Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online Event
This free Monday Night Community Writing Workshop led by Raquel Baker is a 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 4th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-704655251827
Under the Mic Influence & Open Mic featuring Gia Scott-Heron at LB Unified – In-Person Event
Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and @djkevjam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites.
In the tradition of Funkmosphere, Monday Night Delight, Melodic Mondays, Project Blowed, Griot Cafe, and Lady Basco’s Speakeasy, we come to light things right back up and take the poet & the MC to new heights. Every 1st and 3rd Monday, you will be Under Mic Influence. Come level up with carefree, high-caliber spitters, and leave ready to get the bars up & come back for more!
Our feature act for this edition is the lady legacy of a legend, Gia Scott-Heron, ready with a poetic injection for all the complexions!
Soul Brother No. 7 Kuahmel and DJ Kev Jam captain this cruise with the necessary boom-bap & rare grooves. Only $5. Everyone from Santa Barbara to San Diego and beyond welcome!
Special invite to Blowedians, Good Lifers, the CLIque, and LBC poetry vets.
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 4th
Time: 7:30 pm; Mic at 8 pm
Address: 2222 E. Anaheim, Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mic-influence or https://www.facebook.com/events/1315086009369041/?ref=newsfeed
Tell It Slant: Poetry Revision Workshop via Surprise the Line – Online Event
Tell It Slant is a small group, craft-focused, poetry revision workshop focused on supporting each other’s writing goals with revision strategies and feedback and offered over four Tuesday mornings in September.
Surprise the Line operates with the belief that there is no “right or wrong” way to write, and we honor each person’s content and voice. We believe in empowering more writing on the page and encouraging more diverse voices in the world. We operate with an anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-sexist, anti-classist, anti-xenophobic, nondenominational, pro-LGBTQIA, pro-environment and global worldview. We bring the values of integrity, generosity, compassion, critical thinking, and equity into every workshop. Our workshops are designed to be nurturing for the soul and stimulating for the mind. It is our mission to spread the joy and necessity of creativity everywhere, one line at a time.
The basic structure for this workshop each week will be:
a short introductory presentation of a revision strategy to consider;
most of the time is dedicated to small-group feedback on each other’s work’
each person will be able to have a poem critiqued every session and facilitator will keep time.
We will have 3 facilitators this time, so we will have the opportunity to allow more people to join this workshop. We will go into breakout rooms for each session. Participants will be randomly assigned to a group, and that group will rotate facilitators throughout the 4 weeks.
We will practice respectful, inquisitive, and constructive critique to help each writer advance. The goal is to help each writer advance toward their writing goals with ideas for revision. In small groups, we offer what we like, what questions we have, and ideas for revision. This is a space designed to help us radically reimagine what we are writing to infuse our poems with even more life and surprise.
Workshop is limited to 18 participants. Advance registration is required.
Sliding Scale: Please choose an option that works for you between $40-100 ($10-$25 per session). Just sign up once for all 4 weeks. If you are able, please consider paying the full value for this workshop as it helps compensate the facilitators for their time and skills.
Facilitators:
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, organizer, and climate activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, March 2023). Nancy is a 2023 recipient of the California Creative Corps grant, and she has received fellowships from Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, California Center for the Book, Idyllwild Writers Week and Literary Women. Her work has been published in The Shore, Tupelo Quarterly, Stirring, Radar Poetry, and others. Nancy has an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and a BA in sociology from UC Santa Cruz. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and on social media @fancifulnance.
Shelly Holder is a poet, bookclub and workshop facilitator who is working on founding a library of literary magazines. She is a Women Who Submit chapter lead for the San Gabriel Valley. Her poetry can be found (in various formats) at Iron Horse Literary Review, One Art, and Gyroscope Review, among others, as well as on YouTube. You can follow up by visiting http://www.shellyholder.com or her Facebook profile /shellyholderpoet. Shelly lives in what she calls an “outer-outer-outer” suburb of Los Ángeles, where she struggles to get an orange tree to fruit.
Matthew Feinstein is a neurodivergent poet originally from Tracy, California. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Randolph College, a BA in English – Creative Writing from CSU Long Beach, and an AA from Butte College. His poems have appeared in Poetry Online, HAD, Inflectionist Review, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere. He served as a poetry reader for Revolute Magazine and co-founded Plum Recruit Magazine. He serves as a poetry reader for Pidgeonholes. Website: http://www.matthewfeinsteinwriter.com
Where: Surprise the Line – Online
Date: Tuesday the 5th (through September 25th)
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://allevents.in/online/tell-it-slant-poetry-revision-workshop/10000696658824297
In Conversation with Joe R. Lansdale via Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us via Zoom for a discussion with award-winning mystery author Joe R. Lansdale.
Lansdale has written more than 50 novels and more than 30 short story collections in many genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense. He’s also written for comics and television. His stories have won ten Bram Stoker Awards, a British Fantasy Award, an Edgar Award, a World Horror Convention Grand Master Award, a Sugarprize, a Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, a Spur Award, and a Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been inducted into The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and several of his novels have been adapted to film. His latest is the collection Things Get Ugly: The Best Crime Stories of Joe R. Lansdale.
This program will be moderated by Jack Les Camela, the branch’s administrative clerk.
RSVP:
Please email holywd@lapl.org to register for the event.
Where: Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/lapl-conversation-joe-r-lansdale
Poets From the Future: Workshop for Kids at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Kids Event
Poets From the Future is a Poetry Workshop for Kids Ages 10 – 18.
This is a free poetry workshop for young people ages 10-18, featuring readings, activities, and fun writing exercises for the next generation of poets! 🤖🚀🪐👽
This workshop will meet weekly starting on Tuesday, September 5th at 4pm. We’ll publish all the poets’ work in a special zine for sale exclusively at North Fig Bookshop!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-llitumvj
Meg Cabot Virtual Event: Meg Cabot, with Erin Sterling, & Enchanted to Meet You at The Ripped Bodice – Online Event
The Ripped Bodice presents a virtual event for Meg Cabot, in conversation with Erin Sterling, to discuss Enchanted to Meet You.
To watch, go to our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/therippedbodiceLA on Tuesday, September 5th, 2023 from 5:00-6:00 PM PT (you do not need a Facebook account in order to watch).
Enchanted to Meet You is a witchy rom-com from New York Times bestseller Meg Cabot about a plus size witch who must team up with a handsome stranger to help protect her village from an otherworldly force—but will she be able to protect her heart?
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Creative Writing Workshop with Tony DuShane at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a free 90-minute writer’s workshop presented by UCLA instructor Tony DuShane, screenwriter of the film Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, based on his novel of the same name.
This workshop is open to adults only.
Where: Los Felz Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-22
Meg Howrey, with Shannon Tomlinson, & They’re Going to Love You at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Meg Howrey, in conversation with Shannon Tomlinson, will discuss her latest book, They’re Going to Love You.
A magnetic tale of betrayal, art, and ambition, set in the world of professional ballet, New York City during the AIDS crisis, and present-day Los Ángeles.
Carlisle Martin dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer just like her mother, Isabel, a former Balanchine ballerina. Since they live in Ohio, she only gets to see her father Robert for a few precious weeks a year when she visits Greenwich Village, where he lives in an enchanting apartment on Bank Street with his partner, James.
Brilliant but troubled, James gives Carlisle an education in all that he holds dear in life—literature, music, and most of all, dance. Seduced by the heady pull of mentorship and the sophistication of their lives, Carlisle’s aspiration to become a dancer herself blooms, born of her desire to be asked to stay at Bank Street, to be included in Robert and James’ world even as AIDS brings devastation to their community. Instead, a passionate love affair creates a rift between them, with devastating consequences that reverberate for decades to come.
Nineteen years later, Carlisle receives a phone call which unravels the fateful events of her life, causing her to see with new eyes how her younger self has informed the woman she’s become. They’re Going to Love You is a gripping and gorgeously written novel of heartbreaking intensity. With psychological precision and a masterfully revealed secret at its heart, it asks what it takes to be an artist in America, and the price of forgiveness, of ambition, and of love.
Meg Howrey is the author of the novels Blind Sight, The Cranes Dance, The Wanderers, and most recently, They’re Going to Love You, which was a New York Times Book of the Month, a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, an Indie Next List Pick, and the recipient of starred reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. Her fiction has appeared in Granta and her non-fiction in The Los Angeles Review of Books and Vogue. A former professional ballet dancer, she currently lives in Los Ángeles.
Sarah Tomlinson is a Los Ángeles and Brooklyn based writer. Her writing has appeared in publications including Marie Claire, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Salon.com, and Vol1Brooklyn.com. She has ghostwritten nine books, including two uncredited New York Times bestsellers. Visit her online at SarahTomlinson.com and follow her alter ego, Duchess of Rock (@DuchessofRock), on Twitter.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Jonathan Taplin, with Ian Masters, & The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Jonathan Taplin, in conversation with Ian Masters, will discuss his new book, The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto.
At a time when the crises of income inequality, climate, and democracy are compounding to create epic wealth disparity and the prospect of a second American civil war, four billionaires are hyping schemes that are designed to divert our attention away from issues that really matter. Each scheme—the metaverse, cryptocurrency, space travel, and transhumanism—is an existential threat in moral, political, and economic terms. In The End of Reality¸ Jonathan Taplin provides perceptive insight into the personal backgrounds and cultural power of these billionaires—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreesen (“The Four”)—and shows how their tech monopolies have brought middle-class wage stagnation, the hollowing out of many American towns, a radical increase in income inequality, and unbounded public acrimony. Meanwhile, the enormous amount of taxpayer money to be funneled into the dystopian ventures of “The Four,” the benefits of which will accrue to billionaires, exacerbates these disturbing trends.
The End of Reality is both scathing critique and reform agenda that replaces the warped worldview of “The Four” with a vision of regenerative economics that seeks to build a sustainable society with healthy growth and full employment.
Jonathan Taplin is a public intellectual, writer, film producer, and scholar. He is the director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and was a professor at the USC Annenberg School in the field of international communication management and digital media entertainment until 2017. Since his graduation from Princeton University in 1969, his extraordinary journey has put him at the crest of every major cultural wave in the past half century: he was tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band, producer of major films such as Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, an executive at Merrill Lynch, creator of the Internet’s first video-on- demand service, and a cultural critic and author writing about technology in the new millennium.
Ian Masters is a BBC-trained broadcast journalist who has covered national security affairs for over 40 years on public radio. He is the host of the nationally-syndicated news analysis public radio program “Background Briefing” at backgroundbriefing.org and has produced documentaries for the BBC and ABC News and has been a senior fellow at UCLA’s Center For Strategic and International affairs and the UCLA Center For International Relations and was a consultant to the Center For National Security Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 25th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/jonathan-taplin-end-of-reality-september-5
Kelly Yang & Top Story (Front Desk #5) at Vroman’s Off-site at All Saint Church – In-Person YA Event
Kelly Yang will present and discuss Top Story (Front Desk #5).
Mia Tang is at the top of her game!
She’s spending winter break with Mom, Lupe, Jason, and Hank in San Francisco’s Chinatown! Rich with history and hilarious aunties and uncles, it’s the place to find a great story—one she hopes to publish while attending journalism camp at the Tribune. But this trip has as many bumps as the hills of San Francisco.
Kelly Yang is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several books for young readers, including Three Keys, Room to Dream, Key Player, and the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature winner Front Desk, which was also chosen as a Best Book of the Year by multiple publications, including NPR, The Washington Post, and the New York Public Library. Kelly’s family immigrated to the United States from China when she was a young girl, and she grew up in California, in circumstances very similar to those of Mia Tang. After attending college at the age of 13, she graduated UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School. She is the founder of The Kelly Yang Project, a leading writing and debating program for children in Asia and the United States. Her writing has been published in South China Morning Post, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. To learn more about Kelly and the Front Desk series, visit frontdeskthebook.com.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s at All Saints Church
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 132 N. Euclid Ave., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-presents-Kelly-Yang-discussing-Top-Story
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with John Compton – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature and Open Reading and guest John Compton.
John Compton is a is gay poet who lives in Kentucky. His poetry resides in his chest like many hearts & they bloom like vigorously infectious wild flowers. He lives in a tiny town, with his husband josh and their dogs and cats.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 5th
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 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups or https://www.facebook.com/events/213407634459999/?active_tab=discussion
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night & Feature: UGBA 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.
Featured guest: UGBA
Ungrateful Black Artist (UGBA) is a queer poet, rapper, playwright, actor, and activist based out of Brooklyn, NY. UGBA is founder and host of Ceremonies—a Brooklyn-based monthly Black Queer artist showcase held in honor of Essex Hemphill. UGBA is also founder of the “Dark Skin support Group”, a virtual support network, and former script consultant for the Pulitzer Prize winning and five-time Tony nominated Broadway show, “Fat Ham,” among many other endeavors.
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 5th
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
Book Club: Clark and Division at Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Chatsworth Branch Library Book Club participants will discuss the novel Clark and Division, by author Naomi Hirahara.
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara is set in 1944, when Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar and relocated to Chicago. The family expects to be reunited with Aki’s older sister, Rose. However, when they arrive, they are told that Rose committed suicide on the subway. Aki sets out to find the truth.
RSVP:
Please email Shawn at sstamm@lapl.org for Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 21052 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/chatsworth-book-club-1
Write Your Novel Event at Platt Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Platt Branch Library invites you to write your novel at their library.
Is writing one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2023? Is completing a book on your bucket list? Whether you shouted an emphatic yes or mumbled a hushed maybe to either of those questions, our new novel writing support group is for you. This new group will be a place to learn, practice, and receive support from other writers. We will use LinkedIn Learning courses available on lapl.org to guide us through the novel writing process one step at a time. With weekly goals and the encouragement of your peers, you can spend the year working your way toward a completed novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Platt Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
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
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club: Legends of Lotus Land at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, Legends of Lotusland, by Christina Soontornvat, illustrated by Kevin Hong.
From two-time Newbery honor recipient Christina Soontornvat comes a compelling new young middle grade fantasy series for readers who love stories about animals, magic, and kids like them embracing their power to change the world.
Plum and her friends are traveling to the misty Bokati Island. There they will study with the mysterious Guardian Master Em, who is the keeper of the ancient forest there. The field trip comes just in time for Plum, who still can’t figure out why she’s so different from the other Novices on Lotus Island.
Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2nd-3rd-grade-book-club
Manga & Graphic Novel Club at Encino-Tarzana Branch Library, LAPL – Online Teens Event
The Manga and Graphic Novel Club for teens is a club to review your favorites and join discussions with other teen fans. Attend monthly Zoom meetings, write reviews, draw art for our monthly newsletter, and select your favorite manga or graphic novels to add to our teen collection.
RSVP:
Please email ecalla@lapl.org for the meeting Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Encino-Tarzana Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/manga-graphic-novel-club
History Book Club: Path Lit by Lightning at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
History Book Club participants will read and discuss Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by author David Maraniss.
This book is a biography of America’s greatest all-around athlete that explores Thorpe beyond the myth to explore his life, using extensive research and historical nuance.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/history-book-club-path-lit-lightning
M.T. Connolly, with Steve Lopez, & The Measure of Our Age at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
M.T. Connolly, in conversation with Steve Lopez, will discuss her new book, The Measure of Our Age.
An expert on elder justice maps the challenges of aging, how things go wrong, and presents powerful tools we can use to forge better long lives for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
As tens of millions of Americans are living longer lives, longevity is creating challenges that cut across race, class, and gender. Caregivers help older relatives for “free,” but with high costs to themselves in time, money, jobs, and health. Scammers target countless seniors. The institutions built to protect older people—like nursing homes and guardianship—too often harm them instead. And epidemics of isolation and loneliness make older people vulnerable to all sorts of harm.
In The Measure of Our Age, elder justice expert and MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, M.T. Connolly investigates the systems we count on to protect us as we age. Weaving first-person accounts, her own experience, and shocking investigative reporting, she exposes a reality that has long been hidden and sometimes actively covered up. But her investigation also reveals reasons for hope within everyone’s grasp.
Connolly’s strategies and action plans for navigating the many challenges of aging will appeal to a wide range of readers—adult children caring for aging parents; policymakers trying to do the right thing; and should we be so lucky as to live to old age, all of us. This book transforms how we think about aging.
MT Connolly is a leading national expert on elder justice who was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant for her work that has shaped policy, research, and practice for decades. She was the architect of the federal Elder Justice Act, founding head of DOJ’s Elder Justice Initiative, and lead author of the Elder Justice Roadmap. That work, and what she learned from research for her book, The Measure of Our Age, led her to co-design the new community-based “RISE” model and to build teams that pilot more holistic, hopeful, and effective ways to reduce trouble and enhance connection in aging for individuals, families, and society. A graduate of Stanford University and Northeastern University School of Law, she lives in Washington, DC.
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist. Lopez is the author most recently of Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement, From Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will. His book The Soloist, inspired by his columns on his relationship with a Juilliard-trained homeless person, was a Los Angeles Times and New York Times best-seller, winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and the subject of a Dream Works movie by the same name. He has also written three novels and two column collections.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
An Evening with Patty Lin + Jeff Yang at Bel Canto Books at The Hangout – In-Person Event
Bel Canto Books is honored to host an Evening with Patty Lin, former TV writer and producer and debut author of End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood. Patty will be in conversation with Jeff Yang, author of Rise: A Pop History of Asian America From the Nineties to Now.
What if achieving your professional dreams comes at too high a personal cost? That’s what screenwriter Patty Lin started to ask herself after years in the cutthroat TV industry. One minute she was a tourist, begging her way into the audience of Late Night with David Letterman. Just a few years later, she was an insider who—through relentless hard work and sacrifice—had earned a seat in the writers’ rooms of the hottest TV shows of all time. While writing for Friends, Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives and Breaking Bad, Patty steeled herself against the indignities of a chaotic, abusive, male-dominated work culture, not just as one of the few women in the room, but as the only Asian person.
Patty Lin is a former TV writer and producer whose credits include Freaks and Geeks, Friends, Desperate Housewives, and Breaking Bad. She has also written pilots for Fox, CBS, and Nickelodeon. Her Breaking Bad episode, “Gray Matter,” was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Script in the Episodic Drama category. She retired from television writing to pursue other interests and occasionally appears in background acting roles. She lives in Los Ángeles with her husband.
Jeff Yang has been observing, exploring, and writing about the Asian American community for over thirty years. He launched one of the first Asian American national magazines, A. Magazine, in the late ’90s and early 2000s, and now writes frequently for CNN, Quartz, Slate and elsewhere. He has written/edited three books—Jackie Chan’s New York Times-best-selling memoir I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action; Once Upon a Time in China, a history of the cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland; and Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture. He lives in Los Ángeles, CA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books at The Hangout
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 2122 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/patty-lin-end-credits-at-bel-canto-books-tickets-694529816377
Health Matters Book Club at Pacoima Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Health Matters Book Club meets every first Wednesday of the month and participants will meet to discuss a wide variety of health-related books, articles, podcasts, and news stories.
Members will share a health-related item each month.
RSVP:
Please email pcoima@lapl.org for access to the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Pacoima Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/health-matters-book-club-1
Naomi Klein, with Cory Doctorow, & Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World at ALOUD Reading Series, Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Naomi Klein, in conversation with Cory Doctorow, will discuss her book, Doppleganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.
In her bestselling books, celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein documents the effects of branding, austerity, and climate profiteering on our societies and our souls. Using her own story of an antithetical doppelganger, she looks at what she refers to as the “Mirror World” of our destabilized present, full of doubles and confusion. This is just the beginning of her part comic memoir and part chilling reportage about the world we’re living in and a path beyond confusion and despair.
Klein will be in conversation with the Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author Cory Doctorow.
Naomi Klein is the award-winning author of international bestsellers including This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, No Is Not Enough, and On Fire, which have been published in more than thirty-five languages. She is an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of British Columbia, the founding codirector of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice, and an honorary professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University. Her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world, and she is a columnist for The Guardian.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books, including Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. His new book, The Internet Con, will be published by Verso on September 5th, 2023. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lfla.org/event/doppelganger-a-trip-into-the-mirror-world/
Caitlin Donohue, with Mauro Melgar, & WEED at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person YA Event
Caitlin Donohue, in conversation with Mauro Melgar, will discuss her book WEED: Cannabis Culture in the Americas.
Humans have used cannabis for thousands of years, since Neolithic peoples sought out its medicinal benefits.
But for the past century, its use has been largely criminalized. Stigma around cannabis has made it difficult for people of all ages to get straightforward answers about how to minimize health risks related to cannabis consumption or to understand how the plant has shaped and continues to shape society today.
In Weed: Cannabis Culture in the Americas, culture writer Caitlin Donohue crafts a comprehensive and thought-provoking review of cannabis in the Western Hemisphere. Donohue’s investigation spans from Vancouver, Canada, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, interviewing medical researchers, educators, activists, artists, business leaders, and other experts to explore the long relationship between cannabis and the human race, its almost universal prohibition in the twentieth century, and modern efforts to legalize the much-maligned plant in all its forms.
Caitlin Donohue is a San Francisco-raised, Mexico City-based bilingual culture journalist, radio producer, and drug educator. She’s written about cannabis culture and politics for 12 years, and Weed is her second book for young adults.
Mauro Melgar is an advocate for justice on behalf of people who have been negatively impacted by prohibitionist cannabis policing. He was incarcerated for a year in Los Ángeles County Jail on marijuana-related felony charges as a teenager and is now an entrepreneur.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/events/96-7pm-caitlin-donohue-mauro-melgar/
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, at vkaliflowers@gmail.com.
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Reading: TBA;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $5.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.
NOTE: See site for further details, and any change in the schedule. Contact kaliflowers@gmail.com or call (323) 293-2451
Where: The World Stage
Date: Wednesday the 6th
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 this quarter is James Fujinami Moore, whose debut poetry collection is indecent hours (Four Way Books, 2022), winner of the GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry and finalist for the Golden Poppy’s Martin Cruz Smith Award & the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Barrow Street’s 4×2, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, Jet Fuel Review, The Margins, the Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received fellowships from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016. He lives 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 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-705959633267
An Evening with Chuck Palahniuk: Not Forever, But for Now at Book Soup, off-site at Regent Theatre, DTLA – In-Person Event
Chuck Palahniuk will present his newest novel, Not Forever, But for Now.
From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a hilarious horror satire about a family of professional killers responsible for the most atrocious events in history and the young brothers that are destined to take over.
Meet Otto and Cecil. Two brothers growing up privileged in the Welsh countryside. They enjoy watching nature shows, playing with their pet pony, impersonating their Grandfather…and killing the help. Murder is the family business after all. Downton Abbey, this is not.
However, it’s not so easy to continue the family legacy with the constant stream of threats and distractions seemingly leaping from the hedgerow. First there is the matter of the veritable cavalcade of escaped convicts that keep showing up at their door. Not to mention the debaucherous new tutor who has a penchant for speaking in Greek and dismembering sex dolls. Then there’s Mummy’s burgeoning opioid addiction. And who knows where Daddy is. He just vanished one day after he and Mummy took a walk in the so-called “Ghost Forest.”
With Grandfather putting pressure on Otto to step up, it becomes clear that this will all end in only two ways: a nuclear apocalypse or just another day among the creeping thistle and tree peonies. And in a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, either are equally possible.
NOTE: See site for tickets, cost, guidelines, etc.
Where: Book Soup off-site at Regent Theatre, DTLA
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 448 S. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/book-soup-spaceland-chuck-palahniuk
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Featured Guest James Kelly 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 James Kelly.
James Kelly received both a BA and an MFA from New York University, where he taught undergraduate creative writing and was an editor of Washington Square Review. James was born and raised in New York, where he lives and works as a freelance writer.
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.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/people/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/656462803091889/?ref=newsfeed
Brickbox Paradox Workshop: Building Your Poetic Confidence with Danielle Mitchell at The Petry Lab – Online Event
The Poetry Lab will offer the Brickbox Paradox writing workshop led by Danielle Mitchell for four Thursday evening meetings online.
This course is a complete introduction to prose poetry and is open to everyone. There are three main goals of Brick Box Parqadox:
Students exit with a practical understanding of the history of the prose poem.
Students begin to conceptualize a library of prose poetry books, prose poets, and notable accomplishments in the form.
Students understand the basic structure of the form, but leave class with ideas of how they might innovate the form as they continue to explore prose poems in their own writing lives.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, link, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Thursday the 7th (and the 14th, 21st, and 28th)
Time: 5 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/prosepoetry
Alta’s Issue 24 Launch Party: Désirée Zamorano, D. J. Waldie, Santi Elijah Holley, and Mike Sonksen at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Désirée Zamorano, D. J. Waldie, Santi Elijah Holley, and Mike Sonksen will read from their work in celebration of Alta Issue 24.
This jam-packed summer issue features Gimme Shelter, our roundup of stories about housing in California; a thought-provoking cover story about the legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the risks and promise of AI; plus poetry, fiction, and so much more.
The evening will include readings by local Alta contributors Désirée Zamorano, D. J. Waldie, Santi Elijah Holley, and Mike Sonksen. It’s also a chance to get to know some of the editors and contributors who make Alta special. The event is free to attend, but please register in advance. (Registration does not guarantee seating.) We hope you can join us!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.altaonline.com/events/a44764395/alta-issue-party-chevaliers-book-los-angeles/
Jennifer Hamm & One Friday in Napa at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Jennifer Hamm will present and discuss her novel, One Friday in Napa.
Vene feels like she and her mother have always been at odds—since she was a child, the first word she used to describe Olivia was “cold.” When news of her mother’s imminent death comes, Vene returns to her family’s home in Napa to see if their strained relationship can be mended, only to find Olivia as harsh as ever and their reconciliation seemingly unreachable.
But when Vene stumbles upon Olivia’s old cookbook, she discovers a passion within her mother she didn’t know existed. The clipped tone and quick judgments of her dying mother don’t match the young woman whose voice she finds between the pages—one that tells a story of romance, longing, duty, and aching heartbreak. Curiosity consumes Vene, and she embarks on an intimate journey to learn about the Olivia she never got to meet—before it’s too late.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jennifer-hamm
Book Launch: J. Elle, with Victoria Aveyard, & House of Marionne at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents a celebration for J. Elle, in conversation with Victoria Aveyard, to discuss House of Marionne.
Brimming with ballgowns and betrayal, magic and mystery, decadence and darkness, House of Marionne is perfect for readers who crave morally gray characters, irresistible romance, dark academia, and a deeply intoxicating and original world. A Q&A session and book signing will follow a talk about the book.
This is a ticketed event that includes a copy of the book and an exclusive enamel butterfly pin.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Laura Picklesimer & Kill for Love at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Laura Picklesimer will present and discuss Kill for Love.
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Ángeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses—and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction—at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has awoken: the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.
As Tiffany’s bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E, Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Laura-Picklesimer-discusses-Kill-for-Love
Anthony Ocampo, with Rasheed Newson, & Brown and Gay in L.A. at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Anthony Ocampo, in conversation with Rasheed Newson, will discuss his book Brown and Gay in L.A.
Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parents—and finding community in each other.
Ocampo also details his own story of reconciling his queer Filipino American identity and those of men like him. He shows what it was like for these young men to grow up gay in an immigrant family, to be the one gay person in their school and ethnic community, and to be a person of color in predominantly White gay spaces. Brown and Gay in LA is an homage to second-generation gay men and their radical redefinition of what it means to be gay, to be a man, to be a person of color, and, ultimately, what it means to be an American.
Anthony Christian Ocampo is Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the author of The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race and co-editor of Contemporary Asian America, 3rd edition. A Tin House and VONA/Voices of Our Nations Arts fellow, he has published essays in GQ, Catapult, Colorlines, Gravy, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. His work has also been featured on NPR, NBC News, BuzzFeed, and in the Los Ángeles Times. Raised in Northeast Los Ángeles, he earned his BA and MA from Stanford University and his MA and PhD in sociology from UCLA. Say hi to him on Twitter: @anthonyocampo.
Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California with his husband and two children. My Government Means to Kill Me is his debut novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-llittpd7
Tonalli Thursdays Open Mic: Natalie Garcia & Francis Pricevia Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Zoom Event
Angel “CASPER” Lopez will host the Tonalli Thursday Community Open Mic, and welcome featured poets: Natalie Garcia, La Brujita Del Jardin, and Francis Price.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Online Event (see site) Zoom: 897 1039 1896
Website: https://www.instagram.com/losangelespoetsociety/ or https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=696989182472380&set=pb.100064839122535.-2207520000
¡LA DI DADA! 10 + Launch of MAINTENANT 17: Contemporary Dada Writing & Art at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Three Rooms Press and Beyond Baroque present the Ninth Annual ¡LA DI DADA! Salon, a wild ride of contemporary DADA performance and poetry.
An evening of provocative, exuberant, eclectic performance and poetry is slated to hit the stage as Three Rooms Press and Beyond Baroque present the Ninth Annual ¡LA DI DADA! Salon, a wild ride of contemporary DADA performance and poetry by leading LA-area maverick artists.
The event includes the West Coast launch of the internationally renowned MAINTENANT 17: Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art (2023, Three Rooms Press), which features more than 250 visual and literary works by artists and writers from seven continents.
The line-up features 18 renowned contemporary DADA artists including Mahnaz Badihian, Jeff Boynton & Mona Jean Cedar (Circuitry & Poetry), Allison Davis, Rich Ferguson, Christian Georgescu, S.A. Griffin, Mark Hoefer, Bibiana Padilla Maltos, Bronwyn Mauldin, Richard Modiano, Mike M. Mollett, Harry E. Northup, Travis Richardson, Neal Skooter Taylor, Silvia Wagensberg, and Daniel Yaryan. Three Rooms Press cofounders and MAINTENANT editors Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges host.
Plus, this year’s performance will be dedicated to longtime BB luminaries and members of our Dada Family Linda J. Albertano and Doug Knott, both of whom we sadly lost in 2022.
For additional information and reservations, email info@threeroomspress.com.
MAINTENANT 17: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art is the latest of the ongoing annual MAINTENANT DADA journal series, established in 2008. This year’s issue features 250 contributors from 34 countries and six continents, offering work on the them of PEACEFIRE. When a war ends provisionally, the agreement is called a ceasefire. But when peace ends, there is only war. War and peace are codependent. What might be best would be a “Peacefire.” With searing cover art by renowned Georgian artist, Uta Kaxniashvili, MAINTENANT 17 elaborates on DADA’s original premise as an antiwar movement.
Admission is $10. Beyond Baroque members are free. Costumes encouraged. Come as you aren’t.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 681 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
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 8th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Current Events Nonfiction Book Club meets every second Friday of the month and participants will discuss the September selection, The Revolutionary Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/current-events-nonfiction-book-club-0
Self-Care Book Club: The Four Agreements at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Self-Care Book Club participants will read and discuss The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by author Jon Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/self-care-book-club-four-agreements
Chris Yogerst, with Sam Wasson, & The Warner Brothers at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Chris Yogerst, in conversation with Sam Wasson, will present and discuss his book, The Warner Brothers.
One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars.
In The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst follows the siblings from their family’s humble origins in Poland, through their young adulthood in the American Midwest, to the height of fame and fortune in Hollywood. With unwavering resolve, the brothers soldiered on against the backdrop of an America reeling from the aftereffects of domestic and global conflict. The Great Depression would not sink the brothers, who churned out competitive films that engaged audiences and kept their operations afloat—and even expanding. During World War II, they used their platform to push beyond the limits of the Production Code and create important films about real-world issues, openly criticizing radicalism and the evils of the Nazi regime. At every major cultural turning point in their lifetime, the Warners held a front-row seat.
Paying close attention to the brothers’ identities as cultural and economic outsiders, Yogerst chronicles how the Warners built a global filmmaking powerhouse. Equal parts family history and cinematic journey, The Warner Brothers is an empowering story of the American dream and the legacy four brothers left behind for generations of filmmakers and film lovers to come.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/chris-yogerst
Book Launch: Lucy Score & Things We Left Behind at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents a book launch for Lucy Score to celebrate Things We Left Behind, in conversation with a TBD guest.
Lucian Rollins is a lean, mean vengeance-seeking mogul. On a quest to erase his abusive father’s mark on the family name, he spends every waking minute pulling strings and building his empire. The more money and power he gains, the safer he feels.
Except when it comes to one feisty small-town librarian…
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Hilary Leichter, with Xuan Juliana Wang, & Terrace Story: a Novel at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Hilary Liechter, in conversation with Xuan Juliana Wang, will present and discuss his book, Terrace Story: A Novel.
This novel is a new journey from the author of the acclaimed novel Temporary, an intimate exploration of time, a fable about love, an epic daydream for a broken-hearted world.
Annie, Edward, and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn’t there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. A city dweller’s dream come true! But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world.
Terrace Story follows the characters who suffer these repercussions and reverberations: the little family of three, their future now deeply uncertain, and those who orbit their fragile universe. The distance and love between these characters expands limitlessly, across generations. How far can the mind travel when it’s looking for something that is gone? Where do we put our loneliness, longing, and desire? What do we do with the emotions that seem to stretch beyond the body, beyond the boundaries of life and death?
Based on the National Magazine Award–winning story, Hilary Leichter’s profound second novel asks how we nurture love when death looms over every moment. From one of our most innovative and daring writers, Terrace Story is an astounding meditation on loss, a reverie about extinction, and a map for where to go next.
Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper’s Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Xuan Juliana Wang is the author of the short story collection Home Remedies, which received the California Book Award for First Fiction and was a New York Public Library Young Lions and PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, and Aperture. She teaches creative writing at UCLA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Every second Friday of the month, Village Well stays open a bit later in order to provide a platform for local performers through our open mic! All performers are welcome, including musicians, poets, storytellers, comedians, and magicians!
Acts are limited to 5-7 minutes in length and must be family friendly. Sign ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:30 pm!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/27553
An Evening with White Pine Press: Celebrating its 50th Anniversary at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online YouTube Hybrid Event
White Pine Press and Beyond Baroque present a 50th Anniversary event hosted by poet and translator Gail Wronsky.
Join Editor/Publisher Dennis Maloney alongside White Pine-published authors: Hélène Cardona, Yun Wang, Tzveta Sofronieva, and Christopher Merrill for an evening of poetry readings including new and selected works.
Hélène Cardona is a poet, actor, translator, and linguist, the author of Life in Suspension called “a vivid self-portrait as scholar, seer and muse” by John Ashbery, and Dreaming My Animal Selves, described as “liminal, mystical and other-worldly” by David Mason. She has authored five translations, including The Abduction by Maram Al-Masri, winner of an Albertine and FACE Foundation Prize. The recipient of more than 20 awards & honors, including the Independent Press Award and a Hemingway Grant, she holds an MA in American Literature from the Sorbonne, received fellowships from the Goethe Institute and International University of Andalucía, worked as a translator/interpreter for the Canadian Embassy, and taught at Hamilton College and Loyola Marymount University. Her own work has been translated into 19 languages.
Gail Wronsky is the author, coauthor, or translator of16 books of poetry and prose. Her latest collection of poems, The Stranger You Are, with artwork by the renowned artist Gronk, is recently out from Tía Chucha Press. Other titles include the poetry collections Under the Capsized Boat We Fly: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press); Dying for Beauty (Copper Canyon Press); Poems for Infidels (Red Hen Press); and Fuegos Florales/Flowering Fires, a translation of Argentinean poet Alicia Partnoy’s poems, winner of the American Poetry Prize from Settlement House Press.
Yun Wang’s poetry books include The Book of Mirrors (Winner of the Twenty-Sixth White Pine Press Poetry Prize 2020), The Book of Totality (Salmon Poetry Press, 2015), The Book of Jade (Winner of the 15th Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, Story Line Press, 2002), and a book of translation, Dreaming of Fallen Blossoms: Tune Poems of Su Dong-Po (White Pine Press, 2019). She is a cosmologist at California Institute of Technology, currently focusing on developing NASA space missions to explore the Universe.
Dennis Maloney is a poet and translator. A number of volumes of his own poetry have been published including The Map Is Not the Territory, Just Enough, and Listening to Tao Yuan Ming. A bilingual German/English volume, Empty Cup was published in Germany in 2017 and in 2021 a chapbook, Some Windows, with translations in several languages appeared in Germany from hochroth Verlag. Recent collections include The Things I Notice Now, The Faces of Guan Yin, and Windows. He is also the editor and publisher of the widely respected White Pine Press in Buffalo, NY.
Christopher Merrill has published seven collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, among them, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. His writings have been translated into nearly forty languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations. As director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa since 2000, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than 50 countries. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2018, and in April 2012 President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities.
Tzveta Sofronieva is the multilingual author of more than 20 books including two by White Pine Press: Multiverse (2020), a collection of new and selected poems written originally in German, Bulgarian and English, edited by J.K.Dobbs, and A Hand Full of Water (2012), which was translated from German by Chantal Wright with a 2009 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant and won the 2012 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation. Tzveta’s poetry has been translated into 19 languages. The alumina of the Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades (2005) she is currently Writer in Residence in the IWP in Iowa. A physicist and historian of science by training, she is also a playwright, essayist, anthologist, and poetry translator. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, she is home in Berlin, Germany.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 681 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Black Bok Chat LIVE! 3rd Year Anniversary at CSUF Institute of Black Intellectual Innovation – In-Person Event
Celebrate three years of Black Book Chat with award winning authors, food, and great Learn more about our featured performers:
Anastacia-Renee is a writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDx Speaker and podcaster. She is the author of (v.) (Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish) and, Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere and Side Notes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins). Renee was selected by NBC News as part of the list of “Queer Artist of Color Dominate 2021’s Must See LGBTQ Art Shows.” She was former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017) and Arc Artist Fellow (2020). Her work has been published widely. https://www.anastacia-renee.com/home
Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad, 2023) which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Château de la Napoule. A storyteller at literary festivals, libraries, universities, and most recently the Brooklyn, Frye, and Rubin museum’s, Manick’s work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Brooklyn Rail, the Rumpus, and other outlets. She lives in Brooklyn, New York but travels widely for poetry.
Nikia Chaney is the author of two full length books of poetry, To Stir & (Word Works Press, 2023), us mouth (University of Hell Press, 2018). She has served as Inlandia Literary Laureate (2016-2018). Her poetry has been published in Sugarhouse Review, 491, Iowa Review, Vinyl, and Pearl, Welter, and Saranac. Her memoir, ladybug, is out from Inlandia.
Parking is free on Saturdays in the State College Parking Structure. Please see this link for a detailed campus map: https://www.fullerton.edu/campusmap/ company!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: George G. Golleher Alumni House, CSUF
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 10 am – 12 pm
Address: 800 North State College Boulevard Fullerton, CA 92831
Social Justice Book Club at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids Event
Literature can transform the way we look at the world. Join children’s librarians from the Los Angeles Public Library to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family.
Participants will discuss September’s selection, What Is a Refugee? by author Elisa Gravel.
RSVP:
Email cquinn@lapl.org for the meeting link.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/social-justice-book-club
Westwood Book Club: The Swimmers at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Westwood Branch Book Club meets every second Saturday of the month and participants will discuss this month’s selection, The Swimmers, by author Julie Otsuka.
Read the book and join our lively discussion!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-3
Book Discussions: The Rabbit Hutch at Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Palms-Rancho Park Branch Book Club meets every second Saturday of the month and participants will discuss this month’s selection, The Rabbit Hutch, by author Tess Gunty.
Join us for lively discussions of various books and topics. Copies are available at the reference/information desk and on our website as ebooks. Books selected from the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-discussions
Poetry Workshop for Adults at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
This event is an inclusive, in-person poetry workshop for adults, where poets of all levels can come together, share their work, and foster a vibrant poetry community. Participants are invited to bring a poem, no longer than one page, to read and receive valuable feedback from fellow poets. Engage in thoughtful discussions and provide your own insights on the work of others. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just starting out, this workshop offers a supportive environment to refine your craft, connect with like-minded individuals, and celebrate the power of words.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-0
Writing the World: A Poetry Workshop with Chritopher Merrill at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Writing the World: How Poems in Translation Can Inspire New Journeys in Poetry is a generative poetry workshop led by Christopher Merrill. It will explore how poetry in translation can inspire new work, discussing several examples from different literary traditions to lay the groundwork for a series of writing exercises designed to produce drafts of new poems.
Christopher Merrill has published seven collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, among them Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. His writings have been translated into nearly 40 languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations. As director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa since 2000, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than 50 countries. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2018, and in April 2012, President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities.
One scholarship will be awarded to a QTPOC/BIPOC L.Á.-residing individual who would like to join but does not have the means to do so. Please email us if interested at info@beyondbaroque.org.
NOTE: See site for further details, costs, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 2 pm
Address: 681 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Vroman’s Special Storytime: Donn Swaby & It’ll Be Irie: Staying True to Yourself at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Author Donn Swaby will discuss and read It’ll Be Irie: Staying True to Yourself.
In this story, Raymond can’t wait to move to America. He is determined to be the most American American ever! But when he gets to his new school his Jamaican roots show through and he must figure out how to be the most Raymond Raymond ever.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Special-Storytime-Susi-Schaefer-The-Glow-Show
So You Want to Be a Writer: Workshop with James Coats at Riverside Main Library – In-Person Teens Event
Author and writer James Coats will lead a free writing workshop for teens ages 13-19 on Saturdays from September 9 through November 11, 2023.
This fall, Inlandia brings college-level creative writing workshops to teen-aged creatives thanks to a unique partnership with the City of Riverside Library. Led by James Coats, working writers drawn from the area community will lead teens through a ten-week progressive series. The program will be held at the Riverside Main Library on Saturdays beginning September 9, from 12:00 – 2:00 PM.
Workshop leader James Coats, himself an author, poet, and educator, will welcome a new guest writer each week, offering teens the opportunity to learn from professional working writers in a library environment. Topics will include: poetry, and the different modes of poetic expression; memoir and memory; fiction writing including micro fiction, flash, short stories, and long-form fiction; journalism and the newspaper industry; writing for magazines and periodicals; reading and performing your work for an audience; strategies for revising work toward publication; what it’s like to be an editor; and getting published. The final session will be a public reading and discussion.
James Coats is an author, poet, and educator born in Los Ángeles and raised in the Inland Empire. He received his BFA from Cal Poly Pomona and his MBA from Cal State San Bernardino. As a creative change agent, he believes the arts can inspire youth and influence positive change in the world. His first poetry collection, If I had Lived, was published in 2018. In 2021, he founded Lift Our Voices Education, which hosts the monthly “Be The Change: Social Justice Writing Workshop.” His newest poetry collection, Midnight & Mad Dreams, is published by World Stage Press. Follow him on Instagram @MrLovingWords.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Riverside Main Library
Date: Saturday the 9th (through November 11th)
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 3900 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, CA 92501
Kids Book Club: The Raven Heir at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Kids Book Club participants will read and discuss The Raven Heir by author Stephanie Burgis.
This story is a magical new middle grade fantasy series about a young shapeshifter trying to save her family.
Deep within an enchanted forest lies a castle where a set of triplets and their sorceress mother have lived for years—safe from the decades-long war for the Raven Throne that rages in the kingdom. Cordelia, one of the triplets, has the power to become any animal with just a thought, and she yearns to discover more about the world outside her castle.
But one day, the world comes to her, when the eldest of the triplets becomes the newest heir to the throne. Knowing that being named heir means certain death, Cordelia’s mother hid the truth about which child is the eldest when she hid them in the forest. When her family is captured, it’s up to Cordelia to use her powers to keep her siblings hidden and discover the truth about the Raven Heir—before it’s too late.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/kids-book-club-raven-heir
Book Launch: Justine Pucella Winans & The Otherwoods at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person MG Event
Justine Pucella Winans will present and discuss her new book, The Otherwoods, a debut middle grade horror novel for readers ages 8+.
Justine will be in conversation with Alex Brown to share their inspiration, a short passage, and then open up to questions from the audience. After the discussion they will sign books.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/otherwoods
Local Author Charlotte Maya at the Suicide Awareness and Prevention Center – In-Person Event
In recognition of Worldwide Suicide Prevention Day, the USC Verdugo Hills Hospital Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention present the eighth annual Suicide Awareness and Prevention Conference. Local author Charlotte Maya has been asked to present her book Sushi Tuesdays: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Resilience.
Registration is required through the host of the event USC Verdugo Hills Hospital.
Faced with a shattering loss, a young widow searches for answers, acceptance, and family resilience.
After taking her sons on a hike with the family dog one beautiful fall afternoon, Charlotte returned home to find a policewoman, a policeman, and a priest in her driveway—there to deliver the news of her husband’s suicide. Charlotte knew her husband had been stressed about work, but she had no idea he was suicidal. She thought he had stayed home to take a nap…
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm
Address: 1812 Verdugo Blvd., Glendale, CA 91208
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/
Poetry Workshops: Think Like Water, with Janette Valenzo at Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person Event
Free Poetry Workshops are offered at Café con Libros Press in Pomona every second Saturday of the month. Think Like Water is led by guest teacher Janette Valenzo, and youth are welcome!
Journals & Pens are provided by www.lapoetsociety.org
Register: losangelespoetsociety@gmail.com
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Café con LIbros, Pomona
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Deep Critique Writing Workshop via Saturday Afternoon Poetry – Online Zoom Only Event
Deep Critique Workshop (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines on the subject of or at least mentioning hell or heaven for Four Feathers Press online edition: Hell or Heaven by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, September 22nd).
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Book Launch: Jamie Varon, Amanda Crew, & Main Character Emergency at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Actor Amanda Crew chats with the author of Radically Content, Jamie Varon, about her fiction debut Main Character Energy. It’s Shrill plus Beach Read, but on the French Riviera, an empowering tale of a woman who’s resigned to settle in life and love, but instead finds herself on a whirlwind international adventure. Featuring family drama, a juicy romance subplot, and some publishing behind-the-scenes, Main Character Energy is about not listening to all the voices that tell you, you can’t—whether they come from yourself or your mother.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/28772
Obsidian Tongue/Open Mic Night at Café con Libros Press, Pomona – In-Person Event
Every second Saturday of the month, Ceasar K. Avelar hosts this Open Mic event and welcomes special guests.
Open Mic Night is for everyone-play a song on your guitar, read a poem, or share a story. The spoken word is celebrated!
Where: Café con Libros Press, Pomona
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calendar/
Griot Café Open Mic with Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain & Featured Guest 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 9th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Alice Lee & A Family Like Ours at Bel Canto Books at KUBO LB – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Bel Canto Books celebrates Grandparents Day with author Alice Lee and her new children’s book, A Family like Ours.
Everyone’s family is unique—and good! From sprawling extended families and close-knit units to adopted and chosen families, A Family Like Ours celebrates all those important connections we build over the years. Regardless of what yours looks like, family is a place for support, safety, growth, and inspiration. What is special, surprising, or sensational about your family?
Alice Lee is an educator, administrator, and avid children’s literature reader. She always dreamed of becoming an author. She believes in activating and transforming students through education and literacy so that they are empowered to create a kinder world. She is passionate about sharing the love of literacy and a good story to families, educators, and children. A Family Like Ours was written with all the families, groups, and communities who have impacted Alice throughout her life. Alice is a first generation Korean American. She lives in Los Ángeles with her husband and two wonderful children. A Family Like Ours is Alice’s first picture book.
A Family Like Ours by Frank Murphy and Alice Lee, is illustrated by Kayla Harren.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books at KUBO LB
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alice-lee-a-family-like-ours-at-kubo-lb-tickets-694538071067
Charlotte Offsay & Challa Day at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Join Children’s Book World for a very special Sunday story time celebrating, Challah Day, the new picture book from author, Charlotte Offsay.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 11 am – 2 pm
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Special Storytime: Nikkolas Smith & The Artivist at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Author Nikkolas Smith will discuss and read The Artivist.
In this story, when a young boy realizes the scope of inequities in the wider world, he’s seized with the urge to do more. He decides to bring together the different parts of himself—the artist and the activist—to become…an Artivist. After his mural goes viral, he sets out to change the world one painting at a time.
With text and illustrations by Nikkolas Smith, The Artivist is a call to action for young readers to point out injustice in their lives and try to heal the broken bones of the world through their art.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Special-Storytime-featuring-Nikkolas-Smith
Riverside’s Inland Empire Pride Festival at Riverside Convention Center – In- Person Event
On Sunday, September 10th, Cellar Door will be at Riverside’s Inland Empire Pride Festival. Our amazing drag queens will be doing a storytime and Cellar Door Bookstore’s owner Linda will be introducing them!
Join #PRIDE for a day of celebration, elevation, and reflection at the Riverside Convention Center. You will enjoy performances by unique entertainers, dance to the beat of up-and-coming LGBTQIA+ performers, experience queer art displays, and enjoy the company of LGBTQIA+ oriented and friendly organizations and companies.
Cellar Door Bookstore will have a booth at the festival where you can buy our books that include LGBTQIA+ experiences!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore at Pride Festival
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 12 pm – 7 pm
Address: 3637 5th St., Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/riversides-inland-empire-pride-festival
Cellar Door Book Club: The Bartender’s Tale at Cellar Door Bookstore – In- Person Event
Cellar Door Book Club participants will read and discuss The Bartender’s Tale, by author Ivan Doig.
A national bestseller, this is the story of a boy’s last days of youth and a history his father can’t leave behind.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-book-club-bartenders-tale-0
Second Sunday Poetry Series: Deborah Stewart Chinn, with Alex Frankel, at The Studio Theatre – In-Person Event
Second Sunday Poetry is hosted by Alex M. Frankel every 2nd Sunday of the month, and the featured guest this month is Deborah Stewert Chinn.
Deborah Stewart Chinn, a Louisiana native, migrated to Los Ángeles after college in the 1980’s. She began writing poetry and short stories in her early twenties. Her first book: Peraphania—A Modern Allegory was written in direct response to the 2016 presidential election and published by Luminaire Press in 2021. Her second book: Tender Verses is a collection of poetry and short stories published in 2022. Ms. Stewart-Chinn is currently editing an anthology of poetry titled…More Tender Verses scheduled for release in October and contains more than three hundred original lyrical poems. Her poem “Orchestra” was recently recognized by the Mississippi Poetry Society in the annual national poetry contest in the category of music. Tulip Press Publishers selected her short story “Eleanor and Isak” as a semi-finalist contender in their Best Short Stories of 2023. Her website: http://www.theconditionofpoetry.com is dedicated to her innate love of the lyrical poem. She recites and posts her poetry regularly on her YouTube channel: YouTube.com@deborahstewartchinn.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 5 pm – 7pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd West, Los Angeles 90068 (Near Universal Studios)
Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/
Summer Thrillers Book Launch Party: Yasmin Angoe, with Rachel Howzell Hall, & It Ends with Knight at Bel Canto Books at KUBO LB – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Bel Canto Books celebrates Summer Thrillers with author Yasmine Angoe, in conversation with author Rachel Howzell Hall (What Never Happened) to discuss her new book, It Ends with Knight.
Join us for an exciting evening at the **Summer Thrillers Book Launch Party** with authors Yasmin Angoe & Rachel Howzell Hall, hosted by Women’s National Book Association. Get ready to dive into the gripping world of suspense and mystery as these talented authors unveil their latest page-turners. For Yasmin Angoe this is the final book in her Nena Knight series, and we will be saying farewell to the assassin we’ve grown to love!
Food & Drink: Light refreshments will be available.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books at The Hangout
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2122 East 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
El Martillo Press Reading at Library Girl Literary Arts Series at The Ruskin Theatre Company – In-Person Event
The Library Girl Reading Series is hosted by Susan Hayden, author of Now You Are a Missing Person.
This month’s event features poets and authors from El Martillo Press, which publishes writers whose pens strike the page with clear intent; words with purpose to pry apart assumed norms and to hammer away at injustice. El Martillo Press proactively publishes writers looking to pound the pavement to promote their work and the work of their fellow pressmates. There is strength in El Martillo. Founded in Los Ángeles in 2023 by Matt Sedillo and David A. Romero, and launched with a diverse group of celebrated and hardworking writers who embody our working-class intellectual spirit, El Martillo Press maintains an editorial board that makes its selections for publishing.
Authors:
Sonia Gutiérrez is the author of Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña and the recipient of the Tomás Rivera Book Award 2021 and the International Latino Book Awards 2022 for her novel, Dreaming with Mariposas. She is currently a Finalist for the Book into Movie Awards. Presently, she is working on her bilingual poetry collection, Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma and her first illustrated book, The Adventures of a Burrito Flying Saucer. Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma will be published by El Martillo Press in December 2023.
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the short story collection Graft, the chapbook Burn Scars, and the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023). She’s the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Northern Californians Living with Fire out on HeyDay Books in 2024. She writes about family, culture and surviving climate change disasters.
Iris De Anda, a Guanaca Tapatia poet, speaker and musician, has been featured with KPFK, KPFA Pacifica Radio, organized with Academy of American Poets, performed at Los Ángeles Latino Book Festival, Feria del Libro Tijuana, Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, and is named one of Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color. De Anda is author of Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazon and Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent from FlowerSong Press. Find her on Instagram @lawriterunderground
Ceasar K. Avelar is the current Poet Laureate of Pomona. He is the writer in residence of Cafe con Libros Press, and the founder of Obsidian Tongues open mic. Avelar writes through the sociological lens of a blue-collar worker. He is the author of God of the Air Hose and Other Blue-Collar Poems (El Martillo Press, 2023). Avelar will graduate this summer from Cal Poly Pomona with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology.
Co-founders:
Matt Sedillo has been described as the “best political poet in America” as well as “the poet laureate of the struggle.” His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Alan Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg and various other legends of the past.
David A. Romero is a Mexican American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press), a book reviewed by Gustavo Arellano (¡Ask a Mexican!), Curtis Marez (University Babylon), and founding member of Ozomatli, Ulises Bella.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, and details.
Where: Ruskin Theatre Company
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3000 Airport Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.elmartillopress.com/events-1/el-martillo-press-library-girl
Book Launch: Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex by Sophia Giovannitti – In-Person Event
Sophia Giovannitti will present and discuss her book, Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex.
In this searching and provocative work, moving from the author’s own experiences to political analyses and the workings of the contemporary art world, Giovannitti asks how we might face the great dilemma of the art and sex industries head on: what happens to desire, beauty, creativity, and autonomy when everything is a transaction? Giovannitti finds a way to commit her life to art, to intimacy, and to freedom on her own terms.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Fantasy Romance Book Club: I’m n Love with Mothman at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents the Fantasy Romance Book Club every 2nd Sunday of the month, led by bookseller Taylor C. and featuring the September selection, I’m in Love with Mothman by author Paige Lavoie.
22-year-old Heather is suffering from an epic case of burnout. So, just like any other young influencer, she abandons her social platforms. Heather imagines spending her #unplugged days traipsing through the woods and tending to her garden. However, her cottagecore fantasy is turned upside down when a wounded cryptid crashes into her roof-and her heart.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7:15 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 