Teen Poetry Workshop at Pomona Public Library – In-Person Teen Event
Join Pomona Poet Laureate Ceasar Avelar and Acclaimed Poet Matt Sedillo to learn how to write your own three-act poems in a Teen Poetry Workshop.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Pomona Public Library
Date: Monday the 10th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 625 S. Garey Ave., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://www.pomonaca.gov/government/departments/library?locale=en or https://www.pomonaca.gov/government/departments/library?locale=en
Story Writing Club: Teen Eventat Jefferson Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Join the Story Writing Club for Teens. Draw, learn the art of storytelling, and discover your ideas with other teens. For ages 11 – 18.
This event is scheduled for every Monday and Thursday, 4:30 – 5:30 pm.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Jefferson Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 10th (and Thursday the 13th)
Time: 4:30 – 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/story-writing-club
Sun Valley Book Club: Horse via Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Sun Valley’s Book Club will read the April selection, Horse, by Geraldine Brooks.
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
Please email ebarrera@lapl.org for the Google Meet link and additional information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 10th
Time: 4:45 – 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sun-valley-book-club
Kristen Mai Giang & Last Flight at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Kristen Mai Giang will present and discuss her new children’s and family book, Last Flight.
On April 24, 1975 the last flight out of Saigon, Vietnam carried over 400 people to the United States, six days before Saigon’s surrender to the North Vietnamese Army.
Kristen Giang was a little girl, on that flight with family, and here in this story she shares all the emotions of the decision to flee from the perspective of someone eight years old; Playing a game of space-explorers to protect herself and her sister’s eyes from tear gas; sneaking a stuffed animal into the family’s overstuffed suitcase for comfort.
Dow Phumiruk’s tender illustrations let anyone feel the excitement and the ultimate hopefulness of this amazing true story.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 10th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/kristen-mai-giang-discusses-last-flight
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 10th
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online Event, Zoom: 840 2975 5764
Website: https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety/
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 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 10th
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-608537751797
Susanna Hoffs, with Susan Orlean, & This Bird Has Flown at LiveTalks L. A. – Online Event
Susanna Hoffs, in conversation with Susan Orlean, will discuss her new novel, This Bird Has Flown.
Susanna Hoffs, songwriter and co-founder of the Bangles, has written a funny and steamy novel about music, fate, redemption, and love. Thanks to a chance encounter on a plane, a thirty-something pop star who’s hit bottom revives her life and career. The book’s already been optioned by Universal Pictures, with Hoffs writing the screenplay.
Susanna Hoffs graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Art. In 1981 she co-founded The Bangles, with whom she recorded and released a string of chart-topping singles including Manic Monday, Walk Like an Egyptian, Hazy Shade of Winter, and Eternal Flame before embarking on a critically acclaimed solo career. She also wrote, recorded music for, and appeared in the Austin Powers movies, and played herself on Season 1 of “The Gilmore Girls.” She recently completed a solo album of new music produced by Peter Asher, set for release in early 2023. This Bird Has Flown is her first novel. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, filmmaker Jay Roach.
Susan Orlean is the author of nine books, including The Library Book, The Orchid Thief, and Rin Tin Tin. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992, covering a range of subjects including pigeon racing, Tonya Harding, teen surfing, taxidermy, and basketball. She is currently working on a memoir and adapting The Library Book for television. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Ann & Jerry Moss Theatre,New Roads School, Alpert Educational Village
Date: Monday the 10th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/susanna-hoffs/
Blackout Poetry for Teensat North Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
It’s National Poetry Month! Celebrate by tapping into your creativity! Tear out some pages from our old books and pull out different words that catch your eye to make a poem that speaks to you! Use markers to black out all but the words that jump out to you and create original poems. This program is recommended for ages 11 years and older.
Where: North Hollywood Regional Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 5211 Tujunga Ave., North Hollywood, CA 91601
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/blackout-poetry-teens
‘So Emotional’ Book Club: The Shame Machine at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The ‘So Emotional’ Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation, by Cathy O’Neil.
O’Neil explores the machinery behind all the political and social media created shame and its destructive effects, showing how governments, corporations, and the healthcare system capitalize on it. There are damning stories of rehab clinics, reentry programs, drug and diet companies, and social media platforms—all of which profit from “punching down” on the vulnerable. Woven throughout The Shame Machine is the story of O’Neil’s own struggle with body image and her recent weight-loss surgery, which awakened her to the systematic shaming of fat people seeking medical care.
With clarity and nuance, O’Neil dissects the relationship between shame and power. Whom does the system serve? Is it counter-productive to call out racists, misogynists, and vaccine skeptics? If so, when should someone be “canceled”? How do current incentive structures perpetuate the shaming cycle? And, most important, how can we all fight back? Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation, by author Cathy O’Neil.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/so-emotional-book-club-shame-machine
Brian Trust: Ghazal Workshop: Arabic Poetry Formsvia The Poetry Lab – Online Event
The Poetry Lab presents the Brian Trust series, and offers a Ghazal Workshop: Arabic Poetry Forms, instructed by Nadia Alamah.
Depending how you say it, “ghazal” is either a gazelle or a type of poem. So if you really wanted to, you could write en-DEERing poetry with us! In honor of April’s commemoration as National Poetry Month and Arab American Heritage Month, this Brain Trust event explores some traditional and contemporary forms and styles found in MENA and Arab American poetry.
Facilitated by Nadia Alamah. While her writing usually dabbles in sci fi/fantasy and abstract prose poems, Nadia Alamah will occasionally explore sociopolitical identity poetry in honor of April’s Arab American Heritage Month. Nadia has previously published Yalla, Habibi: Poems in 3arabeezi; Awakening, a selection from the now cobwebbed project Everhart’s Notebook; and an occasional light dusting of pieces in collections including Shuruq 4.5, Qua and A Teenager’s Guide to Feminism. Nadia has otherwise focused on creation of community-centric arts projects and workshops in Flint, Michigan prior to posting up in Long Beach. Nadia uses they/them and she/her pronouns.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 5:30 pm – 8 PM
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ghazal-workshop-arabic-poetry-forms-tickets-561651413497
Poetry Open Micat Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
It’s National Poetry Month! Celebrate by joining the Poetry Open Mic hosted by Wyatt Underwood.
Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love! You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy.
To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic
Virtual Book Launch: Lynnor Bontigao & Sari-Sari Summers via Bel Canto Books – Online Kids Event
Bel Canto Books will virtually celebrate the new picture book SARI-SARI SUMMERS by Filipina American author/illustrator Lynnor Bontigao. The author will be joined in conversation by author and publisher Christina Newhard of Sari-Sari Storybooks.
In this love letter to the Philippines (and to grandmothers), a young girl comes up with a brilliantly delicious way to attract customers after a heat wave leaves her lola’s store empty.
Lynnor Bontigao hails from one of the more than 7,600 islands of the Philippines. She is the illustrator of Jack & Agyu by Justine Villanueva and You Are Revolutionary by Cindy Wang Brandt. Sari-Sari Summers is her debut as author-illustrator. A member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the winner of the 2020 SCBWI Tomie de Paola Professional Development Award, Lynnor Bontigao lives in New Jersey with her family.
Christina Newhard is a designer, writer, and publisher. Born in Manila to a Filipina mother and American father, she moved to the U.S. at the age of 10. A love for text, image, and story moved her to pursue graphic design, and eventually to found her press, Sari-Sari Storybooks. The press shares the diversity of Philippine culture through multilingual picture books. A former New Yorker, Christina lives in Oakland with a very loud cat named Princess Genghis.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-book-launch-for-sari-sari-summers-tickets-601495397927
In-Store Reading: Sascha Rothchild, with Monica Corcoran Harel, & Blood Sugar at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Chevalier’s Books welcomes author Sascha Rothchild, in conversation with Monica Corcoran Harel, to read and present her book, Blood Sugar.
Blood Sugar tells the story of Ruby Simon, an absurdly likeable murderess accused of killing her husband—ironically, the only murder she didn’t commit. As Ruby undergoes questioning and the narrative alternates between Ruby’s memories of her past crimes and her present-day fight to clear her name, Rothchild weaves an intricately plotted and surprisingly sensitive exploration of love, guilt, chronic illness, revenge, and justice, all served up in her irreverent charm and fresh, acerbic prose. The result is a twisty, clever tale of female power and a surprising tribute to the extraordinary things we do for love, starring an unforgettable protagonist you can’t help but root for—an addicting mixture of sour and sweet.
Blood Sugar marks a departure for Rothchild, who cut her teeth writing some of the last decades’ boldest, most memorable stories. After gaining notoriety first fo r her 2004 stint on public radio show “This American Life” and then for her comedic yet heartfelt memoir-turned-screenplay, How to Get Divorced by 30, she has since won acclaim writing and producing for the lauded television series GLOW, The Bold Type, The Baby-Sitters Club, and The Carrie Diaries, and recently signed on as the showrunner for Netflix’s series spin-off of the To All the Boys film franchise, XO, Kitty. Also, she has done television work and has written her first screenplay, Who Invited Her.
Monica Corcoran Harel is a journalist, screenwriter and the founder of PRETTY RIPE, a multi-media lifestyle platform for women (proudly) over 40. She has been called the “midlife midwife” by WWD and featured in Time and InStyle. She writes about beauty, fashion, wellness, menopause and the culture around modern women for The New York Times, New York Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter. She is currently adapting her magazine essay “My Mom Has No Friends” into a sitcom for 20th Television and Mandy Moore.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-sascha-rothchilds-blood-sugar-tickets-596286136887
Big Read Book Discussion & Interior Chinatown at Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Celebrate the Big Read by participating in a discussion of Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu.
The World Cultures Reading Circle will discuss The Big Read title Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. The first 10 people to RSVP will receive a complimentary copy of the title. New members welcome!
Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 7114 Manchester Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-10
Book Club Discussion of The Dig via Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The Silver Lake Branch Library will discuss this month’s selection, The Dig: A Novel Based on True Events, by John Preston.
In the long, hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war, but on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind. Mrs. Pretty, the widowed owner of the farm, has had her hunch confirmed that the mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary find.
This fictional recreation of the famed Sutton Hoo dig follows three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivalry flourished in equal measure. As the war looms ever closer, engraved gold peeks through the soil, and each character searches for answers in the buried treasure. Their threads of love, loss, and aspiration weave a common awareness of the past as something that can never truly be left behind.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/silver-lake-book-club-4
Emily Tesh, with Olivie Blake, & Some Desperate Glory at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Emily Tesh, in conversation with Olivie Blake, will present and discuss her novel, Some Desperate Glory.
Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity.
They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity’s revenge into her own hands.
Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, Kyr escapes from everything she’s known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined. Some Desparate Glory.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/emily-tesh-conversation-olivie-blake-some-desperate-glory
At Skylight: Justine Pucella Winans, with Edward Underhill, & Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything at Skylight Books – In-Person YA Event
Justine Pucella Winans, in conversation with Edward Underhill, will discuss her YA thriller debut, Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything.
Sixteen-year-old Bianca Torre is an avid birder undergoing a gender identity crisis and grappling with an ever-growing list of fears. Some, like Fear #6: Initiating Conversation, keep them constrained, forcing them to watch birds from the telescope in their bedroom. And, occasionally, their neighbors. When their gaze wanders to one particular window across the street, Bianca witnesses a creepy plague-masked murderer take their neighbor’s life. Worse, the death is ruled a suicide, forcing Bianca to make a choice—succumb to their long list of fears (including #3 Murder and #55 Breaking into a Dead Guy’s Apartment), or investigate what happened.
Bianca enlists the help of their friend Anderson Coleman, but the two have more knowledge of anime than true crime. As Bianca and Anderson dig deeper into the murder with a little help from Bianca’s crush and fellow birding aficionado, Elaine Yee (#13 Beautiful People, #11 Parents Discovering They’re a Raging Lesbian), the trio uncover a conspiracy much larger—and weirder—than imagined. And when the killer catches wind of the investigation, suddenly Bianca’s #1 fear of public speaking doesn’t sound so bad compared to the threat of being silenced for good.
Justine Pucella Winans (they/she) is a queer and nonbinary writer who resides in Los Angeles with their husband, cats, and long list of fears. When not writing books about queer kids or teens dealing with creepy situations by using their sense of humor, she can be found training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reading an alarming about of manga and webcomics, or trying to make pasta even a fourth as good as their nonna’s. Bianca Torre is Afraid of Everything is their debut novel. Their middle grade debut, The Otherwoods, releases in September.
Edward Underhill (he/him) is a queer trans man who grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, where he could not walk to anything, which meant he had to make up his own adventures. He began writing (very bad) stories as a kid and wrote his first (also very bad) novel in his teens. In college, he studied music composition, before earning a master’s degree in film music composition. After a few years living in very tiny apartments in New York, he moved to California where, by day he writes music and by night he writes stories, which aren’t as bad as they used to be. When not doing either of these things, he’s probably gardening or hanging out with his cat. You can find him online at edward-underhill.com. Always the Almost is his debut novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 1818 V. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-matthew-zapruder-presents-story-poem-w-victoria-chang
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Norman Rosenthal via Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Norman Rosenthal.
Norman Rosenthal is an s a South African author, psychiatrist and scientist who in the 1980s first described seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and pioneered the use of light therapy for its treatment.
Rosenthal was born and educated in South Africa but moved to the United States to complete his medical training. He established a private practice and conducted research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) as a researcher and senior researcher for more than twenty years. It was here that he studied disorders of mood, sleep, and biological rhythms and was the first psychiatrist to describe and diagnose seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Rosenthal’s research with SAD led him to write Winter Blues and two other books on the topic. More recently Rosenthal has written two books on the Transcendental Meditation technique (Transcendence and Super Mind) and conducted research on its potential influence on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He has also written a memoir (The Gift of Adversity) and a book on therapeutic effects of poetry (Poetry RX). In total, he has written ten books and published over 200 scholarly papers.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 11th
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 11th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1699147113818899
Whiskey & Words Monthly Showcase by Lionlike MIndstate & Judah 1 – In-Person Event
The Whiskey & Words Monthly Showcase of poetry, comedy and live music is presented every month at Fuego Cocina & Cantina, Pomona. Hosted by Poet Laureate Judah 1–Treesje Empowers–and Ces ONE our Blunt Brother and DJ.
This is a Dinner Show, come ready to eat Bomb Tacos on a Tuesday night. We have 3 Toasts thoughtout the evening to KEEP US TOASTY. Be Prepared for all 3 Rounds. No empty Glasses! Tip the Bar and the Server! This is a Grown and Sexy Artist Showcase, DRESS TO IMPRESS.
Featuring 8x World Poetry Slam CHAMPION, Ed Mabrey! Considered to be the GOAT of Poetry Slam, Ed Mabrey is a Poet, Professional Speaker, Screenwriter, Comedian, Voice/Stage/Film Actor. He is an Ohio native currently residing in Los Angeles.
Live Comedy with Anthony Davis
Music Set by AlphTheAlien, seasoned Emcee of Leimert Park, Bananas.
NOTE: Details & tickets at event link.
Where: Fuego Cocina & Cantina
Date: Tuesday the 11th
Time: 8 pm – 11 pm
Address: 208 E. Second St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/whiskey-and-words-worldclass-showcase-by-lionlike-tickets-575054773307
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 11th
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 11th
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-533965133087
Mystery Book Club & The Word Is Murder at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The West Valley Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, The Word Is Murder, by author Anthony Horowitz.
Please email wvally@lapl.org with “Mystery Book Club” in the subject line for information on the title to be discussed and the Zoom link.
All are welcome!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 10:30 am – 12 pm
Address: 19036 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/wilmington-book-club-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 12th
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
Creative Writing Workshop at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Express yourself! Get feedback on your writing in a fun, supportive environment.
Novelist and journalist Robert Rifkin will conduct a free weekly writing workshop in Meeting Room A on the first floor of the Central Library.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Meeting Room A
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/weekly-creative-writing-workshop
Josh Lettiere & Mickey Sojourn at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Josh Lettiere will discuss his book, Mickey Sojourn, now in paperback.
Mickey Fortunato’s old man left him a 1970 Monte Carlo…and the mantra…”just be cool, kid.” Armed with natural talent and a dream to rise above the cards that were dealt him from the hardscrabble South Side of Chicago, MICKEY sets out to make a movie about his life that he will call “79th Street.” What does this ironworker from Middle America know about making a movievery little if you compare him to his Hollywood counterparts but everything if you ask the street guys he grew up around because what Mickey lacks in film production experience, he more than makes up for in his loyalty, fearlessness and determination.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/josh-lettiere-discusses-mickey-sojourn
Mystery Book Club: Red Queen at {pages} a bookstore – In-Person Event
The Mystery Book Club for adults will discuss this month’s selection, Red Queen, by author Juan Gomez-Jurado.
In Red Queen, the authorwrites a compelling and original detective, Antonia Scott—the daughter of a British diplomat and a Spanish mother—who has a gifted forensic mind, whose ability to reconstruct crimes and solve baffling murders is legendary. But after a personal trauma, she has refused to continue her work or even leave her apartment.
Jon Gutierrez, a police officer in Bilbao—disgraced, suspended, and about to face criminal charges—is offered a chance to salvage his career by a secretive organization that works in the shadows to direct criminal investigations of a highly sensitive nature. All he has to do is succeed where many others have failed: Convince a recalcitrant Antonia to come out of her self-imposed retirement, protecting her and helping her investigate a new, terrifying case.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, details.
Where: {pages} a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-13
Puff & Pen: a hazy writing workshop with Brian Sonia-Wallace at The Studio Lounge – In-Person Event
Puff & Pen is a hazy writing workshop with WeHo Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace.
Elevate and find inspiration at The Studio Lounge from 7-8pm. Once your creative juices are flowing you will then join West Hollywood Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace from 8-10pm. Get ready for an interactive writing workshop designed to unleash the writer in you, overcome writer’s block, and get the good stuff on the page! In this two-hour workshop inspired by Brian’s new book Maze Mouth, you’ll explore the labyrinths and monsters in your life to create an original poem and learn tricks and tips for structuring and performing a piece we can’t stop listening to.
3 scholarships spots are available—if you are interested in attending but cost is a limiting factor, please email rentpoet@gmail.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details. $10 admission.
Where: The Studio Lounge
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 8625 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
At Skylight: Maureen Goo, with Marie Lu, & Throwback at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Maureen Goo, in conversation with Marie Lu, will discuss her new book, Throwback.
In Throwback the author asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.
Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what’s harder? Being the daughter of one.
Priscilla is first-generation Korean American, a former high school cheerleader who expects Sam to want the same all- American nightmare. Meanwhile, Sam is a girl of the times who has no energy for cliched high school aspirations. After a huge blowup, Sam is desperate to get away from Priscilla, but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.
To her shock, Sam lands in the ’90s…alongside a 17-year-old Priscilla.
Now, Sam must deal with outdated tech, regressive ’90s attitudes, and her growing feelings for sweet, mysterious football player Jamie, who just might be the right guy in the wrong era.
Maurene Goo grew up in a Los Angeles suburb surrounded by floral wallpaper, one thousand cousins, and piles of books. She studied communication at UC San Diego and then later received a Master’s in publishing, writing, and literature at Emerson College. Before publishing her first book, Since You Asked, she worked in both textbook and art book publishing. She has very strong feelings about tacos and houseplants. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two cats.
Marie Lu is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Legend series, The Young Elites trilogy, the Warcross series, the Skyhunter series, Batman: Nightwalker, and The Kingdom of Back, She graduated from the University of Southern California and jumped into the video game industry, where she worked as an artist. A full-time writer, she spends her spare hours reading, drawing, playing games, and getting stuck in traffic. She lives in the traffic-jam capital, Los Angeles, with her illustrator/author husband, Primo Gallanosa, and their son.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-maurene-goo-presents-throwback-w-marie-lu
New SOM Wednesdays Open Mic at Roscoe’s Lounge – In-Person Event
The New SOM Open Mic will be held Wednesdays (not Tuesdays) at our “new” venue Roscoe’s Lounge with music, comedy, and poetry + an open mic.
Hosted by Chris Severs @somopenmichost
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Roscoe’s Lounge
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm (Sign-ups at 6:30 pm)
Address: 730 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/somopenmic/
Mega Miranda & The Only Survivors at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Megan Miranda will present and discuss her novel, The Only Survivors: A Novel.
A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/megan-miranda-discusses-only-survivors
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 — Reading: Hilliard Street;
- 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 12th
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 is 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 12th
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-611265851617
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Hannah Pachman 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 Hannah Pachman.
Hannah Pachman is a poet whose work is forthcoming in or has been published by Rattle, Catamaran, SOFTBLOW, Maudlin House, The MacGuffin, and others. She currently hosts and curates a monthly poetry event, “Beatnik Cafe” which has been running since 2018. Hanna was an Assistant Editor for the poetry magazine, Gyroscope Review for two years. She has been a featured poet at the California Poppy Festival, the KGB Bar, Cobalt Poets, Expressions L.A., and the Poetry Circus. www.hannapatricepachman.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.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines & information.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 12th
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/729389612013101
Not So Secret Society Book Club: You Only Live Once, David Bravo at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Not So Secret Society Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, You Only Live Once, David Bravo, by author Mark Oshiro,
Middle school is the worst, especially for David Bravo. He doesn’t have a single class with his best (okay, only) friend, Antoine. He has to give a class presentation about his heritage, but he’s not sure how—or even if—he wants to explain to his new classmates that he’s adopted. After he injures Antoine in an accident at cross-country practice, he just wishes he could do it all over.
He doesn’t expect his wish to summon a talking, shapeshifting, annoying dog, Fea, who claims that a choice in David’s past actually did put him on the wrong timeline… and she can take him back to fix it.
But when their first try (and the second, and the third) is a total disaster, David and Fea are left scrambling through timeline after timeline—on a quest that may lead them to answers in the most unexpected places.
Mark Oshiro is the award-winning author of the YA books Anger Is a Gift and Each of Us a Desert. When they are not writing, they are busy trying to fulfill their lifelong goal of petting every dog in the world. The Insiders is their middle grade debut. David Bravo is set in Riverside!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
*NEW* Diverse Romance Book Club: You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Diverse Romance Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, YouMade a Fool of Death with Your Beauty: A Novel, by author Akwaeke Emezi.
It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits—his father.
Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Death of Vivek Oji, which was a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Jean Stein Award; Pet, a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, a Walter Honor Book, and a Stonewall Honor Book; Freshwater, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize; Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, which won the 2022 ALA Stonewall Prize for Best Nonfiction Book; and most recently, Content Warning: Everything, their debut poetry collection, and Bitter, their second young adult novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
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 13th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/events%2Feventos
Martin Vopěnka & My Brother, the Messiah at Diesel, a Book Store – In-Person Event
Author Martin Vopěnka will discuss and sign his new book, My Brother, the Messiah.
It’s 2103 and Earth is baking. Scientists attempt to cool down the planet. With the coming of rain, a messiah is born.
Eli is a technophobe haunted by premonitions of what will come. His strange magnetism draws many to his cause. For his brother Marek, Eli has always been a messiah. After his short and powerful life, Eli’s most haunting prediction comes to pass: children stop being born.
Thirty-five years later, only The Followers of Eli bear children. Marek leads his commune under the glare of the entire world, and recounts Eli’s story to his lover, Natalia. When she is snatched from him, Marek suspects both the followers and outside forces are to blame. Lessons from Marek’s past and revelations from his present inspire one final journey in his brother’s footsteps. My Brother the Messiah explores spirituality in the twilight of human civilization and presents a dark, vivid future of our world.
The Jewish-Czech author Martin Vopěnka is one of the leading voices in world literature, writing ‘with a deft and compellingly simple control of sentences that is reminiscent of both Kafka and Kundera’ (Choice). Martin Vopěnka was born in Prague in 1963. The son of the famous mathematician Petr Vopěnka, Martin studied Mathematics and Physics at the Czech Technical University in Prague but was always intent on being a writer. He views the contemporary world with caution, and his novels explore spirituality, the future, and the nature of humankind. He writes for the national daily paper MF Dnes and chairs the Czech Publishers’ Association. In 2016 his Nová Planeta (New Planet) won the country’s premier Golden Ribbon Award. My Brother the Messiah is a haunting, provocative look at our future.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and further information.
Where: Diesel, a Book Store
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Martin-Vopenka-My-Brother-the-Messiah-Author-signing
Mauricio Umansky & The Dealmaker at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Mauricio Umansky will discuss his book, The Dealmaker: How to Succeed in Business and Life Through Dedication, Determination & Disruption.
Mauricio Umansky, real estate mogul, longtime fan favorite of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and star of his own upcoming Netflix series Buying Beverly Hills inspires budding entrepreneurs and self-starters of all backgrounds with tips and strategies to find success at work and at home.
After more than twenty years in the cutthroat real estate business, Mauricio Umansky has seen and heard it all. Now, he’s ready to share everything he’s learned throughout the highs and lows of his illustrious career in this part memoir, part leadership manifesto.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/mauricio-umansky
Trenches Full of Poets Poetry Reading: 1st Anniversary at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
Join us for a friendly and freewheeling evening of poetry on Thursday, April 13th at 7 pm. as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of our Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series. This monthly event was created, curated, and hosted by Los Angeles-based poets and educators 𝗡𝗶𝗸𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗶 𝗚𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗶𝗮 and 𝗠𝗮𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗼 𝗔𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗼 in April 2022 in conjunction with National Poetry Month. Their goal was to give space and voice to a vibrant and diverse array of Southern California authors and activists, and to celebrate the spirit of independent bookstores that support their works.
On the second Thursday of every month over the year since Trenches’ inception, Page Against the Machine has been proud to play host to a talented array of nearly 50 poets, all of whom generously shared their unique voices, backgrounds, and stories with an engaged and appreciative audience. To celebrate the success of the past year, Nikolai and Mauricio have arranged for a power-packed Trenches Full of Poets retrospective, featuring an evening of readings by Iris de Anda, Sandra de Anda, Brian Dunlap, Jonathan Humanoid, Christian Lozada, Andy Sanchez, Tina Tru, and Ellen Webre, along with a couple of surprise guests.
Join us down in the trenches on April 13th for a boisterous one-year birthday celebration featuring a full house, a full stage, full hearts, and a fusillade of fiery words!
This event is completely free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations are required.
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 the collections Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazon and most recently, Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent.
Sandra de Anda is an artist, comedian, musician, and poet from Santa Ana. She enjoys bringing her art to an audience while giving back to charities she supports.
Brian Dunlap is an educator and writer whoexplores his native Los Angeles through his writings, poems and essays. He is the author of the chapbook Concrete Paradise, and his work appears in numerous literary publications. He writes and curates the blog losangeleliterature.com, a resource for the literary community, and leads literary events and workshops in Southern California.
Jonathan Humanoid is a poet and fiction writer from Fullerton CA. He has published his work in the anthologies Fight Evil with Poetry and Shit Men Say to Me! An Anthology Challenging Toxic Masculinity. He also published two DIY chapbooks, I Was Never Going to Be Normal and Deconstructing Borderline Personality Disorder.
Christian Lozada is a Long Beach educator and writer of poetry and stories about the influence of his mixed-race childhood growing up in North Long Beach and Compton. Currently, he’s been studying Native Hawaiian issues since joining a diasporic Native Hawaiian family. He has co-authored a photographic history book Hawaiians in Los Angeles about Hawaiians creating identity on the continent, and he has a new book forthcoming.
Andy Sanchez is a queer/trans Mexican poet, advocate, and traveler. He migrated to the U.S. at the age of 5 and grew up in Southern California and Las Vegas, NV. Andrés has been featured in over a dozen open-mics in the LA area and has hosted workshops, talks, and readings for diverse communities. He is the author of the collection, This Body.
Tina Tru, a radical queer feminist and organizer, is a California native living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She uses nature, science and magical realism to convey themes of loss, love, feminism and liberation. Her writing focuses on labor rights, LGBTQIA+, migrant and refugee rights. Her poetry and articles have been published in the Tipton Review, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Socialist Worker, Monthly Review and Truthout. Between writing breaks, she enjoys dancing, singing, hiking, and cooking.
Ellen Webre is a biracial, Taiwanese American poet, born in Hong Kong and raised in California. She attended the Creative Writing Conservatory of the Orange County High School of the Arts and received a degree in screenwriting at Chapman University. She is currently acting as a social media marketing specialist and videographer for Moon Tide Press, is a co-host of Two Idiots Peddling Poetry, and is an editor of Freezeray Magazine. Ellen’s debut book, A Burning Lake of Paper Suns, was released in October 2021 with Moon Tide Press. Her poem “Metaphors for My Body in Midwinter” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2021. Ellen’s other poems have most recently been published in A Moon of One’s Own, FreezeRay Press, Sh!t Men Say to Me Anthology in Response to Toxic Masculinity, DARK INK: A Horror Anthology, and Voicemail Poems.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Candi Milo–Voiceover Artist, Comedian, and Author–discusses her book Surviving The Odd – In-Person Event
Pages hosts Candi Milo, Annie-Nominated voiceover artist and comedian, who will read from her book, Surviving The Odd. Candi, the voice of “Dexter” in “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “Granny” in “Space Jam: 2,” discuses her childhood growing up in a home for the emotionally disturbed and developmentally disabled.
Note: RSVP as space is limited.
Where: {pages} a bookstore
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event
Release Party: RipRap Literary Journal #45& Open Micat SALA Coffee & Wine Bar – In-Person Event
Celebrate the launch of Issue #45 of the Cal State University Long Beach literary journal SALA, with readings, an Open Mic, and music at SALA Coffee & Wine Bar.
Open to the public.
Where: SALA Coffee & Wine Bar
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3853 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: N/A
Elizabeth Metzger, with Julia Anna Morrison & Austen Leah Rose, & Lying In at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Elizabeth Metzger, in conversation with Julia Anna Morrison & Austen Leah Rose, will discuss her new collection of poet, Lying In.
With ambivalence as well as deep feeling, Metzger wonders how a single body can be expected to hold both immense joy and immense mourning, profound longing and creeping numbness, when one so often overtakes the other. She plunges into the darkness inside–of the gloomy room, the inner body, the afterlife and the pre-language mind–and sends back “a searchlight across the underworld,” Eurydice in search of herself.
Aching and contemplative, Lying In is an exquisite portrait of an in-between time–and of the person who emerges on the other side. “Isn’t it obvious how we’ve changed?”
Elizabeth Metzger is the author of Lying In, as well as The Spirit Papers, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry, and the chapbook Bed. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, and Poem-a-Day. Her essays have been published in Boston Review, Guernica, Conjunctions, PN Review, and Literary Hub, among others. She is a poetry editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and she lives in California.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Clint Smith, with Safia Elhillo, & Above Ground at LiveTalks LA – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Clint Smith, in conversation with Safia Elhillo, will present and discuss his new collection of poetry, Above Ground.
Clint Smith is that rare writer who has mastered both poetry and prose. This staff writer for The Atlantic will talk about two of his books: the instant best-seller, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, and his latest, Above Ground, in which he traverses the vast emotional terrain of new parenthood.
In all his work, Smith, a native of New Orleans, interrogates the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. Through his reflections and insights, he offers new understanding of the role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.
Clint Smith is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism. His first poetry collection, Counting Descent, was awarded the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. An award-winning English teacher, Smith hosted the YouTube series, Crash Course Black American History. Smith’s writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, and The Paris Review. He’s a graduate of Davidson College and received his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University.
Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC. She is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022), and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country (Make Me a World/Random House, 2021). With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019).
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, tickets, and details.
Where: William Turner Gallery, Bergamot Arts Station
Date: Thursday the 13th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 2525 Michigan Ave., E-1, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/clint-smith/
Spectacular Storytime at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Spectacular Storytime is a weekly time to have fun with books with enthusiastic troubadour, Maddi!
Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-27
Self-Care Book Club: Mating in Captivity at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Self-Care Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, by author Esther Perel.
In this book a New York City therapist examines the paradoxical relationship between domesticity and sexual desire and explains what it takes to bring lust home.
One of the world’s most respected voices on erotic intelligence, Esther Perel offers a bold, provocative new take on intimacy and sex. Mating in Captivity invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire and explains what it takes to bring lust home.
Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as a couples’ therapist, Perel examines the complexities of sustaining desire. Through case studies and lively discussion, Perel demonstrates how more exciting, playful, and even poetic sex is possible in long-term relationships. Wise, witty, and as revelatory as it is straightforward, Mating in Captivity is a sensational book that will transform the way you live and love.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/self-care-book-club-mating-captivity
Book Talk: Anna Quinn & Staci Greason Present: Angeline and All the Girls in Town at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Anna Quinn and Staci Greason will present and discuss their new books, Angeline and All the Girls in Town, respectively.
Anna Quinn will present her novel, Angeline. This novel is about a young, cloistered nun from Chicago transferred unwillingly to a radical convent in the San Juan Islands in Washington State. Here, she must learn to assimilate the profound losses of her past with a supernatural gift for healing that awakens as she opens to her new life.
Staci Greason will present her novel, All the Girls in Town. This story is about Dani, Red, and Sasha, who have absolutely nothing in common, except the trail of tears bad boy rocker Peter left in his wake. That is, until Dani starts a blog about killing her ex and unwittingly sets the wheels in motion for the women’s paths to collide. Bonding over past and present wounds, self-realizations transform the three heroines in a trifecta of twelve-step new age therapy that only L.A. can provide. In a city where discarded muses are a dime a dozen. It explores the cost of loving the wrong person and the true power of friendship in reclaiming the self.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-anna-quinn-staci-greason-tickets-596289376577
Debra Thomas & Gayle Brandeis Present: Josie and Vic and Drawing Breath at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Debra Thomas and Gayle Brandeis will present and discuss their new books, Josie and Vic and Drawing Breath, respectively.
Debra Thomas will present her novel, Josie and Vic. When Josie Serafini’s brother, Vic, loses his family in a tragic accident, she drops everything and goes to LA to help him. While there, she confronts broken relationships with her estranged father and rebellious, singer-songwriter daughter and begins a long-distance relationship with the equine veterinarian caring for her beloved horses back home in New York.
Gayle Brandeis’ Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss, explores both the writing life and the embodied life, along with potent intersection between the two. From the title essay investigating the connection between writing and breath to the final essay, which delves into Brandeis’ experience with long-haul Covid and its impact on her creative voice, this collection is infused with the urgency of mortality, thrumming with grief, authenticity, and a deep love for both language and the world of the senses.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Kirthana Ramisetti, with Priyanka Mattoo, & Advika and the Hollywood Wives at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Kirthana Ramisetti, in conversation with Priyanka Mattoo, will discuss her book, Advika and the Hollywood Wives.
Shaken out of her love fog and still-simmering grief over the loss of her sister–and uneasy about her husband Julian’s sudden, inexplicable urge to start a family–Advika decides to investigate him through the eyes and experiences of his exes. From reading his first wife’s biography, to listening to his second wife’s confessional albums, to watching his third wife’s Real Housewives-esque reality show, Advika starts to realize how little she knows about her husband. Realizing she rushed into the marriage for all the wrong reasons, Advika uses the info gleaned from the lives of her husband’s exes to concoct a plan to extricate herself from Julian once and for all.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Kirthana-Ramisetti
Tamika Burgess, with Isabel Quintero, & Sincerely Sicily at Cellar Door off-site at Center for Justice & Civil Liberties – In-Person MG & Family Event
Tamika Burgess, in conversation with Isabel Quintero, will present and discuss her debut middle grade book, Sincerely Sicily.
Tamika Burgess is a storyteller with over a decade of novel, TV/film, and personal essay writing experience. Born to parents who migrated from Panamá, Tamika has always taken a particular interest in writing themes that explore her Black Latina identity. Because of her passion for spreading the knowledge of Black Panamanian culture, she has been featured on various websites, podcasts, and panels. When she is not writing, Tamika is somewhere cozy online shopping and listening to a podcast. Tamika resides in sunny Southern California. Sincerely Sicily is her first novel, a middle grade story about a Black Panamanian girl who strives to change the world through her writing.
Isabel Quintero is an award-winning writer from the Inland Empire of Southern California. She is also the daughter of Mexican immigrants. In addition to Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, she has also written a chapter book series for young readers, Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.), a non-fiction YA graphic biography, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications, 2018), which received the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, and most recently, a picture book, My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila, 2019). Isabel also writes poetry and essays. Her work can be found in The Normal School, Huizache, The Acentos Review, As/Us Journal, The James Franco Review, and other publications.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door at the Center for Social Justice & Civil Liberties
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3855 Market St., Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/CSJCLtamikaburgess or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tamika-burgess-in-conversation-with-isabel-quintero-tickets-592540343117
Open Mic featuring Amy Shinson Santo at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Every second Friday of the month, Village Well stays open a bit later in order to provide a platform for local performers through our open mic! All performers are welcome, including musicians, poets, storytellers, comedians, and magicians!
Acts are limited to 5-7 minutes in length and must be family friendly. Sign-ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:00 pm!
This April, Village Well will be featuring distinguished poet and author Amy Shimshon-Santo!
Amy Shimshon-Santo is a poet who believes that creativity is a powerful tool for personal and social transformation. She is the author of Catastrophic Molting (Flowersong Press 2022), Even the Milky Way is Undocumented (Unsolicited Press 2020), and the limited-edition chapbook Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder Press 2020). Her immigrant roots seeded her devotion to polylingualism, trans-localism, and global cultural understanding. She recently performed in global literary festivals: the Pa Gya! Festival in Ghana, the Lagos International Poetry Festival, UNESCO’s Rumbo Mondiacult in Mexico, UNEB in Bahia, Brazil. Connect with her at www.amyshimshon.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24183
Kissing in the Cold Performance: Hanna (Tzong-Han) Wu at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
How to cope with death and death in its many forms? How to embrace the constant eb and flow of an influx life? And how to embrace the fact that the only unchangeable variable in this world is change? Wu re-collected her own past work, transferred the emotional energy, and headed into the studio to start moving and writing.
As a first-generation immigrant, Hanna (Tzong-Han) Wu’s surroundings, and the people in it became the only thing promised that does not remain.
A prequel dance film was created, titled Before the Sentence: The Film, shortly after the deadly global pandemic took place, which conveyed the sense of isolation and eternal loneliness. Shortly after the film was produced, the sense of incompleteness emerged, sparking questions on the process of grieving, and finding closure. As Wu found herself habitually moving forward without finding closure, she took inspiration from her unfinished and on-going work, picked up pieces of memory from her past, pushed herself by channeling her inner self to share a deep work with others, and physicalized the experience in an effort to truly cope, mourn, heal, and let go.
As the concept of this performance is perceived as an on-going practice and life-long journey, Kissing in the Cold is a sequel to everything in the past, and a part of everything else that is yet to arrive in the future.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kissing-in-the-cold-tickets-597191715497
Katie Porter, with Larry Wilmore, & I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My MInivan at LiveTalks LA – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Katei Porter, in conversation with Larry Wilmore, will present and discuss her new book, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan.
An honest, inspiring, and laugh-out-loud funny memoir about re-energizing our politics and standing up to corporate America—while carting three kids around in a minivan. .
Having never run for office, Katie Porter charted a new path in 2018 when she was elected to Congress as a Democrat in historically conservative Orange County, California. Chided for her progressive values, Porter defied expectations. Using her signature whiteboard, she began to take CEOs and corrupt government officials to task in Congressional hearings. The videos went viral, introducing Americans to her no-nonsense style, and making her a coveted guest on cable news and late-night television.
I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan explores what it’s really like to serve in Congress, particularly as a single mom. How did an Iowa farmgirl, diverted to the Ivy League, come to see herself as a Californian, teaching law and raising three kids? Learn how she made the jump from academia to politics and quickly mastered the art of making CEOs and cabinet members squirm.
Before Katie Porter was elected to Congress, she was a law professor and consumer finance expert. She lives with her three school-aged kids in Irvine, California.
Larry Wilmore has been a television producer, actor, comedian, and writer for more than 25 years. He can currently be heard as host of Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air on The Ringer Podcast Network. The show features his unique mix of humor and wit as he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the worlds of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, tickets, and details.
Where: Robert Frost Auditorium
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 4401 Elenda St., Culver City, CA 90230l
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/rep-katie-porter/
[44 Poetry Class] with Karo Ska: L.A. Poets Sesshu Foster & Wanda Coleman via Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
In this writing workshop, poet Karo Ska and participants will dive into the works and lives of two LA Poets: Sesshu Foster & Wanda Coleman and be inspired to write your own legacy.
This workshop is part of an introductory poetry craft and generative series. You will have a chance to write and share your work.
In this class, we will discuss the poetry and lives of Sesshu Foster and Wanda Coleman. We’ll read poems by these poets, followed by guided prompts and the opportunity to share what we’ve written, and provide each other with compassionate feedback.
The class begins with an optional open mic — so bring a poem to read.
You can pay $25 for one class or sign up for the monthly offerings: $44/month for two classes that meet on the first and third Saturday of the month. You can find more info here.
Karo Ska (she/they) is a South Asian and Eastern European gender-fluid poet living on unceded Tongva land. Their writing focuses on identity, mental health, survivorship and the intersections of trauma and politics. They have been published in Cultural Daily, Altadena Poetry Review, Marías at Sampaguitas, Glass: A Journal of Poetry among others. They are a 3-time 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2021 Cal Arts Artist Fellow, and were a 2020 semi-finalist in the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize. Their first full-length collection, loving my salt-drenched bones was released in February 2022 through World Stage Press. For more info, check out their website karoska.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details. FREE.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Special Storytime: Karina González & The Coquies Still Sing at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Karina Nicole González presents her debut children’s book, The Coquies Still Sing, a powerful story about home, community, and hope, inspired by the rebuilding of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017, written by debut author Karina González and illustrated by Krystal Quiles.
Co-quí, co-quí! The coquí frogs sing to Elena from her family’s beloved mango tree—their calls so familiar that they might as well be singing, “You are home, you are safe.” But home is suddenly not safe when a hurricane threatens to destroy everything that Elena knows.
As time passes, Elena, alongside her community, begins to rebuild their home, planting seeds of hope along the way. When the sounds of the coquíes gradually return, they reflect the resilience and strength of Elena, her family, and her fellow Puerto Ricans.
The Coquies Still Sing is also available in Spanish.
Karina Nicole González spent her childhood between New Jersey and Puerto Rico. She is an educator and speech-language pathologist for NYC public schools, where Karina uses storytelling as a tool for language development with her elementary school students. Karina lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Aaron. She is the author of The Coquies Still Sing, illustrated by Krystal Quiles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 11 am
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Cindy Lin & Creatures of the In Between at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids Event
Cindy Lin presents her newest children’s book, Creatures of the In Between.
Princess Mononoke meets How to Train Your Dragon in this magical middle grade adventure from Cindy Lin, author of The Twelve, featuring a blend of East and Southeast Asian folklore and mythical creatures, and starring a boy with a hero’s destiny. Prince Jin is running out of time. He must find a monster companion before his thirteenth birthday or lose the throne completely. And that means travelling to the only place where monsters still live: the legendary, dangerous Whisper Island. But untold perils await Jin there. The magical creatures he seeks are not so easily swayed, and an even greater threat looms on the horizon—one that could threaten everything Jin hopes to achieve.
Author Cindy Lin is a former journalist with degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She has worked for Sony Pictures Entertainment and has written and produced many multimedia news features for children, one of which received a Peabody Award. She is the author of The Twelve, its sequel Treasures of the Twelve, and the forthcoming Creatures of the In Between.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Queering the Arts Workshop Series: Intuitive Abstract Drawing with Stacey Patiño – Online Event
Deconstruct what drawing is and bring back the play, explore and mark what feels good for your soul to make. Line, shading, shape practice with a big eye drawing to finish. Join us for this FREE workshop sponsored by We Breathe.
Stacey Patino is a Mexican American actress and artist known for her integrative work in the visual and performing arts. A native of southern California, she began acting professionally at age fourteen, working on set and in local theatre productions. Stacey studied Theater and Studio Art at California State University Long Beach where she earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts Performance while also studying aboard at the Lir Academy of Performing Arts.
Stacey has also been working with Contigo Theatre company to develop a new original play in the Los Angeles area.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Queering the Arts
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 12 pm – 3 pm
Address: 5471 Huntington Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032
Website: https://form.jotform.com/230816208725152
Book Signing: Erika Cilengir Memoir at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Erika Cilengir’s memoir, In the Shadow of a Maverick: Lessons from my father, is a debut memoir which reflects on the joy and challenges of being gifted an exceptional parent. Cilengir introduces you to the five key lessons she learned from her father, acclaimed mid-20th Century American artist and architect Kemper Nomland, Jr., during the 53 years he was in her life–lessons that shaped her outlook and her path.
Erika Nomland Cilengir has always felt most at home in the land between art and science. After a long career in technology, Cilengir now devotes her time to various writing, editing, and public speaking projects. Cilengir has been the managing editor of the popular tea blog, TChing.com, and has written for Forecast Journal.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24856
Poetry Writing Workshop at Wilshire Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Celebrate National Poetry Month with us! The theme of this poetry workshop is “Blurred Truths.” All of us have stories ripe for poetry, even if there is no truth to them. This workshop is designed to free us up to write our versions of the truth, however, we define it.
The workshop will be led by poet and teacher Bonnilee Kaufman. No writing experience is required.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Wilshire Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the15th
Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 149 N. Saint Andrews Pl., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop
Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series & Open Mic at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Tell your story!
Join us in-person or via Zoom for Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series, featuring poetry readings and open poetry mic.
Please email studio@lapl.org for instructions on how to join the program.
This event is offered on the 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the15th
Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 12611 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: Jeremiah Cobra, Lucy Pereira & Andres Sanchez + Poets in Four Feathers Press’ It Rains in Southern California – Online Event Only
Saturday Afternoon Poetry presents readings by featured poets: Jeremiah Cobra, Lucy Pereira & Andres Sanchez + contributors from It Rains in Southern California: Poetry of Weather.
Jeremiah Cobra is the author of the books And Then He Shot His Cousin (2020) and Beauty and Perspective (2018).
Lucy Pereira N/A
Andres Sanchez is the author of the collection This Body.
All events are curated by: Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club: Babel (Chapters 1-15) at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution (Chapters 1-15), by author R.F. Kuang.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.
Babel is the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel. Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/sci-fi-fantasy-book-club-babel-chapters-1-15
At Skylight: Jim Ruland, with Bucky Sinister, & Make It Stop at Skylight Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Skylight Books for a speculative tale of dysfunctional vigilantes, sex-crazed junkies, and corporate healthcare run amok from best-selling chronicler of LA punk Jim Ruland.
Jim Ruland will be in conversation with Bucky Sinister to discuss his paperback release of Make It Stop.
Scores of detox and rehab centers across Southern California have adopted a controversial new conditional release policy that forces patients to stay until they pay their bills. And if they can’t pay? They don’t leave.
Enter: Make It Stop, a group of highly skilled recovering addicts dedicated to rescuing those trapped in these prison hospitals by posing as patients and getting them out by any means necessary. But when Scary Gary, one of their top ops, gets killed on assignment, Melanie Marsh and her crew set out to avenge his death and unravel an unthinkable medical conspiracy that threatens to destroy the organization and cripple the city with a dangerous new drug. Melanie may be LA’s best hope but if, and only if, she can stay sober.
From decrepit rehab wards to beachside punk clubs, Make It Stop takes readers into LA’s darkest corners, exploring sobriety, sanity, and a society hell-bent on profiting off those who need its help the most.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-jim-ruland-presents-make-it-stop-w-bucky-sinister
X-Ray Magazine Release Party: Kate Soldevilla & Why Did You Shave Your Head? at The Pop Hop – In-Person Event
“Why Did You Shave Your Head?” is a zine about letting go of the person I was in order to become the person my mom needed the most when she had terminal cancer. I created this zine to capture the reality of being a caregiver and having the courage and deep love to show up every day for the person you care for.
Please join us at The Pop Hop, on April 15 at 5pm for a reading and Q+A with the artist and author of the zine, Katie Soldevilla (@yakapinstudio).
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: The Pop Hop Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 5002 York Blvd. Los Angeles CA
Book Launch: Sandra L. Rostirolla & Making Friends with Monsters at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Sandra L. Rostirolla will celebrate the release of her award-winning book, Making Friends with Monsters, an urgent YA book about the “monsters” of depression and family dysfunction. She will be in conversation with Mary Ann Biewener. Having experience with death by suicide, Sandra will share her personal journey of how the stigma of suicide led to years of crippling silence within her family and why she finally chose to speak out and raise awareness.
Sandra L Rostirolla graduated from the University of Sydney with a BAppSc (Physiotherapy) and has an MBA from La Sierra University, Riverside, CA. Born and raised in Australia, Sandra in an award-winning author who currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and rescue cat, Noodle.
Mary Ann Biewener has an MBA in Marketing from University of California, Berkeley and a Clown Diploma from Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Clown College. Her business expertise is in eCommerce for Cause-based companies, and her on-camera performance won her a Best Actress award in the horror short Absent.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 15th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24184
Griot Café Open Mic with Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain & Featured Guest TBA at Shades of Africa, Long Beach – In-Person Event
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 15th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Children’s Storytime: Meera Sriram & A Garden in My Hands at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Meera Sriram will present her children’s book, A Garden in My Hands, a touching picture book which celebrates the custom of applying henna for special occasions through a mother and daughter who share family memories and stories.
Meera Sriram is the author of several picture books, including A Gift for Amma, which School Library Journal called an “excellent story for young readers to enhance their understanding of color and an aspect of traditional Indian culture” in a starred review. An electrical engineer in her past life, she now enjoys writing for children and advocating for early and multicultural literacy.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24188
Local Author Day – Kids Edition: Claudia Martial & Lumpy Socks at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Claudia Martial will present her children’s book, Lumpy Socks, on Vroman’s Local Author Day.
Lumpy Socks is a genuinely fun story that teaches about the seasons in a way that little children can understand. It is geared towards children ages 3-5 years old, just when children are beginning to recognize the changes in their world. The lesson in the story can be used as a tool to engage young children in conversation about things that stresses them and help teach them how to develop coping skills.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 11 am
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Local-Author-Day-Claudia-Martia
Bucket List Book Club: You Can’t Go Home Again at Cellar Door Books – In-Person Event
The Bucket List Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, You Can’t Go Home Again: A Novel, by author Thomas Wolfe.
A twentieth-century classic, Thomas Wolfe’s magnificent novel is both the story of a young writer longing to make his mark upon the world and a sweeping portrait of America and Europe from the Great Depression through the years leading up to World War II.
Driven by dreams of literary success, George Webber has left his provincial hometown to make his name as a writer in New York City. When his first novel is published, it brings him the fame he has sought, but it also brings the censure of his neighbors back home, who are outraged by his depiction of them. Unsettled by their reaction and unsure of himself and his future, Webber begins a search for a greater understanding of his artistic identity that takes him deep into New York’s hectic social whirl; to London with an uninhibited group of expatriates; and to Berlin, lying cold and sinister under Hitler’s shadow. He discovers a world plagued by political uncertainty and on the brink of transformation, yet he finds within himself the capacity to meet it with optimism and a renewed love for his birthplace. He is a changed man yet a hopeful one, awake to the knowledge that one can never fully “go back home to your family, back home to your childhood…away from all the strife and conflict of the world…back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time.”
Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and educated at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University. He taught English at New York University and traveled extensively in Europe and America. Wolfe created his legacy as a classic American novelist with Look Homeward, Angel; Of Time and the River; A Stone, a Leaf, a Door; and From Death to Morning. You Can’t Go Home Again is the final novel by this literary legend, and was published posthumously, in 1940.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/bucket-list-book-club-you-cant-go-home-again
Beatnik Café: Poetry Readings & Open Mic with Hannah Pachman – In-Person Event
Beatnik Café, hosted by Hannah Pachman, presents another night of truth and perspective!
Featured readers: Elena Secota and Elisabeth Adwin Edwards.
Elena Secota is an actor, poet, nature photographer, climate change activist, and the host of the Third Fridays Readings & Open Mic Series at Rapp Saloon in Santa Monica.
Elisabeth Adwin Edwards is a poet whose poems have appeared in The Tampa Review, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The American Journal of Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere; her prose has been published in Hobart, CutBank, On The Seawall, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. A native of Massachusetts, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and teen daughter in an apartment filled with books.
NOTE: See site for schedule, guidelines, and details. Open Mic is 3 min per poet.
Where: Hey Hey
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1555 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.hannapatricepachman.com/beatnik-cafe.html
Book Launch: Nancy Lynee Woo & I’d Rather Be LIghtening at Bel Canto Books & KUBO LB– In-Person Event
The book launch of I’d Rather Be Lightening by Nancy Lynee Woo will feature special poets Julayne Lee (Not My White Savior), Arminé Iknadossian (All That Wasted Fruit), and Susannah Lodge-Rigal (Where the Light Feeds).
I’d Rather Be Lightning is a love song to the earth, celebrating what we stand to lose. These poems are “throwing a tantrum” about the climate crisis, written by a “child / of imperialism whining about freedom/from the bondage of stuff.” What do you get when you combine capitalism, environmentalism, ecology, globalization, fascism, economic crisis, and global pandemic? Nancy Lynée Woo transmutes anxiety into dynamic and playful poems, writing into the absurdity of the global crises facing humanity with a soft wit, enduring hope, and deep love for the more-than-human world. Eco-feminism moving at lightspeed, I’d Rather Be Lightning captures a Millennial’s despair over environmental destruction with bolts of humor, compassion, and formal experimentation.
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, writer, arts organizer, and climate activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is called I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, March 2023). Nancy has received fellowships from Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and Idyllwild Writers Week. Nancy has an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and a BA in sociology from UC Santa Cruz. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and online at nancylyneewoo.com or @fancifulnance on social.
Julayne Lee is an adopted Korean poet & artivist. Her debut collection of poems Not My White Savior was on Bitch Media’s Bitchreads: 15 Books Feminists Should Read in March and Entropy’s Best of 2018: Best Poetry Books & Poetry Collections. Not My White Savior has been taught in Freshman Lit, Race & Ethnicity & other courses. Julayne has read and spoken on adoption at universities & symposiums in the U.S. & Korea. You can find her words in The Washington Post, The Nervous Breakdown & elsewhere @julayneelle.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Arminé Iknadossian immigrated to the United States in 1978 to escape the civil war. She is the author of All That Wasted Fruit (Main Street Rag Press). She earned an MFA from Antioch University where she was awarded a fellowship from Summer Poetry in Idyllwild. During her tenure as a teacher, The Los Angeles Writing Project awarded Iknadossian a fellowship for their summer residency. Armine serves on the Advisory Board of IALA (International Armenian Literary Association) and currently lives close to the sea with Henry the Cat. Find out more at armineiknadossian.com.
Susannah Lodge-Rigal is a writer and educator based in Berkeley, California. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, she received a B.A. from Knox College and M.F.A. from Colorado State University, where she was awarded the 2019 Academy of American Poets Prize. Susannah is the author of WHERE THE LIGHT FEEDS (Gasher Press, 2023), and her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Black Warrior Review, Seneca Review, Colorado Review, Missouri Review – Poem of the Week, Puerto del Sol, DIAGRAM, The Journal, Ruminate, and elsewhere.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: KUBO LB & Bel Canto Books
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807
Poetic Passport: How I Booked an International Tour with Tyler Lenn Bradley via Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
Are you a poet with a dream to share your verses with the world? Do you want to explore the globe while making meaningful connections with fellow wordsmiths and literature enthusiasts? If so, this workshop is designed for you! In this workshop, Tyler Lenn Bradley will share how she booked an international poetry tour using the power of networking and social media.
In this workshop we’ll cover:
· Crafting a compelling online presence to showcase your poetic talents.
· Locating and connecting with poetry venues, organizations, and enthusiasts globally.
· Building valuable relationships with international poetry communities and event organizers.
· Overcoming the fear of performing for international audiences
Sign up now, and let’s embark on a lyrical adventure that transcends boundaries!
Tyler Lenn Bradley (she/her) is a Black traveling poet and mental warrior aspiring to bring radiance and courage to the lives of others. Tyler’s poetic works have been featured in various anthologies and she has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Recently, Tyler wrote her first book of poetry, Phasing Freely, which will be published by Alegria publishing in 2023.
You can follow Tyler’s poetry and travels through her Instagram accounts @TylerLennBradley and @TheFandomTravelers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details. FREE.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 4 PM
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetic-passport-how-i-booked-an-international-tour-tickets-541811210917
Kevin Olmsted & Scared Dad Feeding: How my Daughter’s Anorexia Took Me to Hell, and My Guidebook for How I Got Back at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Kevin Olmsted will present his book, Scared Dad Feeding: How my Daughter’s Anorexia Took Me to Hell, and My Guidebook for How I Got Back. This is the author’s memoir of helping his daughter recover from anorexia, and it is also a guidebook to help other parents who are initially facing the traumatic experience of treating a child’s eating disorder.
Kevin Olmsted is a proud Cal grad who lives in Northern California. He spent 23 years selling wine and was formerly a Certified Sommelier. Kevin quit working in 2020 to help his daughter full time with her recovery from anorexia. Now he wants to be a resource for other parents who do not know where to turn when faced with a child with an eating disorder.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24185
Vroman’s Local Author Day: Howard Kaplan, Gay Paris Pratt & M.M. Shelley at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Local authors Howard Kaplan, Gay Paris Pratt & M.M. Shelley will present and discuss their books on Vroman’s Local Author Day.
Howard Kaplan will present his book, The Syrian Sunset, a sweeping novel of international intrigue about the Syrian Civil War, the failure of the West to save the Syrian people, and how that inaction against the Russian incursion in Syria emboldened Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine.
In 2012, President Obama declared that if Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, that would cross a red line. A year later, Assad murdered a thousand people in East Damascus with sarin, and the West did not respond. Soon after, the Russians vastly augmented their presence in Syria, built a huge air base to add to their warm water port on the Syrian Mediterranean and from those runways bombed the Free Syrian Army across the breadth of Syria.
Based around these true events, this book tells the tale of a fictional Syrian Military Intelligence general who wants a better Syria, and the events that led to the death of 500,000 civilians, 5 million people fleeing Syria, another 15 million being displaced internally.
Gay Paris Pratt will present her book, K.C. of a Thousand Trails: The Cat Who Saved My Life. Have you ever wondered how one person could have crossed paths with you at a convenient time in your life? Some people plan it out, methodically, from childhood. Others were born to serve a mission on earth from God that endures throughout their entire lifetime. The author’s amazing cat, K.C., was one of these beings… Have you ever considered that God’s animal beings have missions on earth, too? This is a true story of one such sentient being-in a cat suit-who was assigned by the angels to pounce upon an unsuspecting woman’s life that was in shambles in a time when internet and smartphones did not exist. This cat helped save her from choosing death, and then devoted his entire life to transforming her into a better human being.
M.M. Shelley will present the book Of Vice and Vindication.
The most dangerous voyage of their lives has now begun—a suicide mission to rescue one of their own. A werewolf, a vampire, a dragon slayer, a pair of witches and a lovely lady pirate who captains a ship laden with a mysterious and dangerous cargo.
Only this small band, and the secrets they carry within; some in their minds, some in their hearts, and for those who still have them, some in their eternally tarnished souls. For the saints are still broken.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91011
Poetry at The Pop Hop: Kim Young Writing Workshop at The Pop Hop – In-Person Event
The Pop-Hop is psyched to host our first-ever writing workshop series, hosted by local author & poet Kim Young!
In this four-week workshop students will experiment with drafting new poems that begin in research and then depart from those sources using speculation, intuition, and other creative strategies. We’ll study Kevin Stein’s Private Poets, Worldly Acts and Saidiya Hartman’s process of “critical fabulation” in her essay “Venus in Two Acts” while applying creative practices that challenge the stability of the historical archive. Our reading will include Eve L. Ewing’s 1919, Shane McCrae’s In the Language of My Captor, Robin Coste Lewis’ To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness and more. Students will workshop new poems each week, and we’ll conclude the class with a final reading featuring students.
Kim Young is the author of Tigers (PANK Books, 2020) and Night Radio, winner of the 2011 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize (The University of Utah Press) and finalist for the 2014 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the chapbook Divided Highway (Dancing Girl Press, 2008). She is the founding editor of Chaparral, an online journal featuring poetry from Southern California, and her poems and essays have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, TriQuarterly, POOL and elsewhere.
*Enrollment for this course is currently full.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: The Pop Hop Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 5002 York Blvd. Los Angeles CA
Website: https://www.thepophop.com/calendar/2023/2/26/poetry-at-the-pop-hop-with-kim-young-1-zb2b3-cjn4l
NDA Autofiction Reading: Amanda Ackerman, Josh Boardman, Nick Greer, Rachel Nagelberg, Darina Sikmashvili & Ruby Zuckerman at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
The NDA Autofiction Reading Series, inspired by the Archway Editions book NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, is edited by Caitlin Forst, who hosts this event. It will feature: Amanda Ackerman, Josh Boardman, Nick Greer, Rachel Nagelberg, Darina Sikmashvili and Ruby Zuckerman reading from their work.
Amanda Ackerman is the author of The Book of Feral Flora (2015) as well as several chapbooks, including The Seasons Cemented (2010), the scented pamphlet Air-Kissing (2017), I Fell in Love with a Monster Truck (2011), and Short Stones (2012). With Harold Abramowitz, she coauthored the book Man’s Wars And Wickedness: A Book of Proposed Remedies and Extreme Formulations for Curing Hostility, Rivalry, And Ill-Will (2017), the Gauss PDF UNFO Burns a Million Dollars (2014), and the chapbook Sin is to Celebration (2009). With Dan Richert, she is working on a series of projects using biofeedback and multi-sensory techniques that allow plants to create poems.
Josh Boardman is from Michigan and has been a writing tutor for the past decade, he is also the author of the chapbook Plantain (West Vine Press, 2018) and conducted the Latin translation project We, Romans (2015). His stories have appeared in journals such as New York Tyrant, Catapult, and Dandruff Magazine.
Nick Greer is a writer from Berkeley. He holds an MFA Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His chapbook, Glass City, won The Calvino Prize and was published by Salt Hill in 2016. His self-help zine, Bad Year, was published in 2021.
Rachel Nagelberg is an American novelist, poet, and conceptual artist living in Los Angeles. Her debut novel, The Fifth Wall, was published by Black Sparrow Books in April 2017, and was deemed by Chris Kraus in I-D Magazine as “falling within a new and exciting tradition of female philosophical fiction.” You can explore more of her writings, projects, and dream records at www.rachelnagelberg.com.
Darina Sikmashvili was born in Lubny, Ukraine and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where she moved at age eight. She completed her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan and has been working in film production for over a decade.
Her writing has won the Hopwood Prize, the Kasdan Scholarship, and the Henfield Prize, among others. She was a 2019 grant recipient from the Can Sarrat Writing Residency, a 2021 grant recipient from the Laimun Residency, and a 2022 scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference. She’s working on a novel.
Ruby Zuckerman is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. She was the winner of the 2020 Nick Adams Associated Colleges of the Midwest short story contest, judged by Scott Turow. “Who Are You To Say That You Are Nothing,” her most recent essay, has been published in Our House, an anthology by Burn All Books.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Focus on Craft Book Club: A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents the Focus on Craft Book Club, to discuss the selected book, A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon, by author Sarah Howley.
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 event meets at the store on the 3rd Sunday of the month at 7:15pm.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 16th
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 