 15 min drive), to browse and shop.
Special Bonus:
Did you know there is a challenge to visit twenty-two bookstores in 2022? Read more about the #22in22 challenge and sign up if you’d like to join in the fun.
Your Field Trip Leaders:
Christy Krum Richards is an author and freelance copy editor living in Long Beach, California with her husband and her toddler son (who will likely be making multiple appearances at bookstore field trips throughout the year). Her favorite genres to read are memoir and literary fiction. She also loves a good poem and any story that is set in a fascinating city, or setting
Johanna Belfer is a lifelong book nerd, travel addict, and owner/founder of Bel Canto Books in Long Beach, California, which was featured in Bibliophile: Diverse Spines. Her favorite genres to read are literary fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, and graphic memoir. Two bookstores on her travel bucket list are Loyalty Bookstore in Washington, DC and Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 27th
Time: 10 am – 12 pm
Addresses: Arvida Book Company, 115 W. Mian St., Tustin, CA 92780
LibroMobile, 1150 S. Bristol St., #A3, Santa Ana, CA 93704
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/indie-bookstore-field-trips-7-orange-county-tickets-393464030507
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: All Thirteen, by Christina Soontornval via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids Event
Join us for the Book Club for Middle Grade Readers to discuss this month‘s selection, All Thirteen, a real life adventure by author Christina Soontornval
Please email gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information before Aug 27.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 27th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers
Fourth Saturdays Poetry: Cati Porter & Jonathan Maule at Claremont Helen Renwick Library – In-Person Event
Join us for the Fourth Saturdays Poetry Reading in Claremont with features Cati Porter and Jonathan Maule.
Cati Porter is a poet, essayist, editor, and arts administrator based in Inland Southern California, where she lives with her family. Her latest poetry collection, The Body at a Loss, addresses parenting and cancer and family
Jonathan Maule is a graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop and is the author of This Side of the Fire—winner of the 2020 Hillary Gravendyk Regional Poetry Prize from the Inlandia Institute—and Dog Star (Big Yes Press). His work has also been featured in Askew, Talking River, Rain Taxi, RHINO Reviews!, Spillway, and Phoebe. His solo musical project, Electric Mullet Sound Bath Experience is available to stream and purchase online.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Claremont Helen Renwick Library
Date: Saturday 27th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/401340005420753/
Andrew Dubbins & Into Enemy Waters at Diesel Bookstore, Brentwood – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Andrew Dubbins discuss and sign his book, Into Enemy Waters, which tells the incredible true story of the World War II frogmen who became the Navy SEALs.
Journalist Andrew Dubbins interviewed one of the unit’s last surviving veterans, and detailed his epic odyssey from bullet-swept Omaha Beach, to the black sands of Iwo Jima, to the shark-infested reefs of Okinawa, to the cold waters of Tokyo Bay. The book has received praise from historians, bestselling authors, adventurers, and military commanders, including NYT bestselling author Tom Clavin (Halsey’s Typhoon), former Assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West (The Last Platoon), historians John McManus (Island Infernos) and McKay Jenkins (The Last Ridge).
Andrew Dubbins is an award-winning journalist and author whose work has appeared in Alta, Slate, Los Angeles Magazine, and other publications. He was awarded “Journalist of the Year” in 2021 by the Los Angeles Press Club and has been featured among Longform.org’s “Best Articles” and The Daily Beast’s “Best Reads.” Several of his narrative non-fiction articles have been optioned for film and TV. He studied English and Government at Georgetown University and lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore
Date: Saturday 27th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Andrew-dubbins-Author-signing
Saturday Afternoon Poetry & Print & Internet Publishing Workshop – In-Person & Online Event Via Zoom
Join us at Saturday Afternoon Poetry online for a Print & Internet Publishing Workshop led by Giovanna Lomanto and Tamara Madison, and poets published in Four Feathers Press’ The Poetry Lottery 5 and Tastes of California: Poetry of Food.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry at Rosebud Coffee Patio
Date: Saturday the 27th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 2302 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena CA
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Gina Chen Presents: Violet Made of Thorns at Vroman’s – In-Person Children’s Event
Join us for a children’s event to hear author Gina Chen introduce her children’s book, Violet Made of Thorns.
Violet is a prophet and a liar, influencing the royal court with her cleverly phrased—and not always true—divinations. Honesty is for suckers, like the oh-so- not charming Prince Cyrus, who plans to strip Violet of her official role once he’s crowned at the end of the summer—unless Violet does something about it.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday 27th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/gina-chen-discusses-violet-made-thorns
Historical Fiction Book Club & The Diamond Eye: A Novel via Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join our Historical Fiction Book Club to discuss this month’s selection, The Diamond Eye: A Novel, by Kate Quinn.
The bestselling author of The Rose Code returns with an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history’s deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday 27th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/historical-fiction-book-club-diamond-eye
Film Screening & Panel Discussion of Untelling Tomorrows, Indelible Yesterdays: A Junteenth Commemoration by Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
Join us for a film screening of Untelling Tomorrows, Indelible Yesterdays: A Junteenth Commemoration, followed by a panel discussion with: Hiram Sims, Conney D. Williams, & Jessica D. Gallion.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, $10 cost, and event details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry & The Broad
Date: Saturday the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/events
Burning Issues Book Club & As Long as Grass Grows, by Dina Gilio-Whitaker via Bel Canto Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Bel Canto’s Burning Issues Book Club to discuss this month’s selection, Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s new book, As Long as Grass Grows.
Burning Issues Book Club (BIBC) is an online and local book club that gathers to read and discuss non-fiction works related to climate change, environmental degradation, environmental and social justice.
This book is the story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community’s rich history of activism
Through the unique lens of “Indigenized environmental justice,” Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites, while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle. As Long As Grass Grows gives readers an accessible history of Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 28th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Latinx Book Club & Certain Dark Things: A Novel at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join the Latinx Book Club for a discussion of this month’s selection, Certain Dark Things: A Novel, by author Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive its heavily policed streets when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized.
Atl needs to quickly escape the city, far from the rival narco-vampire clan relentlessly pursuing her. Her plan doesn’t include Domingo, but little by little, Atl finds herself warming up to the scrappy young man and his undeniable charm. As the trail of corpses stretches behind her, local cops and crime bosses both start closing in.
Vampires, humans, cops, and criminals collide in the dark streets of Mexico City. Do Atl and Domingo even stand a chance of making it out alive? Or will the city devour them all?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 28th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Create Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/latinx-book-club-certain-dark-things
Aaron H. Aceves, with Adam Silvera, & This Is Why They Hate Us Launch at The Ripped Bodice Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us for the book launch of This Is Why They Hate Us, by Aaron H. Aceves, in conversation with Adam Silvera to discuss his debut novel.
Enrique “Quique” Luna has one goal this summer—get over his crush on Saleem Kanazi by pursuing his other romantic prospects. Never mind that he’s only out to his best friend, Fabiola. Never mind that he has absolutely zero game. And definitely forget the fact that good and kind and, not to mention, beautiful Saleem is leaving LA for the smmer to meet a girl his parents are trying to set him up with.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 28th
Time: 2 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Kathleen Hale & Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mantal Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls. at Village Well Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Kathleen Hale present and discuss her book, Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mantal Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls.
The Slenderman stabbing—in which two 12-year-old Midwestern girls stabbed a third girl 19 times at a birthday slumber party—made headlines around the world, causing panic among parents already anxious about the dark side of the web. But in her deeply researched and compassionate new book SLENDERMAN: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, author Kathleen Hale goes beyond the sensational elements of the crime to tell a more complex and multidimensional story about childhood mental illness, the punitive and politicized American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the seductive power of the internet’s far corners. Drawing on court transcripts, police reports, individual reporting, and exclusive interviews, Hale reveals for the first time the full story of the 2014 stabbing by Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier. She explores the years leading up to the horrifying attack—including Morgan’s previously undiagnosed early-onset schizophrenia—and the crime’s judicial aftermath, in which the 12-year-olds were prosecuted as adults, and Morgan, in the throes of a full-blown psychosis at this point, was denied treatment, antipsychotic medication, and any human touch. In this account, the salacious narrative about two soulless girls inspired to violence by the internet becomes a truer, broader story about the meaning of justice, accountability, and victimhood and the country’s woeful lack of childhood psychiatric services, told through a heart-wrenching human drama in which all the actors were very, very young. They were just girls.
Kathleen Hale is the author of two young adult novels and one essay collection. She has written for Vanity Fair, the Guardian, Hazlitt, and Vice, among others, and is a writer and producer for Outer Banks on Netflix. She was born in Wisconsin and lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, book purchase, and details.
Where: Village Well Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 28th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/19403
VCP SoCal Poets Presents: Aruni Wijesinghe & Jen Cheng with Jerry Garcia – Online Event
Join the VCP SoCal Poets, hosted by Jerry Garcia, for another afternoon of poetry!
Aruni Wijesinghe is a project manager, ESL teacher, erstwhile belly dance instructor and occasional sous chef; she now, strangely, adds poet to this list. A Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, her poetry has been published both nationally and internationally.
Her debut poetry collection, 2 Revere Place, is a love letter to her family and miraculous childhood in New York, and is available now through Moon Tide Press and elsewhere. You can follow her work at www.aruniwrites.com.
Jen Cheng, a queer lesbian daughter of Chinese immigrants, is a lifelong musician who started teaching piano at age 14 and grew up in music competitions and orchestras in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through her musical journeys, she developed an expansive view of world cultures which led her to study Spanish and French, in addition to her first language of Cantonese Chinese. Born into a life of being a cultural translator, her perspective transcends disciplines and borders.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and event details.
Where: VCP Poets
Date: Sunday the 28th
Time: 3 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Vroman’s Local Author Day: Tashi Powers, Gayla Turner, Kimberly Q. Hubenette at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us for Local Author Day, featuring three local authors and their works:
Tashi Powers presents Vastu Astrology: How to Vibrate the Cosmos, a unique, practical guide on using your everyday location to attract abundance, health, and well-being is destined to become a modern astrology classic. Drawing from both Eastern and Western world traditions including Vedic and Evolutionary Astrology, her original approach also includes secret wisdom from feng shui, Vastu Shastra, geomancy, the ley line system, and sacred compass directions-all presented in a beautifully relatable, visually stunning format.
Gayla Turner presents Don’t You Dare: Uncovering Lost Love.
Don’t You Dare is a compelling story that weaves together a current-day journey of discovery and a true-life love story between two women that took place over a hundred years ago. Newspaper headlines and stories back then didn’t mention LGBTQ people. The LGBTQ community loved and lived in the background of society because it was too dangerous to do otherwise. All were hidden, just like the wedding photos belonging to author Gayla Turner’s grandmother – Ruby. This unforgettable book begins with the discovery of these hidden wedding photos dated June 8, 1915. As these photos unveiled an awe-inspiring secret, Gayla Turner embarked on a seven-year journey to find out more about her grandmother and the woman standing next to her dressed as the groom.
Curiosity led to extensive research that uncovered a love story between Ruby and the mystery woman in the photos. The author also uncovered a secret lesbian social club that was formed in the early 1900s by a local businesswoman. Women from as far away as Chicago traveled by train to the little farm town of Amherst, Wisconsin, to attend her exclusive parties. The local town people thought Cora held private tea and card parties so single young ladies could talk about how to find a husband. Little did they know, finding a man was not a subject of their conversations.
Kimberly Q. Hubenette DDS presents GRID: Once in a Lifetime You Get to Start Over.
What happens when you survive the worst day in your life?
Sophia woke one morning with her home in flames and her life as she knew it, forever changed.
Her soul-mate was gone and all she had left were letters and clues from him urging her to never stop growing, to never forget the lessons that he taught her about living in the wilderness.
An extraordinary story about learning how to live again with the most basic of supplies and a desire to prove to herself that she can survive on her own.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and event details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday 28th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Roar Shack Event with David Rocklin Returns with Poetry Readings at Echo Park Time Travel Mart – In-Person Event
Join us to hear literary readings from poets and writers, hosted by David Rocklin at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart.
We will welcome July’s Live Write winner Cynthia Adam Prochaska, plus our featured readers:
Cheray O’Neal is an award-winning writer/actor/producer, who believes story tells hope beyond trauma. She is an activist in creating poetic theatre and writing workshops.
Kristen Baum DeBeasi is a poet and writer who incorporates poetry in her creative practice. You can find Kristen’s poetry in: Blue Heron Review, Voice of Eve, Contrary Magazine, Menacing Hedge, and The Sunday Times.
Colette Sartor has taught writing for 20 years and currently teaches at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program as well as privately. She also cohosts the Literary Roadhouse Book club podcast. In addition, she is the Executive Director of The CineStory Foundation, a nonprofit mentoring organization that pairs emerging TV writers and screenwriters with entertainment industry professionals as mentors.
Cassandra Lane, author of We Are Bridges: A Memoir. She is the winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and Editor-in-Chief of L.A. Parent Magazine. She previously worked as a newspaper staff reporter and received an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University LA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Echo Park Time Travel Mart
Date: Sunday the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1714 W, Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Los Angeles Literature 