Meditation Monday: Self Care for the Writer with Alex Petunia via L. A. Poet Society – Online Event
Meditation Monday: Self Care for the Writer is a workshop led by poet, writer, and author Alex Petunia, and includes breathing meditation self-care check-in, writing prompts, and affirmations.
The mission of the L. A. Poet Society is to create a bridge, fusing the communities of Los Angeles & Southern California Poets.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: L.A. Poet Society
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online Event, Zoom: 840 2975 5764
Website: https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety/
Arielle Estoria, with Simone Boyce, & The Unfolding: An Invitation to Come Home to Yourself at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Arielle Estoria, in conversation with Simone Boyce, will discuss her book,The Unfolding: An Invitation to Come Home to Yourself.
Arielle Estoria is known for her moving and empowering words that encourage women and all people to be confident in who they are, compassionate about where they’ve been, and loving about who they are becoming. In this stunning collection of essays, poems, and meditations, beautifully illustrated in earth tones, Estoria tenderly reveals the places in her life where she has been broken open, mended back together in new ways, and shows us how this process of “unfolding” helps us discover and return home to the person we were always meant to be.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom 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 an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial and Transnational Literatures at California State University Channel Islands, teaching courses on creative writing and contemporary African literatures. Raquel has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and non-fiction in Little Village; and has done readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel lives for talking about all things about the craft and social meanings of literature!
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online event
Date: Monday the 13th
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-576258433487
The ‘So Emotional’ Book Club: The Power of Regret at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The ‘So Emotional’ Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Froward, by author Daniel H. Pink.
Everybody has regrets, Daniel H. Pink explains in The Power of Regret. They’re a universal and healthy part of being human. And understanding how regret works can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives.
Drawing on research in social psychology, neuroscience, and biology, Pink debunks the myth of the “no regrets” philosophy of life. And using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Survey—which has collected regrets from more than 15,000 people in 105 countries—he lays out the four core regrets that each of us has. These deep regrets offer compelling insights into how we live and how we can find a better path forward.
Daniel H. Pink’s books have helped readers and organizations around the world rethink how they live and operate. He is the author the New York Times bestsellers A Whole New Mind, Drive, To Sell Is Human, and When. His books have sold millions of copies, have been translated into forty-two languages, and have won multiple awards. He lives with his family in Washington, D.C.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/so-emotional-book-club-power-regret
The Poetry Lab Presents a Braintrust Series Event: Queer Subversion of Poetic Forms Workshop with Anne Marie Wellsvia The Poetry Lab – In-Person Event
The Poetry Lab presents the generative writing workshop: Duplex, Ribcage, Dipper: Queer Subversion of Poetic Forms, led by instructor Anne Marie Wells.
In this brainstorming and generative workshop, participants will be exploring the poetic forms invented by our queer poetry icons, including Jericho Brown, torrin a. greathouse, Franny Choi and others in order to inspire our own invented or re-invented poetic forms.
Anne Marie Wells (She | They) is an award-winning, Queer poet, playwright, memoirist and storyteller navigating the world with a chronic illness. She is a faculty member of the Community Literature Initiative through the Sims Library of Poetry. She was the 2020 recipient of the Milestone Award presented by Wyoming Writers Inc., and the Rising Star Award presented by the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce. She was the 2021 recipient of the Peter K. Hixson Memorial Award in poetry and was nominated as a Wyoming Woman of Influence in the arts category for her work in amplifying the voices of the LGBTQ and disabled communities in Wyoming through her writing.
The BrainTrust is a sliding scale, affordably priced poetry class!
The Poetry Lab is a community learning space dedicated to mentoring and encouraging poets and writers as they craft their learning journeys. We started in a co-op work-space in Downtown Long Beach in 2013. Our original Labs covered topics like Diction, Tone, and Voice, Poetry of Twitter, Power of Revision, and Blind Date with a Book. In other words, these workshops were fun and instructional, often taking non-traditional approaches to poetry.
BrainTrust series of events carries on this tradition in the virtual space. We welcome first-time poets, moms and dads, high school students, MFA holders, architects, and artists of all genres and mediums to attend, as long as they are ready to write!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link. and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/queer-subversion
Poetry Open Micwith Wyatt Underwoodat Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The Poetry Open Mic is offered online every 2nd Tuesday of the month and is hosted by Wyatt Underwood.
Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love! You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic
Cathleen Schine, with Marisa Silver, & Künstlers in Paradise at Diesel: A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Cathleen Schine, in conversation with Marisa Silver, will discuss her new novel, Künstlers in Paradise.
For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three-years-old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard dog. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie’s grandson, Julian, arrives from New York City. Like many a twenty-something, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian’s short visit suddenly has no end in sight. Mamie was only eleven when the Künstlers escaped Vienna in 1939. They made their way, stunned and overwhelmed, to sunny, surreal Los Angeles where they joined a colony of distinguished Jewish musicians, writers and intellectuals also escaping Hitler. Now, faced with months of lockdown and a willing listener, Mamie begins to tell Julian the buried stories of her early years in Los Angeles: her escapades with eminent émigrés like Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Thomas Mann. Oh, and Greta Garbo. While the pandemic cuts Julian off from the life he knows, Mamie’s tales open up a world of lives that came before him. They reveal to him just how much the past holds of the future.
Cathleen Schine’s captivating and comedic twelfth novel explores exile, émigrés, movie stars, musicians, family bonds and the power of stories—both those we hand down and the ones held secretly in the heart.
Cathleen Schine is the author of The Grammarians, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, and The Love Letter, among other novels. She has contributed to the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, and the New York Times Book Review. She lives in Los Angeles.
Marisa Silver is the author of the novels Little Nothing and Mary Coin, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Southern California Independent Bookseller’s Award. She is also the author of The God of War (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist); No Direction Home; and two story collections, Alone with You and Babe in Paradise (a New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year). Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts, Silver’s short fiction has won the O. Henry Award and been included in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and other anthologies. She lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, details. Book purchase confirms your seat.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Brentwood Country Mart, 225 26th St., Ste. 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Cathleen-Schine-march-14-author-signing
Dewar MacLeod & Tommy, Trauma, & Post War Youth Culture at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Dewar MacLeod will discuss his new book, Tommy, Trauma, & Post War Youth Culture.
This book traces the development of one of rock music’s central masterpieces and its relation to the social-cultural history of the era. Composer and guitarist Pete Townshend was the creative force behind the Who, one of Britain’s greatest rock bands. Townshend grew up in an England decimated by the loss of life and hope that was the initial legacy of World War II. The product of a troubled childhood, Townshend faced ongoing struggles with sexual and personal trauma that colored his later work as a performer. An ambitious composer who wanted to create both pop hits and lasting personal works, Townshend achieved his greatest success with the Who through their 1969 rock opera, Tommy. Townshend gave many accounts of the work’s evolution and its significance to him and he participated in and encouraged its continued legacy. Dewar MacLeod recounts his own interactions with Townshend and Tommy to draw out the work’s impact, its critical reception, its place both in postwar history and the rock era, and its continuing relevance. This book will appeal to all interested in the history of rock, the creative process, and the long shadow of the 1960s.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/dewar-macleod
Adult Book Group: The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore at Once Upon a Time – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Adult Book Group will read and discuss this month’s selection, The Second Life of Mirielle West: A Haunting Historical Novel Perfect for Book Clubs, by Amanda Skenandore.
Based on the little-known true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West by RUSA Award-winning author Amanda Skenandore brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, Zoom link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/rainbow-reads-book-club-darkness-outside-us-eilot-schrefer
Mystery Book Club & Black Wolf at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
The Mystery Book Club will read and discuss this month’s selection, Black Wolf, by Kathleen Kent.
This mystery novel is a thriller about a female CIA agent, whose extraordinary facial recognition powers lead her into the dangerous heart of the Soviet Union—and the path of a killer who shouldn’t exist.
Filled with insider details from the author’s own time working under the direction of the U.S. Department of Defense, Black Wolf is a riveting new spy thriller from an Edgar-nominated crime writer, and a biting exploration of the divide between two nations, two masterminds, and two roles played by a woman pushed to her breaking point, where she’ll learn that you can only ever trust one person: yourself.
Kathleen Kent is the Edgar-nominated author of the crime trilogy The Dime, The Burn, and The Pledge, as well as three bestselling historical novels: The Heretic’s Daughter, The Traitor’s Wife, and The Outcasts. She has written short stories and essays for D Magazine, Texas Monthly, and LitHub, and has been published in the crime anthology Dallas Noir. In March 2020 she was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters for her contribution to Texas literature. Kent lives in Dallas, Texas.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, details. Book purchase confirms your seat.
Where: pages a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-13
At Skylight: Adele Bertei, with Lizzie Borden, & TWIST: An American Girl at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Adele Bertei, in conversation with Lizzie Borden, will discuss her book, TWIST: An American Girl.
Through the eyes of her alter ego Maddie Twist, Adele Bertei threads together the tapestry of an extraordinary, troubled childhood in the 60s and 70s. It begins with her beautiful mother, whose delusions of grandeur bring both wonders and horrors to the Bertei home.
It is her undiagnosed schizophrenia that eventually leads to the removal of her children, and the beginning of young Maddie’s wild journey. By her middle school years, Maddie Twist has moved through several foster homes and reformatories. With each new posting, she discovers sanctuary amongst her peers–outcast girls–while gaining belief in her identity, and unwavering trust in her own voice.
As she ages out of the system and finds herself navigating the world alone, Maddie’s only constant is a ribbon of music that weaves itself around her heart. She can sing, and she is certain it will be the beacon that guides her towards another life.
Adele Bertei began playing music in Cleveland with Pere Ubu’s legendary Peter Laughner, and as an original member of the Contortions, produced by Brian Eno on No New York. She was lead singer of the first out, queer, all-women rock band, the Bloods. Her singing and songwriting career includes recording, performing live, and writing for such diverse acts as Thomas Dolby, Tears for Fears, Culture Club, Whitney Houston, Scritti Politti, Sheena Easton, Jellybean Benitez, Lydia Lunch, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, the Pointer Sisters, and John Lurie. Bertei played a lead role in Lizzie Borden’s seminal feminist sci-fi film Born in Flames. She is the author of two previous books: Peter and the Wolves, and Why Labelle Matters, a finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Awards. Twist is the story of how it all started.
Lizzie Borden is a writer, director, editor, and script consultant. Her film Born in Flames, named one of “The 50 Most Important Independent Films” by Filmmaker magazine, has been shown at countless festivals and theaters domestically and internationally. It has been taught and written about extensively since its 1983 premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2016 when it was restored by Anthology Film Archives, New Yorker critic Richard Brody called Born in Flames “a feminist masterpiece. Her latest book, Whorephobia, just released with 7 Stories Press.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Kristin Hannah, with Maggie Shipstead, & The Four Winds at Vromam’s – In-Person Live at Main Store and Sold Out Online
Kristin Hannah, in conversation with Maggie Shipstead, will discuss her novel, The Four Winds.
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.
In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa–like so many of her neighbors–must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it–the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, Written by acclaimed best-selling author Kristin Hannah, it’s is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details. Online event is sold out.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/kristin-hannah-conversation-maggie-shipstead-discussing-four-winds
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Robt. O’Sullivan Schleith via Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Robt. O’Sullivan Schleith.
Robt. O’Sullivan Schleith is a spoken word poet, He hosts the monthly poetry reading with Escondido Arts Partnership at the Municipal Art Gallery; hosted the Poetsperformance readings in San Diego until 2003; is the (retired) founder of the San Diego Poetry Slam, and editor of the Drift Wood Highway series of poetry anthologies, which ran from 1998 thru 2002; serves as one of five regional editors for the San Diego Poetry Annual.
His poems have appeared in print with Dan River Press, North Woods Press, Northern Virginia Review, City College CityWorks anthologies, the San Diego Poetry Annual and The Philosophical Library’s ‘Paths’; on-line his poems have appeared at Poetry SuperHighway, the Map of Austin Poetry, muse apprentice guild, and Sun Runner Magazine.
Robt publishes under his mother’s name O’Sullivan, as well as his stepfather’s name Schleith, to honor both of them with his poems.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 14th
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.
Jonathan Santa Maria will feature at this event. He is the author of two books: When the Light Does Not Shine and Shade of Fear: Poetry When You Are Not Alone. A third book is also out now.
For St. Patrick’s Day, host DeForest Wright will be debuting some poems he has been working on based on Irish Mythology as well.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday the 14th
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 Open Mic Night 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.
Every Tuesday (except for 3rd Tuesdays which is Slam Night) we hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in our audience.
TIME LIMIT: Each artist has 3 minutes at the mic, and if you go over, our DJ will scratch you. Please be respectful of the time limit as we try to accommodate as many people as possible.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theatre.
See sites for details.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theater.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre and YouTube Live Stream
Date: Tuesday the 14th
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/events/open-mic-night
New Neverspeak Tuesdays Open Mic at DiPiazza’s – In-Person Event
The New Neverspeak Tuesdays Open Mic at DiPiazza’s with Shy But Flyy, will feature guest poets + an open mic.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: DiPiazza’s Pizza
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 9 pm
Address: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-mic-w-shy-but-flyy-music-poetry-tickets-533965935487
Book Club: The Book of Lost Names at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Granada Hills Branch Book Club will read and discuss this month‘s selection, The Book of Lost Names, by Kristin Harmel.
Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this unforgettable historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Winemaker’s Wife.
Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.
As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.
This book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 1:30 pm – 3 pm
Address: 10640 Petit Avenue, Granada Hills, CA 91344
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-book-lost-names-0
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 15th
Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 23600 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/write-your-novel
Kids Book Club at Panorama City Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids & MG Event
The Panorama City Branch Library invites kids form ages 9-12 to register and join an online monthly book club discussion of this month’s selection, Hide and GEEK, by author TP Jagger.
Please register at tinyurl.com/PanoramaCityTweens to receive Zoom Link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, Zoom link, and details.
Where: Panorama City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/tween-book-club
Book Launch: Sherry Thomas, with bookseller Katherine, & A Tempest at Sea at The Ripped Bodice – Online Event
The Ripped Bodice presents Sherry Thomas, in conversation withRipped Bodice bookseller Katherine, todiscuss her novel, Tempest at Sea.
Charlotte Holmes’s brilliant mind and deductive skills are pulled into a dangerous investigation at sea in this new mystery of the bestselling Lady Sherlock series.
After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking, and she might be able to go back to a normal life.
Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder takes place on the ship.
Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation, lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is abroad and still very much alive.
NOTE: See site for tickets, livestream link, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Reading in Bed: Jessica Wilson Cardenas with guest TBA via L. A. Poet Society – Online Event
The Reading in Bed with Jessica Series is held live on Wednesdays at www.radioollin.org and features oldies, interviews, performances, live in-studio.
The mission of the L. A. Poet Society is to create a bridge, fusing the communities of Los Angeles & Southern California Poets. Jessica Wilson Cardenas is a poet, writer, event curator and founder of the L.A. Poet Society. She is the author of the collection Serious Longing.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: L.A. Poet Society
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/losangelespoetsociety/?hl=en
Book Club for Adults: Remarkably Bright Creatures at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
This Book Club for Adults meets every 3rd Wednesday of the month and participants will discuss this month’s selection, Remarkably Bright Creatures, by author Shelby Van Pelt.
This debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults
Karla Klarin & L.A. Painter: The City I Know / The City I See at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Klara Klarin will discuss her new book, The City I Know / The City I See, a full-color exploration of Karla Klarin’s abstract and modern landscapes of Los Angeles, where she was born, raised, and became one of the city’s most influential female painters. This first full monograph of her work is accompanied by ten essays that define her hometown–a city of moving parts and people that exist within a geometry of impressive expanse and beauty.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/karla-klarin
At Skylight: Maggie MIllner, with Special Guests, & Couplets at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Maggie Millner, in conversation with Special Guests, will discuss her book, Couplets, a coming-out story told in verse.
A woman lives an ordinary life in Brooklyn. She has a boyfriend. They share a cat. She writes poems in the prevailing style. She also has dreams: of being seduced by a throng of older women, of kissing a friend in a dorm-room closet. But the dreams are private, not real.
One night, she meets another woman at a bar, and an escape-hatch swings open in the floor of her life. She falls into a consuming affair—into queerness, polyamory, kink, power and loss, humiliation and freedom, and an enormous surge of desire that lets her leave herself behind.
Maggie Millner’s captivating, seductive debut is a love story in poems that explores obsession, gender, identity, and the art and act of literary transformation. In rhyming couplets and prose vignettes, Couplets chronicles the strictures, structures, and pitfalls of relationships—the mirroring, the pleasing, the small jealousies and disappointments—and how the people we love can show us who we truly are.
Maggie Millner was born and raised in rural upstate New York. She teaches writing at Yale and is a senior editor at The Yale Review. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Poetry. Couplets is her first book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-maggie-millner-presents-couplets-w-special-guests
Elizabeth McKenizie and YXTA Maya Murray Present: The Dog of the North and God Went Like That at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Elizabeth McKenizie and YXTA Maya Murray will present and discuss their new books: The Dog of the North and God Went Like That, respecti
Elizabeth McKenzie’s The Dog of the North is a novel about a beloved novelist of California and its idiosyncrasies, and follows Penny on her quest for a fresh start. There will be a road trip, an old van with gingham curtains, a piñata, and stiff brakes. There will be injury and peril. There will be a dog named Kweecoats and two brothers who may share a toupee. There will be questions: Why is a detective investigating her grandmother, and what is “the scintillator”? And can Penny recognize a good thing when it finally comes her way?
YXTA Maya Murray’s God Went Like That is a novel about federal agent Reyna Rodriguez, who reports on a real-life nuclear reactor meltdown and accidents that occurred in 1959, 1964, and 1968 at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. An infamous research and development complex in California’s Simi Valley, the lab was eventually dismantled by the US government–but not before it created a toxic legacy of contamination and numerous cancer clusters. Toxins and nuclear residue may have been further released by the 2018 Woolsey Fire and 2019 floods in the area.
It takes the form of an EPA report in which Reyna presents riveting interviews with individuals affected by the disasters. With imagination and artistry, Murray brings to life an actual 2011 Department of Energy dossier that detailed the catastrophes and the ensuing public health fallout and highlights the high costs of governmental malfeasance and environmental racism.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
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 — Readings by Anastasia Fenald, Funky Sunshine, Dr V;
- 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 15th
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 – Online Zoom Event
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. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please sign up for each workshop session at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, and you will be contacted with instructions on how to join the meeting.
The new facilitator for this workshop will be Tom Laiches, author of Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023), Sixty-Three Photographs from the End of a War (3.1 Press, 2021), and Empire of Eden (The High Window Press, 2019). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salt, Jabberwock, Blue Unicorn, Softblow, Disquieting Muses Quarterly, Stand, and elsewhere. He lives in Venice, California.
Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. Here’s an instructive video that might help.
The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Wednesday the 15th
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-579314444097
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Guest Victoria Lynn McCoy at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Join host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Night for our Reading & Open Mic, with feature Victoria Lynn NcCoy.
Victoria Lynn NcCoy holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA in “The Power of Words: Creative Expression as a Catalyst for Change,” focusing on activism in the arts, from the University of Redlands’ Johnston Center for Integrative Studies. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Blackbird, The Collagist, Drunken Boat, Boxcar Poetry Review, The Offing, and PANK, among others. Her poetry has been named a semi-finalist for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, and a finalist for the Mudfish Poetry Prize and the Third Coast Poetry Prize. Victoria lives in Long Beach.
The format is to welcome a featured poet for an individual reading, as well as an Open Mic reading.
$4 cover fee, cash only.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines & information.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 15th
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/578201004210364/?ref=newsfeed
Luncheon Event: Author Kristin Hannah, with Julia Whelan, & The Four Winds at Manhattan Beach Country Club with pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
This special event features a luncheon with bestselling author Kristin Hannah, in conversation with Julia Whelan, to discuss her most recent novel. The Four Winds, now in paperback.
The event will be held at the beautiful Manhattan Country Club and includes a delicious three course luncheon, talk and books signing. Kristin Hannah will be in conversation with author and audio book narrator, Julia Whelan.
Ticket includes lunch and a paperback copy of The Four Winds.
Th9is novel is an epic story of love and heroism, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras—the Great Depression.
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.
In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, costs, guidelines, details.
Where: pages a bookstore off-site at Manhattan Beach Country Club
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 11:30 am
Address: 1330 Parkview Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/kristin-hannah-julia-whelan
Mystery Book Club & Women in the Library at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Mystery Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Women in the Library, by author Sulari Gentill.
In every person’s story, there is something to hide…
The tranquility is shattered by a woman’s terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who’d happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.
Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.
Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair mysteries have won and/or been shortlisted for the Davitt Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her stand-alone metafiction thriller, After She Wrote Him won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel in 2018. Her tenth Sinclair novel, A Testament of Character, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Best Crime Novel in 20
After setting out to study astrophysics, graduating in law and then abandoning her legal career to write books, author Sulari Gentill now grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of Australia.
Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair mysteries have won and/or been shortlisted for the Davitt Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her stand-alone metafiction thriller, After She Wrote Him won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel in 2018. Her tenth Sinclair novel, A Testament of Character, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Best Crime Novel in 20
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-woman-library
Big Read Book Discussion & Interior Chinatown at West Los Angeles Regional Library, LAPL – Online Event
The West L.A. Book Club will discuss the Big Read novel and this month’s selection, Interior Chinatown, by author Charles Yu.
Interior Chinatown is a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. After stumbling into the spotlight, actor Willis Wu finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family.
Please email cdavies@lapl.org for more information and Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: West Los Angeles Regional Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-11
Venice Branch Library Book Club & The Burgess Boys at Venice Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Venice Branch Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Burgess Boys, by author Elizabeth Strout.
Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a Legal Aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in stride. But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan—the Burgess sibling who stayed behind—urgently calls them home. Her lonely teenage son, Zach, has gotten himself into a world of trouble, and Susan desperately needs their help.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Venice Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 501 S. Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/venice-library-book-club
Montana Avenue Branch Library Book Club & The Lincoln Highway at Montana Avenue Branch Library, SMPL – Online Event
The Montana Avenue Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Lincoln Highway: A Novel by author Amor Towles.
This 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.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Montana Avenue Branch Library, SMPL
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/March2023CalendarOfEvents.pdf
Open Mic: Besos y Puñales at Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Viva Padilla will host the Re/Arte Open Mic of musica, poesia, comedia, lectura every Thursday.
Sign up at the door.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Poetry Launch: Stewart Florsheim & Amusing the Angels at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Author Stewart Florsheim will discuss his poetry collection, Amusing the Angels. The poetry in this collection is mostly narrative and covers an array of topics including the poet’s upbringing as a child of a Holocaust survivor in New York City, family, relationships, art, and contemporary events.
Stewart Florsheim has been widely published in magazines and anthologies, and he is the author of four collections of poetry. His latest collection, Amusing the Angels, won the 2022 Blue Light Book Award. Stewart is also the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and further information.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24017
Auriane Desombre, with Maria Kanter, & The Sister Split at Vroman’s – In-Person YA Event
Auriane Desombre, in conversation with Marisa Kanter, will discuss her new YA novelnovel, The Sister Split.
A pair of soon-to-be stepsisters creates a plan that will stop their parents from getting married–but they soon learn that matters of the heart can surprise you! This is a fresh sister story evocative of The Parent Trap with LGBTQ themes for the modern reader.
Autumn is looking forward to summer vacation. She and her best friend plan on going to all the best ice cream places their stomachs can handle–and in NYC, the possibilities can’t get any sweeter.
Linnea is still not over the fact that her dad has found love after her parents’ divorce. Luckily, she can take out all her feelings on the tennis courts for a winning summer.
But then Autumn and Linnea discover the news: their parents are getting married. Autumn will be moving to the suburbs to live with her soon-to-be stepdad and stepsister, which means kissing the fun summer with her best friend goodbye. For Linnea, she knows her dream of getting her parents back together is officially over.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Christopher Bollen, with Ivy Pochoda, & The Lost Americans at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Christopher Bollen, in conversation with Ivy Pochoda, will discuss his new novel, The Lost American.
When the lifeless body of Eric Castle, a weapons technician for a major American defense contractor, is found under his hotel balcony, both his employer and the Egyptian authorities quickly declare his death a suicide. But the dead man’s sister, Cate, doesn’t believe Eric took his own life and is determined to get to the truth. Traveling to Egypt she begins to piece together her brother’s life in Cairo with the help of a handsome, young, gay Egyptian man named Omar, who yearns to escape the brutality of his nation’s harsh, restrictive government.
This riveting thriller of set in loud, boisterous Cairo of Americans lost and found showcases Bollen’s depth of characterization and haunting descriptive powers.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/christopher-bollen
At Second Home: Gabrielle Blair, with Caissie St. Onge, & Ejaculate Responsively at Skylight Books off-site at Second Home – In-Person Ticketed Event
Gabrielle Blair, in conversation with Caissie St. Onge, will present and discuss her book, Ejaculate Responsively: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion.
In a series of 28 brief arguments, Blair deftly makes the case for moving the abortion debate away from controlling and legislating women’s bodies and instead directs the focus on men’s lack of accountability in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Highly readable, accessible, funny, and unflinching, Blair builds her argument by walking readers through the basics of fertility (men are 50 times more fertile than women), the unfair burden placed on women when it comes to preventing pregnancy (90% of the birth control market is for women), the wrongheaded stigmas around birth control for men (condoms make sex less pleasurable, vasectomies are scary and emasculating), and the counterintuitive reality that men, who are fertile 100% of the time, take little to no responsibility for preventing pregnancy.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books at Second Home (off-site)
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1370 N. St, Andrews Place, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/second-home-gabrielle-blair-presents-ejaculate-responsibly-w-caissie-st-onge or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gabrielle-blair-ejaculate-responsibly-at-second-home-tickets-538156970987
At Skylight: Tom Comitta & The Nature Book at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
What does our nature writing say about us, and more urgently, what would it say without us? Tom Comitta investigates these questions and more in The Nature Book, a “literary supercut” that arranges writing about the natural world from three hundred works of fiction into a provocative re-envisioning of the novel. With fiction’s traditional background of flora and fauna brought to the fore, people and their structures disappear, giving center stage to animals, landforms, and weather patterns—honored in their own right rather than for their ambient role in human drama. The Nature Book challenges the confines of anthropocentrism with sublime artistic vision, traversing mountains, forests, oceans, and space to shift our attention toward the magnificently complex and interconnected world around us.
Tom Comitta is the author of Airport Novella, and First Thought Worst Thought: Collected Books 2011-2014, a print and digital archive of forty “night novels,” art books, and poetry collections. Comitta’s fiction and essays have appeared in WIRED, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Believer, BOMB, and Best American Experimental Writing 2020. They live in Brooklyn.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-tom-comitta-presents-nature-book
Sadie Dupuis, with Morgan Parker, & Cry Perfume at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz brings her book of poetry CRY PERFUME to Stories Books, along with Morgan Parker.
This collection consists of lyrical poems that engage with grief and loss and the toll of overdose and addiction with an activist bent.
The title of Cry Perfume is an imperative to bottle sorrow in a beautiful vessel and shed the chemicals that cloud your sight. Written over a four-year period on tour and after losing loved ones and peers to overdose, Dupuis funneled complicated grief into harm reduction advocacy, working to fundraise for and distribute overdose prevention resources in venues internationally.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Spectacular Story Time at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
This popular children’s story time is held every Friday morning and is ready to delight and dazzle with enthusiastic troubadour, Maddi!
Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-23
Bookish Event: Discussion of New Releases via Once Upon a Time Bookstore & Southern California News Group – Online Event
At this one-hour event featuring conversations with authors, thinkers and performers you will discover new book releases, meet interesting people and learn about a variety of topics with host Sandra Tsing Loh, writer, actress and radio personality.
Authors include:
Ronnie Woo is the author of the new cook book soon to be released, Did You Eat Yet? Craveable Recipes from an All-American Asian Chef.
Whether it’s a healthy carb-conscious recipe, an overly indulgent cheat meal, or stunning happy-hour fare, Ronnie’s over-the-top book delivers on flavor with memorable humor —plus mouthwatering photographs throughout—and offers a serious array of recipes to easily elevate your home cooking and stuff your loved ones with great food.
Rebecca Makai is the author of I Have Some Questions for You: A Novel.
This true crime, coming-of-age novel is about successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane, who is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie. But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws.
Tim Blake Nelson is the author of City of Blows.
This debut novel is an epic group portrait of four men grappling for control of a script in a radically changing Hollywood, or the City of Blows. It’s early 2020, and legendary producer Jacob Rosenthal is eager to make his next film, Coal, adapted from the bestselling novel by the celebrated writer Rex Patterson. The project—which takes on the controversial topic of race in America—is Jacob’s envisioned magnum opus, and likely his swan song.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/bookish-march-2023
The Post Up Open Mic: Featured Guest 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 TBA.
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 17th (Every third Friday of the month)
Time: 7 pm
Where: Uptown Plants by Casa Verde LA
Address: 12909 Philadelphia St, Whittier, CA 90601
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CoQ76aKjAHq/?hl=en
Root for the Underdog: A Reading & Poets’ Conversation: Meliza Bañales & Root for the Underdog, A Poets’ Conversation at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Beyond Baroque presents: Root for the Underdog: A Reading & Poets’ Conversation inspired by Meliza Bañales’ new book, Root for the Underdog.
This book is a work of sacred memory keeping, of 1990’s San Francisco Mission queer Latina femme poet life and the life 20 years later when condos take over those poetry bars. It’s a disabled brown femme reckoning, telling honest stories of grief, love, desire and survival.
Meliza Bañales will be joined by Angela Aguirre, Sean Hill, and Brian Sonia-Wallace reading their selected work. After the readings, the four poets will discuss the theme “root for the underdog,” facilitated by Jen Cheng. Come early for the reception with food & light refreshments and stay for book signings.
Meliza Bañales, also known as Missy Fuego, is an author, advocate, and adventurer. Their new book, roōt for the underdog, features tales of strife, strength, and community. In addition to creating daring work across more than two decades of books and anthologies, Meliza has received praise from feminist and queer magazines like Autostraddle and Bustle. They were a 2016 Lambda Literary Finalist for Best LGBTQ Debut Fiction for their novel Life Is Wonderful, People Are Terrific. Meliza rocked the slam poetry scene of 1990s San Francisco, taught at UC San Diego, and now lives in Los Angeles and the Central Coast. @MissyFuego
Sean Hill is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist & humanitarian with the focus of supporting universal inner & outer peace in a realistic, fun, & passionate way. As a SAG actor, host, speaker, touring spoken word artist & workshop facilitator he has shared stages and pages with Oscar winners, platinum singers, Grammy winners, literary giants like Kevin Powell, V (formerly Eve Ensler), Jessica Care Moore, Nikki Giovanni & children from youth homes sharing poems for the first time. He traveled to help build two gender equal schools in Malawi & Nepal. “It is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.” http://www.patreon.com/LetsBendReality / All Social: @LetsBendReality / http://www.LetsBendReality.com
Angela Aguirre is a Chicana author, speaker, and teacher. A fierce advocate for women + youth in her community, she believes in using her platform to empower. Angela started her journey at Da Poetry Lounge in Hollywood in 2010 and has been writing and performing her work since. In 2016, her book of poetry and writing prompts Confessions of a Firework was published. In 2017, she was the youngest honored as one of ten Women of the Year by Senator Anthony Portantino. In 2018, she gave the opening talk at TEDxCal State LA. In 2019, she launched The Millennial Mija Podcast. In 2020, she created a healing workshop series called Season of Self which has created a community for women and femmes on their individual journeys to self-discovery and growth. In 2022 she was given the Women for Racial Justice award by the YWCA. She has done keynotes and workshops for conferences, graduations, and corporate events. Her work has been featured by Latina Magazine, All Def Digital, Voto Latino, KCET + The Huffington Post.
Brian Sonia-Wallace is a poet and cultural worker interested in themes of intimacy, service, debt, queerness, grief, authorship, memory, and transcendence. He is the West Hollywood City Poet Laureate, an 2021-22 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, and the author of The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter. His book chronicles long-term project RENT Poet, which invites the public to share their stories in exchange for poems about them, written in real-time on a vintage typewriter. Brian runs a queer open mic in a trashy gay club and was once quote-tweeted by Bjork.
Jen Cheng is an alchemist, a creator of poetry, songs, books, and film. As a queer lesbian daughter of Chinese immigrants, Jen is a cultural translator with a commitment to social justice and community building. She wrote and produced a Burmese LGBTQ family drama, Shadow of Love, and is developing a character-driven mystery series, Lucky Penny. She is also a co-creator of Fly Away, a series that centers on an intercultural friend group of tween girls, talented gymnasts and budding artists, set in the 1990s. Jen is a founding member of Pride Poets and hosts a BIPOC-centered literary salon, Palabras. More about Jen on http://www.JenCvoice.com or social media (Twitter/IG): @jenCvoice. If you want to see her dog steal the stage, find them walking in West Hollywood or on this Instagram @jen.and.potato.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, link, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd. Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/root-for-the-underdog-a-reading-poets-conversation-tickets-560889233797
Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series, with host Elena Secota, via Rapp Saloon – Hybrid In-Person & Online Event
Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon Open Mic & Featured Readers is an event offered every 3rd Friday of the month by host Elena Secota.
This is a HYBRID event, with a return to live in-person events while maintaining at HISUA Zoom option for our performers and guests.
All languages are welcome.
Featured guest poets and artists this month are:
Antoineta Villamil is a bilingual poet, founder of Poesia Festival, and the winner of the Latino Book Award Best Book of Poetry in the U.S., for Soluna en Bosque.
Christian Georgescu was born in Bucharest, Romania and emigrated to New York City at the age of five. A writer, performer and visual artist, his written work is anthologized in Hell Strung and Crooked, It’s Animal but Merciful and Selfie among many others. His visual art can be found in DADA Maintenant Journals. In 2016, he created the multimedia, genre-bending solo production, House of ME, featured at Beyond Baroque among other venues, and performs a The Poetry Brothel.
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are at 8 pm – 8:30 pm.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90401 (Zoom link in bio @RappSaloon)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/RappSaloonReadingSeries/photos/
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event & Open Mic by Lorenzo Frank at Park Hills Community Center – In-Person Event
Join us to hear a featured poet, plus an Open Mic, hosted by Lorenzo Frank on the first and third Friday of the month.
Featured artist TBA
NOTE: See site for costs, guidelines, and details.
Where: Park Hills Community Center
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 8:30 pm
Address: 5245 Overdale Dr., View Park-Windsor Hills, Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.facebook.com/swaampoetry/
Graphic Novel Book Club: What Is Home, Mum? via Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Bel Canto Books’ Graphic Novel Book Club reads a new fiction or memoir on the 3rd Saturday of every month. The graphic novel selection for discussion this month is What Is Home, Mum? by author Sabbah Kahn.
As a second-generation Pakistani immigrant living in East London, Sabba Khan paints a vivid snapshot of contemporary British Asian life and investigates the complex shifts experienced by different generations within immigrant communities, creating an uplifting and universal story that crosses borders and decades. Race, gender, and class are explored in a compelling personal narrative creating a strong feminist message of self-reflection and empowerment which is illuminated in stunning artwork.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 10 pm – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/graphic-novel-book-club-hosted-by-bel-canto-books-tickets-492235929917
Vroman’s Special Storytime: Molly Ruttan & Something Wild at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Children’s author Molly Ruttan will present her new story, Something Wild.
In Something Wild, performance jitters lead to some imaginative what ifs before a little girl finds her confidence.
Hannah loves to play her violin–as long as no one is watching. On the day of the recital, she is wishing something wild would happen so she won’t have to go. Perhaps a dolphin will jump out of the fountain and carry her away, or a giant rabbit will abscond with her violin. Hannah’s big imagination dreams up all kinds of entertaining scenarios that could change the course of her day, but what actually happens is the most amazing of all!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 11 am
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Molly-Ruttan-presenting-Something-Wild
Kids Storytime: Sue Ganz Schmidt & Luke Flowers & That Monster on the Block at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Children’s author Sue Ganz Schmidt and illustrator Luke Flowers will present their new story, That Monster on the Block.
Monster is excited to see what kind of creature will move into Vampire’s old house on the block. He even starts practicing his welcome growl. But when the moving truck pulls up, it’s not a greedy goblin, an ogre, or a dastardly dragon that steps out. It’s something even more terrifying than Monster could have imagined! But what if the new neighbor isn’t as bad as Monster thinks? Join Monster as he confronts his fears in this charming and light-hearted look at what it means to accept others who are different from us.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Canada Flintridge, CA 91011
Author Talk: Writing Themselves into History via Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Author Kim Bancroft discusses her new book Writing Themselves into History: Emily and Matilda Bancroft in Journals and Letters, with fellow author Frances Dinkelspiel (Towers of Gold and Tangled Vines). Additionally, both authors will talk about researching and writing family histories.
In the early years of California’s statehood, Emily Brist Ketchum Bancroft and Matilda Coley Griffing Bancroft had front-row seats to the unfolding of the Golden State’s history. The first and second wives of historian extraordinaire Hubert Howe Bancroft, these two women were deeply engaged members of society and perceptive chroniclers of their times, and they left behind extensive records of their lives and work. Writing Themselves into History offers a rich immersion in nineteenth-century California, detailing Emily’s and Matilda’s experiences with public life, motherhood, and business against the backdrop of San Francisco’s high society. This book is a valuable resource for anyone with an interest in California’s first decades as a state.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Stuart Gibbs & Whale Done at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids Event
Children’s author Stuart Gibbs will present and discuss his new book Whale Done.
In the eighth novel in New York Times bestselling Stuart Gibbs’s FunJungle series, Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle’s resident sleuth to find the culprits behind a blown-up whale and a string of beach sand thefts. After an escaped kangaroo starts a fire that burns down his house, Teddy Fitzroy accepts an invitation to go to Malibu with his girlfriend, Summer, and her mother, Kandace. He’s hoping to spend some time relaxing on the beach, but wherever Teddy goes, trouble isn’t far behind.
Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents). Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/stuart-gibbs-person-meet-greet-saturday-march-18th-noon
Expressions L.A.: Poetry Reading Series & Open Mic via Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Expressions Reading Series & Open Mic is offered every 1st and 3rd Saturday at 3 pm, both in-person and online.
Please email studio@lapl.org for instructions on how to join the program.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/expressions-la-poetry-reading-series-and-open-mic-1
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Readings by Cory Cofer, Jeffrey Martin & Charlie Zero – Online Zoom Event Only
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts this poetry reading with:
Cory Cofer will read from his new collection, Dreaming Under Polka Dot Stars.
Jeffrey Martin will read from his new novel Ripples, Shadows, and Huddled Scraps.
Charlie Zero and poets published in Spectrum online edition: Flower Parade.
All events are curated by: Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Kuya Paul & Christian Poetry That Doesn’t Suck Event at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
Christian Poetry That Doesn’t Suck is a 90-minute writing workshop presented by Kuya Paul, which will explore the ideas and concepts that can make faith-based poetry inspiring, inventive, and (most importantly) not suck.
Students will identify key features that make Christian poetry and spoken word impactful using time-honored Biblical principles and proven performance methods. Workshop includes class and poetry workshop with the facilitator.
Kuya Paul is a poet and performer based in Los Angeles. His spoken word credits include being a featured performer at Biola University, Westminster Baptist, and the Asian American International Film Festival. He is currently both a student Ambassador and a Master’s Degree candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 3:30 pm – 5 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/christian-poetry-that-doesnt-suck-tickets-538023140697
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club: Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Kids Event
The Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories, by author Vandana Singh.
In her first North American collection, Vandana Singh’s deep humanism interplays with her scientific background in stories that explore and celebrate this world and others and characters who are trying to make sense of the people they meet, what they see, and the challenges they face. An eleventh century poet wakes to find he is an artificially intelligent companion on a starship. A woman of no account has the ability to look into the past. In Requiem, a major new novella, a woman goes to Alaska to try and make sense of her aunt’s disappearance.
Vandana Singh (vandana-writes.com) was born in India and she currently lives near Boston, Mass., where she professes physics and writes. Her short stories have appeared in many Best of Year anthologies and she has received the Carl Brandon Parallax award. Her books include the ALA Notable book Younguncle Comes to Town.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside CA 92507
Reclaiming Witches & Monstrous Women: 4 Women Writers Readingat Tia Chucha Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore honors Women’s History Month with a reading titled Reclaiming Witches & Monstrous Women and welcoming writers Sehba Sarwar, Jamie Asaye FitzGerald, Olga García, and Alicia Vogl Saenz!
In this reading and discussion, featured writers will embrace and celebrate folklore that mythologizes women and aim to shift the lens through which women witches and victims are viewed.
Sehba Sarwar is a transnational writer, workshop leader, artist and community activist tackling gender, displacement and border issues. She is the author of the novel Black Wings, offers an ongoing class on storytelling for social justice through UCLA Extension, and participates in numerous readings and events.
Jamie Asaye FitzGerald is a Los Angeles-based poet from Hawaii. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Works & Days, Poetry Daily, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. Her work has also been anthologized in Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes & Shifts in Los Angeles (Tia Chucha Press, 2016) and Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles & Beyond (Beyond Baroque/Pacific Coast Poetry Series, 2015). She recently completed Dear Ones, a full-length poetry collection, and is at work on Peninsula, a hybrid project. For over a decade, she has worked for Poets & Writers in its Los Angeles office.
Olga García Echeverría, born and raised in East Los Angeles, California, is the author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemas (Calaca Press and Chibcha Press). Her poetry and essays appear in numerous anthologies, print magazines, and online literary venues. She has been an educator in the literary arts for over 25 years and currently teaches literature in the Chicanx Latinx Studies department at California State University of Los Angeles. For the past decade, under the leadership of Poets & Writers and California Center for the Book, she has worked as a bilingual workshop leader for the Rural Libraries Tour, which facilitates creative writing workshops in rural and underserved areas of California. She and Maylei Blackwell are the literary executors for the beloved Colombian American lesbian poet and publisher tatiana de la tierra.
Alicia Vogl Saenz is a poet, museum educator, bread baker, yarn lover, craftivist, queer, EcuaCzech, radically friendly, meanderer, kitchen witch, 4% Neanderthal, linktr.ee/aliciabird
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Tia Chucha Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Address:12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=713520410430457&set=a.489845902797910
Pages on Stages: San Diego (and Friends) Chapter Reading at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
Pages on Stages, hosted by Karo Ska, welcomes the San Diego (and Friends) Chapter to a reading and Open Mic by CLI.
Featured poets include:
Carlos Ornelas
Sister Mama Sonya
Soul on Fire
Deborah Dalton
Anisha Pai
Sylvia Teleflora
Elle
Bios available soon. Check site.
All in-person attendees will receive a raffle ticket. We’ll be raffling off books & literary journals.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and guidelines, and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/pages-on-stages-san-diego-friends-chapter
An Evening of Poetry: David Lloyd, David Woo & Martha Gronk at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Beyond Baroque presents: An Evening of Poetry, featuring: David Lloyd, David Woo & Martha Gronk.
David Lloyd is a poet, playwright, and critic. Among his many publications are Arc & Sill: Poems 1979–2009 (Shearsman 2012) and The Harm Fields (Georgia Review Books, 2022). A chapbook, terra terra, appeared with Magra Books in May 2022 and other recent work is in Firmament. His play, The Press/Le Placard, is available in a bilingual edition from Presses Universitaires du Midi. He is also the editor of editor of Alfred Arteaga’s Xicancuicatl: Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2020) and his most recent critical book is Counterpoetics of Modernity: On Irish Poetry and Modernism (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).
David Woo is the author of two books, Divine Fire, selected by the Book Club of The Washington Post as one of the best poetry books of 2021, and The Eclipses, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr., Poetry Prize. His poetry and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Books, The New Republic, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He was recently elected to the board of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in Phoenix.
Martha Ronk has published 13 books of poetry, most recently The Place One Is from Omnidawn, 2022, eco-poetry, The Myth of Ariadne, Parlor Press, 2022 on De Chirico’s paintings, and Silences, Omnidawn—ekphrastic poems. Transfer of Qualities was long-listed for the National Poetry Award; Vertigo was a National Poetry Series selection. Glass Grapes, short stories, was published by BOA Editions; and her ironic memoir, Displeasures of the Table, by Green Integer. Her work has been included in several anthologies including the Wesleyan anthology, American Poets in the 21st Century.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, link, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 18th
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 18th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Illustrator Shiho Pate & Ramen for Everyone at Bel Canto KUBO – In-Person Kids Event
Bel Canto KUBO celebrates the art of illustrator Shiho Pate and her new picture book, Ramen for Everyone.
Shiho Pate will present and sign copies of her new children’s book she illustrated, Ramen for Everyone.
Ramen for Everyone is a picture book in which a boy aspiresto make a bowl of ramen as delicious as his dad’s. But he runs into some surprises on his first attempt. He soon discovers that every person’s perfect bowl of ramen s unique.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and information.
Where: Bel Canto KUBO
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807
Gina Capobianco & Traveling the Healing Journey, Finding the Light in Mental Illness at Sandpiper Books – In-Person Event
Sandpiper Books hosts author Gian Capobianco to present her new book, Traveling the Healing Journey, Finding the Light in Mental Illness.
Gina Capobianco takes the reader on her life’s journey through the darkness of depression and anxiety. She shares her battles with mental illness honestly, with its ups and downs. Beginning when depression emerged in her teenage years, she describes the darkness of depression and anxiety in realistic detail. She continues through struggles and attempts at healing until discovering a treatment approach that led to improvement.
Capobianco acknowledges the “lights” along her journey, the people who have been by her side. She shares how healing can be found in the darkest of times and has a message that is healing.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and information.
Where: Sandpiper Books
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time:1 pm
Address: 4665 Torrance Blvd., Torrance, CA 90503
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=580633450769758&set=a.460433196123118
Poetry Salon Reading and Open Mic with Heather Bourbaeu at The Poetry Salon – Online Event
The Poetry Salon Reading and Open Mic with Heather Bourbaeu will feature a reading from her latest collection, Monarch.
Heather Bourbeau examines the nexus of climate change, conflict, and migration.
She writes poetry, short fiction, and far too many to-do lists.
She lives among the sage and fog.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and information.
Where: The Poetry Salon
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Bucket List Book Club: This Is Happiness at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Cellar Bucket List Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, This Is Happiness, by author Niall Williams.
This novel from Booker Prize-longlisted author Niall Williams is about the loves of our lives and the joys of reminiscing.
The rain is stopping. Nobody in the small, forgotten village of Faha remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard was a condition of living. Now–just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of electricity–it is stopping. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is standing outside his grandparents’ house shortly after the rain has stopped when he encounters Christy for the first time. Though he can’t explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.
This is the story of all that was to follow: Christy’s long-lost love and why he had come to Faha, Noel’s own experiences falling in and out of love, and the endlessly postponed arrival of electricity–a development that, once complete, would leave behind a world that had not changed for centuries.
Niall Williams was born in Dublin in 1958. He studied English and French literature at University College Dublin before graduating with a Master’s degree in Modern American Literature. He moved to New York in 1980 where he married Christine Breen, whom he had met while she was a Master’s student also at UCD, and took his first job opening boxes of books in Fox and Sutherland’s bookshop in Mount Kisco. He later worked as a copywriter for Avon Books in New York City before leaving America with Chris in 1985 to attempt to make a life as a writer. They moved on April 1st to the cottage in west Clare that Chris’s grandfather had left eighty years before to find his life in America. His first four books were co-written with Chris and tell of their life together in Kiltumper in west Clare.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/bucket-list-book-club-happiness
Ashley Howell Bunn & with breath: a somatic writing workshop at Sims Library of Poetry – Online Event
Ashley Howell Bunn will lead a workshop titled, with breath: a somatic writing workshop, in which participants will explore the connection between physical and subtle bodies while writing, through the power of somatic experience. ill move through a variety of somatic experiences and rituals, including guided mindfulness, breathing techniques, and physical postures, with space for reflective writing.
Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their work has previously appeared in The Colorado Sun, South Broadway Ghost Society, Global Poemic, Twenty Bellows, patchwork litmag, Mulberry Literary and others. She is an experienced yoga guide, and writes a monthly Yoga and Tarot column for Writual. Their chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing. She has taught somatic writing workshops online and in- person for Alchemy Author Services, Sundress Publications, and others including their own personal business, Howell and Heal LLC. She lives in Denver, CO with her child.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/with-breath-a-somatic-writing-workshop-tickets-541802003377
Red Hen Press Presents: Kathry H. Ross, Pete Hsu and Douglas Manuel at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Join local literary publisher Red Hen Press for an event celebrating their authors Kathryn H. Ross, Pete Hsu and Douglas Manuel.
Kathryn H. Ross is the author of the debut collection, Black Was Not a Label (2nd Edition), a collection of creative nonfiction essays first published by the now-defunct indie press, PRONTO. In July 2022, BWNL was picked by the largest independent publisher in Los Angeles, Red Hen Press, for re-release as a second edition featuring new cover art and was published on December 6, 2022.
Pete Hsu is the author of the short story collection If I Were The Ocean, I’d Carry You Home (Red Hen Press, 2022) and the experimental chapbook There Is A Man (Tolsun Books). His writing has also been featured in The Los Angeles Review, The Bare Life Review, F(r)iction Magazine, Faultline Journal of Arts and Letters, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and others. He was a 2017 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow and the 2017 PEN in the Community Writer in Residence. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan and currently resides in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley.
Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Long Beach, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. His first collection of poems, Testify, won an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for poetry, and his poems and essays can be found in numerous literary journals, magazines, and websites, most recently Zyzzyva, Pleiades, and the New Orleans Review. He has traveled to Egypt and Eritrea with The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program to teach poetry. A recipient of the Dana Gioia Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, he is a Bayard Rustin Fellow at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and further information.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
March Focus on Craft Book Club & Take the Lead at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents the March Focus on Craft Book Club, led by Taylor C., which will discuss Take the Lead,: A Dance Off Novel by author Alexis Daria.
Meets at the store on the 3nd Sunday of the month at 7:15pm.
No membership necessary, feel free to show up!
About the book:
This fun, sexy romance is set against a reality dance show.
Gina Morales wants to make it big. In her four seasons on The Dance Off, she’s never even made it to the finals. But her latest partner, the sexy star of an Alaskan wilderness show, could be her chance. Who knew the strong, silent, survivalist-type had moves like that? She thinks Stone Nielson is her ticket to win it all—until her producer makes it clear they’re being set up for a showmance.
As Stone and Gina heat up the dance floor, the tabloids catch on to their developing romance. With the spotlight threatening to ruin everything, will they choose fame and fortune, or let love take the lead?
Alexis Daria writes stories about successful Latinx characters and their (occasionally messy) familias. Her debut Take the Lead won the 2018 RITA® Award for “Best First Book”. You Had Me at Hola is a national bestseller, Target Diverse Book Club Pick, and New York Times Editor’s Choice Pick. Alexis is a lifelong New Yorker who loves Broadway musicals and pizza.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 19th
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 