Meditation Monday with Alex Petunia via L.A. Poet Society – Online Zoom Event
Meditation Monday is a Self-Care workshop for the Writer led by poet Alex Petunia and offered by the L.A. Poet Society.
It includes breathing meditation, self-check-in, writing prompts, and affirmation.
See site for details. Register in advance.
Zoom: 840 2975 5764
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrrKtyYv5IM/
Poetry Night Monday Open Mic & Featured Guests at The Platform, DTLA – In-Person Event
Join the Poetry Night Open Mic (Before the Comedy Open Mic) with Featured Guests, offered every Monday of the month at The Platform in DTLA.
Must RSVP on Instagram @ thekaliclub213.
Hosted by Lida Parent-Harris.
Featured poets TBA.
NOTE: RSVP required.
Where: The Platform, DTLA
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1056 Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90015
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159766485254891&set=a.263642949890
SMPL Main Library Book Group Discussion: Faustian Bargain via Santa Monica Public Library, LAPL – Online Event
SMPL Main Library Book Group participants will discuss Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnershipand the Origins of the Second World Warby Ian Ona Johnson.
New research, including recently declassified Soviet archives, reveals Soviet/German plans to reshape Europe, commencing immediately after the end of World War I and leading into World War II.
Email library@santamonica.gov for Zoom info.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Santa Monica Main Library
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar or https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20June%202023%20Revised.pdf
Book Launch: Matthew Binder, with Guests, & Pure Cosmos Club at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents Matthew Binder to launch his new novel, Pure Cosmos Club, featuring readings from Allie Rowbottom, Genevieve Hudson, Jon Lindsey, and Tomas Moniz.
Pure Cosmos Club is an astute, astonishingly funny exposé of a world rife with superficial friendships, shameless frivolity, shady deals, vexing self-obsession, and mind-boggling wealth.
NYC may continue to market itself as the cultural capital of the world, but it’s been years since the city was hospitable to anyone without, well, capital. The truth is today’s Big Apple more closely resembles an episode of “Succession” than the abundant metropolis that nurtured visionaries like Warhol and Basquiat. Artists of every stripe, with few exceptions, have morphed into influencers, impresarios, marketing execs, and more. High-flying day jobs, together with generational wealth, are essential to survive life in the city as the costs of everything soar to increasingly dizzying heights.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
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 19th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-657579426767
Under the Mic Influence & Open Mic featuring Eternal Mind at LB Unified – In-Person Event
Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and @djkevjam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites.
Eternal Mind will feature tonight.
Under the Mic Influence and Open Mic bring you poetry & battle rap dynamo @sistar_outspoken to set off 2023 in @lbunified with @djkevjam and yours truly. Vegan soul food from @anotherside0fsoul on deck all evening. BE THERE!
DM now to get at the #openmic!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, and details.
Where: LB Unified Bar & Lounge
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7:30 pm; Mic at 8 pm
Address: 2222 E. Anaheim, Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/under-mic-influence-tickets-595248924557?aff=erelexpmlt
Mysterious Book Club: The Maid by Nita Prose at Pacific Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join this book club group of mystery lovers as they embark on their next mystery by reading and discussing The Maid, by Nita Prose.
New members are always welcome.
From Amazon:
Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for her job as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
Where: Pacific Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mysterious-book-club-1
Empower Yourself: Creating Space for Narrative Writing Workshop at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – Off-Site Location – In-Person Event
Interested in writing? Join our storytelling workshop Empower Yourself: Creating Space for Narrative Writing, led by Alejandro Molina and Xitlalic Guijosa.
Beginning Tuesday, June 20th from 5pm-7pm in Panorama City.
Where: Tia Chucha’s at Off-Site Location (see below)
Date: Tuesday the 20th (through July 13th)
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 14547 Titus St., Panorama City, CA 91402
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=773056591143505&set=pcb.773056627810168
Book Launch: Nicola Harrison & Hotel Laguna at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join local author Nicola Harrison to celebrate the launch of her new historical novel Hotel Laguna,
1942, Hazel Francis left Wichita, Kansas for California, determined to do her part for the war effort. At Douglas Aircraft, she became one of many “Rosie the Riveters,” helping construct bombers for the U. S. military. But now the war is over, men have returned to their factory jobs, and women like Hazel have been dismissed, expected to return home to become wives and mothers.
Unwilling to be forced into a traditional woman’s role in the Midwest, Hazel remains on the west coast, and finds herself in the bohemian town of Laguna Beach. Desperate for work, she accepts a job as an assistant to famous artist Hanson Radcliff. Beloved by the locals for his contributions to the art scene and respected by the critics, Radcliff lives under the shadow of a decades old scandal that haunts him.
Working hard to stay on her cantankerous employer’s good side, Hazel becomes a valued member of the community. She never expected to fall in love with the rhythms of life in Laguna, nor did she expect to find a kindred spirit in Jimmy, the hotel bartender whose friendship promises something more. But Hazel still wants to work with airplanes—maybe even learn to fly one someday. Torn between pursuing her dream and the dream life she has been granted, she is unsure if giving herself over to Laguna is what her heart truly wants.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Conchas y Café–Bilingual Community Writing Workshop Series via DSTL Arts – Online Event
Conchas y Café bilingual community writing workshop series is a 12-week virtual course that explores skills in poetry and other forms of creative writing. Writers of all skill levels are welcome to join.
This Spring series will culminate with the publishing of Conchas y Café Zine; Vol. 8, Issue 3.
The theme we will be exploring during this series and zine is “TBD.”
To enroll in our series, visit: https://classroom.google.com/c/NTM3ODEzNTM2NTAw?cjc=gnnidkl
info@dstlarts.org
Created by: luis@dstlarts.org
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Tuesday the 20th (weekly until June 28, 2023)
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online event (Google Classroom)
Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/calendar
Pizza & Poesia: Poetry Readings, Open Mic & Poems on Demand at MacLeod on York – In-Person Event
Pizza & Poesia is a reading event of poetry readings, an open mic, and poems on demand, featuring:
Besskepp aka Cory Cofer is a master of spoken word poetry, and his recent release of the book Dreaming Under Polka Dot Stars covers the palette of his life, from coming-of- age stories to eulogies. It’s a celebraiton of the Black experience and the Black family.
Anastasia Fenald is a second generation Ukrainian-Latinx American poet from Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert. She is the author of a debut collection, Help Me, I’m Here.
Soul on Fire N/A
Blancabear2feet aka Jane Engleman is an author, poet and choreographer who writes in the rhythm of the drum. Her newest book is Snow Dancing with the Aurium of the Falls.
Mr. Chai Tea N/A
Erica Lopez N/A
Voth N/A
Lili of the Valley N/A
Alex Petunia is a Chicago-born, LA-based nurse-poet, who grew up in a home with domestic violence. The author of the debut collection through CLI, Tending My Wil. She now teaches at CLI andleads the Meditation Mondays Self Care for Writers Workshops via L.A. Poet Society.
Tyler Lenn Bradley is the founder and artistic director of HUE Productions, a performance company that grew from his original dance production titled HUMANITY. Its essence is the belief that everyone has a story to tel,l and that story can open the hearts and minds of others.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: MacLeod on York
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 5930 York Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: N/A
Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, with Doree Shafrir, & You Were Always MIne at Diesel, a Bookstore – In-Person Event
Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, in conversation with Doree Shafrir, will read from, discuss, and sign their novel, You Were Always Mine.
You Were Always Mine is aprovocative novel about a Black woman who finds an abandoned white baby, sending her on a collision course with her past, her family, and a birth mother who doesn’t want to be found.
When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in a park and takes the blonde-haired, blue-eyed newborn into her home, the ripple effects of this decision risk exposing the truth about Cinnamon’s own past, which she’s gone to great pains to portray as idyllic to everyone…even herself. As Cinnamon struggles to contain old demons, navigate the fault lines that erupt in her marriage, and deal with the shocking judgments from friends and strangers alike about why a woman like her has a baby like this, her one goal is to do right by the child she grows more attached to with each passing day. It’s the exact same conviction that drives Daisy as she tries to outrun her heartache and reckon with her choices.
These two women, unlikely friends and kindred spirits must face down their secrets and trauma and unite for the sake of the baby they both love in their own unique way when Daisy’s grandparents, who would rather die than see one of their own raised by a Black woman, threaten to take custody.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, a Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/brentwood-tuesday-june-20th-christine-pride–jo-pizza
Book Club Discussion: Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well’s Book Club participants will discuss Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason.
This internationally bestselling, compulsively readable novel—spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark, and tender—that combines the psychological insight of Sally Rooney with the sharp humor of Nina Stibbe and the emotional resonance of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/26877
Steve Turner & Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Steve Turner will present and discuss his new book, Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Steve Turner and his friends—Seattle skate punks, hardcore kids, and assorted misfits—started forming bands in each other’s basements and accidentally created a unique sound that spread far beyond their once-sleepy city. Mud Ride offers an inside look at the tight-knit grunge scene, the musical influences and experiments that shaped the grunge sound, and the story of Turner’s bands, Green River and Mudhoney, which went from underground flophouse shows to selling out stadiums with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Including stories about the key moments, musicians, and albums from grunge’s beginnings to its come-down from the highs of global success and stardom, this is the first account of the musical phenomenon that took over the world from someone who was there for it all.
Written by Steve Turner, lead guitarist of Mudhoney, a foundational grunge band that inspired musical icons from Kurt Cobain to Sonic Youth, Mud Ride features a foreword by Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard and never-before-seen photographs and grunge memorabilia throughout. Take a seat and ride through the messy and muddy grunge scene that grew from the basements of the Northwest and went on to circle the globe.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Steve-Turner
North Fig Book Club Discussion: SEX AND RAGE by Eve Babitz at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
The North Fig Book Club participants will discuss SEX AND RAGE by Eve Babitz.
Sex and Rage: A Novel is where the popular rediscovery of Eve Babitz continues with this very special reissue of her novel, originally published in 1979, about a dreamy young girl moving between the planets of Los Angeles and New York City.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address:6040 n. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/events/620-7pm-north-fig-book-club-sex-and-rage/
Mystery Book Group Discussion: Santa Monica Reads Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara via Santa Monica Public Library, SMPL – Online Event
The Santa Monica Reads discussion of Clark and Division by local author Naomi Hirahara will be held online via Zoom.
Clark and Division is a post-World War II novel about a young woman searching for the truth about her older sister’s death and the struggles of her Japanese American family coming to grips with their release from mass incarceration at Manzanar.
Email library@santamonica.gov for Zoom info.
Where: Santa Monica Public Library
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20June%202023%20Revised.pdf
At Skylight: Natalie Beach & Adult Drama and Other Stories at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Natalie Beach will present and discuss her book, Adult Drama and Other Stories.
Natalie Beach became an internet sensation when her essay on her toxic friendship influencer Caroline Calloway went viral. Now, for the first time, and in her own indelible voice, Beach offers a revelatory glimpse into her own life alongside a broader cultural criticism of the world today. Through stories of heartbreak, odd jobs, political activism, existential crises and low-rise jeans, Natalie Beach explores the high stakes and absurdist comedy of coming of age in a world gone mad.
Effervescent, hilarious, and unflinchingly self-aware, Adult Drama marks the arrival of an electrifying new literary voice.
Natalie Beach is a writer and producer for film and television. She was raised in New Haven and studied at the Educational Center for the Arts and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She lives with her husband in the shadow of Dodger Stadium.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-natalie-beach-presents-adult-drama
Elio Morillo, with Heidy Arriola, & The Boy Who Reached for the Stars at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Author Elio Morillo, in conversation with Heidy Arriola, will present, discuss, and sign his new book, The Boy Who Reached for the Stars: A Memoir.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Elio-Morillo-discusses-The-Boy-Who-Reached-for-the-Stars
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Elyse Hart via Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Elyse Hart.
Elyse Hart is a writer from Los Angeles where she lives with her geriatric cat, Genevieve. She is the author of the forthcoming Poems for Squares: 29 Instagram Accounts in Verse (2023) and the chapbook White Noise Crucible (Dancing Girl Press, 2022).
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
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 20th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups
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.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre and YouTube Live Stream
Date: Tuesday the 20th
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
Neverspeak Tuesdays Open Mic at DiPiazza’s – In-Person Event
The 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 20th
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
Coffee Time Book Club: Hula at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Coffee Time Book Club participants to read and discuss this month’s selection, Hula by author Jasmin Iolani Hakes, facilitated by Linda McLaughlin Figel.
Told in part in the collective voice of a community fighting for its survival, Hula is a spellbinding debut that offers a rare glimpse into a forgotten kingdom that still exists in the heart of its people.
Jasmin Iolani Hakes was born and raised in Hilo, Hawai’i. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee. She is the recipient of the Best Fiction award from the Southern California Writers Conference, a Squaw Valley LoJo Foundation Scholarship, a Writing by Writers Emerging Voices fellowship, and a Hedgebrook residency. Dance has always been central to Jasmin’s life and creativity. She took her first hula class when she was four years old and danced for the esteemed Halau o Kekuhi and the Tahitian troupe Hei Tiare. She worked throughout college as a professional luau dancer. She lives in California.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 10 am
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-18
Your Author Series: Antonio Sacre & My Name Is Cool at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event
Your Author Series presents author Antonio Sacre to read his autobiographical picture book My Name is Cool. The book celebrates biracial heritage and cultural identity by telling the story of a child who has 11 names and the reason behind each name. When he explains that his name is “Mr. Magoo El Señor Magoo El Goo Antonio Bernardo Sacre Papito Coquito Futinquito El Capitán de los Mosquitos,” it results in snickers among the students of different skin tones and gets him sent to the principal’s office.
Antonio Sacre, a bilingual Cuban and Irish American writer based in Los Angeles, writes with an authentic voice and includes culturally specific details in his stories, primarily focusing on multicultural family dynamics in his television writing. The child’s explanation of his 10 nicknames and the 11th name he receives as a result of his self-expression shows the importance of affirming one’s selfhood.
Those attending the program will have an opportunity to win a free book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 3 pm
Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-antonio-sacre-0
Write Your Novel Event at Platt Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Platt Branch Library invites you to write your novel at their library.
Is writing one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2023? Is completing a book on your bucket list? Whether you shouted an emphatic yes or mumbled a hushed maybe to either of those questions, our new novel writing support group is for you. This new group will be a place to learn, practice, and receive support from other writers. We will use LinkedIn Learning courses available on lapl.org to guide us through the novel writing process one step at a time. With weekly goals and the encouragement of your peers, you can spend the year working your way toward a completed novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Platt Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 21st
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
Middle Grade Book Club: Firefly Summer at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Join Middle Grade Book Club participants to read and discuss this month’s selection, Firefly Summer by author Morgan Matson.
Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/middle-grade%C2%A0book-club-0
An Evening of Rose and Tapas to Celebrate Book Launch: Chef Amber Caudle & Sexy Nourishing Food to Fuel Your Mind, Body & Soul at The Source Café with pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join Chef Amber Caudle for her book launch ofSexy Nourishing Food to Fuel Your Mind, Body & Soul at The Source Café.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore at The Source Café
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 509 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/evening-rose-and-tapas-chef-amber-caudle
Book Club for Adults: Hamnet at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join the Book Club for Adults, offered every third Wednesday of the month, to discuss this month’s selection, Hamnet,: a novel of the plague by author Maggie O’Farrell.
Please email studio@lapl.org for details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults
Charles Soule, with Dana Schwartz, & The Endless Vessel at Diesel, a Book Store – In-Person Event
Author Charles Soule, in conversation with Dana Schwartz, will sign his new book, The Endless Vessel.
A piece of impossible technology, and the search for its creators. A centuries-long quest to defeat death. A woman whose only goal is to bring joy to humanity, no matter the cost. The greatest treasure ever found. A ship whose voyage will last forever. This is The Endless Vessel.
Combining the wonder of The Midnight Library, the inventiveness of Ready Player One, and the artistry of Cloud Atlas, this novel by the bestselling author of The Oracle Year and Anyone explores the way we’re all connected—and offers a true path to joy.
Lily Barnes, a materials engineer living in Hong Kong a few years from now, stumbles across a device full of secrets that overturn her assumptions about the world. The machine seems to be addressing Lily directly, calling to her, asking her to follow a path to whatever lies at its end. Lily sets out to find the people who built it, leaving her life behind, traveling the world and across the seven seas. For Lily, and for the reader, the question is the same: how far would you go to be happy? From its opening heart-stopping scene in the present day at the Louvre in Paris, to a shocking and satisfying conclusion in a truly enchanted forest, Charles Soule has channeled history, science and drama to create a story for the ages—a story of hope and love and possibility. This is a novel you will not soon forget.
Charles Soule is a New York-based, #1 New York Times best-selling novelist, comic book writer, musician, and former attorney. He is the author of some of the most prominent comic stories of the last decade for Marvel, DC and Lucasfilm, including a groundbreaking run on Daredevil, the mega-bestsellers Death of Wolverine and Darth Vader, and a run on She-Hulk that served as inspiration for the Disney+ television show. In addition, he works as a Creative Consultant for Lucasfilm Ltd. within the Star Wars universe and is the writer of the acclaimed creator-owned comic series Eight Billion Genies, Undiscovered Country, Letter 44 and Curse Words.
Dana Schwartz is the author of the #1 New York Times selling books, Anatomy: A Love Story, and Immortality: A Love Story. She’s also the host and creator of the podcast Noble Blood.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, a Book Store (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/author-signing-Charles-Soule-Dana-Schwartz
Roger A. Deakins & James Deakins, with David Canfield, & Byways at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Roger Deakins and James Deakins, in conversation with David Canfield, will present and discuss their new book, Roger A. Deakins: Byways.
Byways consists of portraits and landscapes from the cinematographer famed for his work with Sam Mendes and the Coen brothers.
This is the first monograph by the legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer Sir Roger A. Deakins (born 1949), best known for his collaborations with directors such as the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve. It includes previously unpublished black-and-white photographs spanning five decades, from 1971 to the present.
After graduating from college Deakins spent a year photographing life in rural North Devon, in Southwest England, on a commission for the Beaford Arts Centre; these images are gathered here for the first time and attest to a keenly ironic English sensibility, while also documenting a vanished postwar Britain. A second suite of images expresses Deakins’ love of the seaside. Traveling for his cinematic work has allowed Deakins to photograph landscapes all over the world; in this third group of images, that same irony remains evident.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Roger-A-Deakins
At Skylight: Megan Fernandes, with Morgan Parker & Aria Aber, & I Do Everything I’m Told at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Megan Fernandes, in conversation with Morgan Parker & Aria Aber, will present and discuss her collection, I Do Everything I’m Told.
Restless, contradictory, and witty, Megan Fernandes’ I Do Everything I’m Told explores disobedience and worship, longing and possessiveness, and nights of wandering cities. Its poems span thousands of miles, as a masterful crown of sonnets starts in Shanghai, then moves through Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Lisbon, Palermo, Paris, and Philadelphia—with a speaker who travels solo, adventures with strangers, struggles with the parameters of sexuality, and speculates on desire.
Across four sections, poems navigate the terrain of queer, normative, and ambiguous intimacies with a frank intelligence: “It’s better to be illegible, sometimes. Then they can’t govern you.” Strangers, ancestors, priests, ghosts, the inner child, sisters, misfit raccoons, Rimbaud, and Rilke populate the pages. Beloveds are unnamed, and unrealized desires are grieved as actual losses. The poems are grounded in real cities, but also in a surrealist past or an impossible future, in cliché love stories made weird, in ordinary routines made divine, and in the cosmos itself, sitting on Saturn’s rings looking back at Earth. When things go wrong, Fernandes treats loss with a sacred irreverence: “Contradictions are a sign we are from god. We fall. We don’t always get to ask why.”
Megan Fernandes is the author of Good Boys, and a finalist for the Kundiman Poetry Prize and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Common, and the Academy of American Poets, among others. An associate professor of English and the writer-in-residence at Lafayette College, Fernandes lives in New York City.
Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. Parker’s debut book of nonfiction is forthcoming from One World. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.” She lives in Los Angeles.
Aria Aber was born and raised in Germany and is currently based in Los Angeles, California. Her debut book Hard Damage won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published in September 2019. Her poems are forthcoming or have appeared in The New Yorker, New Republic, The Yale Review, Poem-A-Day, Narrative, POETRY, and elsewhere. A graduate of the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, she holds awards and fellowships from Kundiman, the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She is the recipient of a 2020 Whiting Award in Poetry.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
S.A. Cosby, with Jordan Harper, & All The Sinners Bleed at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
S.A. Cosby, in conversation with Jordan Harper, will present and discuss his new book, All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel.
After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and cornbread, fist fights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires him to run for sheriff. He wins, and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county.
Then a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies.
Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever it leads. But no one expected he would unearth a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.
Now, Titus must pull off the impossible: stay true to his instincts, prevent outright panic, and investigate a shocking crime in a small town where everyone knows everyone yet secrets flourish. All while also breaking up backroads bar fights and being forced to protect racist Confederate pride marchers.
For a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South, that’s no easy feat. But Charon is Titus’s home and his heart, and he won’t let the darkness overtake it. Even as it threatens to consume him…
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/SA-Cosby-discusses-All-the-Sinners-Bleed
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: LGTBQ Poets by World Stage Press;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $5.00
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 21st
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/
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 Ángeles.
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 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-660388749527
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Feature Sheila J. Sadr 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 featured guest Sheila J. Sadr.
Sheila J. Sadr (she/they) is a first-generation Iranian American poet, educator, and new auntie nuzzled in the Southern California coast. Her work has been featured with the United Nations, TEDx, House of Blues, Write About Now, Tinderbox Poetry, BOAAT, and many other gems. They are a two-time finalist for the Not A Cult Poetry Book contest, winning the second time around.
Sheila released her debut book Birthday Girl in November 2020 with Not A Cult Press.
She is currently working at Street Poets Inc and pursuing her Master’s degree in Psychology, specializing in Applied Community Psychology at Antioch University Los Angeles.
The format is to welcome a featured artist 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 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1302882150308064
A Special Luncheon: Nicola Harrison & Hotel Laguna at The Neptunian Women’s Club with pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join a Special Luncheon at The Neptunian Women’s Club for local author Nicola Harrison to celebrate the launch of her new historical novel Hotel Laguna.
1942, Hazel Francis left Wichita, Kansas for California, determined to do her part for the war effort. At Douglas Aircraft, she became one of many “Rosie the Riveters,” helping construct bombers for the U. S. military. But now the war is over, men have returned to their factory jobs, and women like Hazel have been dismissed, expected to return home to become wives and mothers.
Unwilling to be forced into a traditional woman’s role in the Midwest, Hazel remains on the west coast, and finds herself in the bohemian town of Laguna Beach. Desperate for work, she accepts a job as an assistant to famous artist Hanson Radcliff. Beloved by the locals for his contributions to the art scene and respected by the critics, Radcliff lives under the shadow of a decades old scandal that haunts him.
Working hard to stay on her cantankerous employer’s good side, Hazel becomes a valued member of the community. She never expected to fall in love with the rhythms of life in Laguna, nor did she expect to find a kindred spirit in Jimmy, the hotel bartender whose friendship promises something more. But Hazel still wants to work with airplanes—maybe even learn to fly one someday. Torn between pursuing her dream and the dream life she has been granted, she is unsure if giving herself over to Laguna is what her heart truly wants.
Born in England, Nicola Harrison moved to California where she received a BA in Literature at UCLA before earning an MFA in creative writing at Stony Brook. She is a member of The Writers Room, has short stories published in The Southampton Review and Glimmer Train and articles in Los Angeles Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. She is the author of Montauk and The Show Girl.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: The Neptunian Women’s Club
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 11 am
Address: 920 Highland Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
We Love L.A. Book Club & Parable of the Sower at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Eagle Rock Branch Library’s summer We Love L.A. Book Club participants will discuss the selection for June, Parable of the Sower, by author Octavia E. Butler.
Join us this summer as we examine some of the many talented Los Angeles-based authors who have incorporated the diversity and unique history of our city into their work.
Copies are available to check out or check our e-media page for electronic access. Please bring book or author suggestions for future meetings.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/we-love-la-book-club
West L.A. Library Book Club & Salt at West L.A. Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The West L.A. Branch Library’s. Book Club participants alternate between fiction and nonfiction, and will discuss Salt: A World History, by author Mark Kurlansky, via Zoom.
The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Salt is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: West L.A. Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-library-book-club-3
Cover to Cover Book Club & Salt at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Cover to Cover. Book Club participants will discuss The Book Woman’s Daughter,: A Novel by author Kim Michele Richardson.
This book is the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.
In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.
Copies of each month’s selection will be available for check out at the Reference Desk. New members are always welcome!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club-0
Open Mic: Besos y Puñales at Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Re/Arte presents our weekly Open Mic: Besos y Puñales.
Musica, poesia, comedia, lectura every Thursday.
Doors open at 6pm
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 East Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/pages/calendar-of-events or https://www.instagram.com/re.arte.la/?hl=en
Playa Vista Women’s Book Club: Crying in H-Mart at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
The Book Jewel hosts the Playa Vista Women’s Book Club and participants will read and discuss Crying in H-Mart by author Michelle Zauner.
Get 20% off of current selections for book clubs hosted at The Book Jewel.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs_gTLvt0jN/
Book Launch: Arthur Kayzakian & The Book of Redacted Paintings, with Guests at Open Mind Art Space – In-Person Event
Please join author Arthur Kayzakian for the book launch celebration of the release of The Book of Redacted Paintings (Black Lawrence Press, 2023)! There will be drinks, snacks, readings (featuring Arthur, Brendan Constantine, and Cynthia Dewi Oka) and music, as well as, of course, book signing.
In The Book of Redacted Paintings, the narrative arc follows a boy in search of his father’s painting, but it is unclear whether the painting exists or not. The book, a poetry collection, is also populated by a series of paintings. Some are real, incomplete, and/or missing, while most are redacted from reality. The withdrawn paintings concept is the emotional arc of the book, a combination of wishing one could paint the pieces he/she/they envision and the feeling of something torn out of a person due to a traumatic upbringing. A sort of erasure ekphrasis, to foresee artwork that was never painted.
Featuring: Arthur Kayzakian, Brendan Constantine, Cyrus Sepahbodi, Lory Bedikian & hosted by Linda Ravenswood.
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: Open Mind Art Space
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 11631 Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90025
At Skylight: K.X. Song, with Amanda Glaze, & An Echo in the City at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
K.X. Song, in conversation with Amanda Glaze, will discuss her YA novel, An Echo in the City.
This is the tale of two star-crossed teenagers who fall in love during the Hong Kong protests in this searing contemporary novel about coming-of-age in a time of change.
Sixteen-year-old Phoenix knows her parents have invested thousands of dollars to help her leave Hong Kong and get an elite Ivy League education. They think America means big status, big dreams, and big bank accounts. But Phoenix doesn’t want big; she just wants home. The trouble is, she doesn’t know where that is…until the Hong Kong protest movement unfolds, and she learns the city she’s come to love is in danger of disappearing.
Seventeen-year-old Kai sees himself as an artist, not a filial son, and certainly not a cop. But when his mother dies, he’s forced to leave Shanghai to reunite with his estranged father, a respected police officer, who’s already enrolled him in the Hong Kong police academy. Kai wants to hate his job, but instead, he finds himself craving his father’s approval. And when he accidentally swaps phones with Phoenix and discovers she’s part of a protest network, he finds a way to earn it: by infiltrating the group and reporting their plans back to the police.
As Kai and Phoenix join the struggle for the future of Hong Kong, a spark forms between them, pulling them together even as their two worlds try to force them apart. But when their relationship is built on secrets and deception, will they still love the person left behind when the lies fall away?
K. X. Song is a diaspora writer with roots in Hong Kong and Shanghai. An Echo in the City is her debut novel. Visit her online at kxsong.com, or on Instagram @ksongwrites.
Amanda Glaze is the bestselling author of The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond, a Barnes & Noble YA Book Club pick. She grew up in Northern California where she spent most of her time with her nose in a book or putting on plays with friends. Since then, she’s lived many lives: as a bookseller, a theater director, and an Emmy award-winning film and television producer. When she’s not running off to the mountains, she lives in Los Angeles with her partner and their two cat familiars. You can find her online at amandaglaze.com
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-kx-song-presents-echo-city-w-amanda-glaze
Trans Poets Reading: Illegal Bodies, Unspoken Words, curated by Emily Lucid at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
This reading event is a curated evening of trans* poets presented by Emily Lucid.
Featuring readings and performances by NIKO, MZ. NEON, MARVAL REX, EMJI SAINT SPERO, HUNTREZZ, EMILY LUCID, and EDGAR FABIAN FRIAS.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Alta Journal Issue Party: Epic Tales of Survival at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join Alta Journal at Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City to raise a glass to our Issue 23, a page-turner that explores tales of survival. Featuring stories about car-theft vigilantes in Portland, poisoned marshmallows in early-1900s Carmel, raging bulls, wild mountain lions, and more than a few bears, Alta’s newest issue will keep you on the edge of your seat.
This special evening will feature readings by a few of the issue’s contributors: Lynell George, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Ajay Orona. All are welcome at this free event to toast the latest issue of our award-winning quarterly magazine—the wine’s on us! Village Well will also be stocked with books by Alta contributing writers, California Book Club titles, and plenty of copies of Alta. We can’t wait to see you there!
Lynell George is a journalist and essayist. After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame is her first book of essays and photography, exploring the city where she grew up. As a staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, she focused on social issues, human behavior, visual arts, music, and literature. She is the author of A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler.
Rachel Howzell Hall is a mystery and thriller author whose debut novel was A Quiet Storm. She is the critically acclaimed author and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist for And Now She’s Gone, and author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, Rachel is an Anthony-, International Thriller Writers- and Lefty Award nominee and the author of They All Fall Down, Land of Shadows, Skies of Ash, Trail of Echoes and City of Saviors in the Detective Elouise Norton series as well as the author of the bestselling Audible Original, How It Ends.
Ajay Orona is an associate editor at Alta Journal. He earned a master’s degree from USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism in 2021 and was honored with an Outstanding Specialized Journalism (The Arts) Scholar Award. His writing has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Ampersand, and GeekOut.
Register for the event here. Please note that an RSVP does not necessarily guarantee you a seat. Arrive early and give yourself plenty of time to browse Village Well’s book selection, grab a drink, and say hi to Alta staff members.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/26285
Amy Spaulding and Courtney Kae Present New Releases at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Amy Spaulding will discuss her new book, For Her Consideration.
Since a crushing breakup three years ago, Nina Rice has written romance, friends, her dreams of scriptwriting for TV, and even LA proper out of her life. Instead, she’s safely out in the suburbs in her aunt’s condo working her talent agency job from home, managing celebrity email accounts, and certain that’s plenty of writing—and plot—for her life. But a surprise meeting called by Ari Fox, a young actress on everyone’s radar, stirs up all kinds of feelings Nina thought she’d deleted for good.
Amy Spalding’s For Her Consideration is full of heat and heart as Nina learns that her story just might include the kind of love that lasts.
Courtney Kae will discuss her new book, In the Event of Love.
With her career as a Los Angeles event planner imploding after a tabloid blowup, Morgan Ross isn’t headed home for the holidays so much as in strategic retreat. Breathtaking mountain vistas, quirky townsfolk, and charming small businesses aside, her hometown of Fern Falls is built of one heartbreak on top of another…
Take her one-time best friend turned crush, Rachel Reed. The memory of their perfect, doomed first kiss is still fresh as new-fallen snow. Way fresher than the freezing mud Morgan ends up sprawled in on her very first day back, only to be hauled out via Rachel’s sexy new lumberjane muscles acquired from running her family tree farm.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Sun & Moon press Authors Reading: Then and Now at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Beyond Baroque presents an evening of fiction and poetry readings with former Sun & Moon Press-published authors. Rebecca Goodman, Wendy Walker, Stacey Levine, and Martin Nakell will be reading new and selected works.
Reviewing Rebecca Goodman’s Forgotten Night (Spuyten Duyvil 2023) in Dactyl, the novelist and critic, Eugene Garber, writes: “The recovery of self, call it soul if you prefer…is… [Forgotten Night’s] quest at its deepest level. Many, I believe, would say that it is the agenda of our postmodern world.” Previous fictions include The Surface of Motion (Green Integer 2008) and Aftersight (Spuyten Duyvil 2015). She teaches Creative Writing at Chapman University.
Wendy Walker is a writer and visual artist with a strong interest in expanding the boundaries of literary form. Her books include The Sea-Rabbit, or The Artist of Life; The Secret Service; Stories Out of Omarie; The Camperdown Elm, and, most recently, Sexual Stealing. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, 3:AM, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, The Denver Quarterly, Open City, and elsewhere. With her late husband and literary partner Tom La Farge, she founded Proteotypes Press and The Writhing Society, a salon/class devoted to writing with constraints and other genre-bending practices. She has been a teacher of art and art history in secondary school and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Hofstra University as well as a fellow at MacDowell and Yaddo. Her drawings can be seen in the Flatfiles of The Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn.
Stacey Levine is the author of five books, including the novel Frances Johnson and the collection The Girl with Brown Fur. Her novel MICE 1961 will be published in 2024. She has received a PEN Fiction Award and a Stranger Genius Award for Literature and has twice been shortlisted for a Washington State Book Award. Praised by the San Francisco Bay Guardian as “one of the most interesting writers working in America today,” she lives and teaches writing in Seattle.
Martin Nakell, author of “The Way of Chaos: Literary, Art, and Music Composition,” has published 18 books of fiction and poetry. His most recent, Consciousness, was published in 2021 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. His next book, The Martin Nakell Reader, is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil in 2024. Reviewing his 2008 fiction, Settlement, Angela Genusa, writes in Mad Hatter’s Review: “Nakell has achieved something in Settlement that is nearly impossible and would likely be disastrous if undertaken by a less skilled writer…to create a unique and ground-breaking work of literature…celebrating…[E]very human’s…primal urge to create something from nothing.” He teaches in the Creative Writing program at Chapman University.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors AT 7:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sun-moon-press-authors-then-and-now-tickets-637658964127
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 23rd
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-37
NoHo Online Book Club: Tiger’s Wife via North Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join NoHo Online Book Club to discuss this month’s selection, Tiger’s Wife, by author Tea Obreht. This story weaves family legend, loss, and love in a story set in a Balkian country mending form war.
Email nohlwd@lapl.org to receive the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: North Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/noho-online-book-club
Open Mic Night at Euclid Branch Library, Anaheim – In-Person Event
Join us for Open Mic Night at the Euclid Branch Library in Anaheim, hosted by Principal Librarian Monica Sanchez
This event is a show open for all ages for anyone to share their talents such as sharing poetry, playing musical instruments, singing, or dancing.
Show your eventbrite ticket at the event to claim a free book!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Euclid Branch Library of Anaheim Public Library
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 5:30 – 6:30 pm
Address: 1340 South Euclid Street Anaheim, CA 92802
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-mic-night-euclid-library-tickets-637578342987
The Poetry of Pride with Brian Sonia-Wallace & Guests at Grand Performances, DTLA – In-Person Event
Join us for the Poetry of Pride performance, in which a drag queen reads banned children’s books aloud while a chorus of poets responds and creates new work on typewriters, on the spot and in collaboration with the audience, celebrating the outsider in us all.
Brian Sonia-Wallace has been creating poems for people on-the-spot at a typewriter since 2012 and teaching other poets to do the same. Through this act of service, he began to ask what it meant to be queer as an artist in conversation with your community: to be an outsider, an expert mimic, and a careful speaker.
Brian’s group Pride Poets brings queer poets to write thousands of poems for people at Pride parades, celebrating and memorializing lives which are too often invisible, and therefore, seen as disposable. In this show he brings together a righteous rainbow of LGBTQ+ poets, aged seventeen to seventy, to share their own work and write new work in dialogue with the audience about what we all share—the capacity to feel.
Poets/Performers inlcude:
Brian Sonia-Wallace is the Poet Laureate of West Hollywood and the author of The Poetry of Strangers, I Sold These Poems, Now I Want Them Back, and the newly released Maze Mouth.
Steven Reigns is the inaugural Poet Laureate of West Hollywood,and the author most recently of A Quilt for David.
Terry Wolverton founded Writers at Work, a creative writing center, and teaches writing in many venues. She is the author of eleven books: most recently Ruin Porn, a poetry collection; Wounded World: Lyric Essays About Our Spiritual Disquiet; three novels, Stealing Angel, The Labrys Reunion, and Bailey’s Beads; Embers, a novel in poems; Insurgent Muse, a memoir about the Woman’s Building; Breath and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction; and three collections of poetry, Black Slip, Mystery Bruise, and Shadow and Praise. She has also edited fourteen compilations of literary work.
Victor Yates is the winner of the 2017 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging LGBTQ Writers. He won the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction for his book, A Love Like Blood. His novel also won Honorable Mention at The New England Book Festival. Two of his poems were included in the anthology, For Colored Boys, edited by Keith Boykin.
Carla Sameth is co-Poet Laureate of Altadena. Her award-winning memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, was initially published July 2019 and is a 2021 Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite in the category of Memoir. The book was reissued December 2022 by Golden Foothills Press. She teaches creative writing with the Los Angeles Writing Project (LAWP) at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) and with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). Carla is a member of the Pasadena Rose Poets and is a mentor and has taught incarcerated youth through WriteGirl.
Jen Cheng is a poet and scholar and the author of two books of poetry: The History of Anonymity and Some Say the Lark. She co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a nonprofit organization that supports Asian American literature.
Meliza Bañales is a spoken word poet and 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 and essays have appeared in many magazines and anthologies.
Linda Ravenswood is a poet and performance artist, and the founding editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Press and is the founder of the poet laureate program in Glendale, CA. She is the author most recently of Cantadora: Letters from California, also the author of The Stan Poems, and has two books forthcoming in 2023.
Nate Lovell is a poet, actor, and performance artist, known for his poem “The Worth of a Dime.”
Marcos James is an award-winning spoken word artist, teacher, and community advocate. He has performed at over 100 venues across California including, Dodgers Stadium, Warped Tour, Verses & Flow, and Button Poetry. He has taught workshops at various schools and organizations across the United States, including UC Santa Barbara, Gulf Coast University and Into Action. He was the coach of the LA Youth Poetry Slam team for Brave New Voices. His work has been recognized by the United Nations, Planned Parenthood, and the California Endowment for the Arts.
Jose Rios N/A
Jeffrey McCray N/A
*& a special performance by Get Lit high school student Sam Luo
With: DJ Succubus & Drag Queen Pickle of LA Drag Story Hour
NOTE: See site for RSVP on Eventbrite, guidelines, and details.
Where: Grand Performances, DTLA
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 350 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.grandperformances.org/events/the-poetry-of-pride
Lou Matthews, with Jim Gavin, & L.A. Breakdown at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Lou Matthews, in conversation with Jim Gavin, will discuss his book, L.A. Breakdown.
Lou Mathews lives in Los Angeles and is a fourth generation Angeleno. Married at 19, he worked his way through U.C. Santa Cruz as a gas station attendant and mechanic and continued to work as a mechanic until he was 39. His first novel, L.A. Breakdown, about illegal street racing, was picked by the Los Angeles Times as a Best Book of 1999. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a California Arts Council Fiction Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize. His short stories have been published in Short Story, ZYZZYVA, New England Review Witness, Black Clock, nine fiction anthologies and two textbook series. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s renowned Writer’s Program since 1989 and is a recipient of Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor Awards.
Jim Gavin is the creator of Lodge 49 (AMC) and the author of Middle Men (Simon & Schuster).
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Kimberly Mack, with Darrell McNeill (Black Rock Coalition), & Living Colour’s Time’s Up at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Kimberly Mack, in conversation with Darrell McNeill, will present and discuss her new book, Living Colour’s Time’s Up.
The iconic Black rock band Living Colour’s Time’s Up, released in 1990, was recorded in the aftermath of the spectacular critical and commercial success of their debut record Vivid. Time’s Up is a musical and lyrical triumph, incorporating distinct forms and styles of music and featuring inspired collaborations with artists as varied as Little Richard, Queen Latifah, Maceo Parker, and Mick Jagger.
Living Colour’s sophomore effort holds great relevance in light of its forward-thinking politics and lyrical engagement with racism, classism, police brutality, and other social and political issues of great importance. Through interviews with members of Living Colour, and others involved in the making of Time’s Up, Kimberly Mack explores the creation and reception of this artistically challenging album, while examining the legacy of this culturally important and groundbreaking American rock band.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Kimberly-Mack
Las Hijas Chingonas de Inmigrantes (Parte II) at Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Re/Arte presents Las Hijas Chingonas de Inmigrantes (Parte II).
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2123 East Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/pages/calendar-of-events or https://www.instagram.com/re.arte.la/?hl=en
At Skylight: Julia Wertz, with Lisa Hanawalt, & Impossible People at Skylight Boo ks – In-Person Event
Julia Wertz, in conversation with Lisa Hanawalt, will discuss her new book, Impossible People.
Join us for a celebration of Julia Wertz’s keenly observed graphic memoir, Impossible People, where the celebrated cartoonist chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery.
Julia Wertz is a professional cartoonist, amateur historian, and part-time urban explorer. She made the comic books The Fart Party vol 1 and vol 2 (collected in Museum of Mistakes) and the graphic novels Drinking at the Movies, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, Tenements, Towers, & Trash, (for which she won the 2018 Brendan Gill Prize), and Impossible People (out 5/9/2023). She does monthly short story comics for the New Yorker and her work has appeared regularly in the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Believer, the Best American Comics, and other publications. Her photography of abandoned places has appeared in a handful of newspapers. She is a repeated MacDowell fellow. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she spent a decade in New York City before settling in Sonoma County, CA, with her partner Oliver (yeah, the Oliver from Fart Party) and their son Felix. She’s currently working on the graphic novel Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here) to be released by Hachette/Black Dog & Leventhal in 2025.
Lisa Hanawalt is the creator of the animated series “Tuca & Bertie,” and is the production designer and producer of “BoJack Horseman.” She has written and illustrated four books of her comics, including Hot Dog Taste Test and Coyote Doggirl.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-julia-wertz-presents-impossible-people-w-lisa-hanawalt
Ysabel Yates and Kate Herzlin & Jokes to Offend Men at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join Village Well for a night of humor readings to celebrate the release of Jokes to Offend Men, a satirical joke book for readers who are tired of being the punchline. Authors Kate Herzlin and Ysabel Yates will read some of their favorite jokes from the book alongside performances from satire and humor writers Laura LeeLun, Sarah Garfinkel, Briana Haynie, and Lizzie Logan.
Ysabel Yates and Kate Herzlin are humor and satire writers based in New York City. Their work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Reductress, McSweeney’s, and more. Together with Allison Kelley and Danielle Kraese, they wrote Jokes to Offend Men, which was named the #2 Comedy Book of 2022 by Vulture.
Laura LeeLun is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter, sketch comedian, and recovering litigator. Her comedy writing has been featured in McSweeney’s, Reductress, and performed on stages around Chicago. As a self-proclaimed “good girl” of immigrant parents, she uses comedy to build community and find common ground.
Sarah Garfinkel is a comedy writer, teacher, and assistant editor of “Funny Women” on The Rumpus. She has written humor for publications including the New Yorker, Mc Sweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Electric Literature. She lives in Google Docs and also San Francisco.
Lizzie Logan is a comedy writer and performer whose work has been featured in Reductress, The Onion, The New Yorker, McSweeneys and more. In her spare time she enjoys napping and cats. Follow her on Twitter seriously it would mean a lot.
Briana Haynie is an LA-based comedy writer whose writing has been published in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. When she’s not writing she enjoys making extreme eye contact with waiters while explaining her deadly milk allergy before ordering food.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/26959
L.A. Book Launch: Alice Fulmer & Faunalia at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Beyond Baroque presents author Alice Fulner to present her new collection of poems, Faunalia, with guest readers. As with the best magical realism, her poems reveal just past arid city streets a sudden swell of verdant life.
Alice Fulmer (she/her) is an MA/PhD student at the University of California, Santa Barbara and poet. She is pursuing the Medieval Studies emphasis and planning a prospectus on digital culture and late medieval British manuscript culture. Her debut collection Faunalia, on Gods and Radicals/Ritona Press, is a love letter to the great god Pan.
jimmy vega is the child of Mexican immigrants, a Chicanx Los Angeles born and raised poet, writer, educator, artist, and curator. He holds a B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from UCLA and an MFA from the School of Critical Studies, Creative Writing Program at CalArts, where they co-created the MFA in Creative Writing’s HYPERLINK reading series. Their work is currently on view at The Reef Los Angeles as part of the group exhibit, Spell/ing. He is the Assistant Director of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts/Center. He instant-grams @jimmyyvega
Doris Rubio is a latina punk from San Diego, CA. She likes rollerblading, reading, dancing and eating her arepitas con crema y pimiento. In 2021 she was the featured poet at Bread and Salt’s “Palabra,” hosted by Puna Press. Her publications include, “Questions for Henry Rollins’ Unibrow” for Freezeray Poetry, issue #17, 2019; “Lefty,” for KindaBummed Magazine 2023; and “atraves del espejo,” for PacificReviews, the Mirror Maze 2021.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 8 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-book-launch-faunalia-by-alice-fulmer-tickets-643234480647
Indie Bookstore Feld Trips #14 (OC Coastal) at Bel Canto Books – In-Person Event
Bal Canto Books’ Indie Bookstore Field Trips #14 will travel to Lido Village Books and Laguna Beach Books in Orange County.
Once a month, we’ll host a FREE Saturday morning meetup at 1–2 bookstores in varying neighborhoods around SoCal. We’ll begin with free browsing time and end by circling up outside to introduce ourselves and share about any new books we bought or discovered. In certain months, we may even be given private tours by the bookshop owners, as well!
The Schedule:
10am – Lido Village Books, OC (3424 Via Lido #10, Newport Beach, CA 92663)
11am – Laguna Beach Books, OC (1200 S Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651)
The Plan:
1) We’ll meet at 11am and browse for a bit, gathering at 10:45am for introductions and a group photo.
2) Then we’ll head to Laguna Beach Books for more bookstore browsing and a group photo at 11:45pm.
3) For those interested, we’ll convene afterwards at a nearby coffee shop or restaurant for a quick lunch or snack (meal on own).
Your Field Trip Leader:
Jhoanna Belfer is a lifelong book nerd, travel addict, and owner/founder of Bel Canto Books in Long Beach, California, which was featured in Bibliophile: Diverse Spines. Her favorite genres to read are literary fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, and graphic memoir. Two bookstores on her travel bucket list are Loyalty Bookstore in Washington, DC and Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia.
NOTE: See site for event details and guidelines.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10 am – 12 am
Addresses: See above
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/graphic-novel-book-club-hosted-by-bel-canto-books-tickets-492235929917
Barbara Christie, PhD & Look at Me, Look at Me at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Join Village Well for a fua and engaging STEM themed children’s event, with Dr. Barbara Christie PhD, author of Look at Me, Look at Me, Can You Guess My Specialty. There will be a book reading, puppetry, and a craft activity!
Dr. Barbara Christie’s career as a STEM educator is broad and deep and has included teaching biology in Ghana, West Africa and lecturing extensively at multiple universities including USC and LMU. She is a STEM Curriculum Specialist with 22 years of experience as a STEM education advocate. Her current passion is writing STEM content books for children.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/25275
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Refugees via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Please email Ms. Ashley at akagan@lapl.org or Ms. Gail at gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
Middle-grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions. This month, we will be reading Refugees by Alan Gratz.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10:30 am
Address: Online event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-9
Mystery Book Club: Clark and Division via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join Mystery Book Club participants to discuss this month’s selection, Clark and Division, by author Naomi Hirahara.
This novel is a Japantown mystery set in Chicago in 1944, where a young woman searches for the truth about her revered older sister’s death.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14
Callie C. Miller & The Hunt for the Hallower at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Callie C. Miller will discuss her new book, The Hunt for the Hallower.
he great wizard Merlyn prophesized that his seventh descendant would do wonderful, miraculous things—baffling everyone when his great-great-many-times-great grandchild turns out to be twins. Soon enough, however, it becomes clear which sibling is the Septimum Genus: Percy is a natural with magic. Merlynda (to put it simply) is not.
But Merlynda doesn’t mind. Percy has always been by her side to cheer her up (and clean up) after her magical bungles—until the twins attempt a forbidden spell to help her control her magic, and Percy vanishes through a portal and straight into the clutches of the magic-stealing, mythical Hollower.
Aided by her best friend (who longs to be a knight), a wandering musician (who is fleeing from his past), and her brand-new, fierce familiar (who yearns for a taste of funnel cake), Merlynda sets off on a quest to rescue her brother. But to defeat this ancient evil, she must discover and embrace her true powers—or else lose her brother for good. (Aladdin Paperbacks)
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Callie-C-Miller-discusses-The-Hunt-for-the-Hollower
Your Author Series: Jade Adia & There Goes the Neighborhood via Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Your Author Series presents Jade Adia to discuss her unforgettable debut novel, There Goes the Neighborhood, a raised fist against the destructive forces of gentrification and a love letter to communities of color everywhere. There Goes the Neighborhood tells the darkly hilarious story of three best friends willing to do whatever it takes to stay together.
Rhea’s neighborhood is fading away―the mom-and-pop shops of her childhood forced out to make space for an artisanal kombucha brewery here, and a hot yoga studio there. And everywhere, the feeling that this place is no longer meant for her. Because while their little corner of South L.A. isn’t perfect, to Rhea and her two best friends, it’s something even more important―it’s home. And it’s worth protecting.
Those attending the program will have an opportunity to win a free book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 2011 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-jade-adia
Pyroclastic Divination: A Reading with Madhur Anand & Will Alexander at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Join us for a duo reading on Saturday, June 24. Madhur Anand & Will Alexander will read new and selected work, with Anand focusing on pieces from her most recent collection, Parasitic Oscillations. The poems in this collection interrogate the inevitability of undesired cyclic variation caused by feedback in the amplifying devices of both poetry and science. There are several interacting currents: the poet’s own work between the arts and the sciences, living between North American and Indian cultures, as well as examining contemporary environments through the lag effects of the past.
Madhur Anand’s debut book of prose This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (2020) won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her debut collection of poems A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes (2015) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, named one of 10 all-time “trailblazing” poetry collections by the CBC, and received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Her second collection of poems Parasitic Oscillations (2022) was published to international acclaim, named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, and a “top pick” for Spring poetry by the CBC. She is a professor of ecology and sustainability at the University of Guelph, where she was appointed the inaugural Director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research.
Born in 1948 in Los Angeles, Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, playwright, philosopher, visual artist, and musician. He has published over two dozen books in a variety of genres and has earned many honors and awards including a Whiting Fellowship for Poetry, a California Arts Council Fellowship, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, and the 2016 Jackson Poetry Prize. He has also exhibited his artwork in group and solo shows. His work is known for its visionary, oracular surrealism and the influence of Negritude. Among his publications are Divine Blue Light (City Lights, 2023) Refractive Africa (New Directions, 2021/Granta, 2022), which was named a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and won the California Book Award for Poetry, The Combustion Cycle (Roof, 2021), Across the Vapor Gulf (New Directions, 2017), and The Sri Lankan Loxodrome (New Directions, 2009). His book Compression & Purity (2011) was volume five in the City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series. He is currently the poet-in-residence at Beyond Baroque in Venice, California. He has lived his entire life in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for event details and guidelines.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm
Addresses: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Fourth Saturdays Poetry: A Tribute to Bert Meyers at the Claremont Library – In-Person Event
This Tribute to Bert Meyers will feature readings by Amy Gerstler, Dana Levin, Daniel Meyers & Maurya Simon.
Bert Meyers was born in Los Angeles in 1928 and lived in southern California until his death in 1979. He published six books of poetry and the collected volume, In a Dybbuk’s Raincoat in 2007. Meyers taught at Pitzer College from1967-1979.
Today’s reading celebrates the newly released Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master, edited by Dana Levin and Adele Elise Williams.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Helen Renwick Claremont Library
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 208 Harvard Ave., Claremont, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=725569936243645&set=pb.100063719346046.-2207520000.
Discussion & Book Signing: Aisha Harris & WANNABE: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me at Malik Books, Westfield Culver City Mall – In-Person Event
Aisha Harris will present, discuss, and sign her book,WANNABE: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me.
Aisha Harris is cohost and critic for the hit NPR podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour. She previously held editorial positions at Slate and the New York Times.
NOTE: Register for this free event at site link.
Where: Malik’s Books at Westfield Culver City Mall
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 6000 Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 2470, Culver City, CA 90230
Print & Internet Publishing Event and Four Feathers Readings at Saturday Afternoon Poetry – In-Person Event
A Print and Internet publishing Workshop will be led by Maria A. Arana and Bill Cushing + Poets published in Four Feathers Press will read from the publication HEAT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Summer Poetry Anthology.
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry in Thelma’s Backyard.
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1438 Atchison St, Pasadena, CA
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Second Annual Queer Writers Festival: Curated by L.A. Poet Society at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Join us for the second annual Queer Writers Festival!
We are honored to present a showcase of phenomenal Queer Writers in Los Angeles, who represent a spectrum of identity, and many genres of writing, including poetry, storytelling, fiction, non-fiction, playwriting, and songwriting. Our features include: a mini play, drag/poetry performance, Queer Writers workshop, poetry reading, storytelling, panel discussion, and a fun “Big Gay Dance Party!”.
Featured Writers include: Traci Akemi Kato-Kiriyama, VOTH, Oobmi Flores, Stephanie Seis, Steady, Missy Fuego, Popcorn, Angel Miguel Lopez, Gary Cook, Pam Palencia, Carol Potter and more!
Plus, a DJ set by DJ Cesar with Fusion LA, featured artists, vendors, LA Poet Society Press, and more.
Traci Akemi Kato-Kiriyama is an award-winning multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, community organizer, and audiobook narrator. An artivist, TKK presented in hundreds of venues for over 25 years as a writer, actor, poet, speaker, guest lecturer, facilitator, Artist-in-Residence, and organizing / arts & culture consultant. TKK is the author most recently of Navigating With(out) Instruments – a book of poetry, micro essays and Notes To Self.
Popcorn is an LA-based, Puerto Rico-born drag performer and poet. Their writing is deeply influenced by confessional poetry, the Beats, and Marquis de Sade, and deals with themes of intersectional identity, modern urban romance, and living in Los Angeles. Their performances mix visuals, spoken word, lip synching, and upcycled fashion to explore the relationships between language, the self, the persona, and authenticity.
Meliza Bañales (aka Missy Fuego) is an author, advocate, and adventurer. They are originally from Los Angeles, the child of a Mexican American father and a Scottish-Dutch mother. She was a fixture in the Spoken-Word, Slam, & Queer artist communities of the San Francisco Bay Area from 1996-2011, touring with Sister Spit and Body Heat, and competed on three national poetry slam teams (98, 99, & 02). Her short films have appeared at Frameline and Outfest, and she was the inaugural winner of the Jury Award at the Los Angeles Transgender Film Festival in 2011. They served as a Lecturer of Literature and Creative Writing at UC San Diego from 2015-2020. She was a 2016 Lambda Literary Finalist for Best LGBTQ Debut Fiction for their novel Life Is Wonderful, People Are Terrific. They have been awarded The People Before Profits Poetry Prize, Legend of Slam, Grand Slam Champion, and they were honored by the city of West Hollywood as part of their billboard poetry series for National Poetry Month in 2022 and 2023. Their poetry and prose have been anthologized in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe since 1997 and has been featured on NPR, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Lodestar Quarterly, and The Washington Square Review. Their new book, roōt for the underdog: poems, is out now on Dodsworth Books. They live in Los Angeles.
Carol Potter’s sixth book of poems, What Happens Next is Anyone’s Guess, won the 2021 Pacific Coast Series in Poetry from Beyond Baroque, and was a finalist for the 2022 Vermont Book Award. Book # five, Some Slow Bees, won the Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press.Publications include poems in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Green Mountains Review, Hotel Amerika, Sinister Wisdom, The Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry, The Massachusetts Review, The Los Angeles Review, Poet Lore, River Styx and the anthology of contemporary Vermont poetry, Roads Taken. Potter lives in Vermont and teaches for the Antioch University MFA program in Los Angeles.
VOTH|Voice of the Harbor (he/him/his), Latinx, Gay, and passion for horror, nature, love and coffee, VOTH dedicates himself to embracing the truth within. By using his lighthouse energy he helps others find their truth too, because surviving the faces of trauma shouldn’t be a journey to face alone. VOTH’s first collection Dieagnosis will be available September 23rd of 2023.
Estephanie Seis is a disabled queer renaissance women of the 21st-century. She’s a writer, model, rule breaker, a first gen born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. You can find their works and follow everyday life on their Instagram @estephanie.seis.
We want to thank our sponsors, including Stonewall Democratic Club, Jeffery Bryant, LA Poet Society, & Beyond Baroque. Join us for a prideful celebration, and act of resistance, celebrating Los Angeles’ diverse Queer Writers.
NOTE: See site for event details and guidelines.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Addresses: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/queer-writers-fest-tickets-649869275497 or https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety/
Book Launch: Ananya Devarajan, with Alisha Rai, & Kismat Connection at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents Ananya Devarajan to present her debut YA novel, Kismat Connection, in conversation with Alisha Rai.
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!
About Kismat Connection:
Madhuri Iyer is doomed. Doomed for her upcoming senior year to be a total failure, according to her astrology-obsessed mother, and doomed to a happily ever after with her first boyfriend, according to her family legacy. Determined to prove the existence of her free will, Madhuri devises an experimental relationship with the one boy she knows she’ll never fall for.
Arjun Mehta is also at the mercy of the stars, but he isn’t complaining. His astrological reading destines him for success, and he resolves to use his year of good luck to show Madhuri that they should be more than just childhood best friends. When Madhuri offers him the opportunity to be her relationship lab rat, it feels like the universe is finally on his side, so Arjun puts his heart on the line.
But as their opposing prophecies slowly become true and real feelings begin to cloud their experiment, Madhuri will have to decide if charting her own destiny is worth breaking Arjun’s heart—and her own.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Mic Night Open Mic @ Midnight: Featuring Mary Tawadros & Anthony Crespi at Midnight Books – In-Person Event
L.A. Poet Society & guest host Lisbeth Coiman present the new Mic Night @ Midnight at Midnight Books in Whittier, held every last Saturday of the month.
The featured readers for this event are Mary Tawadros and Anthony Crespo.
Open Mic to all artists in the home of a radical social justice driven bookstore, Midnight Books!
Mary Tawadros aka Egyptian Princess8, is an Author, Visual Artist, Poet, Host, Curator, Life Coach and Master of Networking Poets, Musicians, Comedians and Artists. Also, She is a graduate from California Polytechnic University of Pomona.
Anthony Crespo is a poet and writer, musician and performer.
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual educator and the author of the memoir I Asked the Blue Heron and the chapbook Uprising/Alzamiento.
NOTE: See site for event details and guidelines.
Where: Midnight Books
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 7201 Greenleaf Ave., Suite D, Whittier, CA 90602
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1205301167088431/1205301180421763/
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 24th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
826LA @Hammer: Poetry to Save the Planet at the Hammer Museum – In-Person Kids Event
Recommended for ages 8–14.
In this poetry workshop kids learn about the process (and effect) of poetry by creating your own on topics like our planet, climate change, and home.
Led by Gubnit Ní Dhúinn, who holds honors degrees in Literature & Language from Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford University, England.
Where: Hammer Museum
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2023/826lahammer-poetry-save-planet
Storytime and Art Experience with Shira Sergantat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Join Village Well for a fun morning of crafts and stories with local educator and parent Shira Sergant!
All ages welcome, perfect for Ages 5-12.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/27334
Local Author Day – Young Readers Edition: Paul LeDoux and Claudia Martial at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Paul LeDdoux will discuss his new book, The Magical Soccer Ball
The Magical Soccer Ball is an inspiring story for anyone, not just young soccer enthusiasts, with positive lessons about childhood fears and difficulties. This book uses straightforward, humorous writing and simple illustrations to entertain while teaching the value of treating even throw-away objects with care. Ultimately, the book’s big lesson is that the real magic lies within the young hero’s love of the game, as shown by his soccer coach. As a soccer-playing elementary school teacher, I highly recommend this book for all kids, especially those beginning to fall for the beautiful game.
Claudia Martial will discuss her new book, Can Elephants Wear Masks?
Gabby is again faced with another challenge and that is having to wear a mask at school. She expressed her feelings in kindergarten, which opens an opportunity for her teacher to teach and encourage all the students with a fun class activity. The story also encourages the children to actively use their imaginations to enhance the positive outcome of the class activity.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 25th
Time: 11 am
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-Young-Readers-Edition-June-2023
Burning Issues Book Club & Captive Genders via Bel Canto – Online Event
Burning Issues Book Club participants will read and discuss this month’s selection, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, Second Edition, edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith, with a Foreward by Cece McDonald.
Pathologized, terrorized, and confined, trans/gender non-conforming and queer folks have always struggled against the prison industrial complex. Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith bring together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics for a new understanding of how race, gender, ability, and sexuality are lived under the crushing weight of captivity.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details. Order signed book at site.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/touched-sun
Book Bash Discussion Party: Homie by Danez Smith via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
Book Bash is a monthly discussion party by members of The Poetry Lab, and the June Book Club selection is Homie, by author Danez Smith.
Members get unlimited access to all the BrainTrust workshops and come to the BookBash, our poetry book discussion party, every month!
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/register/p/register/?itemId=ksb3pjmrebgfestphh3w53dcnb4csv
Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
This is a tribute reading celebrating the life of poet, Bert Myers (1928-1979) and the release of Pleiades Press’s Unsung Master Series: Bert Meyers.
The latest volume in the Unsung Masters Series brings to readers the work of Bert Meyers. This volume anthologizes a large selection of Meyers’s best poetry.
Born in Los Angeles in 1928 to Romanian and Polish Jewish immigrants, Bert was a self-taught lyric poet, picture framer, gilder, teacher, and rebel. Six books of his poetry were published in his lifetime and three posthumously. He died in 1979. Meyers’s precisely framed poems are frequently image driven and often quite short. Noting that “the image is unequivocally at the center of his work” in her introduction to In a Dybbuk’s Raincoat, the late poet, Denise Levertov lamented that “Bert Meyers death has deprived us of one of the best poets of our time.”
In addition to Bert’s collected writings, other essays and appreciations from authors influenced by his work appear in the volume; including José Angel Araguz, Jim Bogen, Victoria Chang, Amy Gerstler, Garrett Hongo, Daniel Meyers, Barry Sanders, Ari Sherman, Maurya Simon, and Sean Singer.
His son Daniel Meyers, alongside authors Amy Gerstler, Ari Sherman, and the co-editor of the anthology, Dana Levin, will be paying tribute in a reading and celebration of Bert Meyers’s lifelong work at Beyond Baroque.
Bert Meyers was a self-taught lyric poet, picture framer, gilder, teacher, and rebel. He was born in Los Angeles in 1928 and died in 1979. Six books of his poetry were published in his lifetime and three posthumously. The most recent book is the upcoming “Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master” to be published in the Spring of 2023 by Pleiades Press. The website bertmeyers.com has more information on him with a selection of his poetry, essays about him, audio recordings, videos and more.
A former student of Bert Meyers, Ari (Laurence) Sherman is a graduate of Pitzer College, a recipient of a Thomas J Watson Fellowship and holds a Master’s Degree in the Creative Writing program at University of California Davis. Following his studies he taught College for several years (Pitzer College, Mount San Antonio Community College, and Cal State Northridge) before transitioning into advertising. He has helped create advertising campaigns for major motion pictures and TV series as well as Ads and content for other sectors and major non-profits ranging from the Getty Center to the United Nations.
Bert and Odette Meyers had two children. Anat Silvera, is a jewelry designer and teacher at Silvera Jewelry School in Berkeley, California and Daniel Meyers is a documentary director, cameraman and teacher based in Paris, France. Daniel has traveled all over the world making public television documentaries primarily for the BBC and other European TV networks as well as creating documentary training programs for journalists and film students.
Born in Los Angeles in 1965, Dana Levin is the author of five books poetry. Her latest is Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon Press), a 2022 New York Times Notable Book and NPR “Book We Love.” Other books include Banana Palace (2016) and Sky Burial (2011), which The New Yorker called “utterly her own and utterly riveting.” She is a grateful recipient of many honors, including those from the NEA, PEN, and the Library of Congress, as well as from the Rona Jaffe, Whiting, and Guggenheim Foundations. Currently she serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Maryville University in St. Louis. With Adele Elise Williams, she is the editor of Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master.
Amy Gerstler’s most recent book of poems is Index of Women (Penguin Random House, 2021). Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker and Paris Review. She is currently collaborating with composer, actor, and arranger Steve Gunderson on a musical play. Her previous books of poems include Scattered at Sea, Dearest Creature, Ghost Girl, Medicine, Crown of Weeds, Nerve Storm, and Bitter Angel. Oren’s Forest, a children’s book Gerstler did with artist/Illustrator Lindsey Burwell, was published in 2022. In 2019, she received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts CD Wright Grant. In 2018, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She has also written fiction, nonfiction and journalism and art criticism.
Reception & Book signing will follow the readings.
NOTE: See site for event details and guidelines.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Addresses: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Beatnik Café Open Mic & Features, Hosted by Hannah Pachmann at Hey Hey – In-Person Event
Beatnik Café’s monthly Open Mic is hosted by Hannah Pachmann, and features readers Tanya Ko Hong and Elya Braden.
Tanya Ko Hong is a bilingual Korean American poet and translator. She has an MFA in poetry from Antioch University. She is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The War Still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora (KYSO Flash Press, 2019), written primarily in English. Before that, she published Mother to Myself (Prunsasang Press, 2015) in Korean, Yellow Flowers on a Rainy Day (Oma Books of the Pacific, 2003) in English, and Generation One Point Five (Esprit Books, 1993) in Korean with English translations. Her poetry appears in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, Entropy, Cultural Weekly, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (published by The Feminist Press), the Choson Ilbo, The Korea Times, and the Aeolian Harp Series Anthology, among others.
Elya Braden is a poet and mixed-media artist living in Channel Islands Harbor in Ventura County, CA. She is Assistant Editor of Gyroscope Review and has been a featured reader at Tasty Words, Library Girl, the Rapp Saloon, Cobalt Poets (on Zoom) and Beatnik Cafe (on Zoom). Her work has been published in Calyx, Prometheus Dreaming, Rattle Poets Respond, Sequestrum, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, The Coachella Review and elsewhere. Her poems have received The Ekphrastic Review’s Fantastic Ekphrastic Award, Editor’s Choice awards, have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Her first chapbook, Open The Fist, was released in 2020 by Finishing Line Press. Her second chapbook, The Sight of Invisible Longing, was a semi-finalist in Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Competition and is forthcoming in March 2023.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Beatnik Café at Hey Hey
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1555 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtZma0ZSYOP/ or https://www.hannaatricepachman.com/beatnik-cafe.html
Book Launch & Open Mic: Teresa Mai Chuc, with Guests, & Incidental Takes at Rissho Kosei-kai Buddhist Center – In-Person Event
Celebrate the launch of Teresa Mai Chuc’s chapbook, Incidental Takes, hosted by Mike Sonksen, with an Open Mic, reading, (following a whole human workshop with Amanda Fletcher from 2 pm – 4pm).
Bring your poem to the open mic!
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Rissho Kosei-kai Buddhist Center of Los Angeles
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 2707 East 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=6471787379526515&set=a.178186445553338
Roar Shack Readings and Open Mic, with David Rocklin at 826LA Time Travel Mart – In-Person Event
Roar Shack’s monthly Open Mic is hosted by David Rocklin, and features readers:
Andrew Frederick, Jim Natal, David Kukoff, Chip Jacobs, and Bruce Ferber, who are raconteurs, one and all—don’t miss it!
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: 826LA Time Travel Mart
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/207898612085998
Pride Month Poetry: Charles Jensen, Gustavo Hernandez, and Traci Kato-Kiriyama at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join authors Charles Jensen, Gustavo Hernandez, and Traci Kato-Kiriyama for pride, poetry, and pop quizzes!
Charles Jensen is the author of three poetry collections and seven chapbooks. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs designated him a 2019-2020 Cultural Trailblazer, and his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Journal, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner.
Gustavo Hernandez is the author of Flower, Grand, First, and Form His Arms. He was born in Jalisco, Mexico and lives in Southern California.
Traci Kato-Kiriyama (they+she; based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles)—author of Navigating With(out) Instruments (Writ Large Press)—is an award-winning multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, community organizer, and audiobook narrator.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/27355
Local Author Day: Robbin Kay Beohourou, Sara Becker ad Robin Johnsonat Vroman’s Bookstore – In-Person Adult Event
Robbin Kay Beohourou presents Self-Love: Keys to Solving Your Problems from the Inside Out.
Life is happening; you can’t stop it nor control it completely. Through genuine self-love, you can get through the various problems in life. Self-love gives you the opportunity to be accountable and responsible for your life. Do you want to learn to not always react on a ten but learn to respond on a three to four or lower? Do you want to learn to take control of the one thing that you can be in control of, which is self? Why not love self? Walking the path of self-love will decrease anxiety, depression, and stress and will increase esteem, confidence, and worth. Self-lovet goes beyond self-care maintenance. Self-love is a way of life. It is the everyday purposeful, intentional, proactive, mindful never-ending journey in life. From a Christian, mental health, and visionary of self-love perspective, we all come from different walks of life, but the one thing we all have in common is love. Utilizing this journal, you gain keys with a step-by-step explanation of why the key is purposeful in fostering self-love.
Sara Becker presents An Only Nut.
In a world where peanuts are born two to a shell, what’s a lonely nut to do?
Meet Paulie, an introvert living a relatively invisible life in the bottom of a nutsack. He knows that one day soon, he will be forced to come face to face with his greatest fears while a bar full of vicious peacocks squawk away. If Paulie, a shy peanut, doesn’t learn how to sing, he and the nutsack’s inhabitants face the dreaded fate of becoming bar nuts.
An Only Nut is an outlandish story with a simple premise: who are we (animal, vegetable, and mineral) when confronted with our fate? Can we transform for the better or is change just a nutty fantasy?
Robin Johnson presents Ennobling Business for Success.
Ennobling Business for Success: Inspire, Ignite, Influence is an International Bestseller in nine countries and #1 Bestseller in 29 categories. It provides a blueprint for organizations to understand and flip the script on disruption, positioning teams to discover already-existing assets and strengths, to design paths toward organizational excellence at all levels, and to deliver results in ways that engage and benefit all stakeholders. From The Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting to The Great Breakup to Loud Layoffs, organizations of all types and sizes are trying to make sense of and adapt to “the new normal” following Covid’s complete disruption of work as we knew it. Past approaches and mindsets are ineffective in today’s work environment. The human side of business is now taking center stage for developing organizational agility, resilience, and overall excellence. So-called “soft skills” are now known as “power skills” and are becoming part of a leader’s expected core competencies. Ennobling Business for Success is filled with science-backed, evidence-based principles and practices that can Inspire, Ignite, and Influence leaders, managers, and individuals at all levels to “create workplaces where people want to stay, instead of wanting to leave.”
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 25th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-June-2023
Village Poets of Sunland Tujunga Present Lois P. Jones & William O’Daly Readings & Open Mic at Bolton Hall Museum – In-Person Event
Village Poets hosts reading this month by Lois P. Jones and Willam O’Daly.
Lois P. Jones was recently awarded the 2023 Alpine Fellowship which this year takes place in Fjällnäs, Sweden. She was a finalist in the annual Mslexia Poetry Competition judged by Helen Mort and will be published in Spring 2023. In 2022 her work was a finalist for both the Best Spiritual Literature Award in Poetry from Orison Books and the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Other honors include a Highly Commended and publication in the 2021 Bridport Poetry Prize Anthology Jones’ awards include the Bristol Poetry Prize, the Lascaux Poetry Prize for a single poem, the Tiferet Poetry Prize and winning finalist for the Terrain Poetry contest judged by Jane Hirshfield. In collaboration with filmmaker Jutta Pryor and sound designer Peter Verwimp, her poem La Scapigliata won the 2022 Lyra Bristol Poetry Film Competition.
Her work appears or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets – Poem A Day, Poetry Wales, Mslexia, Plume, Guernica Editions, Terrain, Vallentine Mitchell of London; Verse Daily, Narrative and others. Jones’ first collection, Night Ladder, was published by Glass Lyre Press and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award and the Lascaux Poetry Prize for a poetry collection. Since 2007 Jones has hosted KPFK’s Poets Café and acted as poetry editor for the Pushcart prize-winning Kyoto Journal. She is a screening judge for Claremont University’s Kingsley-Tufts Awards.
William O’Daly has translated eight books of the late-career and posthumous poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda and most recently Neruda’s first volume, Book of Twilight, a finalist for the 2018 Northern California Book Award in Translation. The author of four chapbooks of poems, he published his first full-length volume of poems, The New Gods, with Beltway Editions in September 2022. In March 2023, the Los Angeles Master Chorale including three poems from The New Gods and one from his chapbook, Waterways, in the world premiere of Reena Esmail’s “Malhaar: A Requiem for Water,” at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he received the American Literary Award from the bilingual Korean American journal Miju Poetry and Poetics in September 2021. Currently, he is Lead Writer for the California Water Plan, the state’s strategic plan for sustainably and equitably managing water resources.
Two segments of the open mic will be available and refreshments will be served. Suggested donation $5 per person for the cost of refreshments and to donate to the Little Landers Society that manages the Bolton Hall Museum, a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Bolton Hall Museum
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4:30 pm – 7 pm
Address: 10110 Commerce Ave., Tujunga, CA 91042
Website: http://villagepoets.blogspot.com/ or https://allevents.in/verdugo%20city/village-poets-presents-lois-p-jones-and-william-odaly-on-sunday-june-25-2023/200024730708013
P-Valley (Poets in the Valley) Open Micat Blaqhaus NoHo – In-Person Event
The P-Valley (Poets in the Valley) event is held every 2nd and 4th Sunday every month.
Features include: Karima J ”K2″ Sphere, Loudes Gan, Magdalena, & Kuahmel.
Hosted by: Karima J “K2” Sphere.
Come to Blaqhaus Noho for P-Valley, a celebration of poetry and spoken word in the heart of the valley. Second & fourth Sunday. Free Entry (2 Item Minimum) and open to all who are interested in experiencing the power of language and creative expression. Plus, while you’re here, enjoy some delicious southern food and drink!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Blaqhaus NoHo
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 11671 Victory Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 91606
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/p-valley-poetry-in-the-valley-tickets-616775210257
June Historical Romance Book Club: Peter Cabot Gets Lost at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents the June Historical Romance Book Club every 4th Sunday of the month, and today’s selection is Peter Cabot Gets Lost by author Cat Sebastian.
The Historical Romance book club is led by orders manager Katie S. and focuses on examining all types of romance novels. But everyone is welcome, you don’t have to be a writer!
Peter Cabot Gets Lost is set in summer, 1960, when after years of scraping by, Caleb Murphy has graduated from college and is finally getting to start a new life. Except he suddenly has no way to get from Boston to Los Angeles. Then, to add to his misery, there’s perfect, privileged Peter Cabot offering to drive him. Caleb can’t refuse, even though the idea of spending a week in the car with a man whose luggage probably costs more than everything Caleb owns makes him want to scream. Peter Cabot would do pretty much anything to skip out on his father’s presidential campaign, including driving across the country with a classmate who can’t stand him. After all, he’s had plenty of practice with people not liking him much-his own family, for example. The farther Peter gets from his family’s expectations, the more he starts to think about what he really wants, and the more certain he becomes that what he wants is more time with prickly, grumpy Caleb Murphy. As they put more miles between themselves and their pasts, they both start to imagine a future where they can have things they never thought possible.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 7:15 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 