Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library of LAPLis for those who may be writing a book, or who need a deadline, or feedback.
This group is first come, first served, and no registration is required. Please bring 5-10 double spaced typed pages. Everyone will have a chance to read and receive constructive criticism.
The meeting room is on the first floor of the Robertson Branch Library, towards the rear of the lobby.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 8th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/writers-group
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 8th (and Thursday the 11th)
Time: 4:30 – 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/story-writing-club
Big Read Book Discussion: Interior Chinatown at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join the Big Read Book Discussion of the novel, Interior Chinatown, by author Charles Yu.
Interior Chinatown is a moving exploration of the themes of pop culture, assimilation and immigration which takes place in greater Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 8th
Time: 4:45 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-interior-chinatown-novel-charles-yu
John Waters & Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance at Book Soup – In-Person Event
John Waters will celebrate and sign the paperback release of his book, Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance.
Liarmouth, the first novel by John Waters, is a perfectly perverted “feel-bad romance,” and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge. (Picador USA)
This ticketed event will take place at Book Soup located at 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood. Tickets include a place in the signing line & one paperback copy of Liarmouth, which will be handed out at check-in.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/john-waters-signs-liarmouth
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 8th
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-629336300817
Laura Dern & Diane Ladd, with Cleo Wade, & Honey, Baby, Mine at LiveTalks L. A. – In-Person Event
Laura Dern & Diane Ladd, in conversation with Cleo Wade, will discuss their new book, Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding).
Join award-winning actress and activist Laura Dern and her mother, legendary actress Diane Ladd, for a deeply personal conversation on love, art, ambition, and legacy, inspired by her own heart-to-hearts.
To combat the sudden onset of a life-threatening illness, Diane Ladd’s doctors prescribed long walks. Her daughter, Laura Dern, found the best way to distract her mother from the exertion was to get her to join her to talk and share stories. The two had always been close. But these conversations – about love, sex, marriage, divorce, art, ambition, and legacy—broke down traditional barriers between mothers and daughters and drew them even closer.
They’ve documented these candid exchanges in an intimate tour of their lives titled Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding), which includes photos, family recipes and other mementos.
Laura Dern is an award-winning actress, producer, creator, and activist. She has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, an Emmy, and five Golden Globe Awards. Dern is also a passionate environmentalist.
Diane Ladd is an international award-winning actress, receiving a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and Women of the Year award. She is a three-time Oscar and three-time Emmy nominee, having appeared in more than 187 film and television shows. She is a director, writer, producer, and author with degrees in esoteric psychology/nutrition, a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, and on the National Board of Directors for SAG/AFTRA.
Cleo Wade is a writer and poet whose work explores love, freedom, healing, and the power of community. She is the New York Times best-selling author of What the Road Said, Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life and Where to Begin: A Small Book About Your Power to Create Big Change.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and details.,
Where: Ann & Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School
Date: Monday the 8th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/lauradern-dianeladd/
Lisa Yee & Maizy Chen’s Last Chance via Children’s Book World – Online MG Event
Award-winning author Lisa Yee will present her book Maizy Chen’s Last Chance via a virtual school/book talk event, and you may participate by contacting the store for details.
Lisa Yee is a Newbery Honoree and National Book Award finalist for Maizy Chen’s Last Chance. She is also the author of over 21 books for young people, including the groundbreaking Millicent Min, Girl Genius; Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time; and the DC Super Hero Girls novel series. Lisa is a frequent contributor to NPR’s Books We Love. A third-generation Chinese American, Lisa says, “I wrote Maizy Chen’s Last Chance as a tribute to my grandparents and to all the immigrants who made the journey to America.” Lisa divides her time between Western Massachusetts and Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 10 am
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
‘So Emotional’ Book Club: Expressly Human at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The ‘So Emotional’ Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Expressly Human: Decoding the Language of Emotion, by Mark Changizi and Tim Barber.
Why did once-stone-faced animals evolve to be so emotionally expressive—to be us?
The answer, as evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi and mathematician Tim Barber reveal, is that emotional expressions are our first and most important language—one that allows us, as social animals, to engage in highly sophisticated communications and negotiations.
Expressly Human introduces an original theory that explains, from first principles, how the broad range of emotional expressions evolved, and provides a Rosetta Stone for human communication. It will revolutionize the way you see every social interaction, from deciding who gets the last slice of pizza to multimillion-dollar business negotiations and change your definition of what makes us human.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/so-emotional-book-club-expressly-human
Braintrust Workshop: The Golden Shovel via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
Kris Kaila will lead a Braintrust Writing Workshop titled The Golden Shovel, Exploring on Invented Form.
The Golden Shovel poem form was created by Terrance Hayes in his poetry collection Lighthead, which won the National Book Award in 2010. In this generative poetry workshop, we will take a close look at the form and it’s examples. Instructor Kris Kaila will provide tips on how to craft your own Golden Shovel and provide ample writing time.
BrainTrust is a sliding scale, affordably priced poetry class! All are welcome.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/golden-shovel
Rainbow Reads Teen Book Club: Messy Boots at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Teen Event
Rainbow Reads Book Club celebrates diversity in Young Adult books as we read books featuring various identities and stories. This is a safe space welcome to teens of all identities and allies! Join Iz and Apollo for our proud book club.
Best for ages t3 and up.
Participants will read this month’s selection Messy Boots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American, by author Laura Gao.
**Please note the temporary date change to Tuesday**
1st Wednesday of the month @ 6 pm for 1 hour
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/rainbow-reads-book-club-messy-roots-laura-gao
Poetry Open Mic with Wyatt Underwood via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love! You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy. Emceed by Wyatt Underwood.
To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic
Book Talk & Launch: Hector Tobar, with Gustavo Arellano, & Our Migrant Souls at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Hector Tobar, in conversation with Gustavo Arellano, will discuss his new book, Our Migrant Souls.
“Latino” is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino” assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar’s personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of “Latino” as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about “illegals” and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.
Investigating topics that include the US-Mexico border “wall,” Frida Kahlo, urban segregation, gangs, queer Latino utopias, and the emergence of the cartel genre in TV and film, Tobar journeys across the country to expose something truer about the meaning of “Latino” in the twenty-first century.
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Deep Down Dark, as well as The Last Great Road Bum, The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. He is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has written for The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, ZYZZYVA, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, Tobar is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.
Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ¡Ask a Mexican! and is the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-hector-tobars-our-migrant-souls-tickets-628920617497
L.A. Political Economy Book Club: City of Inmates, by Kelly Lytle Hernandez at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world’s leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration.
But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation’s carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90043
Mystery Book Club: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join {pages} as the store hosts the Mystery Book Club participants for a discussion of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by author Jesse Q. Sutano.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-14
Adult Book Club: The Day the World Came to Town at Once Upon a Time – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Adult Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, by author Jim DeFede.
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill.
This book recounts the inspiring story of the residents of Gander, Canada, whose acts of kindness have touched the lives of thousands of people and been an example of humanity and goodwill. It inspired the smash Broadway musical , Come From Away.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, Zoom link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 7 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/adult-book-group-day-world-came-town-jim-defede-meeting-zoom
At Skylight: Alex Mar, with Ivy Pochoda, & Seventy Times Seven at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Alex Mar, in conversation withIvy Pochoda, will present and discuss her book, Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy.
On a spring afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a fifteen-year-old girl kills an elderly woman in a violent home invasion. In a city with a history of racial tensions and white flight, the girl, Paula Cooper, is Black, and her victim, Ruth Pelke, is white and a beloved Bible teacher. The press swoops in.
When Paula is sentenced to death, no one decries the impending execution of a tenth grader. But the tide begins to shift when the victim’s grandson Bill forgives the girl, against the wishes of his family, and campaigns to spare her life. This tragedy in a midwestern steel town soon reverberates across the United States and around the world—reaching as far away as the Vatican—as newspapers cover the story on their front pages and millions sign petitions in support of Paula.
Alex Mar weaves an unforgettable narrative of an act of violence and its aftermath. This is a story about the will to live—to survive, to grow, to change—and about what we are willing to accept as justice. Tirelessly researched and told with intimacy and precision, this book brings a haunting chapter in the history of our criminal justice system to astonishing life.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-alex-mar-presents-seventy-times-seven-w-ivy-pochoda
Mona Gable & Searching for Savannah at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Mona Gable will present and discuss her new book, Searching for Savannah: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against Many.
In the summer of 2017, twenty-two-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind vanished. A week after she disappeared, police arrested the white couple who lived upstairs from Savanna and emerged from their apartment carrying an infant girl. The baby was Savanna’s, but Savanna’s body would not be found for days.
The horrifying crime sent shock waves far beyond Fargo, North Dakota, where it occurred, and helped expose the sexual and physical violence Native American women and girls have endured since the country’s colonization.
With pathos and compassion, Searching for Savanna confronts this history of dehumanization toward Indigenous women and the government’s complicity in the crisis. Featuring in-depth interviews, personal accounts, and trial analysis, Searching for Savanna investigates these injustices and the decades-long struggle by Native American advocates for meaningful change.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Mona-Gable-Searching-for-Savanna
Writers Bloc Presents: Elizabeth Winkler, with Cathleen Schine, & Shakespeare Was a Woman at Chevalier’s Off-site at The Ebell – In-Person Event
Elizabeth Winkler, in conversation with Cathleen Schine, will discuss her latest book, Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Herstories.
Elizabeth Winkler, author of Shakespeare Was A Woman and Other Heresies, explores with humor, fun, and hell-bent detection, all sorts of possibilities. She will ruffle elite and rigid academic feathers, no question. Citing contradiction after contradiction about William Shakespeare from Stratford, Winkler cites poets, Supreme Court Justices, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Freud, and others, in probing the mystery of the author’s true identity. But that’s only part of it. Winkler does much more than suggest alternatives; she delves into why doubters have been castigated, and thrown to the literary curb. No matter what side you’re on, Shakespeare Was A Woman And Other Heresies is more than a detective book for fans of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets– it’s a fascinating and truly entertaining analysis of literary and cultural history.
Cathleen Schine is the author of many terrific (no, favorite!) novels that resonate with ardent Jane Austen lovers. Her novels explore the blessings–and burdens– of parents and siblings, and our often mysterious bonds to them. Schine’s novels are so delightful, and so deceptive– they linger within you long after you thought you had finished. Her latest is Kunstlers of Paradise.
NOTE: See site or RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ebell of Los Angeles
Date: Tuesday the 9th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 741 S. Lucerne Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90005
Website: https://writersblocpresents.com/main/elizabeth-winkler/
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Taneesh Kaur via Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Taneesh Kaur.
Taneesh Kaur is a is a poet and writer and the author of Thawing (forthcoming). A poetry collection written while navigating childhood trauma, uncovering sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and mutilation.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 9th
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 9th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1699147113818899
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
Every Tuesday (except for 3rd Tuesdays which is Slam Night) we hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in our audience.
TIME LIMIT: Each artist has 3 minutes at the mic, and if you go over, our DJ will scratch you. Please be respectful of the time limit as we try to accommodate as many people as possible.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theatre.
See sites for details.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theater.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre and YouTube Live Stream
Date: Tuesday the 9th
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 poet TBA + an open mic.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: DiPiazza’s Pizza
Date: Tuesday the 9th
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: Velvet Was the Night at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, Velvet Was the Night, from Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic.
Velvet Was the Night, by author Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a story set in Mexico in the 1970s, a politically fraught land, even for Elvis, a goon with a passion for rock ’n’ roll who knows more about kidney-smashing than intrigue. When Elvis is assigned to find Leonora, he begins a blood-soaked search for the woman—and his soul. And it is a dangerous country, even for Maite, a secretary who spends her life seeking the romance found in cheap comic books and ignoring the activists protesting around the city. When her next-door neighbor, the beautiful art student Leonora, disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman—and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 10:30 pm – 12 pm
Address: 19036 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-15
Wilmington Book Club: Spying on the South at Wilmington Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Ghost Bride: A Novel, by author Yangsze Choo, is a startlingly original novel infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists
Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at what price?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Wilmington Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 1300 N. Avalon Blvd., Wilmington, CA 90744
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/wilmington-book-club-1
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 10th
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
Page Turners Book Club for 8th & 9th Graders: Elizabeth Wein’s Stateless at pages: a bookstore – In-Person YA Event
Join {pages} as the store hosts the Page Turners Book Club for 8th & 9th graders, when participants will discuss Elizabeth Wein’s book, Stateless.
When Stella North is chosen to represent Britain in Europe’s first air race for young people, she knows all too well how high the stakes are. As the only participating female pilot, it’ll be a constant challenge to prove she’s a worthy competitor. But promoting peace in Europe feels empty to Stella when civil war is raging in Spain and the Nazis are gaining power—and when, right from the start, someone resorts to cutthroat sabotage to get ahead of the competition.
The world is looking for inspiration in what’s meant to be a friendly sporting event. But each of the racers is hiding a turbulent and violent past, and any one of them might be capable of murder… including Stella herself.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/page-turners-book-club-4
Creative Writing Workshop at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Los Feliz Branch Library hosts a free Creative Writing Workshop presented by UCLA instructor Tony DuShane, screenwriter of the film Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, based on his novel of the same name. Adults only.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-17
Kim Dower & I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom at Diesel, A Book Store – In-Person Event
Kim Dower will read from, discuss and sign her book, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom.
In time for Mother’s Day I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom is a rich, complex, heartbreaking, and funny anthology of poems on motherhood—being one and having one.
Kim Dower is author of five highly-acclaimed poetry collections: I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom, Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave, Air Kissing on Mars, Slice of Moon and Last Train to the Missing Planet. Dower’s poems have been featured on “The Writer’s Almanac” and “American Life in Poetry,” as well as in many journals and anthologies. Kim grew up on the Upper West City of Manhattan but has lived in Los Angeles, California for decades. Former City Poet Laureate for West Hollywood, Kim teaches poetry workshops for Antioch University, UCLA Extension, West Hollywood Library, and the Hollywood LGBT Senior Center. www.kimdowerpoetry.com
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, A Book Store
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Crystal-Smith-Paul-Author-signing
Poetry Open Mic Night at Billie Jean King Main Library, LBPL – In-Person Event
Poetry Open Mic at the Billie Jean King Main Library is held every 2nd Wednesday of the month.
Calling all poets, spoken word artists, lyricists, and songwriters! Welcome to Long Beach Library’s Unplugged Open Mic Night, hosted by Nassau County Poet Laureate Paula Curci and Peter Dugan. Bring your poems, prose, spoken word, lyrics, and songs up to the mic…all encouraging voices are welcome. Scatter your words, weathered by waves, at our free and open mic!
Registration for this event will close on May 10, 2023 @ 6:00pm. Register at WEBSITE.
Where: Billie Jean King Main Library, LBPL
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 200 W. Broadway, Long Beach CA 90802
Website: https://longbeachpl.librarycalendar.com/event/poetry-open-mic-night-person-6
Crystal E. Green & Lavender Lily at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Crystal E. Green will present and discuss her new book, Lavender Lily.
Her life is picture perfect. She’s successful, beautiful and has the home of her dreams. But when motherhood ushers in a dangerous darkness, acclaimed author, Lauren Ivory Winters’ world flips upside down when she finds herself unexpectedly cast as the star in her mind-bending autobiographical psychological thriller, Lock the Door.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Crystal-E-Green
Some Favorite Writers Series: Sigrid Nunez & What You Are Going Through at the Hammer Museum – In-Person Event
National Book Award-winning author Sigrid Nunez shares her most recent novel What Are You Going Through, a meditation on friendship, empathy, and what it means to die well. With grace and sardonic humor, Nunez shares the story of an unnamed narrator agreeing to help a terminally ill friend by seeing her through the last days of her life. The New York Times Book Review says “You will emerge calmer, meditative, more thoughtful, as if you have benefited from an excellent literary massage of sorts.”
Sigrid Nunez is the author of the novels A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, The Friend, and What Are You Going Through, among others. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. She has been the recipient of several awards, including the Rome Prize in Literature, and a Guggenheim. Her books have been translated into thirty languages.
Reading is followed by discussion with the author and UCLA professor Mona Simpson, who organizes this series.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Hammer Museum
Date: Wednesday the 10th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2023/some-favorite-writers-sigrid-nunez
New SOM Wednesdays Open Mic at Roscoe’s Lounge – In-Person Event
The New SOM Open Mic will be held Wednesdays (not Tuesdays) at the “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 10th
Time: 7 pm (Sign-ups at 6:30 pm)
Address: 730 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/somopenmic/
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: TBA;
- 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 10th
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 workshop facilitator is James Cushing, who retired in 2020 after thirty-five years teaching literature and creative writing in San Luis Obispo, CA, where he served as the community’s poet laureate in 2008-2010. Cushing’s poems have appeared widely and his collections include The Length of an Afternoon, Undercurrent Blues, Pinocchio’s Revolution, The Magicians’ Union, Solace, and Tangled Hologram, all from Cahuenga Press in Los Angeles.
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 10th
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-630761182677
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Meliza Bañales 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 Meliza Bañales.
Meliza Bañales is an American writer, performer, and slam poet. She has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles. She has been involved in spoken word and writing since 1996. She gained recognition for being the first Latina on the West Coast to win a poetry slam championship in 2002. She was the 2002 winner of the People Before Profits Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology, Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing-Up Working-Class, Baby Remember My Name: New Queer Girl Writing, and Word Warriors.
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 3rd
Time: 8 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/
Author Luncheon Event: Hernan Diaz & Trust with pages: a bookstore at Tin Roof Bistro – In-Person Event
Join {pages} as the store hosts a special Author Luncheon event with Hernan Diaz, to celebrate the paperback publication of his bestselling novel Trust.
Trust is an unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception.
At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, Trust engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award, Hernan Diaz’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, the winner of the William Saroyan International Prize, and has received a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His first novel, In the Distance, was a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year and one of Lit Hub’s Top 20 Books of the Decade. He lives in Brooklyn.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore at Tin Roof Bistro
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 11:30 am
Address: 3500 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/luncheon-hernan-diaz-tin-roof
Big Read: American Born Chinese Book Discussion at Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Vermont Square Branch Library’s Big Read Discussion participants will discuss American Born Chinese, a graphic novel by author Gene Luen Yang.
Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Month as we discuss Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese. American Born Chinese is the winner of the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award, a 2006 National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature, the winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: New, an Eisner Award nominee for Best Coloring, a 2007 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, and a New York Times bestseller.
The first 10 teens to attend will receive a free copy of the book.
Where: Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 1201 W. 48th St., Los Angeles, CA 90037
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-american-born-chinese-book-discussion-1
Not So Secret Society Book Club: Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Not So Secret Society Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, by Nancy Springer.
Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she’s an independent young woman–after all, her name spelled backwards reads ‘alone’–and living on her own in London. When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock’s doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per a curt note from the Earl, has died. But Letitia Glover is convinced this isn’t the truth, that she’d know–she’d feel–if her twin had died.
Enola Holmes returns in her first adventure since the hit Netflix movie brought her back on the national bestseller lists, introducing a new generation to this beloved character and series.
Nancy Springer is the author of the nationally bestselling Enola Holmes novels, including The Case of the Missing Marquess, which was made into the hit Netflix movie, Enola Holmes. She is the author of more than 50 other books for children and adults. She has won many awards, including two Edgar Awards, and has been published in more than thirty countries. She lives in Florida.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Story Writing Club for Teens at Jefferson Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Draw, learn the art of storytelling, and discover your ideas with other teens. For ages 11-18.
Where: Jefferson Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 4;30 pm – 5;30 pm
Address: 2211 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90018
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/story-writing-club
Ruha Benjamin & Viral Justice at Octavia’s Bookshelf – In-Person Event
Ruha Benjamin will discuss her book, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want.
From the author of Race After Technology, comes an inspiring vision of how we can build a more just world―one small change at a time.
Born of a stubborn hopefulness, Viral Justice offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones, transforming our relationships and communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world.
Where: Octavia’s Bookshelf
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 1361 North Hill Ave., Pasadena, CA 91104
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events/ruha-benjamin-viral-justice-book-signing
Diverse Romance Book Club: When the Moon Was Ours at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person YA Event
The Diverse Romance Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, When the Moon Was Ours: A Novel, by Anna-Marie McLemore.
From the author of The Weight of Feathers comes a young adult novel about a girl hiding the truth, a boy with secrets from his past, and four sisters who could ruin them both.
To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.
Anna-Marie McLemore was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and taught by their family to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. They are the author of The Weight of Feathers, a 2016 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist; 2017 Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature; Wild Beauty, a Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist best book of 2017; Blanca & Roja, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; Dark and Deepest Red, a Winter 2020 Indie Next List title; and The Mirror Season, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/diverse-romance-book-club-when-moon-was-ours
Open Mic: Besos y Puñales at Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Every Thursday, Re/Arte Centro Literario hosts an Open Mic: Besos y Punales.
Musica, poesia, comedia, lectura every Thursday
Doors open at 6pm
Sign up at the door.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/pages/calendar-of-events
Thomas Beller, with Cathleen Schine, & Lost in the Game at Diesel, A Book Store – In-Person Event
Thomas Beller, in conversation with Cathleen Schine, will read from, discuss, and sign his book, Lost in the Game.
For players, coaches, writers, and fans, basketball is a science and an art, a religious sacrament, a source of entertainment, and a way of interacting with the world. In Lost In the Game, Thomas Beller entwines these threads with his lifetime’s experience as a player and journalist, roaming NBA locker rooms and city parks as a basketball flaneur in search of the meaning of the modern game. He captures the magnificence and mastery of today ’s most accomplished NBA players while paying homage to the devotion of countless congregants in the global church of pickup basketball.
Thomas Beller is the author of Seduction Theory: Stories, The Sleep-Over Artist: A Novel, How To Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood, and J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist, which won the New York City Book Award for biography/memoir. His most recent book is Lost In The Game: A Book About Basketball. His work has been reprinted in Best American Short Stories, The Art of the Essay, and numerous other anthologies. From 1990 to 2010, he edited Open City Magazine and Books, and since 2000 has published the literary website for nonfiction set in New York City, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker magazine, he is an associate professor and director of creative writing at Tulane University.
Cathleen Schine is the author of The Grammarians, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, and The Love Letter, among other novels. She has contributed to the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, and the New York Times Book Review. She lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/thomas-beller-may-11-Author-signing
Book Club: Capitalist Realism at All Power Books – In-Person Event
Every Thursday, May 11 – June 8, All Power Books will host a group reading and discussions of the Book Club selection: Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by author Mark Fisher.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: All Power Books
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 4874 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrYjm_FIGzW/
ALOUD Series: Surviving Homelessness & Foster Care: David Ambroz, with Mayor Karen Bass & A Place Called Home at Central Library’s MT Auditorium – In-Person Event
David Ambroz, best-selling author of A Place Called Home, shares his story of survival on the streets of New York City and later through violence in foster care, always with the goal of moving people from empathy to action. He lays out his ideas, informed through lived experience and policy expertise, to fix foster care, address homelessness, and build a more humane and compassionate nation.
Ambroz will be in conversation with Mayor Karen Bass, the 43rd Mayor of Los Angeles and the first woman and second African American to be elected as the city’s chief executive. With an agenda focused on bringing urgency, accountability, and a new direction to Los Angeles, she has started her term with a focus on ho immediately and increasing safety and opportunity in every part of Los Angeles.
Where: Central Library, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lfla.org/event/surviving-homelessness-foster-care/
Dina Gachman, with Attica Locke, & So Sorry for Your Loss at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Dian Gachman, in conversation with Attica Locke, will discuss her book, So Sorry for Your Loss: How I Learned to Live with Grief, and Other Grave Concerns.
This book is a searching, heartfelt exploration about what it means to process grief, by a bestselling author and journalist whose experience with two devastating losses inspired her to bring comfort and understanding to others.
Since losing her mother to cancer in 2018 and her sister to alcoholism less than three years later, author and journalist Dina Gachman has dedicated herself to understanding what it means to grieve, healing after loss, and the ways we stay connected to those we miss. Through a mix of personal storytelling, reporting, and insight from experts and even moments of humor, Gachman gives readers a fresh take on grief and bereavement–whether the loss is a family member, beloved pet, or a romantic relationship. No one wants to join the grief club, since membership comes with zero perks, but So Sorry for Your Loss will make that initiation just a little less painful.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Dina-Gachman
Earthy Delights: History, Race, and Environmental Consciousness with Camille T. Dungy & SOIL at CAAM – In-Person Event
Award-winning poet Camille T. Dungy, editor of the first anthology to bring African American environmental poetry to national attention, explores how gardening can be inseparable from questions of family, history, race, nation, and power in her new book SOIL: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden.
Dungy will read and discuss the interconnections between literature, environmental action, history, and culture with Leah Thomas, author and founder of the non-profit Intersectional Environmentalist, a platform and resource hub that advocates, educates, and promotes inclusivity and accessibility within environmental education and movements.
This program is presented as part of the PEN America World Voices Festival.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: California African American Museum (CAAM)
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 600 State Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90037
Author Appearance: Julie A. Riggott, Haydn D. Schlinger, Dr. Henry D. Schlinger at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Event
Two books for children will be presented by authors Julie A. Riggott, Haydn D. Schlinger, Dr. Henry D. Schlinger:
B. F. Skinner and the Revolutionary Science of Behavior (written by Julie A. Riggott, illustrated by Haydn David Schlinger) — This middle grade biography about the Harvard psychologist introduces his science in a fun and accessible way. While focusing on Skinner as a scientist, the book also talks about his other creative pursuits — music, art, and inventing — emphasizing how creativity is essential for discovery. The book, illustrated by the author’s 12-year-old son, includes “Thinking outside the box” activities to encourage engagement.
How to Build Good Behavior and Self-Esteem in Children (written by Dr. Henry D. Schlinger) — Do you find it challenging to get your child to do what you ask? Does your child cry, whine, argue, or throw tantrums? Are you looking for things you can do to build new behaviors or improve existing behaviors to make you and your child happier? Written by a professor of psychology and behavior analysis, this guidebook — perfect for parents, caregivers, and practitioners — teaches you how to solve any behavior problem positively by rewarding the right behaviors and, in the process, building self-esteem. The book includes fill-in-the-blanks and questions to ensure you understand and remember the key concepts. Step-by-step instructions for your own behavior change projects help you put your new knowledge to work.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 am
Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge, CA, 91011
Brandon T. Snider + Ed Steckley & Rube Goldberg and His Amazing Machines at North Figueroa Bookshop– In-Person Event
Bring your family to North Fig to meet Brandon and Ed while they read and sign Rube Goldberg and His Amazing Machines.
On the first day of middle school, Principal Kim announces that the school is going to throw a Contraption Convention—the perfect opportunity for young inventor Rube Goldberg to show off his inventions and get out of his summer-long funk! But after a fight with his friends Pearl and Boob about where his priorities really lie, Rube’s Con Con entry gets off to a rocky start—and then strange incidents begin to throw the town into disarray. Boob is convinced it’s a ghost causing all of this chaos. Between Con Con, the ghostly mystery, and a new rival, Rube has his work cut out for him.
Brandon T. Snider is the bestselling author of the award-winning Dark Knight Manual, as well as the Avengers: Infinity War: The Cosmic Quest series. Additionally, he has written books featuring Cartoon Network favorites such as Adventure Time and Regular Show, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Black Panther, plus pop-culture icons such as Justice League, Star Wars, and The Muppets. He lives in New York City, where he is a member of the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.
Ed Steckley is an award-winning print and advertising illustrator, based in Racine, WI.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90042
At Skylight: Savannah Manhattan & There’s Something About Theo at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Savannah Manhattan will present and discuss her debut poetry collection, There’s Something about Theo.
The author describes feeling stuck, caged, and in need of freedom from her old body and mind. Throughout eleven poems, Savannah takes you down the road of transition and uncertainty that she lives. Read this thrilling epic collection that has been lauded as “Brilliant” and “Inspirational.”
Savannah Manhattan is a LA author who just published her first collection, There’s Something About Theo. She is also a food writer and a comedian seen on The CW and in clubs nationwide.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-savannah-manhattan-presents-theres-something-about-theo
LA Book Launch: Charif Shanahan & Trace Evidence at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Charif Shanahan will present and discuss his new poetry collection, Trace Evidence, with guest readings from Safia Elhillo, Morgan Parker, and Paul Tran!
Hors d’oevres will be served; cash bar available. The event will take place on the 2nd floor, in Segovia Hall.
In Trace Evidence, the urgent follow-up to his award-winning debut Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan continues his piercing meditations on the intricacies of mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, mortality, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad. At the collection’s center sits “On the Overnight from Agadir,” a poem that chronicles Shanahan’s survival of a devastating bus accident in Morocco, his mother’s birth country, and ruminates on home, belonging, and the mysteries of fate. With rich lyricism, power, and tenderness, Trace Evidence centers the racial periphery and excavates the vestiges of our violent colonial past in the most intimate aspects of our lives. In a language yoked equally to the physical and metaphysical worlds, the poet articulates the need we all share for real intimacy and connection, and proves, time and again, that the true cost of our separateness is the love that our survival requires.
Charif Shanahan is the author of Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, a Lambda Literary Award and Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award Finalist. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, PBS NewsHour, and Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Stegner Fellowship Program, and the Fulbright Commission. An Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Northwestern University, Charif lives in Chicago, Illinois.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books at the Ace Hotel
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 929 South Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/ace-hotel-dtla-charif-shanahan-presents-trace-evidence-w-morgan-parker-safia-elhillo-paul-tran or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-book-launch-trace-evidence-by-charif-shanahan-registration-615296286757
Book Launch: Christine Kwon, with Sophia Dahlin and Justin Jannise, & A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Christine Kwon, with readings from Sophia Dahlin (City Lights) and Justin Jannise (BOA Editions), will present her debut poetry collection, A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue, the Cowles Poetry Prize winner.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series: Elisabet Salas, Annalicia Aguilar & Open MIc at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
The Trenches Full of Poets Readings & Open Mic features SoCal writers Elisabet Salas and Annalicia Aguilar, followed by the series’ first ever open mic opportunity!
Elisabet Salas a first-generation Mexican American writer currently living in Southern California. She’s simultaneously working on her B.A. in English and her debut novel, which she hopes to have finished in 2023.
Annalicia Aguilar is a mixed-race Indigenous Latinx poet, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and educator. She has a BFA in Acting and is currently completing her MFA in Screenwriting. She has been a featured poet in numerous LA poetry venues, and her debut book of poetry will be published by Riot of Roses Publishing House later this year.
Trenches Full of Poets is a monthly poetry series created, curated, and hosted by Los Angeles-based poets and editors, Nikolai Garcia and Mauricio Andres Moreno, with the goal of supporting published SoCal authors and the local independent bookstores that carry their works.
The event is free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations required!
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1303246413931386/
Vanessa Wilkie & A Woman of Influence at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Vanessa Wilkie will present and discuss her new book A Woman of Influence: The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England.
Alice Spencer was born in 1560 to a family on the rise. Her grandfather had amassed a sizeable estate of fertile grazing land and made a small fortune in sheep farming, allowing him to purchase a simple but distinguished manor house called Althorp.
With her sizable dowry, Alice married the heir to one of the most powerful aristocratic families in the country, eventually becoming the Countess of Derby. Though she enjoyed modest renown, it wasn’t until her husband’s sudden death (after he turned in a group of Catholics for plotting against Queen Elizabeth I) that Alice and her family’s future changed forever.
Now, the full story of the remarkable Alice Spencer Stanley Egerton is revealed in this comprehensive and colorful biography. A woman both ahead of and part of her time, Alice’s ruthless challenging of the status quo has inspired future generations of Spencers and will change the way you view Tudor women.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vanessa-Wilkie-A-Woman-of-Influence
Writers Bloc Presents: Aurora James, with Kerry Washington, & Wildflower: A Memoir at Chevalier’s Off-site at The Ebell – In-Person Event
Aurora James, in conversation with Kerry Washington, will discuss her memoir, Wildflower.
Aurora James is more than a shape-shifting designer of shoes and clothes– she’s an entrepreneur, a social change artist dedicated to bending business to do social good. As founder of the 15% Pledge, a nonprofit advocacy group, she is working with large scale retailers to pledge to have them commit 15 % of their inventory to Black-owned businesses. Her effort of convincing national chain stores to invest in Black-owned business has initiated a groundswell of support and participation from major retailers such as Nordstrom, Macys, Sephora, and others. In her new and widely respected memoir, Wildflower, Aurora James recounts her trailblazing life, her optimism amidst her challenging experiences, and the movement she created, which has landed her on every list of Most Influential People we can think of.
Kerry Washington is an Emmy Award-winning and SAG nominated actress, as well as director, producer, and social activist. You’ve seen her rise to stardom in the hit television drama Scandal, as well as in numerous other shows including the just released comedy, Unprisoned, on Hulu. Recent director credits include Scandal and Insecure. Kerry Washington is also an activist, and created the nonprofit called Influence Change (IC21), dedicated to increasing voter turnout. Time named her Woman of the Year for 2022.
NOTE: See site or RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ebell of Los Angeles
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 741 S. Lucerne Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90005
Website: https://writersblocpresents.com/main/aurora-james/ or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/aurora-james-and-kerry-washington-tickets-592789538467
Dave Berry, with Paul Levine, & Swamp Story at LiveTalks L. A. – In-Person Event
Dave Berry, in conversation with Paul Levine, will discuss his new book, Swamp Story.
Pulitzer Prize–winning bestselling author and actual Florida Man Dave Barry returns to our stage with his latest—Swamp Story, a Florida caper full of oddballs and more twists and turns than a snake slithering away from a gator.
You’re guaranteed to laugh as Barry tells us about life as a humorist on the ground down in Florida and how it inspired his latest novel. In short, Swamp Story tells the tale of a woman trapped in the Everglades and how she’s terrorized by an ex who’s a reality TV star, a TikTok mob—and a presidential hopeful.
Dave Barry is the author of more bestsellers than you can count on two hands, including Lessons from Lucy, Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, Dave Barry Turns Forty, and Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up. A wildly popular syndicated columnist best known for his booger jokes, Barry won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He lives in Miami.
The author of twenty-three novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote twenty episodes of the CBS military drama JAG and co-created the Supreme Court drama First Monday starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The international bestseller To Speak for the Dead was his first novel and introduced readers to linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter. His 2023 novel Early Grave was termed a “witty and complex legal thriller” by Publishers Weekly. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed Solomon vs. Lord series of legal capers.
Where: William Turner Gallery
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 2525 Michigan Ave., E-1, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/dave-barry-with-paul-levine/
Reading Event: Steffani Jemison & A Rock, A River, A Street at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
PRC presents Setffani Jemison to present and discuss her book, A Rock, A River, A Street.
Screening, Reading, & Conversation with Taylor Renee Aldridge.
In her experimental debut novella, A Rock, A River, A Street, published by Primary Information in 2022, artist Steffani Jemison moves deftly across narrative genres and styles as she interrogates the boundedness of the self, the possibilities of plurality, and the limits of performance. Titled after Maya Angelou’s poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” the book is punctuated by gestural drawings that point to questions of repetition and difference.
A reading by the artist will precede the screening of Jemison’s Similitude (2019, 35 mins.), alongside S. Pearl Buck’s short, 1984 visual poem, Back Inside Herself, and Yvonne Rainer’s silent Volleyball (Foot Film), part of the artist’s late-1960s series of alert dance works. To be followed by a conversation with Jemison and California African American Museum (CAAM) visual arts curator, Taylor Renee Aldridge.
Similitude explores modernist mime, postcolonial mimicry, gesture and abstraction in relation to American and European mid-20th-century modernist mime. Featuring a black American actor trained in physical theater, Similitude considers spiritual dimensions of the discipline, including questions of masking and opacity, self-sufficiency and self-similarity, and the structural device of the parable or similitude.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Thursday the 11th
Time: 8 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/steffani-jemison-a-rock-a-river-a-street
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 12th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club: River of Gods at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club participants will discuss River of the Gods: Sir Richard Burton, John Speke, Sidi Mubarak Bombay and the Epic Search for the Source of the Nile, by Candice Millard.
Please email studio@lapl.org for details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/current-events-nonfiction-book-club-0
Self-Care Book Club: The Nature Fix at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Self-Care Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams.
From forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.
A contributing editor at Outside magazine, Florence Williams is the author of Breasts, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Nature Fix. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, and many other outlets. She lives in Washington, DC.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/self-care-book-club-nature-fix
Book Talk: Maressa Brown, with Heather Brooker, & Raising Baby by the Stars at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Maressa Brown, in conversation with Heather Brooker, will discuss Raising Baby by the Stars: A New Parent’s Guide to Astrology.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-maressa-browns-raising-baby-by-the-stars-tickets-621272682317
Leah Johnson & Ellie Engle Saves Herself at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids & MG Event
Leah Johnson will present and discuss her new MG book Elli Engle Saves Herself.
Ellie Engle doesn’t stand out.
Too bad life didn’t bother checking in with Ellie. Because when a freak earthquake hits her small town, Ellie wakes up with the power to bring anything back to life with just her touch. And when a video of her using her powers suddenly goes viral, Ellie’s life goes somewhere she never imagined–or wanted: straight into the spotlight.
Surviving middle school is hard enough. Surviving middle school when paparazzi are camped out on your front lawn and an international pop singer wants you to use your powers on live TV and you might be in love with your best friend but she doesn’t know it? Absolutely impossible.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Leah-Johnson-Ellie-Engle-Saves-Herself
Kim Dower & I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Kim Dower will discuss her book, I Wore This Dress Today For You, Mom.
This book is an anthology of her poems on being a mother–childbirth to empty nest–as well as being a daughter with all the teenaged messiness, drama, and conflict, to finally caring for one’s mother suffering from dementia. Culled from her four collections as well as a selection of new work, these poems, heartbreaking, funny, surprising, and touching, explore the quirky, unexpected observations, and bittersweet moments mothers and daughters share. These evocative poems do not glorify mothers, but rather look under the hood of motherhood and explore the deep crevices and emotions of these impenetrable relationships: the love, despair, joy, humor and gratitude that fills our lives.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Kim-Dower
At Skylight: Andrew Porter, with Holiday Reinhorn & Jonathan Blum, & The Disappeared at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Andrew Porter, in conversation with Holiday Reinhorn & Jonathan Blum, will present and discuss his book, The Disappeared: Stories.
With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and figurative—lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one’s youthful self. From San Antonio to Austin, from the clamor of a crowded restaurant to the cigarette at a lonely kitchen table, Andrew Porter captures each of these relationships mid-flight, every individual life punctuated by loss and beauty and need. The Disappeared reaffirms the undeniable artistry of a contemporary master of the form.
Andrew Porter is the author of the story collection The Theory of Light and Matter and the novel In Between Days. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, and Ploughshares, and on public radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Jazz and Poetry Reading: Vogue Giambri & The Hole at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Vogue Giambri will present and discuss her book of poetry, The Hole, with a reading and some curated jazz.
Artwork and flyer by Kimberly Baldo @kimberlyje4n
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Every second Friday of the month, Village Well stays open a bit later, 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!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/24192
L.A. Book Launch: Francesca Bell, with Guests, & What Small Sound at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Live on YouTube Event
Join Beyond Baroque for the L.A. Book Launch of Francesca Bell’s collection of poems, What Small Sound.
Francesca Bell’s second collection of poems offers a portrait of motherhood, devastation, and hope—What Small Sound is gorgeous, raw, and disarmingly honest beginning to end. Her poems encompass the scope of her life, her family’s life, plus her generous and empathetic assessment of the larger world. She writes of a struggle to be “normal” in the fiery, broken, unpredictable chaos she sees around her. With skill and passion, she speaks of love, of rape, of deafness, or of holding still for a tarantula, of why she doesn’t drink, of who left fingerprints on the bullets of the Las Vegas shooter, or of a mammogram that made her think of the Mars rover.
The author will be joined by poets Douglas Manuel, Suzanne O’Connell, and Rebecca Foust for an evening of in-person readings at Beyond Baroque. A reception will be held with food & light refreshments before and after the performances.
Francesca Bell is the author of Bright Stain (Red Hen Press, 2019), finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Julie Suk Award, and What Small Sound (Red Hen Press, 2023). She translated Whoever Drowned Here (Red Hen Press, 2023), a selection of poems by Max Sessner, from German. Her poems and translations appear in NELLE, New England Review, North American Review, Mid-American Review, and Rattle. She lives with her family in Novato, California.
Rebecca Foust’s fourth full-length book ONLY (Four Way Books 2022) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Recognitions include runner up for the 2022 Missouri Review Editors Prize, winner of the Pablo Neruda, CP Cavafy, and James Hearst poetry prizes, a Marin County Poet Laureateship, and fellowships from Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee. Recent poems are in The Common, Five Points, Ploughshares, POETRY, and Quarterly West.
Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Long Beach, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. His first collection of poems, Testify, won an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for poetry, and his poems and essays can be found in numerous literary journals, magazines, and websites, most recently Zyzzyva, Pleiades, and the New Orleans Review. He has traveled to Egypt and Eritrea with The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program to teach poetry. A recipient of the Dana Gioia Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, he is a Bayard Rustin Fellow at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.
Suzanne O’Connell’s recently published work can be found in Poet Lore,North American Review, Paterson Literary Review, Crack the Spine, Menacing Hedge, Drunk Monkeys, and Wrath Bearing Tree among others. Her two poetry collections, “A Prayer for Torn Stockings,” and “What Luck” were published by Garden Oak Press.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, link, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Friday the 12th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-book-launch-what-small-sound-by-francesca-bell-tickets-567240360187
Social Justice Book Club at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Teen Event
Literature can transform the way we look at the world. Join children’s librarians from the Los Angeles Public Library to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family. Participants of all ages are welcome.
The selection for discussion by teen participants will be Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Wong, Immigrant and Artist, by author Julie Leung.
Email cquinn@lapl.org for the meeting link.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/social-justice-book-club
FAB Long Beach: Festival of AAPI Books at Billie Jean King Main Library, LBPL – In-Person Event
Welcome the return of FAB (Festival of AAPI Books) Long Beach, featuring children’s, young adult, and adult authors, vendors, performers, and more, from across the Asian diaspora.
FAB LONG BEACH (co-sponsored by Long Beach Public Library and B el Canto Books)
Saturday, 05/13/23 from 10AM to 4PM
FEATURED AUTHORS:
Julie Abe • Tracy Badua • Melissa Chadburn• Cathy Linh Che • Sheila Darcey• Arthur Kayzakian • Jessica Kim • Naz Kutub• Kien Lam • Minh Lê • Jayci Lee • Stacey Lee • James Fujinami Moore • Doua Moua• Alan Nakagawa • Diana Khoi Nguyen • Suzanne Park • Shiho Pate • Angela Peñaredondo • Christian Perfas• LeUyen Pham • Rod Pulido • Michelle Quach• Albert Samaha • Sehba Sarwar • Kiri Schwiethale • Benson Shum • Belinda Huijuan Tang • Julie Tieu • Jane Wong • Nancy Lynée Woo • Kyle Lucia Wu • Jeff Yang • Paula Yoo • Phil Yu
FAB 2023 OPEN MIC:
If you’re an AAPI poet or prose writer and want to read your work during our public reading hours, sign up on our Google form link. Your piece must cap @ 3 minutes long. Looking forward to hearing your works!
Plus: BOOK SIGNINGS, AUTHOR PANELS, PERFORMANCES, WORKSHOPS, KIDS’ KRAFT KORNER, and MORE!
RSVP encouraged – free to attend. Parking is free starting at 9AM in the Civic Center Parking Structure located at 332 W. Broadway (next door to the library).
NOTE: See site for SCHEDULE of Events.
Where: Billie Jean King Main Library, LBPL
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 10 am – 4 pm
Address: 200 W. Broadway, Long Beach CA 90802
Website: https://belcantobooks.net/fab-long-beach or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/festival-of-aapi-books-fab-long-beach-2023-tickets-611206774917
Storytime Event: Cassandra Federman Presents: This Is a Seahorse and This Is a Seacow at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Event
Cassandra Federman will present two children’s books: This Is a Seahorse and This Is a Seacow. Both stories come to life when children writing reports on the animals come to life on the page and offer facts about what sets them apart from the other animals.
Cassandra Federman was born and raised in Massachusetts, where she spent her childhood reading comic books, playing with action figures, drawing superheroes, and participating in all things nerdy (before that became cool). She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University and moved to Los Angeles, where she worked in film and television.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge, CA, 91011
Writing the Cultural Heritage Poem, with Shonda Buchanan at/via Women Who Submit at the Julian Dixon Library – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join award-winning author and educator Shonda Buchanan, author of the memoir Black Indian, to learn how to write a cultural heritage poem that shares and honors your heritage and traditions, and to also explore identity within your own culture.
Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 10:30 am
Address: 4975 Overland Ave., Culver City, CA
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq8XZjLLmYO/
Westwood Book Club & at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Westwood Branch library Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, Circe, by author Madeline Miller.
Circe is a retelling of The Odyssey and follows the witch Goddess Circe from her life with her father Zeus in the house of Helios to her banishment and life on a desert island where she hones her occult craft and has many adventures, unwittingly finding herself pitted against the wrath of both men and gods.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-3
Special Storytime: Cátia Chien & All the Beating Hearts and João by a Thread at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Cátia Chien will present and read from two books:
All the Beating Hearts, illustrated by Cátia Chien, is a story that embraces life’s highs and lows, Julie Fogliano masterfully combines simple, lyrical text with highly nuanced themes to create a reassuring and hopeful meditation on solidarity and perseverance. Impressionistic pastel and colored-pencil illustrations by Cátia Chien accompany the soulful text. All the Beating Hearts reminds us that through all of life’s ups and downs, there will always be light after darkness, and most importantly, we have each other–these other beating hearts.
João by a Thread is an intricate and exquisite tale of how bedtime fears can be transformed into wondrous dreams and magical adventures, by Hans Christian Andersen award-winning Roger Mello.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado St., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Special-Storytime-C%C3%A1tia-Chien-All-the-Beating-Hearts ,
Author Event: Lesiie Lehr, with Cassandra Lane, & A Boob’s Life at Zibby’s Bookshop – In-Person Event
Zibby’s Bookshop presents author Leslie Lehr, in conversation with Cassandra Lane, to discuss her new book, A Boob’s Life: How America’s Obsession Shaped Me…and You.
Author Leslie Lehr wants to talk about boobs. She’s gone from size AA to DDD and everything between, from puberty to motherhood, enhancement to cancer, and beyond. And she’s not alone—these are classic life stages for women today.
At turns funny and heartbreaking, A Boob’s Life explores both the joys and hazards inherent to living in a woman’s body. Lehr deftly blends her personal narrative with national history, starting in the 1960s with the women’s liberation movement and moving to the current feminist dialogue and what it means to be a woman. Her insightful and clever writing analyzes how America’s obsession with the female form has affected her own life’s journey and the psyche of all women today.
Leslie Lehr is a prize-winning author whose memoir, A Boob’s Life: How America’s Obsession shaped Me… and You was featured in People Magazine, Glamour, Good Morning America, and in Entertainment Tonight’s books for Woman’s History Month by “trailblazing women changing the world.” Currently in development as a TV series produced by Salma Hayek for HBOMax Comedy, A Boob’s Life hit #1 in Feminist Literature on Amazon. In addition to Leslie’s novels and nonfiction books, her essays have been in the New York Times Modern Love column (narrated by Katie Couric on NPR), anthologies including Mommy Wars, and websites including Yourtango and Huffpost
Cassandra Lane is editor in chief of L.A. Parent magazine and author of WE ARE BRIDGES!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Zibby’s Bookshop
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 1113 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90403
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/author-event-leslie-lehr-with-cassandra-lane-tickets-539651380807
Big Read: AAPI Book Discussion and Film Screening at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Palisades Branch Library Big Read participants will discuss and view a film screening of this month’s selection, Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood., by author R.F. Kuang.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Drive., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-and-film-screening
Generating Ideas Writing Workshop with Brian Dunlap at Uptown Plants/Casa Verde, Whittier – In-Person Event
Writing Is Not a Luxury: A Generative Workshop is facilitated by Brian Dunlap and inspired by the words of poet Audre Lourde.
This workshop provides a safe space for students and writers to discuss difficult and important themes, ideas, and topics that each individual finds essential to write about. Participants will be pushed to confront these topics in a nurturing environment, exploring why and how to write about them openly and honestly.
NOTE: No registration. $20 upon arrival.
Where: Uptown Plants, Casa Verde
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 12909 Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA 90601
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10106097486006024&set=a.10104469401091244
New Kids Book Club: Charlie Thorne & the Last Equation at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person KidsEvent
The New Kids Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Charlie Thorne & the Last Equation by Stuart Gibbs.
From New York Times bestselling author Stuart Gibbs comes the first novel in a thrilling new series about the world’s youngest and smartest genius who’s forced to use her unbelievable code-breaking skills to outsmart Einstein.
Charlie Thorne is a genius.
Charlie Thorne is a thief.
Charlie Thorne isn’t old enough to drive.
And now it’s up to her to save the world…
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/new-kids-book-club-charlie-thorne-last-equation
ALOUD Series: World Voices Festival: Reza Aslan and Franklin Leonardat Central Library’s MT Auditorium – In-Person Event
In our polarized climate in the United States, and amidst the movement for human rights in Iran, writers and journalists have been increasingly targeted by waves of online harassment for their work and writing. From the missives of QAnon to the rise of hate speech on Twitter, our political context is building a perfect storm of intimidation with ever-shifting targets.
Join best-selling author and scholar Reza Aslan and PEN America Trustee and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, in conversation with LA Times columnist Jean Guerrero, for a conversation about our divisive political landscape in the United States and around the world and its insidious impact on writers, scholars, and creators.
Reza Aslan is a renowned writer, commentator, professor, Emmy- and Peabody-nominated producer, and scholar of religions. A recipient of the prestigious James Joyce award, Aslan is the author of three internationally best-selling books, including the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. His producing credits include the acclaimed HBO series The Leftovers and the CBS comedy United States of Al. He is the host and Executive Producer of CNN’s Believer and Rough Draft with Reza Aslan, as well as co-host along with Rainn Wilson of the podcast Metaphysical Milkshake. His latest book is An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville.
Jean Guerrero is a columnist at the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of HATEMONGER: STEPHEN MILLER, DONALD TRUMP AND THE WHITE NATIONALIST AGENDA. Her first book, CRUX: A CROSS-BORDER MEMOIR, won a PEN Literary Award and was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2019. Her writing is featured in Vanity Fair, Politico, The Nation, Wired, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2019 by Rebecca Solnit and more. She won the 2022 “Best Commentary” award from the Sacramento Press Club. While working at KPBS as an investigative border reporter, she won an Emmy, contributed to NPR, the PBS NewsHour and more. Months before Trump’s family separations captured national attention, her PBS reporting on the practice was cited by members of Congress. She started her career at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires as a foreign correspondent in Mexico and Central America. She was named one of the California Chicano News Media Association’s most influential Latina journalists.
Franklin Leonard is the founder of The Black List, a yearly survey highlighting Hollywood’s most popular unproduced screenplays, and the company created to continue its mission. More than 400 Black List scripts have been produced as feature films, earning more than 275 Academy Award nominations and 50 wins. Franklin has worked in development at Universal Pictures and the production companies of Will Smith, Sydney Pollack, Anthony Minghella, Leonardo DiCaprio, and John Goldwyn. He has been a juror at the Sundance, Toronto, and Guanajuato Film Festivals, and for the PEN Center USA Literary Awards. He serves on the advisory boards of the Young Storytellers Foundation and the Bernard Van Leer Foundation. He has been named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “35 Under 35,” Black Enterprise magazine’s “40 Emerging Leaders for Our Future,” The Root’s “100 Most Influential African Americans,” and Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business.” He was awarded the 2015 African American Film Critics Association’s Special Achievement Award for career excellence. He is a graduate of Harvard University and was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts, and Sciences in 2016.
Co-presented with PEN America
Where: Central Library, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lfla.org/event/reza-aslan-franklin-leonard/ :
Writing Workshop for Teens Event at Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person Event
Café con Libros welcomes teens for a writing workshop led by Jessica Wilson Cardenas.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Café con Libros, Pomona
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: CHECK TO VERIFY
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calendar
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Deep Critique Writing Workshop – Online Event
Saturday Afternoon Poetry presents a Deep Critique Poetry Writing Workshop (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 42 lines for Spectrum: The Sonneteers online edition by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, May 13th) .
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Between the Lines: A Writing as Healing Workshop & Open Mic at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
Between the Lines is a writing workshop featuring Karo Ska and hosted by Ravina.
This event is a 2-hour all-level writing as healing experience centering on voice, and expression followed by an OPEN MIC.
Admission of $20 includes notebook + refreshments.
NOTE: RSVP, guidelines, and details at site.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 2702 West Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Margaret Elysia Garcia & Graft at LibroMobile, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
Local author Margaret Elysia Garcia will present and read her short story collection, Graft, which takes readers on a journey south of Los Angeles, away from Hollywood and the beaches and money of the movies, away from the tropes of gangsters and drugs, and into the towns beyond where the promise of California dreaming never quite grafted onto the suburban landscape.
The people of these stories grasp hard onto customs and landmarks, which disappear by bulldozer or earthquake just as fast. They are left wandering, trying to find a center that isn’t there. A place of both subtle magic and ghosts and ugly architecture. A place not good enough to stay, not bad enough to leave. A place where commerce stands in for culture, and authentic people try to find small tracts of real life in the cracks, all in the shadow of Disneyland.
Where: LibroMobile
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1150 S. Bristol St., A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/graft-by-margaret-elysia-garcia
Racquel Marie, with Alexandra Overy, & You Don’t Have a Shot Book Event at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents You Don’t Have a Shot, by author Raquel Marie, in conversation with Alexandra Overy.
There will be a book signing to follow. This event is free to attend and tickets are not required, however, we do appreciate RSVPs when possible!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Nadia Davis & Home Is Within You at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Nadia Davis will present her new book, Home Is Within You: a Memoir of Recovery and Redemption.
This book is a powerful homage to finding one’s worth in the face of mental health struggles, addiction, and public shaming. Davis bravely shares her remarkable story and reveals the depths of the darkness she went through, while gracefully offering transformational healing and an end to the choking grasp of shame. This is her journey to recovery as a mother and as a woman. Her narrative is a defense of privacy, parenthood, and autonomy.
Nadia Davis is a mom, attorney, victims’ rights advocate, kundalini yoga instructor, and author. She is a survivor of trauma, abuse, addiction, and public shaming. Nadia has received numerous awards for her work helping others. She has a BA from UCLA and a JD from Loyola Law School. Find her at www.nadia-davis.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/25269
Obsidian Tongues Open Mic Event at Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person Event
Ceasar Avelar hosts and welcomes special guests. Open Mic Night is for everyone-play a song on your guitar, read a poem, or share a story. The spoken word is celebrated!
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Café con Libros, Pomona
Date: Saturday the 13th
Time: 7:30 PM – 9 PM
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calenda
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 13th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Mother’s Day Reading with Peggy Dobreer & Guests via Slow Lightning Lit – Online Event
Peggy Dobreer curates the Slow Lightning Reading Event, with music by Patty Chavez and readings by:
Nancy Lynee Woo (I’d Rather Be Lightning: Poems), Carrie Nassif (lithopaedion), & Amy Raasch.
RSVP: adhocink@yahoo.com to receive the link.
Where: Slow Lightening Lit
Date: Sunday the 14th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: N/A
Cellar Door Book Club: Lone Woman at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Cellar Door Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Lone Woman: A Novel by Victor LaValle.
Victor LaValle is the author of seven works of fiction: four novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in the Bronx with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 14th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A, Riverside, CA 92507
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-book-club-lone-women
Second Sunday Poetry Series & Open Mic Features: Elyse Hart at The Studio Theatre – In-Person Event
Second Sunday Poetry Series is an open mic poetry show, hosted by Alex M. Frankel. The poetry readings usually happen on the second Sunday of every month at the Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building. The Studio Theatre is located at 3433 Cahuenga Blvd West, Los Angeles 90068, near Universal Studios. The poetry reading starts at 5pm. You will be able to listen to great poets perform their work, sell and sign books, plus mingle with audience members and open mic participants.
Elyse Hart is a writer from Los Angeles where she lives with her cats Asher and Fiona Apple. She is the author of Poems for Squares, a collection of other people’s Instagram photos and the poems she wrote about them. Her chapbook is entitled White Noise Crucible.
Her poems have appeared in publications such as Slipstream, The Nervous Breakdown, Maudlin House, Ghost City Review, The Los Angeles Press, and others.
She’s currently working on a collection of found poems, on the subject of women’s reproductive rights.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
Date: Sunday the 14th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd. West., Los Angeles, CA 90068
Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/
Scott Branson & Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Surviving the Future is a collection of the most current ideas in radical queer movement work and revolutionary queer theory. Beset by a new pandemic, fanning the flames of global uprising, these queers cast off progressive narratives of liberal hope while building mutual networks of rebellion and care. These essays propose a militant strategy of queer survival in an ever-precarious future. Starting from a position of abolition–of prisons, police, the State, identity, and racist cis-heteronormative society–this collection refuses the bribes of inclusion in a system built on our expendability. Though the mainstream media saturates us with the boring norms of queer representation (with a recent focus on trans visibility), the writers in this book ditch false hope to imagine collective visions of liberation that tell different stories, build alternate worlds, and refuse the legacies of racial capitalism, anti-Blackness, and settler colonialism. The work curated in this book spans Black queer life in the time of COVID-19 and uprising, assimilation and pinkwashing settler colonial projects, subversive and deviant forms of representation, building anarchist trans/queer infrastructures, and more. Contributors include Che Gossett, Yasmin Nair, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Adrian Shanker, Kitty Stryker, Toshio Meronek, and more.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Sunday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90042
Book Launch: Malcolm Harris & Palo Alto at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
In Palo Alto, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the “tragedy of the commons,” racial genetics, and “broken windows” theory.
The Internet and computers, too. It’s a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. Palo Alto is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Fantasy Romance Book Club: A Marvelous Light at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents the Fantasy Romance Book Club every 2nd Sunday of the month, and today’s selection is A Marvelous Light by author Freya Marske.
This book features an Edwardian England full of magic, contracts, and conspiracies.
Freya Marske is the author of A Restless Truth and A Marvelous Light, which was an international bestseller and won the Romantic Novel Award for Fantasy. Her work has appeared in Analog and has been shortlisted for three Aurealis Awards. She is also a Hugo-nominated podcaster and won the Ditmar Award for Best New Talent. She lives in Australia.
Bookseller Taylor C. leads our fantasy and paranormal romance book club! If witches, vampires, ghosts, and other worlds are your jam, please join us!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 14th
Time: 7:15 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 