Philosophical Horror Book Club & This Thing Between Us at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Philosophical Horror Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, This Thing Between Us, by author Gus Moreno.
It was Vera’s idea to buy the Itza. The “world’s most advanced smart speaker!” didn’t interest Thiago, but Vera thought it would be a bit of fun for them amidst all the strange occurrences happening in the condo. It made things worse. The cold spots and scratching in the walls were weird enough, but peculiar packages started showing up at the house―who ordered industrial lye? Then there was the eerie music at odd hours, Thiago waking up to Itza projecting light shows in an empty room.
It was funny and strange right up until Vera was killed, and Thiago’s world became unbearable. Pundits and politicians all looking to turn his wife’s death into a symbol for their own agendas. A barrage of texts from her well-meaning friends about letting go and moving on. Waking to the sound of Itza talking softly to someone in the living room . . .
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Books
Date: Monday the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/philosophical-horror-book-club-thing-between-us
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
Date: Monday the 16th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-511887749037
Under the Mic Influence & Open Mic featuring SISTAR OUTSPOKEN – In-Person Event
Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and DJ Kev Jam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites. This will be the first Under the Mic Influence of the year.
Under the Mic Influence and Open Mic bring you poetry & battle rap dynamo @sistar_outspoken to set off 2023 in @lbunified with @djkevjam and yours truly. Vegan soul food from @anotherside0fsoul on deck all evening. BE THERE!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, and details.
Where: LB Unified Bar & Lounge
Date: Monday the 16th
Time: 7:30 pm; Mic at 8 pm
Address: 2222 E. Anaheim, Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/ or https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1821894838189060&set=a.383136428731582
Open Mic: I Have a Dream Event for Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Woodbury University – In-Person Event
Bring a Piece to read that recognizes this day, the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. and his I Have a Dream speech and legacy.
Rev. Dr. Lisa Cooper will lead words of praise and song, honoring the legacy of MLK.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details
Where: Woodbury University, Woody’s Patio
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 7500 N Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, CA 91504
Website: N/A
Adult Nonfiction Book Club & The Body at Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The monthly Adult Nonfiction Book Club hosted by Judy Meadow will discuss this month’s selection, The Body, by Bill Bryson.
In The Body: a Guide for Occupants, author Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general, and you in particular.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details
Where: Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/adult-nonfiction-book-club
Mysterious Book Club & The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The monthly Mysterious Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley, the first book in the Flavia de Luce series.
Flavia de Luce, a young, aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mysterious-book-club-6
Lisa Lin Virtual Event & The Year of Cecily at The Ripped Bodice – Online Event
Lisa Lin will celebrate her debut rom-com, The Year of Cecily, in this virtual event. She will be in conversation with a panel of amazing authors: moderator Jackie Lua, Jayci Lee, and Thien-Kim Lami. to chat about all things contemporary romance!
San Francisco attorney Cecily Chang is ready to tackle the New Year head on, so she creates a list of resolutions guaranteed to reboot her life—right after her dutiful visit home to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for the Lunar New Year. Cecily prepares to face her critical, meddling mother, nosy relatives, and the chaos and drama family togetherness brings. At least the food will be delicious. This holiday, Cecily vows to remain calm—as long as she doesn’t see him.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Third Tuesday Book Club & Rebel Queen at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The monthly Third Tuesday Book Club will read and discuss this month’s selection, Rebel Queen, by Michelle Moran.
From the internationally bestselling author of Nefertiti and Cleopatra’s Daughter comes the breathtaking story of Queen Lakshmi—India’s Joan of Arc—who against all odds defied the mighty British invasion to defend her beloved kingdom.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details
Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/3rd-tuesday-book-club
Classic Detectives Book Club & The Cask at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Classic Detectives Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Cask, by Freeman Wills Crofts.
From the Collins Crime Club archive, the seminal first novel by Freeman Wills Crofts, once dubbed ‘The King of Detective Story Writers’ and recognized as one of the ‘big four’ Golden Age crime authors.
The unloading of a consignment of French wine from the steamship Bullfinch is interrupted by a gruesome discovery in a broken cask leaking sawdust and gold sovereigns. But when the shipping clerk returns with the police, the cask and its macabre contents have gone. Following the clues to Paris, Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard enlists the help of the genial French detective M. Lefarge to check motives and alibis in their hunt for evidence of a particularly fiendish murder.
Freeman Wills Crofts was born in Dublin in 1879, the son of a doctor in the British army, who died before he was born. He was raised in Northern Ireland and became a civil engineer. His first book, The Cask, was published in the summer of 1920, immediately establishing him as a new master of detective fiction. Scrupulously planting clues for the reader to find, he was continually praised for his flawless plotting. Crofts was a founder member of the Detection Club and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1939. He created the popular detective, Inspector French, and died in 1957 with more than 30 ingenious books to his name.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Books
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/classic-detectives-book-club-cask
Matt Witten & Killer Story at Diesel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Matt Witten will discuss his new novel, Killer Story, about how far someone will go to catch a killer and make her podcast a hit.
Young journalist Petra Kovach launches a true-crime podcast to investigate the murder of an alt-right YouTuber she loved like a little sister, despite their political differences. Petra’s passionate quest for justice rockets her to the top of the podcasting charts, but her just-barely-legal tactics backfire and she loses everything: her job, her love, and her reputation. Now she must fight to get her life back – and catch the killer.
Matt Witten is a TV writer, novelist, playwright and screenwriter who has written for many TV shows including House, Pretty Little Liars, Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Medium, JAG, Homicide, and Judging Amy. His thriller novel The Necklace came out from Oceanview Publishing last year, and it has been optioned for film by Leonardo DiCaprio. Matt wrote four mystery novels that were published by Signet, and he’s been nominated for two Edgars and an Emmy. Killer Story is his latest novel. Currently he is writing a pilot for NBC called 51% and a Hallmark Mystery Movie.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., #33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Matt-Witten-january-17-Author-signing
Alison Clay-Duboff & Living with Veracity; Dying with Dignity at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Alison Clay-Duboff will discuss her new book, Living with Veracity; Dying with Dignity.
The author is a South Bay local who shares her experience with navigating her husband’s personal choice. After being diagnosed with a terminal illness and facing impending death, her husband chose his own exit with the aid of Death With Dignity or Medical Aid in Dying.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: {pages} a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA, 90266
Village Well Book Club & The Netanyahus at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well’s monthly Book Club will discuss The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen.
Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959–1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B., Culver City, CA, 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/22630
David Jacks & Peter Asher A Life in Music at Book Soup – In-Person Event
David Jacks will present and discuss his book, Peter Asher: A Life in Music.
Spanning more than fifty years of modern music history, Peter Asher: A Life in Music highlights every turn in Peter Asher’s amazing career. Over a dozen years of research has gone into telling his story, with numerous interviews conducted with Asher, along with first-hand observations of him at work in various recording studios around Los Angeles. The author also had access to Asher’s archives, which offered rare photographs and other career memorabilia to help illustrate this biography. Over one hundred artists, friends, and colleagues agreed to be interviewed, and they help to provide insight into Asher’s personality and working methodology. Included are singers Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Marianne Faithfull, Carole King, Kenny Loggins, Graham Nash, Aaron Neville, Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, JD Souther, and James Taylor; producers Lou Adler, Mike Curb, Richard Perry, Al Schmitt, and Sir George Martin; musicians Hal Blaine, Andrew Gold, Danny Kortchmar, Paul Shaffer, and Waddy Wachtel; and actors Kevin Kline and Robin Williams. Many of these participants also provided previously unseen photographs.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/david-jacks
Aubrey Gordon, with Evette Dionne, & You Just Need to Lose Weight at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Aubrey Gordon, in conversation with Evette Dionne, will present and discuss her novel, You Just Need to Lose Weight: and 19 Other Myths About Fat People.
In this book, Aubrey Gordon equips readers with the facts and figures to reframe myths about fatness, in order to dismantle the anti-fat bias ingrained in how we think about and treat fat people. Bringing her dozen years of community organizing and training to bear, Gordon shares the rhetorical approaches she and other organizers employ to not only counter these pernicious myths, but to dismantle the anti-fat bias that so often underpin them.
As conversations about fat acceptance and fat justice continue to grow, You Just Need to Lose Weight will be essential to ensure that those conversations are informed, effective, and grounded in both research and history.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/vromans-live-presents-aubrey-gordon
Does Democracy Need Poets? Spoken Word Event at ASU California Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Does Democracy need Poets? Is a special Zocalo/Da Poetry Lounge Spoken Word performance event at ASU California Center, and this event is meant to sway opinion and inspire action.
Join Zócalo as spoken word poets take the mic (and the Zócalo stage) at the ASU California Center, moderated by Alyesha Wise, Poet, Teaching Artist, and Co-Founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. The night will begin with Beau Sia performing “We Voting,” and Sekou Andrews and Steve Connell performing “Water Stained Black,” followed by a conversation with the poets about the ways artists engage with politics, and fuel democracy.
Steve Connell Steven Gerard Connell is an American actor, playwright, poet and spoken word artist.
Sekou Andrews is an American actor, writer, producer, and innovator of “Poetic Voice”. Sekou Andrews has been performing spoken word poetry professionally since 2002. In that time, he has won two National Poetry Slams, two Independent Music Awards, and six CLIO Awards. In 2019, Sekou became the first spoken word poet in over 12 years to be nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Beau Sia is an American slam poet. His style is humorous and satirical. His word choice is often deceptively simple. His cultural identity became a common theme in his poems.
This event is free and open to the public in person and online. Zócalo invites the in-person audience to continue the conversation with speakers and each other at a post-event reception with complimentary drinks and small bites.
Alyesha Wise, aka “Ms. Wise” is a poet, teaching artist and co-founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. From Camden, N.J., Alyesha currently resides in Los Angeles where she also serves as a teaching artist for Street Poets, Inc.
Where: ASU California Center
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1111 S. Broadway, Belmont Shore, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Website: https://www.blackculturalevents.com/city/los-angeles-so-cal/event/does-democracy-need-poets-spoken-word/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=does-democracy-need-poets-spoken-word or https://events.kcrw.com/events/a-special-zocalo-da-poetry-lounge-spoken-word-performance-does-democracy-need-poets/
SOM Tuesdays Open Mic at Murphy’s Pub, Long Beach – In-Person Event
SOM Open Mic Tuesdays at Murphy’s Pub takes place in a casual setting in Long Beach. Come and share music, comedy, and poetry with SOM in its new venue!
Featured guest: TBA.
Sign-ups at 6:30 pm.
Where: Murphy’s Pub
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 10 am
Address: 4918 2nd St., Belmont Shore, Long Beach, CA 90803
Website: https://www.facebook.com/somopenmic/
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Nick Paleologos via Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Nick Paleologos.
Nick Paleologos is a poet, spoken-word artist, host, and cosplayer who lives in New Jersey. Since 2020 he has performed online and in-person open mics including the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was featured at the NYC Poetry Festival in 2021 and 2022. He hosts a bi-weekly open-mic and workshop called Write to the Mic with The Word is Write. He also has facilitated workshops with ¡OYE! Group, Tumblewords Project and Phynnecabulary. He has worked on and contributed to three anthologies: Quaranzine, I Can’t Breathe, & Love Letters to Gaia. His first book Ad Versus Reaction is available for purchase through Read or Green Books. Follow Nick on FB: Nick Paleologos Instagram @therealnickp.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show – In-Person Event
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show is offered every week at the Unurban Coffee House. Hosted by DeForest Wright, all are invited to attend.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday the 17th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1699147113818899
Da Poetry Lounge Tuesday Open Mic at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up 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 17th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/admission
Coffee Time Book Club & Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
The Coffee Time Book Clubwill discuss this month’s selection, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow: A Novel, by Gabrielle Zevin.
Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 10 am
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA, 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-13
Book Club: The Nightingale at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The Granada Hills Branch Library Book Club will read and discuss The Nightingale: A Novel, by Kristen Hannah.
As a #1 New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, and soon to be a major motion picture, this unforgettable novel of love and strength in the face of war has enthralled a generation.
France, 1939 – In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France … but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, LINK, and details.
Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 1:30 pm – 3 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-nightingale
Write Your Novel Event at Platt Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Platt Branch Library invites you to write your novel at their library.
Is writing one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2023? Is completing a book on your bucket list? Whether you shouted an emphatic yes or mumbled a hushed maybe to either of those questions, our new novel writing support group is for you. This new group will be a place to learn, practice, and receive support from other writers. We will use LinkedIn Learning courses available on lapl.org to guide us through the novel writing process one step at a time. With weekly goals and the encouragement of your peers, you can spend the year working your way toward a completed novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Platt Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 3:30 pm
Address: 23600 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/write-your-novel
Good Trouble Reading Group: Haiku & Tanka by Contemporary Japanese Women Poets at Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join Dr. Andrea Liss via Zoom to read and discuss a selection of haiku and tanka by contemporary Japanese women poets, from the anthology A Long Rainy Season.
Email eden@lapl.org for the Zoom link and poetry selection.
The Good Trouble Reading Group shares books that engage themes of social justice with love and family at their core. Dr. Andrea Liss, an Echo Park resident, is Professor Emerita of Visual Culture and Cultural Theory at California State University San Marcos. Her teaching and research focus on feminist visual culture and writing, visual art and photography related to historical events and representations of social justice particularly through the work of African American women.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Middle Grade Book Club & Freestyle at pages: a bookstore – In-Person MG Event
The Middle Grade Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Freestyle: A Graphic Novel, by Gale Galligan, who will appear via Zoom for the discussion!
This fun, high-energy graphic novel is about friendship, family, and the last hurrahs of middle school.
Cory’s dance crew is getting ready for a major competition. It’s the last one before they graduate eighth grade and go their separate ways to high schools all over New York City, so they have to make it count! The group starts to have problems as their crew captain gets increasingly intense about nailing the routine, and things go from bad to worse when Cory’s parents ground him for not taking his grades seriously. He gets stuck with a new tutor, Sunna, who he dismisses as a boring nerd…until he catches her secretly practicing cool yo-yo tricks. Cory wants to learn the art of yo-yo, and as his friendship with Sunna grows, he ends up missing practice and bailing on his crew—and they are not happy about it. With mounting pressure coming from all sides, how is Cory supposed to balance the expectations of his parents, school, dance, and his new friend?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA, 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/cartoonist-gale-galligan
Central American Diaspora Reading: Cynthia Guardado, with Guest Poets & Cenizas at Exposition Park Regional Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Cynthia Guardado, a Salvadoran American poet and professor, will read from her newest book of poetry, Cenizas, and be supported by other poets of Central America.
Cenizas offers an arresting portrait of a Salvadoran family whose lives have been shaped by the upheavals of global politics. Guardado’s poems give voice to the grief of family trauma, while capturing moments of beauty and tenderness.
Copies of Cenizas will be available to purchase from the author.
About the Author:
Cynthia Guardado is a Los Angeles–born Salvadoran poet and professor. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Cenizas and Endeavor. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, U.S. Latinx Voices in Poetry, and The Wandering Song. Guardado won the Concurso Binacional De Poesía Pellicer-Frost in 2017, and Cenizas was a finalist for the National Poetry Series in 2019.
About the Guest Poets:
William Archila is Born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, poet William Archila immigrated to the United States in 1980 to escape his native country’s civil war. He is the author of the poetry collections The Art of Exile (2009), which won the Emerging Writer Fellowship Award from the Writer’s Center as well as the International Latino Book Award, and The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (2015), which won the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. His poetry is also featured in anthologies including Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (2001), Kalina: Theatre Under My Skin, Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry (2014), and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States (2017).
Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A womyn of color of Mexican and Salvadorean descent. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She is the author of Codeswitch: Fires From Mi Corazón and Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent.
Janel Pineda is a Los-Angeles born Salvadoran poet and educator. She has performed her poetry internationally in both English and Spanish and been published in LitHub, PANK, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the U.S., among other publications.
harold terezón is an educator and poet from Pacoima, CA. He was awarded the 2013 James D. Phelan Literary Award by San Francisco Foundation. His work has appeared in Texas Poetry Review, POECOLOGY, Puerto del Sol, PALABRA, and Rushing Waters Rising Dreams: How the Arts Are Transforming a Community, among other publications. As a member of WritersCorps, he teaches creative writing to elementary and middle school students in San Francisco. He is currently working on Hunting Izotes, a poetry collection inspired his family’s immigrant experience in Pacoima, CA and by Pacoima native Ritchie Valens.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Exposition Park – Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 3900 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90062
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/central-american-poetry or https://www.facebook.com/reel/1114776605895355/?s=single_unit
Book Club for Adults & The Lincoln Highway at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Book Club for Adults will read and discuss The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles.
“Set in the 1950s, The Lincoln Highway is filled with nostalgia as well as the gentle naïveté and hijinks of those who are young, optimistic, and on a mission. The story follows four boys who set out to travel the country in search of a fresh start: Emmett and Billy want to find their mother who left them when they were young, and Duchess and Woolly are on the hunt for a stashed wad of cash. Sometimes their dreams are aligned but often they are not. In other words, adventure ensues: There’s train hopping and car stealing, and with that comes the inevitability of trouble sparked from both good and bad intentions. Each of these young men is chasing his dreams, but their pasts—whether violent or sad—are never far behind. A remarkable work of storytelling that is a 2021 favorite. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor Review “
Please email studio@lapl.org for details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults
At Skylight: Sarah Levy, with Coco Mellors, & Drinking Games at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Sarah Levy, in conversation with Coco Mellors, will discuss her book, Drinking Games: a Memoir.
Part memoir and part social critique, Drinking Games is about how one woman drank and lived— and how, for her, the last drink was just the beginning.
On paper, Sarah Levy’s life was on track. She was 28, living in New York City, working a great job, and socializing every weekend. But Sarah had a secret: her relationship with alcohol was becoming toxic. And only she could save herself.
Drinking Games explores the role alcohol has in our formative years, and what it means to opt out of a culture completely enmeshed in drinking. It’s an examination of what our short-term choices about alcohol do to our long-term selves and how they challenge our ability to be vulnerable enough to discover what we really want in life.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 7 pm
Address:1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-sarah-levy-presents-drinking-games-coco-mellors
Book Launch: Erin Taylor, with Aiden Arata, Ivanna Baranova and more, & Bimboland at Stories Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
Erin Taylor, in conversation with Aiden Arata, Ivanna Baranova and more, will discuss her debut poetry collection, Bimboland.
The L.Á. launch of this astonishing debut poetry collection, about wrestling with desire, vulnerability, sex work and money, is from writer and poet Erin Taylor.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Deb Perelman, with Alyse Whitney, & Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classic for Your Forever Files: A Cookbook at Vroman’s – In-Person Event- SOLD OUT
Deb Perelman, in conversation with Alyse Whitney, will present and discuss Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classic for Your Forever Files: A Cookbook.
This event is currently SOLD OUT.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s off-site at Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 585 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
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.
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Featured readers: Anastasia Fenald, Benin Lemus, Lynda LaRose, Jeff Rogers, Ron Dowell, karo ska, Shane Murray, and more…
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — 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 18th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/events.html
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at 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: Beyond Baroque
Date: Wednesday the 18th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-514038893167
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry & Brendan Constantine 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 Brendan Constantine.
Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry and his work has appeared in many standards, including Poetry, The Nation, Best American Poetry, Tin House, Ploughshares, and Poem-a-Day. New work can be found in the Washington Square Review, Sepia Quarterly, Rosebud, and the Poetry Review UK. A popular performer, Brendan has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, TED ED, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. He currently teaches at the Windward School and, since 2017, has been working with speech pathologists across the country to develop poetry workshops for people with Aphasia and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI).
Please visit www.brendanconstantine.com.
The format is to welcome a featured poet for an individual reading, as well as an Open Mic reading.
$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 18th
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/1643165109418583
Pasadena Rose Poets Reading & A Not So Perfect Storm at Cellar Door Books – PPL Online Event
Pasadena Rose Poets Teresa Mei Chuc, Damian, Kate Gale, Hazel Clayton Harrison, Gerda Govine Ituarte, Shahé Mankerian, Toni Mosley, Carla Sameth and Annette Wong present their second book, Not So Perfect Storm.
To celebrate their 6th anniversary in July 2022, the Pasadena Rose Poets introduced their second book, Not So Perfect Storm, edited by Gerda Govine Ituarte and published by Shabda Press in September 2022.
“This journey was shaped by unchartered terrain which caused us to keep adjusting and reinventing, laced with a litany of surprising challenges, chaos, and change. Our survival leans in as we look into a translucent future.”
Presented in Zoom format online.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Pasadena Public Library
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Address: Zoom
Website: https://www.cityofpasadena.net/library/calendar/
Mystery Club & Your House Will Pay: A Novel at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Mystery Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Your House Will Pay, by author Steph Cha.
Take the powder keg of race relations from the 90s through now, settle it into the distinct geography and humanity of LA, and infuse it into two families affected by the fear and anger that’s impossible to avoid, and you have Your House Will Pay. Grace works hard at her family’s pharmacy and doesn’t understand why her sister is estranged, but when violence strikes, long buried secrets are revealed and Grace must try to piece together who she really is. Shawn’s family, broken by his sister’s murder and the murderer’s lack of punishment, have each dealt with the tragedy in their own ways, but when they are again drawn into the country’s racial fault lines, the epicenter shifts, and Shawn is forced to reexamine his choices. Brilliant and as tense as the relationships it explores, this book should be read and discussed by any who want to understand the human tragedies of our volatile race relations. – Staff Review by Linda
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Books
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-your-house-will-pay
Clarence Lusane & Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy at Vroman’s – Online Crowdcast Event
Clarence Lusane will present and discuss Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy.
The author’s premise is that racist historical narratives and pervasive social inequities are inextricably linked—changing one can transform the other. Taking up the debate over the future of the twenty-dollar bill, Lusane uses the question of Harriet Tubman vs. Andrew Jackson as a lens through which to view the current state of our nation’s ongoing reckoning with the legacies of slavery and foundational white supremacy. He places the struggle to confront unjust social conditions in direct connection with the push to transform our public symbols, making it plain that any choice of whose life deserves to be remembered and honored is a direct reflection of whose basic rights are deemed worthy of protection, and whose are not.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 585 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Arts & Letters: An Evening With Best American Mystery & Suspense Writers at UCR Palm Desert – In-Person Event
Arts & Letters is a free literary series that invites the community to spend time with today’s most influential authors. Join us in welcoming Steph Cha, Alex Espinoza, and Tod Goldberg in person, with Juliet Grames joining via Zoom, all authors celebrated in this year’s collection of Best American Mystery & Suspense Writers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: UCR Palm Desert
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 75080 Frank Sinatra Dr., Palm Desert, CA 92211
Website: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ejij31e42635b9c3&llr=tv4lakcab
Montana Avenue Branch Book Club Discussion of The Overstory at Montana Branch Library, SMPL – In-Person Event
The Montana Branch Book Club will hold a discussion of The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers.
This 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction is about 9 people whose stories come together because of trees, amid the consequences of deforestation.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Montana Branch Library, SMPL
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 1704 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90403
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20January%202023.pdf
West Los Angeles Book Club Discussion of The Authenticity Project at West Los Angeles Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
The West Los Angeles Book Club will hold a discussion of The Authenticity Project: A Novel, by Clare Pooley.
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren’t really honest with one another. But what if they were? And so he writes—in a plain, green journal—the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It’s run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves—and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica’s Café.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: West Los Angeles Regional Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 6:25 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-library-book-club-1
Cappy Rothman & God of Sperm at DIESEL, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Cappy Rothman will present and discuss God of Sperm.
God of Sperm tells the remarkable story of Dr. Cappy Miles Rothman, the son of notorious gangster Norman “Roughhouse” Rothman, who went on to become a trailblazer in the field of reproductive medicine.
Rothman started the California Cryobank, one of the world’s largest repositories of reproductive genetic material and cord-blood stem cells. Among other achievements, Rothman also pioneered the use of microsurgery in urological procedures, postmortem sperm retrieval techniques, and was one of the first practitioners of andrology, a specialty dealing with male reproductive biology and medicine.
How Cappy Rothman went from Mafia scion and man-about-town during the postwar Miami Beach—Havana era of gangster chic to one of the most consequential figures in modern medicine is an epic, only-in-America tale that is also a fine reminder of the broad horizons and wild possibilities life in the U.S. can offer.
Joe Donnelly is an award-winning journalist, writer, and editor. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Journalism at Whittier College and the editor of Red Canary Magazine.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: DISEAL, A Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Joe-Donnelly-Cappy-Rothman-Author-signing
Playa Vista Women’s Book Club & A Quiet Life at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
The Playa Vista Women’s Book Club will read this month’s selection, A Quiet Life, by Ethan Joella.
This book, from the author of A Little Hope, is an enormously powerful and life-affirming novel about three individuals whose lives intersect in unforeseen ways.
Set in a close-knit Pennsylvania suburb in the grip of winter, A Quiet Life follows three people grappling with loss and finding a tender wisdom in their grief.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CnVsMBTL-gR/?hl=en
Lo Bosworth & Love Yourself Well at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Lo Bosworth will present and discuss her book, Love Yourself Well.
This book is inspired by Lo’s personal journey to health, and the setbacks she encountered along the way. As she would come to find, the issues she was experiencing were common—but sadly invisible in conversations about public health. In detailing her own personal journey to better health and empowerment, Lo passes along the lessons she learned in the pursuit of body harmony. Alongside a panel of medical experts, Lo demystifies the science behind the gut-brain-vagina axis, showing how—with frankness and humor—she has become the go-to expert for millennials on sexual health and overall wellness.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/lo-bosworth
Book Launch: Linda Ravenswood & Cantadoro at Stories Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
Celebrating V7 // the sacred and Linda Ravenswood’s book Cantadora, with readings from Linda Ravenswood, Ben Simmonds, Christina Cha, Jessie Lian, Bayley Sprowl, Henry Cherry, Bernadette McComish, Nai Porter, Aubrey Yarborough, Erin Jourda Berrios, and Anna Talhami.
Linda Ravenswood is a poet, and performance artist from Los Angeles. She is the founder and editor in chief of The Los Angeles Press, a publishing house in California created under the umbrella of The Los Angeles Review of Books and USC. With Sandy Rodriguez, Linda is a member of Project 1521, a group of “artists, writers and scholars” examining the repercussions of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in it’s 500th anniversary year of 2021.
Bayley Sprowl N/A
Nai Porter N/A
Aubrey Yarborough N/A
Erin Jourda Berrios N/A
Ben Simmonds is an actor, presenter,. radio DJ, comic, writer, director, musician and impro player.
Christina Cha writes short fiction and some fictionalized memoir.
Jessie Lian is an ux designer & poet. Whether she’s drawing up digital spaces or mingling with words on a page, she is often playing inside the unknown, because Lian believes this is where the miraculous is born, and where meaning–that slippery but necessary thing–begins to take shape…until it can be held in our hands.
Henry Cherry is a Los Angeles based writer and photographer with over a 15 years of journalistic experience, including stints with PBS and LA Weekly. His professional work has been featured on BBC, Vice Magazine, Gambit Weekly, Offbeat, and Los Angeles Times, as well as the long gone but not forgotten Slake Magazine. His photographs are collected both privately and by the Los Angeles Public Library and the Claremont Colleges Special Collections.
Bernadette McComish holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence, and an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from Hunter. She writes poems that explore parallel realms where fortunetellers work as cashiers, and ghosts ride subways underwater singing Shakespeare. Her poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Deluge, Flapperhouse, Hospital Drive, Slipstream, Storyscape, Flypaper Magazine, Peregrine, and she was a finalist for the New Millennium Writers 41st poetry prize. Her chapbook The Book of Johns, was published in 2018 by Dancing Girls Press. She teaches High School in Los Angeles, and performs and produces for The Poetry Society of New York making poetry accessible to everyone.
Anna Talhami works at the intersection of spirituality, sacred words, and human rights. She is a writer, poet, filmmaker, creative director and interdisciplinary artist, creating meaningful and inspiring content.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
At Skylight: Ana Reyes & The House in the Pines: A Novel at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Ana Reyes will discuss her book, The House in the Pines: A Novel.
Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
Ana Reyes has an MFA from Louisiana State University. Her work has appeared in Bodega, Pear Noir!, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles where she teaches creative writing to older adults at Santa Monica College. The House in the Pines is her first novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address:1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-ana-reyes-presents-house-pines
Vision Verse: A Virtual Generative Poetry Workshop with Ravina – Online Event
VISION VERSE | Generative Poetry Workshop – inspired by Vision Boarding, is a 1.5 hour virtual all levels creative writing workshop centering purpose, vision and self – love.
New year, same pen! VISION VERSE is an all-levels creative writing & poetry workshop, focused on creating a poem / prose piece that mirrors a vision board. In this workshop we confront the vital questions: What’s renewing your spirit? Guiding your heart? What’s that silly, sassy, or gentle, loving voice yearning to be heard leading you into your best year yet? Through a guided set of inspiring & thought-provoking writing prompts, blooming in a garden of community, participants will walk away with a new or renewed piece, that mirrors their vision for themselves for he 2023 year. Facilitated by RAVINA, spoken word poet, mental health therapist, educator and award winning published author.
FREE with proof of previous purchase of YELLOW: a collection of poetry and prose, by Ravina Wadhwani
Signed copies available (limited supply): $20 email: info@ravinacreative.com
NOTE: See site for RSVP, costs, and details.
Where: Vision Verse
Date: Thursday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Spectacular Story Time at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
The Spectacular Story Time event is ready to delight and dazzle with enthusiastic troubadour, Maddi! Geared for ages 3 – 6.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-15
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club & Kate the Chemist: Dragons vs. Unicorns at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
The 2nd & 3rd Grade Book Clubwill discuss this month’s selection, Kate the Chemist: Dragons vs. Unicorns, by Kate Biberdorf.
Kate the Chemist is a ten-year-old science problem solver. There’s no problem Kate can’t fix! When her best friend, Birdie, is cast as the lead unicorn in their school’s musical Dragons vs. Unicorns, and Kate is chosen to be the assistant director, they agree this is going to be the best musical EVER! Kate is a natural assistant director; like all good scientists, she’s smart and organized, but she also comes up with great ideas. But when everything starts going wrong with the musical and Kate realizes someone is sabotaging the show, will her special science sleuthing skills help save the day—and the show?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA, 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2nd3rd-grade-book-club-1
Max Evans & Escape to Butterfly Ave. at Page Against the Machine (PATM) – In-Person Event
Max Evans will read and sign his debut novel, Escape to Butterfly Ave.: A Hip Hop Novel.
Weaving a deft mix of Hip-Hop influences with a celebration of the spirit of fatherhood, this novel is a coming-of-age dramedy about a skateboarder-turned-father who strives to maintain a bond with his teething daughter as he brawls with his drug-dealing neighbor and engages in a fish fry showdown with his baby’s momma’s momma, all set against the additional challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Max Evans is a life-long resident of Long Beach where he earned his MFA from CSULB. His award-winning writing has been featured in various literary magazines and anthologies, and he has been featured on numerous podcasts and radio interviews. He is also the author of 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦‘𝘴 𝘗𝘰𝘱𝘴?, a collection of fatherhood-themed short stories.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
The Post Up Open Mic: Featuring Brian Dunlap & Juan Amador, with host Brenda Vaca, at Uptown Plants in Whittier – In-Person and IG Online Hybrid Event
The Post Up is a monthly open mic founded and hosted by Brenda Vaca, originally as a virtual open mic. In August of 2022, the open mic found a residency and became a hybrid open mic, offered via IG and in-person.
Featured guest poet Brian Dunlap is a poet, writer, and author of the chapbook Concrete Paradise, and curator of the blogsite losangeleslterature.wordpress.com. Dunlap is the winner of the 2018 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize from december magazine judged by former Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. His poems, book reviews and essays have been published in Angel City Review, CCM-Entropy, California Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, Lit Hub, and Dryland, among others.
Juan Amador N/A
The Post Up is an open mic founded and hosted by Brenda Vaca, author of Riot of Roses and founder and publisher of Riot of Roses Press.
Date: Friday the 20th (Every third Friday of the month)
Time: 7 pm
Where: Uptown Plants by Casa Verde LA
Address: 12909 Philadelphia St, Whittier, CA 90601
Website: Instagram– Online Event
At Skylight: Allie Rowbottom, with Alissa Nutting, & Aesthetica: A Novel at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Allie Rowbottom, in conversation with Alissa Nutting, will discuss her book, Aesthetica: A Novel.
In a debut novel as radiant as it is caustic, a former influencer confronts her past—and Propulsive, dark, and moving, Aesthetica is a Veronica for the age of “Instagram face,” delivering a fresh, nuanced examination of feminism, #MeToo, and mother-daughter relationships, all while confronting our collective addiction to followers, filters, and faux realities
Allie Rowbottom is the author of the memoir Jell-O Girls, a New York Times Editors’ Choice Selection, Amazon Best Book of the Month, Indie Next Pick, and Real Simple Best Book of the year. Allie’s essays and short fiction can be found in Vanity Fair, Salo n, Lit Hub, No Tokens, NY Tyrant, The Drunken Canal, Alta Journal, Bitch, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Jon Lindsey.
Alissa Nutting is a creator, screenwriter, and showrunner, most recently of the HBO MAX original Made For Love, based on her New York Times Editor’s Choice novel of the same name, and the Adult Swim animated series, Teenage Euthanasia, takes inventory of the damages that underpin the surface-glamour of social media.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address:1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-allie-rowbottom-presents-aesthetica-alissa-nutting
Embattled Homeland: Readings by Authors born in Ukraine, Russia, and Modova at Stories Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
This event is a reading by authors born in Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Yesika Salgado Poetry Reading LIVE at Horachateri Rio Luna – In-Person Event
This event is a reading by poet and writer Yesika Salgado, author of the poetry collections Corazon, Teasoro, and Hermosa.
Yesika Salgado is a Los Angeles-based Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, culture, city, and fat body.
Salgado is a leading voice in poetry, both in performance and social media. She has garnered a large online following across multiple social media platforms through her poetry and her determination to make poetry accessible to everyone in everyday scenarios. Her combined following stretches out to over 200,000 readers. She is the co-founder of the past collective Chingona Fire, a poetry collective that curated and ran poetry-based events in Los Angeles serving Women and Nonbinary folks of color. She is also a long-time production staff member of Da Poetry Lounge, the country’s largest running weekly poetry venue.
She is a two-time National Poetry Slam finalist, Long Beach Slam Champion, and recipient of the 2020 International Latino Book Award in Poetry. Her work has been taught in the curricula of the most prestigious universities in the nation and continues to gain traction as a staple of modern poetry taught in schools.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Horachateria Rio Luna
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 15950 Paramount Blvd., Paramount, CA 990723
Website: N/A
Suzanne Lummis Poetry Reading: Three Years Later: Tweets From Hell. With New Transmissions. More Intense. at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join Beyond Baroque’s poetry reading featuring Suzanne Lummis,
On January 3, 2020, Suzanne Lummis presented to a large, enthusiastic Beyond Baroque audience the entirety of her COLA (City of Los Angeles) project, 71 transmissions of no more than 280 characters each that she received from the future, and a famous figure confined in a realm of the afterlife. Tweets from Hell.
She has lately received a few more such communiques, darkly comic and even more twisted. For the first time, a limited number of Tweets from Hell will be made available in the form of a 19th century political pamphlet designed by Liz Camfiord.
Suzanne Lummis was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Her collections include Idiosyncrasies (1984), In Danger (1999), and Open 24 Hours (2014), which received the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize from Lynx House Press. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, New Ohio Review, Hudson Review, Antioch Review, Plume, and the New Yorker. She is the co-editor of The Pacific Coast Poetry Series from Beyond Baroque Books, and the editor of its first publication, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. Lummis was a 2018-19 City of Los Angeles Fellow, an endowment from the Cultural Affairs Department allowing mid-career visual artists and writers to complete major projects.
Following the readings there will be a reception with food & drinks.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines, link, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music & Sister Outspoken – In-Person Event
SWAAM is one of L.Á.’s longest running and hottest poetry venues. SWAAM includes an open mic, live band, food and drinks. Feature Sister Outspoken is a poet, spoken words artist and a legendary battle rapper. Her latest book is Life Outspoken (2021). Later this year she will release a spoken word EP.
NOTE: $15 Admission
Where: Park Hills Community Center
Date: Friday the 20th
Time: 8 pm (early arrival suggested)
Address: 5245 Overdale Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/swaam-spoken-word-art-music-tickets-515908324687?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Graphic Novel Book Club: A Career in Books via Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Bel Canto’s Graphic Novel Book Club will discuss the January selection, A Career in Books: A Novel about Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun, by Kate Gavino.
A Career in Books is a graphic novel for everyone who’s wanted to “work with books” and had NO idea what it entailed. It’s for those who were taken aback by that first paycheck. It’s for those who wanted a literary career even in the face of systemic racism, who dealt with the unique challenges of coming from an immigrant family, and whose group chat is their lifeline. Readers will chart the paths of three Asian-American women trying to break through the world of books with hilarious, incisive, and heartbreaking results.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and further details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/graphic-novel-book-club-hosted-by-bel-canto-books-tickets-492235929917
Poets Laureates Present: Poetic Forms Workshop with Xochitl Julisa-Bermejo via Bel Canto Books – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Poet Laureate Carla Sameth hosts guest poet Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, who will lead a Poetic Forms Writing Workshop on Learning the Rules to Break the Rules.
In this workshop, led by special guest poet Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, writers of all levels will be reacquainted with the sounds of poetry and learn the rules of fixed forms—sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, and pantoum—not to master them, but to break them. From the pieces we may just find the best words, sounds, and shapes for containing some big emotions. Hosted by Poet Laureate Carla R. Sameth. All ages are welcome.
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, National Parks Arts Foundation, and Poetry Foundation. She has poetry published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and most recently, her poem, “Battlegrounds” was featured at Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day and On Being’s Poetry Unbound. Her poetry is inspired by her family history and her Chicana experience. She writes to cultivate love and comfort in chaotic times. She is the director of Women Who Submit, a literary organization fighting for gender parity in publishing
This program is made possible by the Friends of the Altadena Library.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, guidelines, and further details.
Where: Altadena Library, Community Room
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 600 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.altadenalibrary.org/programs/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D162191331
Notable Book Club Discussion: Mecca via Santa Monica Public Library – Online Event
The Notable Book Group discussion will discuss the January selection, Mecca: A Novel, by Susan Straight.
Mecca is the first book in a projected trilogy. Centering on a Latino Highway Patrol Officer, this group of linked stories stretches around Los Angeles, using crime and family drama to make social issues suspenseful and personal.
To register, email library@santamonica.gov.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and further details.
Where: Santa Monica Public Library
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20January%202023.pdf
Author Hour: Tanya Tahmkruphat at Santa Ana Public Library – In-Person Event
The Author Hour discussion will feature Tanya Sangpun Tahmkruphat, a Thai-Vietnamese American writer from Santa Ana. She will be discussing her poetry books, Em(body)ment of Wonder (2021) and It Wasn’t a Dream (2022), as well as her other writings, which have appeared in The Orange County Register, Bangkok Post, Button Poetry, and elsewhere. Look forward to discussing the cultural inspirations behind her works and learning more about her latest projects.
Contact the library at 714-647-5250 for more information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and further details.
Where: Santa Ana Public Library
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 26 Civic Center Plaza, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Website: https://www.santa-ana.org/event/author-hour-tanya-thamkruphat/
Tim Deroche and Daniel Gonzalez & Tales of Whimsy, Verses of Woe at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Tim DeRoche and Daniel González, the author and illustrator of the best-selling The Ballad of Huck & Miguel, return with a book of verse that will delight anyone who loves Lemony Snicket or Shel Silverstein.
Tales of Whimsy, Verses of Woe is possibly the most dangerous book of poetry ever written. Do you dare? It’s so good it will make you sneeze. What becomes of a girl who absolutely detests the color green? What about a king who joins a punk band? And the little boy who calls up God on the telephone? Monsters, bears, wizards, and talking vegetables―This book has something for everyone. Winner of the prestigious Baldersquash Medal, which honors the very best in highfalutin nonsense.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 1 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Melody Cheng, Helen Wu-Wang, and Janet Wang & Lucky Cat at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event
Join authors Melody Cheng, Helen Wu-Wang, and Janet Wang for the book presentation and signing of Lucky Cat.
Lucky Cat is a heartwarming story about an immigrant family in America, and a new friend their daughter June makes as they prepare to open their restaurant. Melody Cheng, Helen Wu-Wang, and Janet Wang are the co-hosts of AsianBossGirl, a podcast for the modern-day Asian American woman. AsianBossGirl (ABG) was founded to share their experiences as 9-to-5 professional working women, balancing careers, social lives, cultural identities, and personal development while living in the city of Los Angeles. ABG is now a media company that they run full time, and Lucky Cat is their first children’s book. It’s a heartwarming story about an immigrant family in America, and a new friend their daughter June makes as they prepare to open their restaurant.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Children’s Literature
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/lucky-cat-asianbossgirl-book-presentation-and-author-signing
Book Launch & Reading: The Forbidden Lunchbox & Richard Modiano & Guests at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join Beyond Baroque for a book launch and celebration reading for Richard Modiano and his book The Forbidden Lunchbox.
Beyond Baroque is honored to welcome back Executive Director Emeritus, Richard Modiano, in celebration of Forbidden Lunchbox, a new collection of poetry published by Punk Hostage Press. The author will be joined by poets Iris Berry, Michael C. Ford, S.A. Griffin, & K.R. Morrison.
Richard Modiano became active in the literary community connected to the Poetry Project in New York City where he came to know Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs and Ted Berrigan. From 2010 to 2019, he served as Executive Director of the Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Venice, California. In that time he produced and curated hundreds of literary events. In 2019 he was elected Vice President of the California State Poetry Society. The Huffington Post named him as one of 200 people doing the most to promote American poetry. His collection The Forbidden Lunch Box was published by Punk Hostage Press in 2022.
Iris Berry is a native Angeleno and one of the true and original progenitors of the L.A. punk scene. She is the author and editor of several books and has a vast fan base for her unique voice and formidable writing style. She’s an L.A. Pop culture historian, actress, and musician. She’s appeared in numerous films, TV commercials, documentaries, and iconic rock videos. In the 1980s and 90s, she sang, performed, wrote songs, and recorded with the Lame Flames, the Ringling Sisters, the Dickies, the Flesh Eaters, and Pink Sabbath. She served four years on the Board of Directors for Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. In 2009 she received her 2nd Certificate of Merit Award from the City of Los Angeles for her contributions as a Los Angeles writer, and for her extensive charity work. Iris is the co-founder of her imprint Punk Hostage Press, where she continues to champion and advocate for original voices.
Michael C. Ford’s debut 12-inch-vinyl recording Language Commando earned a Grammy nomination on the 1st ballot in 1986 and his book of selected work: Emergency Exits earned initial nomination for the Pulitzer Prize short list in 1998. Populated Wilderness was published in a 2020 chapbook format as a fundraiser for the Lockwood Animal Rescue Center. Daniel J. Yaryan under his Mystic Boxing Commission imprint will be marketing a book-length publication of MCF’s most recent title In Case of Flood Stand on this Book – It’s Dry English. Most recently his work appeared in Beat Not Beat.
S.A. Griffin, the author of Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press) is co-editor of Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press) and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Firecracker Award). Co-founder of The Lost Tribe and progenitor of The Carma Bums, in 2010 he went on a five-week, 11,000 mile Couch Surfing Across America Tour of Words with Elsie the Poetry Bomb, a 7 foot tall Vietnam era practice bomb converted into an art object filled with the sacred ashes of poets, cats, dogs, performance artists and over 900 poems from around the world in an effort to spread Elsie’s message that we must learn to disagree, or our Republic is lost. In 2012 S.A. was the first recipient of Beyond Baroque’s Distinguished Service. In 2015 UCLA acquired his archives as their first acquisition for their Punk Initiative. Vietnam era veteran of the USAF, husband, father, and cat lover, he drives too fast, thinks too much and sleeps too little.
K.R. Morrison is a poet and drummer who during The Plague days, splits her time between the Bay Area and a place she calls Mermaid Town, in Southern California. She’s currently taking a writing sabbatical from teaching English and Creative Writing at Galileo High School in San Francisco, CA. Morrison’s chapbook Cauldrons was recently published by Paper Press Books. Apart from reading at curations in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and New York, Morrison’s poetry has been featured throughout several Bay Area readings. Her work has been published by Switchback, Quiet Lightning, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Gasconade Review, Escape Wheel (great weather for MEDIA,) The Lake County Bloom and most recently, Beat Not Beat.
Following the readings, there will be a reception with snacks & light refreshments.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines, link, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 2 pm (Doors at 1:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Everth Sotelo & The Bad Blessings at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
Everth Sotelo will present and discuss his book, The bad Blessings.
This book chronicles the misfortunes of the Rendar family in the fictional town of Amourville, located somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley, California. The novella spans over 12 years and features the female protagonist, Rose Rendar, who becomes cursed by a santera (Spanish term for witch) during a visit to a remote farm while her father assisted a mare’s parturition. After she witnesses macabre and surreal events, the curse spreads to her entire family, giving Rose a daunting task; break the curse or suffer eternally. However, Rose struggles with profound disbelief in the occult and spirituality. She also battles with gender and sexual identity issues which aggravate the conflict between her overprotective father, her zealous mother, and a conservative town.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 3 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CnaBNR1rcM-/?hl=en
Jana Zimmer & Chocolates From Tangier at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Jana Zimmer will present and discuss her book, Chocolates From Tangier.
In this book, a second-generation Holocaust survivor weaves together fragments of her family’s history and witness testimony in narrative and collage, using her art as transformation and remembrance.
Exhibitions of Zimmer’s artwork in 2007, both in Prague and at the Terezín Ghetto Museum, were mainly inspired by her half-sister, Ritta, who perished in Auschwitz before Zimmer was born, and by her father’s grief over that loss. Ritta’s drawings made in Terezín, now in the Prague Jewish Museum’s collection of children’s artwork from the ghetto, populate Zimmer’s book as well as spare photographs and mementos that reflect Zimmer’s internal world — that of a “Holocaust replacement child.”
In 2015, an exhibition in Germany allowed Zimmer to explore her relationship to her mother’s experiences as survivor of Terezín, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, and as a Jewish slave laborer in a Nazi aircraft factory in Freiberg, Saxony, in 1944. In both exhibits, and now, in putting together the visual story, their life stories, and her text, Zimmer’s task has been the seemingly impossible — to remember where she had never been, for her parents, who had wanted only to forget, and to find her place between them.
Jana Zimmer was born in 1946, the only child of two Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, who fled with them as a refugee from the communists to land in Canada days after her second birthday. Zimmer became a collage/mixed media artist after her mother came to live with her in 1995. In her artwork, through text and image, she explores issues of memory, exile, and responsibility. She currently resides in Santa Barbara, California.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 3 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 92507
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Jana-Zimmer-Author-signing
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Readings by JOHN COMPTON, SCOTT FERRY & NANCY MURPHY + Poets published in Spectrum online edition: Love Lines – Online Only Event
Saturday Afternoon Poetry presents poetry readings hosted by DKC.
Featured guests include: JOHN COMPTON, SCOTT FERRY & NANCY MURPHY + Poets published in Spectrum online edition: Love Lines.
JOHN COMPTON N/A
SCOTT FERRY is the author of Skinless in the Cereal Aisle.
NANCY MURPHY is the author of The Space Carved by the Sharpness of Your Absence.
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event Only (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Skylight Treehouse: Aliza J. Sokolow & This Is What I Eat at Skylight Books – In-Person Kids Event
Aliza J. Sokolow will present her new children’s book, This Is What I Eat: Fun Activities for Mindful Eating and some exciting foodie activities!
This color-and-activity book from an award-winning food stylist is a playful introduction to healthy eating and engaging with our planet, perfect for your budding foodie or your picky eater!
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 3 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-treehouse-aliza-j-sokolow-presents-what-i-eat
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club & She Who Became the Sun at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor Duology #1), by Shelly Parker-Chan.
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.
After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.
Shelley Parker-Chan is an Australian by way of Malaysia and New Zealand. A 2017 Tiptree Fellow, she is the author of the historical fantasy novel She Who Became the Sun. Parker-Chan spent nearly a decade working as a diplomat and international development adviser in Southeast Asia, where she became addicted to epic East Asian historical TV dramas. After a failed search to find English-language book versions of these stories, she decided to write her own. Parker-Chan currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, where she is very grateful to never have to travel by leaky boat ever again. She won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2022.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Books
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 5 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/sci-fi-fantasy-book-club-she-who-became-sun
Readings & Launch Party for sin cesar Issue 12 magazineat Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Launch Party: Open Mic & Readings for sin cesar Issue 12 literary magazine.
Readers include:
Maestro Gamin N/A
bridgette bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University and her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Otis College of Art & Design. She has performed her poetry all around Southern California. bridgette bianca’s work as a writer and an educator seeks to serve the people and moments most forget or ignore. Her first book of poetry, be/trouble, was released by Writ Large Press in 2020. She also guest hosts literary events across Los Angeles and is one-half of the literary curating teams Making Room for Black Women with Sanura Williams and South Central Spits Fire with GusTavo Guerra Vasquez.
Sandra De Anda writes non-fiction and performs as a standup comic. She works for the Orange County Justice Fund, which provides bond money to immigrants in detention. Her most noted poem is titled: “Communion.”
Jade Hidle’s essay “Thúy” appears in Southern Humanities Review issue 54.1. The essay recounts Hidle’s childhood as a mixed-race child navigating her own identity both in the U.S. school system and at home. In the following interview, Hidle discusses the themes of mental health, racism, self-hatred, exoticism, xenophobia, sexual objectification, and familial relationships in her work, and shares the forces that inspire her craft.
Marlene Herrera N/A
Salomon Vertiz is a self-taught writer from Southeast Los Angeles, he self-published his first zine, Mixtape (2016) and had a poem, “Burning Yellow Hares,‘ published in and October (2020) issue of FEED Lit Magazine.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 6 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2123 East Cesar E. Chavez Ave,, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos or https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=933141153396&set=a.509047510456
Pages on Stages: Cal State LA Chapter & CLI Open Mic at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
This edition of Pages on Stages features CAL State LA Chapter readers & a CLI Open Mic, hosted by Alex Petunia, including:
Juan Amador is a South Central poet and actor. He utilizes performance in his poetry as a way of telling his story. Poetry became his artistic expression in confronting and making his peace with his past. He is looking forward to releasing his first book. IG: @thee_amador
Lynda V. E. Crawford was born and raised in Barbados and lives in the US. Both homes sway and punctuate her poetry. Lynda writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, and stretch voices through her words. Her poems, including a Pushcart Prize and Nina Riggs Poetry Award nomination, have appeared in national and international online and print publications including The Caribbean Writer, The Galway Review, The Bookends Review, Spectrum Publishing, Moonstone Arts Center anthologies (various), and Exposition Review. IG: @sacfield2
Sakile Odimo, aka “Nomad the Poet” is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based writer, director, producer, performance artist, and activist. Odimo has been published in several publications. Her writing was first published in 2005 in A Celebration of Young Poets, and since 2017 she has focused her creative work to primarily address and delve into empowering her communities as they face the intricacies of sexual, racial, and gender inequity; through healing, love and self love, and spirituality through her specific lens as a Black woman in the United States. Her work has been featured in art galleries around Los Angeles including, Art Share LA, JuniorHigh, Gomez DTLA. She is currently writing her second book, Forged in Fire | Held in Love which is set to release at the end of 2023. IG: @sakileodimo, @nomad_the_poet
Through the content of his work, award-winning Los Angeles-based Poet, Music Producer and Activist, Christopher Siders, encourages his audience members to think critically about social norms and how we subconsciously affect one another through our everyday behaviors. Siders graduated from California State University Monterey Bay with a B.A. in Human Communications with a concentration in Creative Writing and Social Action. Siders’ been involved with theater/acting as an undergraduate since Spring 2012. He directed the MENding Monologues Spring 2013. From 2015-2017, he administered workshops deconstructing toxic masculinity at Soledad Correctional Facility with Richie Reseda, who was featured on CNN’s “The Feminist on Cellblock Y” documentary. His focus on cultivating community had also led him to creating a platform called Power Of You, for local spoken word artists from the Los Angeles area to be featured and paid. Siders professionally performed alongside poets such as Rudy Francisco, Shihan The Poet, Ebony Stewart, and have graced stages such as Dominican University, UC Santa Barbara, Beyond Baroque, and many more. His new book, Culture Shock is published through Boukra Press. Siders also released his first album independently, The MisAdventures Of Chris Siders May 2022. After garnering acclaim for his debut album, Siders has a one-year DJ Residency with the Museum Of Contemporary Art in collaboration with KCHUNG Radio.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/pages-on-stages-cal-state-la-chapter
Emmalea Russo: A Short Talk on Purgatory at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
A dreamlike talk by Emmalea Russo with poems and images related to Purgatory, especially as depicted in Dante’s Purgatorio and her new work, followed by a conversation with Joseph Mosconi.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/emmalea-russo
Book Launch & Reading: Divine Blue Light (For John Coltrane) & Will Alexander in Conversation with Kamau Daáood at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join Beyond Baroque for a book launch with poet-in-residence Will Alexander, who will present his new poetry collection, Divine Blue Light (For John Coltrane) Pocket Poets Series No. 63—published by City Lights. A new collection of poems from the intersection between surrealism and afro-futurism, where Césaire meets Sun Ra. Divine Blue Light further affirms Alexander’s status as one of the most unique and innovative voices in contemporary poetry. To celebrate this publication, he will be joined in conversation by another of Los Angeles’ iconic literary legends: Kamau Daáood, poet, activist, and co-founder of The World Stage Performance Gallery.
Alexander’s poems constitute an alternative cartography that draws upon omnivorous reading—in subjects from biology to astronomy to history to philosophy—amalgamating their diverse vocabularies into an impossible instrument only he can play. Divine Blue Light is anchored by three major works: the opening “Condoned to Disappearance,” a meditation on the heteronymic exploits of Portuguese modernist Fernando Pessoa; the closing “Imprecation as Mirage,” a poem channeling an Indonesian man; and the title poem, an anthemic ode to the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.
Born in 1948 in Los Angeles, Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, playwright, philosopher, visual artist, and musician. He has published over two dozen books in a variety of genres and has earned many honors and awards including a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry, a California Arts Council Fellowship, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, and the 2016 Jackson Poetry Prize. He has also exhibited his artwork in group and solo shows. His work is known for its visionary, oracular surrealism and the influence of Negritude. Among his publications are Refractive Africa (New Directions, 2021/Granta, 2022), which was named a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and won the California Book Award for Poetry, The Combustion Cycle (Roof, 2021), Across the Vapor Gulf (New Directions, 2017), and The Sri Lankan Loxodrome (New Directions, 2009). His book Compression & Purity (2011) was volume five in the City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series. He is currently the poet-in-residence at Beyond Baroque in Venice, California. He has lived his entire life in Los Angeles.
Kamau Daáood, poet, educator and community arts activist, is a native of Los Angeles. He is the Artistic Director of the World Stage in LA, which he founded with drum legend Billy Higgins. A former member of the Watts Writers Workshop, he is the subject of an award-winning documentary, and he honed his skills as a “word musician” in the Pan-African People’s Arkestra.
If you can’t join us in-person the event will be live streamed on Beyond Baroque’s YouTube channel at the scheduled time of the event.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines, link, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 7 pm (Doors at 6:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Griot Café Open Mic with Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain at Shades of Africa, Long Beach – In-Person Event (Check to Verify)
Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain host the Griot Café Open Mic & Poetry event every Saturday evening at Shades of Africa in Long Beach. See site to subscribe for reminders, etc.
Where: Griot Café at Shades of Africa
Date: Saturday the 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Storytime and Art Experience with Shira Sergant at Village Well Books & Cafe – In-Person Event
Join Village Well for a fun morning of crafts and stories with local educator and parent Shira Sergant!
All ages welcome, perfect for Ages 5-12
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Cafe
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Washington Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/22276
La Palabra Reading Series Celebrates L.A. at Avenue 50 Studios – In-Person Event
The La Palabra Reading Series, hosted by Lisbeth Coiman at Avenue 50 Studios, will Celebrate L.A. when it presents three LA natives who have dedicated their literary work to the complex and fascinating city where they grew up.
Please celebrate and welcome guest poets Margaret Elysia Garcia (from Whittier), Ron L. Dowell (from Watts) and the poet who has dedicated his entire poetry work to Los Angeles, and Mike Sonksen.
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the short story collection Graft by Tolsun Press, the ebook Sad Girls & Other stories published by Solstice Literary Press, and the audible short story collection Mary of the Chance Encounters by Wretched Productions. She is also the author of many plays and poetry chapbooks. She is also a Season 9 member of the Community Literary Initiative in Los Angeles (Austin national chapter).
Ron L. Dowell is a lifelong resident of the Watts and Compton areas of Los Angeles. Employed for 38 years with Los Angeles County, Ron has a unique perspective on local urban communities that, in turn, inform many of his stories. He holds two master’s degrees from California State University, Long Beach, in criminal justice and emergency services administration. Ron is the author of Watts UpRise, a very public letter to the city of Watts, Los Angeles. The collection renders homage to its most notable artistic landmark, the Watts Towers, and its creator, Sabato Rodia. The Towers epitomizes the beauty, strength, and resiliency of the city and its inhabitants and serves as a reminder that beautiful things must be kept heart-close and loved. Our town, with its whole BIG heart, open and bleeding for the world to see, is something cherished like a wildfire burning.
Watts UpRise is a finalist for the 2022 Press 53 Award for Poetry and a featured poem, “Compton, An Energy-Fueled Dark Star” is nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize.
Mike Sonksen is a Professor, Journalist, Historian, Poet, and a 3rd-generation Los Angeles native who teaches several courses in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department including Conflicts, Journeys, Knowledges, LA Stories, Natures and PPDV. Sonksen earned his Bachelors’ Degree at UCLA in 1997. In June 2014, he completed an Interdisciplinary Master of Arts in English and History from the California State University of Los Angeles. Following his graduation from U.C.L.A. in 1997, he has published over 500 essays and poems with publications and websites like the Academy of American Poets, KCET, Poets & Writers Magazine, BOOM, Wax Poetics, Southern California Quarterly, LA Weekly, OC Weekly, Lana Turner, The Architect’s Newspaper, LA Alternative Press, Los Angeles Review of Books, Cultural Weekly, Angel’s Flight, Angel City Review, Entropy, LA Taco, Lummox and many others. Most recently, one of his KCET essays was Awarded for Excellence by the Los Angeles Press Club. Is most recent book is Letters to My City.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Avenue 50 Studios
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 131 N. Avenue 50., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=6128938673792934&set=a.251487421538118
LA MADE: Gregory Borquez, with Luis J. Rodriguez, & Eastsiders at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Adult Event
Join author and photographer Gregory Borquez, in conversation with Poet Laureate Emeritus and author Luis Rodriguez, to discuss his latest book, Eastsiders.
For over 30 years, Los Angeles born and bred photographer Gregory Bojorquez has concentrated his lens on the communities and neighborhoods of East Los Angeles. His latest book, Eastsiders, collects images from this time, depicting the complex, but also celebratory reality of this neighborhood. Gregory’s photographs have been exhibited internationally in gallery shows, museum exhibitions, and art fairs, including Paris Photo, Paris Photo LA, London Photo, Art Dusseldorf, and most recently, Art Cologne.
Those attending this program will have an opportunity to win a free copy of Eastsiders.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/gregory-bojorquez-conversation-luis-rodriguez
Latinx Book Club & Woman of Light at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Latinx Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Woman of Light, by Kali Farjado-Austine.
Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.
Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the author of Sabrina & Corina, a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, The Story Prize, and winner of an American Book Award. She is the 2021 recipient of the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Global Impact Award for Excellence in Arts & Culture and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Book Award for Fiction. She has written for The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Tin House. Fajardo-Anstine holds an MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022–2023 Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University. She is from Denver, Colorado.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Books
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 2 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/latinx-book-club-woman-light-0
Beatnik Café Readings & Open Mic: Jasmine Minchez & Fernanda Herrera, with Hannah Pachman, at Hey Hey – In-Person Event
Join the Beatnik Café poetry reading event, featuring Jasmine Minchez & Fernanda Herrera, with host Hannah Pachman.
Beatnik Cafe presents another night of truth and perspective!
Jasmine Minchez (she/her) is an 18-year-old Los Angeles-based poet of proud Guatemalan heritage. She studies and lives in the sprawl of the San Fernando Valley where she loves visiting local coffee shops and scribbling away at her poetry notebook. She competed in the 11th Annual Get Lit Classic Slam her senior year at Cleveland High School, a newly assembled team that ultimately earned 3rd place. She has since performed for Mindy Kaling, Debbie Allen, California State Senator Ben Allen, and hundreds of teens in high schools across LA. She is the latest host of the Get Lit Minute podcast – highlighting the lives and works of Classic and contemporary Poets. She loves mixing comedy with poetry and often indulges in themes of family, culture, womanhood, and her ever-evolving relationship with God.
Fernanda Herrera is a 17 y/o poet for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She is currently a senior at Harvard-Westlake, where she leads multiple affinity groups as well as a slam poetry team. Fernanda loves to read, bake, and paint in her free time.
Schedule:
3:50-4 pm- Open Mic Sign Up
4-4:10 pm- Intro
4:10- 4:30 pm- Jasmine Minchez Reading
4:30- 4:50 pm- Fernanda Herrera Reading
4:50- 5:50 pm- Poetry Open Mic (3 minutes per poet)
5:50- 6 pm- Close
Poetry Open Mic Guidelines: You could read up to two poems at the Open Mic. They can be poems by you or by other poets you respect. Although we want to hear from you, this is not a space to promote your wine company’s social media. You are encouraged to be creative about your language, but racism, bigotry, and sexism are not allowed.
Consider using the below writing prompt.
You are driving into a flooded area through winding mountain roads. How do you make it home?
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Beatnik Café at Hey Hey
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1555 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1318236652266775
Roar Shack Readings & Open Mic with David Rocklinat 826 LA Echo Park – In-Person Event
Join the Roar Shack Poetry Readings & Open Mic event, with featured poets and host David Rocklin.
Featured poets include: Chris Joseph, Erin Anadkat Schwartz, Terri Niccum (The Knife Thrower’s Daughter, Dead end Bpox, Looking Snow in the Eve).and Cynthia Adam Prochaska (Burt the Martian)!
Snacks, drinks, gorgeous writing and the ever-lovin’ Live Write – Don’t miss it!
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Roar Shack at 826 LA Time Travel Mart
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/895011298207448
Poetry, Music & Meter Workshop with Syd Shaw at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
This free workshop will open with a breakdown of the different types of poetic meter and a discussion of its use in poetry. We will then play and analyze popular songs. Participants will be encouraged to listen for rhythms and identify the meters they hear. Everyone will have the opportunity to write a metered poem, or revise an existing poem with meter. Participants should come away with a greater understanding of meter, and the confidence to employ it as they wish.
Facilitated by Syd Shaw.
Syd Shaw (she/they) is a poet from the San Fernando Valley. She writes about love, witchcraft, and body horror. Syd is Assistant Poetry Editor at Passengers Journal, and has a degree in creative writing from Northwestern University. Syd has previously been published in Cathexis Northwest, Sad Girls Club, Ember Chasm, Waxing & Waning, Eclectica Magazine, Panoply Zine, and The London Reader, among others.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-music-meter-tickets-496456634157
NDA Autofiction Reading: Emmalea Russo, Rachel Nagelberg, Amanda Ackerman, Ezequiel Olvera, Gracie Hadland & Ruby Zuckerman at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories’ autofiction reading series, inspired by the Archway Editions book NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, edited by Caitlin Forst, who hosts.
Emmalea Russo, Rachel Nagelberg, Amanda Ackerman, Ezequiel Olvera, Gracie Hadland & Ruby Zuckerman will read their work.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W, Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Focus on Craft Book Club at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
All book clubs now meet at 7:15pm on their designated Sunday in the main store in order to have enough space for everyone!
Book for January: The Wildest Ride, by Marcella Bell
Developmental editor and teacher Jeanne Devita leads this book club that focuses on examining popular romance novels from a writer’s viewpoint. But everyone is welcome, you don’t have to be a writer!
This book club meets at the store on the 3rd Sunday of the month at 7:15pm.
No membership necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 22nd
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 