In Conversation: Shayda Kafai, with Pablo Alvarez, & Crip Kinship at Octavia’s Bookshelf – In-Person Event.
Octavia’s Bookshelf will host author Shayda Kafai, in conversation with author Pablo Alvarez, to discuss her book, Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice and Art Activism of Sins Invalid!
Crip Kinship explores the art-activism of Sins Invalid, a San Francisco Bay Area-based performance project, and its radical imaginings of what disabled, queer, trans, and gender nonconforming bodyminds of color can do: how they can rewrite oppression, and how they can gift us with transformational lessons for our collective survival.
The speaking event will be followed by an author signing.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Octavia‘s Bookshelf
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 1361 North Hill Ave., Pasadena CA 91104
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events/crip-kinship
Book Launch: Jeff Melvoin & Behind the Scenes at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Enter the fascinating world of showrunning, one of the most demanding job in all of Hollywood. As one veteran showrunner put it, “Showrunning is like being beaten to death with your own dreams.” As founder of the WGA’s celebrated Showrunner Training Program, Jeff will tell you why that’s true—and why it’s worth it.
Emmy award winner Jeff Melvoin has been a writer-producer on over a dozen dramatic series, serving as showrunner on eight of them. In all, he’s helped produce over 470 hours of primetime television, most recently as an Executive Producer on season three of the BBC America series, Killing Eve.
RSVP on EVENTBRITE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launch-with-jeff-melvoin-tickets-709656360277?aff=oddtdtcreator#search
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/29686
Sherman Oaks Book Club: Olive Kittridge at Sherman Oaks-Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Pulitzer Prize winning novel Olive Kittridge, by author Elizabeth Strout, will be discussed by Sherman Oaks Book Club participants at the September meeting via Zoom.
This beloved story follows the life of Olive Kittredge, a retired schoolteacher in Crosby, Maine, who deplores changes in her little town and in the world at-large but doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her, including her family members. This story offers honesty and profound insights into the human condition.
Where: Sherman Oaks-Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/sherman-oaks-book-club-olive-kitteridge-elizabeth-strout
Tom Kemper & The Monkees: Made in Hollywood at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Tom Kemper will present and discuss The Monkees: Made in Hollywood, which addresses a vital problem for rock and pop: is it the music that maters or the personality and image of the performers? This book explores the system behind the Monkees, the controversial made-for-TV band that scored some of the biggest hits in the 1960s.
The Monkees represent the cumulative result of a complex coordination of talented individuals, from songwriters to studio musicians to producers—in short, the 1960s Hollywood music industry. At the time, the new rock criticism bewailed the “fake” band while fans and audiences pushed the Monkees to the top of the charts. Through the Monkees’ unlikely success, this book illustrates the commercial genius of the Hollywood system and its legacy in popular music today.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/tom-kemper
Main Library Book Group: Lincoln in the Bardo via Santa Monica Main Library, SMPL – Online Event
SMPL Main Library Book Group participants will discuss the novel Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel, by author George Saunders, at the September meeting via Zoom.
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.
Where: Santa Monica Main Library, SMPL
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20September%202023(1).pdf
At Skylight: David Connor, with Morgan Parker, & Oh God, The Sun Goes at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
David Connor, in conversation with Morgan Parker, will discuss his book, Oh God, The Sun Goes.
The sun has disappeared from the sky. No one can explain where it has gone, but one wayward traveler is determined to try. As our unnamed narrator begins his odyssey across the parched landscapes of the American Southwest, he is drawn into a web of illusion and mystery, a shifting astral mindscape that shimmers with the aftermath of loss—and the promise of redemption.
Oh God, the Sun Goes is a hallucinatory and deadpan picaresque that suddenly swerves into a love story of soaring poignance. Truly “the stuff that dreams are made of” – or maybe nightmares?
David Connor studied at Pomona College and the California Institute of the Arts, where he was the recipient of the William H. Ahmanson Endowed Scholarship Award. He lives in New York City and Montreal, Canada. Oh God, the Sun Goes Down is his first novel.
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.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-david-connor-presents-oh-god-sun-goes-w-morgan-parker
Double Book Launch: Touched Out and Mom Rage at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents a double book launch: Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control by Amanda Montei and Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood, by Minna Dubin.
The authors will be in conversation with Melissa Goldstein of Mother Tongue.
Amanda Montei has a PhD in English literature from SUNY at Buffalo and an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She is also the author of Two Memoirs (Jaded Ibis). Her essays and criticism have appeared at Slate, Mother Tongue, Vox, HuffPost, Electric Literature, The Believer, The Rumpus, Ms. Magazine blog, American Book Review, and others. She teaches writing and lives in California with her husband and two children.
Minna Dubin’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Romper, Parents, and elsewhere. As a leading feminist voice on mom rage, Minna has appeared on MSNBC, Good Morning America, The Tamron Hall Show, NBC10 Boston, and NPR. She lives in Berkeley, CA with her husband, two kids, and no pets because enough is enough.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Marcie Bianco & Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and The Feminist Fight for Freedom at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Marci Bianco will present and discussBreaking Free: The Lie of Equality and The Feminist Fight for Freedom.
For more than a century, women have fought for equality. Yet, time and again, their battles have fallen short. Even so-called constitutionally protected equal rights can be withdrawn by judges and undermined by legislators. But the greater problem is in the notion of equality itself.
In Breaking Free, culture writer Marcie Bianco persuasively argues that the very concept of equality is a fallacy, an illusory goal that cannot address historic forms of discrimination and oppression. Starting with the campaign for women’s suffrage and traveling through modern history, she shows us how equality has been designed to keep women and disenfranchised communities chasing an unobtainable goal. Conditioned for generations to want equality, it has become an insidious mindset locking us into the gender binary and reductive identity politics. Bianco calls upon a long-overlooked lineage to argue that only freedom can liberate feminism from these constraints and proposes three freedom practices for women to reclaim their bodily autonomy and power.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E, Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Marcie-Bianco-discusses-Breaking-Free
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 18th
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-717876527017
Under the Mic Influence & Open Mic featuring Nadia Hunter Bey 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 Nadia Hunter Bey.
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.
DM now to get at the #openmic!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, and details.
Where: LB Unified Bar & Lounge
Date: Monday the 18th
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://allevents.in/long%20beach/under-mic-influence/10000595248954647
Cedrick the Entertainer, with Kevin Frasier, & Flipping Boxcars at Live Talks LA at New Roads School – In-Person Event
Cedrick the Entertainer, in conversation with Kevin Frasier, will present and discuss his novel,Flipping Boxcars.
The first novel from one of the original Kings of Comedy, Cedric “The Entertainer,” an engaging and entertaining crime caper that is a valentine to close-knit black families and tightly woven communities struggling to get by during the Depression and World War II.
Actor/comedian Cedric Kyles (a.k.a. Cedric The Entertainer) career spans more than thirty years as a performer on the stage, in film, and on television. He is the star and executive producer of the CBS Television hit comedy The Neighborhood, for which he won a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. Cedric’s other television credits include the comedy series The Soul Man and The Steve Harvey Show.
Kevin Frazier is an American is co-host of Entertainment Tonight and the founder and owner of the urban entertainment website HipHollywood.com.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre, New Roads School, Herb Alpert Educational Village
Date: Monday the 18th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/cedric-the-entertainer/
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.
Three facilitators will allow more people to join this workshop. Participants will be randomly assigned to a group, and that group will rotate facilitators throughout the 4 weeks.
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).
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 19th (through September 25th)
Time: 10 am –11:30 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://allevents.in/online/tell-it-slant-poetry-revision-workshop/10000696658824297
Mysterious Book Club: Wicked Autumn via Pacific Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Mysterious Book Club participants will discuss Wicked Autumn by author G.M. Malliet. Wicked Autumn is the first in a series introducing Max Tudor, a retired MI5 agent turned vicar. Not long after his arrival, the unpopular president of the Women’s Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max’s MI5 training quickly kicks in, and before long, he suspects foul play. Wicked Autumn sharply skewers the quintessential English village in a cunningly modern version of the traditional drawing room mystery.
Where: Pacific Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-kids-snot-goblins
eJunky by Nicholas Tana: Author Meet & Greet, Book Signing & Reading at Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Author Nicholas Tana presents eJunky, a captivating futuristic noir set in 2055 that challenges our reliance on technology and blends elements of horror, dystopia, and sci-fi with a gritty detective narrative to excite and entertain readers. This event includes a sci-fi panel discussion on the impact of technology in our lives moderated by the author.
Author & Panel Moderator: Nicholas Tana, Author of eJunky and CEO Smart Media L.L.C. – Disney author, Amazon award-winning director, actor, musician, and owner of the IT consulting and production company.
Sci-Fi VIP Guests: Charles Chiodo, production designer, Concept/Character Design Illustrator & Effects Artist for Chiodo-Bros. Productions. He co-wrote and was the production designer of Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Davy Perez, writer and executive producer for the Star Trek Discovery spin-off Star Trek: Strange – New Worlds. Born on Halloween night, his other writing includes the popular TV series Supernatural and American Crime. Michelle Pincus, Chairman, Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and Chair of Loscon 49 2023—The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) is the world’s oldest continuously active science-fiction & fantasy club and Loscon is the Los Angeles area’s longest running Science Fiction Fan Convention. Robert Tercek, Co-Host, The Futurists Podcast, Author and Content Creator—Globally renowned interactive content creator across digital platforms, including satellite TV, game consoles, broadband internet, interactive TV, and mobile networks.
Joining by Video: Steven Barnes, Author, TV Writer of Award-Winning Shows, a science fiction, fantasy & mystery writer, including an Emmy-winning episode of The Outer Limits and other shows including Stargate SG-1 and Andromeda.
Where: Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 2920 Overland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/authorbook-launch-ejunky-nicholas-tana
Classic Detectives Book Club: Deadline at Dawn at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Classic Detectives Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, Deadline at Dawn, by author Cornell Woolrich.
Born George Hopley-Woolrich, Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) is the pen name most often employed by one of America’s best crime and noir writers, whose other pseudonyms included George Hopley and William Irish, the moniker under which Waltz into Darkness was first published. His novels were among the first to employ the atmosphere, outlook, and impending sense of doom that came to be characterized as noir and inspired some of the most famous films of the period, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black, The Phantom Lady, and celebrated B-movies such as The Leopard Man and Black Angel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/classic-detectives-book-club-deadline-dawn
Book Talk: Edward Cahill, with Rasheed Newson, & Disorderly Men at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Edward Cahill, in conversation with Rasheed Newson, will read and discuss his book, Disorderly Men
Three gay men in pre-Stonewall New York City find their fates thrown together in the police raid of a Village bar. The three men find themselves in a police wagon together, their hidden lives threatened to be revealed to the world. Blackmail, a private investigator, a disappearance, and a quest for retribution, propel this story to its piercing conclusion, as each man meets the boundaries of his own fear, love, and shame.
Edward Cahill is a Professor of English at Fordham University and has published numerous articles in many literary journals. His debut novel, Disorderly Men, will be published by Empire State Editions for Fordham University Press in September 2023.
Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. My Government Means to Kill Me, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist and a New York Times Editor’s choice, is his debut novel. My Government Means to Kill Me was named a ‘best’ book of 2022 by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Debutiful, the Tattered Cover, and the New York Times. It was named a ‘best’ LGBTQ book of the year by Queerty, them, and the Gay Times.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/disorderly-men-by-edward-cahill-tickets-695737969997?aff=oddtdtcreato
In Conversation: Hannah V. Sawyerr, with Diane Marie Brown, & All the Fighting Parts at Octavia’s Bookshelf – In-Person Event.
Octavia’s Bookshelf will host author Hannah V. Sawyerr, in conversation with author Diane Marie Brown, to discuss her book, All the Fighting Parts.
All the Fighting Parts is a searing and defiant young adult novel in verse about reclaiming agency after a sexual assault within the church community.
Sixteen-year-old Amina Conteh has always believed in using her voice as her weapon—even when it gets her into trouble. After cursing at a classmate, her father forces her to volunteer at their church with Pastor Johnson.
But Pastor Johnson isn’t the holy man everyone thinks he is.
When Pastor Johnson is arrested for a different crime, the community is shaken and divided; some call him a monster and others defend him. But Amina is secretly relieved. She no longer has to speak because Pastor Johnson can’t hurt her anymore—or so she believes.
To regain her voice and sense of self, Amina must find the power to confront her abuser—in the courtroom and her heart—and learn to use all the fighting parts within her.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Octavia‘s Bookshelf
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 1361 North Hill Ave., Pasadena CA 91104
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events/all-the-fighting-parts-hanna-v-sawyerr
Third Tuesday Book Club: The Night Tiger at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Third Tuesday Book Club participants will discuss The Night Tiger: A Novel, by author Yangsze Choo.
Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin plunges into a dark adventure: a mirror world of secrets and superstitions.
Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.
As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.
Yangsze Choo’s The Night Tiger pulls us into a world of servants and masters, age-old superstition and modern idealism, sibling rivalry and forbidden love. But anchoring this dazzling, propulsive novel is the intimate coming-of-age of a child and a young woman, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.
Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/3rd-tuesday-book-club-1
Mike Rothschild, with Anna Merlan, & Jewish Space Lasers at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Mike Rothschild, in conversation with Anna Merlan, will discuss his book,Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories.
In 2018 Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media to share her suspicions that the California wildfires were started by ‘space solar generators’ which were funded by wealthy, influential backers. Instantly, thousands of people rallied around her, blaming the fires on “Jewish space lasers” and, ultimately, the Rothschild family.
For more than 200 years, the name “Rothschild” has been synonymous with two things: great wealth, and conspiracy theories about what they are “really doing” with it. Almost from the moment Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons emerged from the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt to revolutionize the banking world, the Rothschild family has been the target of myths, hoaxes, bizarre accusations, and constant, virulent antisemitism. Over the years, they have been blamed for everything from the sinking of the Titanic, to causing the Great Depression, and even creating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories is a deeply researched dive into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family – from the “pamphlet wars” of Paris in the 1840s to the dankest pits of the internet today. Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, who isn’t related to the family, sorts out myth from reality to find the truth about these conspiracy theories and their spreaders. Who were the Rothschilds? Who are they today? Do they really own $500 trillion and every central bank in addition to “controlling the British money supply?” Is any of this actually true? And why, even as their wealth and influence have waned, do they continue to drive conspiracies and hoaxes?
Mike Rothschild is a journalist and conspiracy theory expert. He is the author of The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything. Rothschild has been interviewed by CNN, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and the New York Times among many others to discuss conspiracy theories. He has also testified to Congress on the threat of election disinformation. He lives in Southern California.
Anna Merlan is a journalist and the author of the 2019 book Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Mike-Rothschild-Anna-Merlan-Author-signing
Conchas y Café Zine Workshop: Fall Semester Theme: “Out of Place” at DSTL Arts – Online Event
This is a virtual only writing workshop. Register now atGoogle Classroom (app or web). Registration code: kdcmthg.
For more information: DSTLArts.org/conchasycafezine.
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Tuesday the 19th (through 12/19/23)
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw0cb1GLt-6/
Friends of Hyde Park Book Club at Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Third Tuesday Book Club participants will discuss a different book every time they meet. if you’d like to know which one they’re reading next, call us at the branch, 323-750-7241.
Where: Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 2205 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/friends-hyde-park-book-club
Book Club: A Map for the MIssing at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well Book Club participants will discuss A Map for the Missing by author Belinda Huijuantang.
This story is an epic, mesmerizing debut novel set against a rapidly changing post–Cultural Revolution China. A Map for the Missing reckons with the costs of pursuing one’s dreams and the lives we leave behind.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/29699
Marco McPeek Villatoro & Speak of It at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Marco McPeek Villatoro will discuss his new memoir, Speak of It.
In Speak of It, Marcos McPeek Villatoro explores how he channeled his Latino roots to come to terms with the childhood sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a relative in his home in Appalachia, and he recounts his ensuing struggle with trauma and mental illness.
The son of a Salvadoran mother and Scotch Irish mechanic father, Marcos spent much of his life trying to break away from his Southern Appalachian past and the trauma experienced there and striving to get closer to his Salvadoran heritage. His journey includes steeping himself in the Spanish language and Latin American literature, especially the work of Gabriel García Marquez; a stint in Nicaragua with Witness for Peace, followed by missionary work in Guatemala; and social-justice work with Mexican migrant farmworkers in Alabama. Each experience brought him closer to understanding where he came from and to forging an identity as a whole self in the wake of trauma.
Riveting, horrifying, moving, and inspiring, Speak of It is a testament to the healing power of language, books, and identity. (High Road Books)
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/marcos-mcpeek-villatoro-discusses-speak-it-memoir
Mystery Book Club: Velvet Was the Night via Santa Monica Library, SMPL – Online Event
SMPL Mystery Book Group participants will discuss the novel Velvet Was the Night, by author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, will be discussed by participants at the September meeting via Zoom.
Velvet Was the Night, a simmering historical noir, is about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of the missing woman they’re both desperate to find.
Where: Santa Monica Library, SMPL
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20September%202023(1).pdf
At Skylight: Mona Awad, with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, & Rouge at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Mona Awad, in conversation with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, will discuss her horror-
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.
Mona Awad is the author of the novels All’s Well, Bunny, and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl. Bunny was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and the New England Book Award. It was named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, and the New York Public Library. It is currently being developed for film with Bad Robot Productions. All’s Well was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Awad’s forthcoming novel Rouge, is being adapted for film by Fremantle and Sinestra. This spring, Margaret Atwood named Awad her ‘literary heir’ in The New York Times’s T Magazine. She teaches fiction in the creative writing program at Syracuse University and is based in Boston.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels—Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize—and a story collection, Likes. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, and The Best American Short Stories. The recipient of an O. Henry Award, a Whiting Award, and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of “20 Under 40” fiction writers by The New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-mona-awad-presents-rouge-w-sarah-shun-lien-bynum
Book Launch: Anna Biller, with Tosh Berman, & Bluebeard’s Castle at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents the book launch of Bluebeard’s Castle by Anna Biller, in conversation with Tosh Berman.
Anna Biller is a filmmaker and a writer known for her feminist point of view, and for her meticulously crafted visual design. The New York Times called her cult film The Love Witch “a hothouse filled with deadly and seductive blooms,” and Indiewire called her debut feature Viva “a pitch perfect resurrection of the Valley of the Dolls days of cinema.” She is currently in development for a ghost movie set in medieval England.
Tosh Berman is the author of the memoir TOSH: Growing Up in Wallace Berman’s World (City Lights Books, 2019), Sparks-Tastic (Rare Bird, 2014), and a book of poetry, The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding (Penny-Ante, 1990/2014).
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Denene Millner, with Tina Lifford, & One Blood at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Denene Millner, in conversationwith Tina Lifford, will present and discuss her novel,One Blood.
One Blood explores the lives of three generations of women tied together by love, hope, dreams, ambition…and family secrets in this epic novel.
Potent, poetic, powerful, told with deep love, and spanning from the Great Migration to the civil unrest of the 1960s to the quest for women’s equality in early 2000s, Denene Millner’s beautifully wrought novel explores three women’s intimate, and often complicated, struggle with what it truly means to be to be family. (Forge)
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E, Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Denene-Millner-discusses-One-Blood
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with Tano Rubio – Virtual Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Tano Rubio.
Tano Rubio is a poet, writer & teacher from East Tennessee. He has published or forthcoming work in Recenter Press, Bodega, Rattle, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Review & Reckoning: Tennessee Writers on 2020.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
Tuesday Night Café: The Rough Draft Show in Little Tokyo – In-Person & Hybrid Event
The Tuesday Night Café & Open MIc Series is an Asian American grassroots and volunteer-based organization fiercely devoted to bridging communities by providing programming and interactive spaces for people to connect through artistic expression and strong, creative, community partnerships.
Founded in 1998, it has grown into a community of artists, organizers, activists, professionals, independent business owners, educators, and community members.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Tuesday Night Café
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles, CA, 90012
Website: https://www.tuesdaynightproject.org/tnc-schedule
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 19th
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 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 19th
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
Bernie Taupin, with Cameron Crowe, & Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me at Aratani Theatre, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center – In-Person Event
Bernie Taupin, in conversation with Cameron Crowe, will present and discuss his memoir, Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me.
This memoir is an evocative, clear-eyed, and revealing memoir by Bernie Taupin, the lyrical master and long-time collaborator of Elton John.
Bernie Taupin has worked in partnership with legendary singer, composer and pianist Elton John since 1967—one of the most successful and long-running musical collaborations in music history. Taupin wrote the lyrics for most of John’s famous hits, including “Rocket Man,” “Candle in the Wind,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Your Song,” “I’m Still Standing.” John and Taupin received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement Grammy, an Academy Award, and many more. In 2022, Taupin was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music.
Cameron Crowe is a journalist, author, writer, producer, director, actor, lyricist, and playwright. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Grammy Award as well as a nomination for a Tony Award. Crowe famously began his career as a teenaged journalist covering rock bands on tour for Rolling Stone magazine in 1973.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Aratani Theatre, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
Date: Tuesday the 19th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 244 S. San Pedro St., Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/bernie-taupin/
Coffee Time Book Club: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Coffee Time Book Club participants will discuss The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by celebrated author James McBride.
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
James McBride is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill ’Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 10 am
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-21
Visiting Author Series: Ruth Nolan & After the Dome Fire at Pasadena City College – In-Person Event
PCC’s Visiting Author Series welcomes writer and educator Ruth Nolan, who will read from After the Dome Fire and touch on Mojave Desert topics such as wildfires and hurricanes in the desert.
Ruth Nolan is a former wildland firefighter for the BLM-California Desert District and U.S. Forest Service, is a prolific California desert writer and scholar who grew up in the Mojave Desert and now lives in the Coachella Valley, where she is professor of English, creative writing and Native American literature at College of the Desert.
Free and open to everyone!
Where: PCC, Creveling Lounge
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 1570 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91106
Website: N/A (Facebook)
Book Club: Midnight Library at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Granada Hills Branch Library Book Club participants will discuss the novel Midnight Library, by author Matt Haig.
The High Window by Raymond Chandler is a 1942 novel in which private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy widow Elizabeth Bright Murdock to recover a missing Brasher Doubloon, a rare and valuable coin. Mrs. Murdock suspects it was stolen by her son’s estranged wife, Linda Conquest, a former singer.
RSVP:
Please email wvally@lapl.org with “Mystery Book Club” in the subject line for information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 1:30 pm – 3 pm
Address: 10640 Petit Ave., Granada Hills, CA 91344
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-midnight-library
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 20th
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
Visiting Writers Series Event: Jai Chakhrabarti at Otis College of Art and Design – Online Event
The Visiting Writers Series at Otis College of art and Design invites you to hear Jai Chakhrabarti discuss his work.
Jai Chakhrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World, which won a National Jewish Book Award, was the Association of Jewish Libraries Honor Book, was short-listed for the Rabindranath Tagore Prize, and was long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is also the author of the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness, which was a Good Housekeeping Book of the Month and was recommended by The New Yorker and the New York Times. His short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, One Story, Electric Literature, A Public Space, Conjunctions, and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Short Stories, and awarded a Pushcart Prize. His nonfiction has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Writer’s Digest, Berfois, and LitHub. He was an Emerging Writer Fellow with A Public Space, received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College, and is a trained computer scientist. Born in Kolkata, India, he now lives in New York with his family.
NOTE: See site for registration, link, and details.
Where: Otis College of Art and Design
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 4 pm PT
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: https://www.otis.edu/calendar/jai-chakhrabarti-visiting-writers-series
Middle Grade Book Club: Mixed Up at pages: a bookstore – In-Person MG Event
Middle Grade Book Club participants will discuss Mixed Up, by author Gordon Korman.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/middle-grade%C2%A0book-club-3
Altadena Poets Laureate Present: Poetics of Location Workshop with Mike the PoeT Sonksen at Altadena Library – In-Person & Hybrid Event
The Altadena Library Poet Laureates invite you to a Poetics of Location Workshop with Mike the PoeT Sonksen.
Come write a place poem drawing on your life experience, family history, the landscape all around you, and your imagination with 3rd-generation Angeleno, Mike Sonksen, aka Mike the PoeT.
This program is made possible by the Altadena Library Foundation and the Friends of the Altadena Library.
This event is made possible by the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Mellon Foundation.
This event is supported by Poets & Writers. This event is supported by Women Who Submit.
Mike Sonksen—aka Mike the PoeT—is a 3rd-generation Southern Californian. Poet, professor, journalist, historian & tour-guide, his book, Letters to My City was published by Writ Large Press. He’s been giving Los Angeles city tours for 25 years. He’s written for Poets & Writers, Metropolis, KCET, Alta, Wax Poetics, PBS, LA Taco, LA Review of Books, LAist, Boom and the Academy of American Poets. His poetry’s been featured on Public Radio Stations KCRW, KPCC & KPFK & Spectrum News. Sonksen studied with Mike Davis at UCLA in 1997, he’s the Coordinator of the First Year Experience Program at Woodbury University, and he’s been awarded by the Los Angeles Press Club.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Altadena Main Library, Community Room
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 600 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.altadenalibrary.org/programs/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D169273511
Mental Health + Poetry: I’d Rather Be Lightening: Than Despair: Nancy Lynee Woo, Armine Iknoadossian, Arthur Kayzakian, and Alex Hattic, LCSW via Bel Canto Books – In-Person Event
Bel Canto Books presents an evening of poetry and discussion centered around topics of mental health and wellness.
Nancy Lynée Woo recently published her first book of poems, I’d Rather Be Lightning, about eco-anxiety and eco-grief in response to the climate crisis. “I’d Rather Be Lightning: Than Despair” invites you into the conversation about mental health during our challenging times.
Alex Hattick, LCSW, is a mental health professional and will help us set the space with an opening meditation. Then we will hear from each of the speakers as they share their poetry and conversation. We will have time for some Q&A. We will share some writing prompts for participants to take home with them.
Please be advised we may be talking about sensitive subjects, such as depression, anxiety, suicide, abuse, or addiction. The intention is to make this a safe and energizing space to talk about mental health and wellness with the ultimate intention of uplifting resilience, compassion, and connection.
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, writer, arts organizer, and climate activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is called I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, March 2023). Nancy has received fellowships from Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and Idyllwild Writers Week. Nancy has an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and a BA in sociology from UC Santa Cruz. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and online at nancylyneewoo.com or @fancifulnance on social.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Arminé Iknadossian immigrated to the United States in 1978 to escape the civil war. She is the author of All That Wasted Fruit (Main Street Rag Press). She earned an MFA from Antioch University where she was awarded a fellowship from Summer Poetry in Idyllwild. During her tenure as a teacher, The Los Angeles Writing Project awarded Iknadossian a fellowship for their summer residency. Armine serves on the Advisory Board of IALA (International Armenian Literary Association) and currently lives close to the sea with Henry the Cat. Find out more at armineiknadossian.com.
Arthur Kayzakian is the winner of the 2021 Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series award for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings, which was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also the winner of the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition for his chapbook, My Burning City. He has been a finalist for the Locked Horn Press Chapbook Prize, Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, the C.D. Wright Prize, the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and the Black River Chapbook Competition. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International and a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship. He serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from several publications including Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, Portland Review, Chicago Review, Nat. Brut, Michigan Quarterly Review, Witness Magazine, and Prairie Schooner.
Alex Hattick is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), mental health therapist, and UCLA trained mindfulness instructor, living and working in Long Beach, CA. She owns a private therapy practice, opened during the pandemic, where she supports individuals with their own mental wellness journeys. She is passionate about mental health education and sharing the gifts of mindfulness.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/id-rather-be-lightning-than-despair-tickets-717258829467
Book Launch: Adam Greenfield & Mountain Lion Blues at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Adam Greenfield will read and discuss his new novel, Mountain Lion Blues.
If the part of you that caused self-doubt had a face, would you recognize it? If your tendency to self-destruct had a name, would you know it? Told with humor, empathy and a driving narrative, Mountain Lion Blues is a surreal, dark comedy about the obstacles we place in our way that keep us from the love, success, and well-being we’ve been taught since childhood are ours to expect. Part absurdist love story and part existential noir, Mountain Lion Blues speaks to the mountain lion-sized hole in all of us.
Adam Greenfield was born and grew up in Los Angeles, which he sees as a blessing and a curse. The ocean has paralyzed him emotionally in many ways. In his waking life he works for a national social impact communications firm. He is married and has two daughters who like to bake and watch old movies with him. His second novel, Mountain Lion Blues, will be published in August by Pelekinesis.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
In Conversation: Jamila MInnicks, with Diane Marie Brown, & Moonlight Over New Jessup! at Octavia’s Bookshelf – In-Person Event.
Octavia’s Bookshelf will host author Jamila Minnicks, in conversation with Diane Marie Brown, for this event celebrating Jamila’s book, Moonlight Over New Jessup!
In Moonlight Over New Jessup, it’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into all-Black New Jessup, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion—or worse—from the home they both hold dear. As they marry and raise children together, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Octavia‘s Bookshelf
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1361 North Hill Ave., Pasadena CA 91104
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events
Book Club for Adults: at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Book Club for Adults participants will discuss Horse; A Novel, by author Geraldine Brooks.
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults
Zadie Smith, with David Ulin, & The Fraud at ALOUD Reading Series at The Aratani Theatre – In-Person Event
Zadie Smith, in conversation with David Ulin, will discuss her new historical novel, The Fraud, at the ALOUD reading series at The Aratani Theatre.
This story is based on real events involving the “Tichborne Trial,” one of the longest and most controversial trials in England during the Victorian Age. Looking at Jamaica and Britain, truth and fiction, and fraudulence and authenticity, Smith mines with great precision the intricacies and inequities of a trial that divided a country.
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time; a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free, and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in northwest London, where she still lives.
David L. Ulin is the author or editor of nearly twenty books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. He is the books editor of Alta Journal and a professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the literary magazine Air/Light.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Aratani Theatre
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 244 s. San Pedro St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://lfla.org/event/the-fraud/
Erin Carlson, with Tim Grierson, & No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of A League of Their Ownat Book Soup – In-Person Event
Erin Carlson, in conversation with Tim Grierson,will present and discuss her book, No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of A League of Their Own: Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood.
The inside story of how A League of Their Own—one of the most beloved baseball movies of all time—developed from an unheralded piece of American history into a perennial cinematic favorite. Featuring exclusive interviews and behind the scenes memories from the original cast and creators.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/erin-carlson
At Skylight: Rosanna Xia, with Steve Lopez, & California Against the Sea at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Rosanna Xia, in conversation with Steve Lopez, will discuss her book, California Against the Sea, a riveting exploration of sea level rise along the West Coast through human stories and ecological dramas.
Along California’s 1,200-mile coastline, the overheated Pacific Ocean is rising and pressing in, imperiling both wildlife and the maritime towns and cities that 27 million people call home. In California Against the Sea, Los Angeles Times coastal reporter Rosanna Xia asks: As climate chaos threatens the places we love so fiercely, will we finally grasp our collective capacity for change?
Xia, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, investigates the impacts of engineered landscapes, the market pressures of development, and the ecological activism and political scrimmages that have carved our contemporary coastline—and foretell even greater changes to our shores. From the beaches of the Mexican border up to the sheer-cliffed North Coast, the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small-town mayors, urban engineers, and tenacious environmental scientists commingle. Together, they chronicle the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future.
Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series.
Steve Lopez has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001 and is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. He is the author of three novels, two collections of columns, and the New York Times bestseller and winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Nonfiction, The Soloist. Additionally, Lopez’s television reporting for public station KCET has won three local news Emmys and a share of the Columbia University DuPont Award. His latest book, Independence Day, uses his skills not only to look inward but also to interview experts and peers to collect a variety of perspectives, as he examines the true nature of a person’s time, identity, and ultimate life satisfaction.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Wednesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, at vkaliflowers@gmail.com.
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Readings: World Stage Press authors;
- 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 20th
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 20th
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-719264638897
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Featured Guest Iris De Anda 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 Iris De Anda.
Iris De Anda, a Guanaca Tapatia poet, speaker & musician who has been featured with KPFK & KPFA Pacifica Radio, organized with Academy of American Poets, performed at Los Angeles Latino Book Festival, CECUT in Tijuana,Mexico, Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba and is named one of Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color. Author of Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazon 2014 Los Writers Underground Press, Roots of Redemption: You have No Right to Remain Silent 2022 Flowersong Press, & Loose Poems a collection of B-side poems & songs 2022 Multimedia Militia. www.lawriterunderground.com
$4 cover fee, cash only
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 20th
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/
Children’s Author: Steven Banks & Middle School Bites at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Children’s author Steven Banks will present his MG series Middle School Bites
The author celebrates the paperback release of all four books in his middle grade Middle School Bites series. This is a free event, but we hope you will consider purchasing your copy of the book from {pages}.
Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
California Town Hall, with Poet Laureate Lee Herrick via Poets & Writers – Online Zoom Event
Lee Herrick will give a (virtual) talk about the California Poet Laureateship for the Poets and Writers California Town Hall. Details and Zoom link information at site link. Register and reserve a seat.
Where: Poets & Writers
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 4:30 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.leeherrick.com/events
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 Paradox:
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 21st (and the 28th)
Time: 5 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/prosepoetry
Book Club: The Soul of an Octopus at West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
This Book Club alternates between fiction and nonfiction and participants will discuss the September selection, The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Venice-Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-library-book-club-2
Mystery Book Club: Under Lock & Skeleton Key at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Mystery Book Club participants will read and discuss Under Lock & Skeleton Key, by author GiGi Pandian.
This story is a Secret Staircase Mystery #1 in which the author intrudes her newest character and stunning architecture with mouthwatering food in an ode to classic locked-room mysteries that will leave readers enchanted.
NOTE: See sit e for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com
Book Talk: Avery Carpenter Forrey, with Sheila Yasmin Marikar, & Social Engagement: A Novel at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Avery Carpenter Forrey, in conversation with Sheila Yasmin Marikar, will present and discuss Social Engagement: A Novel.
In this bitingly sharp and darkly humorous debut novel exploring millennial wedding culture, class, and relationships, all filtered through the ever-present lens of social media.
In an opulent honeymoon suite in Watch Hill, Rhode Island’s most desirable wedding venue, 29-year-old Callie Holt is spending her wedding night lying in a bathtub shoveling down a pizza; her expensive white dress now splattered with sauce and her groom passed out in the next room. With her seven-hour-old marriage already imploded, Callie turns to the place of record – her phone – sifting through the photographic evidence of the past year to pinpoint where it all went wrong.
Avery Carpenter Forrey is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Cut, Lit Hub, GQ, and elsewhere. As Managing Editor at theSkimm, she cowrote the #1 New York Times bestseller How to Skimm Your Life. She holds an MFA in fiction from NYU and lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter. Social Engagement is her first novel.
Sheila Yasmin Marikar is the author of acclaimed novel The Goddess Effect, which “Crazy Rich Asians” author Kevin Kwan called “fall-on-the-floor funny, fresh, and modern.” Her work has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and many other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Montana Avenue Branch Library Book Group: Thunderstruck via Montana Avenue Branch Library, SMPL – Online Event
Montana Avenue Branch Book Group participants will discuss the novel Thunderstruck, by author Erik Larson, via Zoom.
In Thunderstuck, author Eric Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
Contact library@santamonica.gov for Zoom links.
Where: Montana Avenue Branch Library, SMPL
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar%20of%20Events%20-%20September%202023(1).pdf
Myriam Gurba, with Wendy Ortiz, & Creep: Accusations and Confessions at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Myriam Gurba, in conversation with Wendy Ortiz, will present and sign Creep: Accusations and Confessions.
This book is a ruthless and razor-sharp essay collection that tackles the pervasive, creeping oppression and toxicity that has wormed its way into society—in our books, schools, and homes, as well as the systems that perpetuate them—from the acclaimed author of Mean, and one of our fiercest, foremost explorers of intersectional Latinx identity.
A creep can be a singular figure, a villain who makes things go bump in the night. Yet creep is also what the fog does—it lurks into place to do its dirty work, muffling screams, obscuring the truth, and providing cover for those prowling within it.
Creep is Myriam Gurba’s informal sociology of creeps, a deep dive into the dark recesses of the toxic traditions that plague the United States and create the abusers who haunt our books, schools, and homes. Through cultural criticism disguised as personal essay, Gurba studies the ways in which oppression is collectively enacted, sustaining ecosystems that unfairly distribute suffering and premature death to our most vulnerable. Yet identifying individual creeps, creepy social groups, and creepy cultures is only half of this book’s project—the other half is examining how we as individuals, communities, and institutions can challenge creeps and rid ourselves of the fog that seeks to blind us. With her ruthless mind, wry humor, and adventurous style, Gurba implicates everyone from Joan Didion to her former abuser, everything from Mexican stereotypes to the carceral state. Braiding her own history and identity throughout, she argues for a new way of conceptualizing oppression, and she does it with her signature blend of bravado and humility.
Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true crime memoir Mean, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, Time, and 4Columns. She has shown art in galleries, museums, and community centers. She lives in Pasadena, California.
Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir, Hollywood Notebook, and the dreamoir Bruja. Her latest project is Mommy’s El Camino. Wendy is a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Myriam-Gurba-Author-signing
Ignite the Mic Event at Get Lit, Words Ignite Office – In-Person Teen Event
Get Lit, Words Ignite is a complete program of working with and sustaining poetic communities inside Los Angeles Schools and their neighborhoods.
Get Lit’s Ignite the Mic open mic events are offered each month for teens to expand their spoken word skills.
Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Get Lit Office
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6:30 am – 8:30
Address: 672 S. La Fayette Park Place #10, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.getlit.org/events
Small Press Creative Cohort by Curious Publishing at The Pop Hop – In-Person Event
The first ever Small Press Creative Cohort will meet up by CURIOUS PUBLISHING. At this inaugural event, we will share resources, tips, and provide valuable insight into self-publishing techniques for marginalized artists. All skill and interest levels are invited to discuss self-publishing in an open forum and gain access to CURIOUS PUBLISHING staff as we discuss upcoming funding opportunities. We believe that small press is an invaluable resource in driving forward inclusivity in the arts, and we’re excited to build a safe space for open forum discussion with you all.
All funds go directly to the BIPOC + QUEER PUBLISHING FUND, established to provide grant funding to print artists residing throughout Southern California.
To learn more, please visit SUBMIT—CURIOUS PUBLISHING.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Pop Hop
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 5000 York Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.thepophop.com/calendar
Mike Corcione & Tales from the Gutter: And Other Rock and Roll Shenanigans at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Mike Corcione will present and discuss his book, Tales from the Gutter: And Other Rock and Roll Shenanigans.
Starting his professional life in music as a nightclub DJ in 1978 working for wiseguys in clubs on Long Island, Tales From the Gutter follows Mike Corcione as he ascends the ladder of working in music at thrash metal record labels and import record distributors, leading an underground cult-favorite New York City sleaze metal band, Sweet Pain, tour managing for the platinum selling heavy metal band, L.A. Guns, promoting rock and roll nightclubs, and DJing at Peter Gatien’s infamous Club Kid hangout, the Limelight, in an era of legally drinking at 18, no-photo driver’s licenses, and the pre-crack and pre-AIDS New York City.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/mike-corcione
At Skylight: G.T. Garber & MURDLE, VOL. 2at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
G.T. Gaber will present and discussMURDLE, VOL. 2, a special interactive mystery in celebration of his new collection of 100 original murder mystery logic puzzles―a perfect gift for armchair detectives and puzzlers to hone their minds and solve a series of crimes.
There’s been a murder! But Whodunit?? During this event, clues will be hidden throughout the store. You, our intrepid detectives, will meet the suspects and explore the store, looking for the evidence. When you think you have the case cracked, only then will the killer be revealed!
G. T. Karber is the USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling author of Murdle: Volume 1. He was born in a small town in Arkansas, the son of a judge and a civil rights attorney. He graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in mathematics and English literature, and he holds an MFA from the University of Southern California. And as the General Secretary of the Hollywood Mystery Society, he has overseen the staging of dozens of immersive whodunits in the LA area.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 7 pm
Where: 1818 N. Vermont Ave.,Los Angeles, CA., 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-gt-karber-presents-murdle-vol-2
Book Launch: Jared Joseph with Guests, & Danny the Ambulance at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents the book launch of Danny the Ambulance by Jared Joseph.
Along with Jared (@sleepless_in_america_online), there will be readings from Joseph Mosconi (@harlequinknights), Erin Marie Lynch (@lyncherinmarie), and Sarah Elaine Smith (@braindoggies).
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Richard Osman, with Elizabeth Little, & The Last Devil to Die at Vroman’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Richard Osman, in conversation with Elizabeth Little, will present and discuss his latest book,The Last Devil to Die.
It’s rarely a quiet day for the Thursday Murder Club.
Shocking news reaches them—an old friend has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.
The gang’s search leads them into the antiques business, where the tricks of the trade are as old as the objects themselves. As they encounter drug dealers, art forgers, and online fraudsters—as well as heartache close to home—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim have no idea whom to trust.
With the body count rising, the clock ticking down, and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out?
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 7 pm
Where: 695 E. Colorado Blvd.,Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Richard-Osman-discusses-The-Last-Devil-to-Die
Book Talk: Franklin Foer, with Amy Chozick, & The Last Politician at The Ebell Lounge – In-Person Event
Atlantic National Correspondent Franklin Foer, in conversation with Amy Chozick, will present and discuss The Last Politician in which he opens up the first two years of the Biden presidency to us with his new book of sweeping political reporting.
Foer examines Biden’s ambitious economic platform; his controversial Afghanistan pullout; Biden’s massive spending bills; his spending on clean energy; the election deniers; and his support of Ukraine.
Foer takes us up to and into the midterm elections with this portrait of a president who has been a deal maker all of his political life, a president who has made enormous accomplishments on international and domestic fronts, but who has struggled to maintain the support of many of those in his own party.
In conversation with Amy Chozick, the New York Times reporter and bestselling author of Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling. In this wildly popular book, Chozick irreverently and sometimes painfully candidly covers Hillary through her two presidential runs.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s & Writers Bloc at The Ebell
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 741 S. Lucerne Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90005
Website: https://writersblocpresents.com/main/franklin-foer/
Crime Thriller Book Launch: Carl Vondereau & Adam Skies in Conversationat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Money Laundering … kidnapping … weapons smuggling—these are just some of the tools that criminals, mercenaries, governments, spies, corrupt corporations, and drug cartels use to get what they want. It’s a murky world where right, wrong, good, and bad are too gray for the actors to discern the difference. Carl Vonderau and Adam Sikes are both experts in these fields and write about them in their novels. Join us for a discussion about these dark worlds and how they are portrayed in fiction.
Carl Vonderau spent many years as a banker and worked in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and North Africa. He brings that rich banking and international experience to his writing. His debut thriller, Murderabilia, won Lefty and San Diego Book awards. Saving Myles is his second novel. He lives in San Diego.
Adam Sikes is the author of the international thriller, Landslide, and the forthcoming novel, The Underhanded, set for release in April 2024. Before taking up the pen professionally, Adam spent twenty-five years in national security as a US Marine and then as a paramilitary officer with CIA, having served in Central Asia, East Africa, and Europe. Adam now resides in Southern California and writes as much as he can.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 21st
Time: 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/29097
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 22nd
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-50
Black Lit Book Club: Monsters We Defy at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Black Lit Book Club participants will discuss Monsters We Defy, by author Leslye Penelope.
Washington D. C., 1925: Clara Johnson can talk to spirits—a gift that saved her during her darkest moments, now a curse that’s left her indebted to the cunning spirit world. So when a powerful spirit offers her an opportunity to gain her freedom, Clara seizes the chance, no questions asked. The task: steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the District.
NOTE: See sit e for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/black-lit-book-club-monsters-we-defy
Justin C. Key, with Cory Doctrow, & The World Wasn’t Ready for You: Stories at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Justin C. Key has long been obsessed with monsters. Reading R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps as a kid, he imagined himself battling monsters and mayhem to a triumphant end. But when watching Scream 2, in which the movie’s only Black couple is promptly killed off, he realized that the Black and Brown characters in his favorite genre were almost always the victim or villain—If they were portrayed at all.
In The World Wasn’t Ready for You, Key expands and subverts the horror genre to expertly explore issues of race, class, prejudice, love, exclusion, loneliness, and what it means to be a person in the world, while revealing the horrifying nature inherent in all of us.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/justin-c-key
At Skylight: Lynnée Denise, with Morgan Rhodes & Oliver Wang, & Why Millie Mae Thornton Matters at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Lynnée Denise, in conversation with Morgan Rhodes & Oliver Wang, discuss a queer, Black “biography in essays” about the performer who gave us “Hound Dog,” “Ball and Chain,” and other songs that changed the course of American music.
Born in Alabama in 1926, raised in the church, appropriated by white performers, buried in an indigent’s grave—Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s life events epitomize the blues—but Lynnée Denise pushes past the stereotypes to read Thornton’s life through a Black, queer, feminist lens and reveal an artist who was an innovator across her four-decade-long career.
Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters “samples” elements of Thornton’s art—and, occasionally, the author’s own story—to create “a biography in essays” that explores the life of its subject as a DJ might dig through a crate of records.
Lynnée Denise is an artist, writer, and DJ. She was the Sterling Brown ’22 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College, and she is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Morgan Rhodes has worked as a music supervisor in both the television space Queen Sugar (OWN) Dear White People (Netflix) Unprisoned (Onyx/Hulu),Run The World (Starz) and Sony Pictures forthcoming animated Young Love, and in film -Selma (Paramount), Mixtape (Netflix), Space Jam 2 (WB) and The Color Purple (WB) slated for release on Christmas Day 2023.
Oliver Wang is a professor of sociology at CSU-Long Beach and writes regularly on popular culture and society. He was one of the former editors for the Music Matters series and co-hosted the Heat Rocks podcast alongside Morgan Rhodes. He’s currently curating an upcoming 2025 exhibit, Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Southern California.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Friday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Where: 1818 N. Vermont Ave.,Los Angeles, CA., 90027
L.A. Book Launch: Teresa Mei Chuc, with Guests, & Incidental Takes at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Teres Mei Chuc will present her collection Incidental Takes, featuring an exciting array of other authors as guests:
Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam and fled her Vietnamese homeland with her mother and brother shortly after the American war in Việt Nam spending three and a half months in a freight boat stranded in the South China Sea before being rescued. Her father, who had served in the Army of the Republic of Việt Nam, remained in a Viet Cong re-education prison camp for nine years. Altadena Poet Laureate, Editor-in-Chief 2018-2020 and a member of the Pasadena Rose Poets, Teresa Mei Chuc is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, Invisible Light (Many Voices Press, 2018), Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014) and Red Thread (Fithian Press, 2012). Her poetry appears in journals such as The National Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, and in anthologies such as Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees (W.W. Norton & Company, 2018) and Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems (Grayson Books, 2022). Teresa’s new poetry chapbook, Incidental Takes, was published by Hummingbird Press. Teresa teaches literature and writing at a public high school in Los Angeles.
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual author born in Venezuela. She earned her BA in Modern Languages at Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas and a Masters in Education at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017) explores the intersection between immigration and mental health. Her bilingual poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento (FLP, 2021) alerts us about the fragility of our democracy. Her work has been featured in online publications: Acentos Review, The Citron Review, The Coachella Review, The Journal of Natural Wonder, La Bloga, Entropy Lady/Liberty/Lit, Nailed, Hip Mama Magazine, Rabid Oaks, Cultural Weekly, and Resonancias Literarias, and in print media: LA Parent, Spectrum v.16, The Altadena Literary Review, and Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology. Coiman writes reviews for the New York Journal of Books. A member of Women Who Submit, Coiman lives and works in Los Angeles.
traci kato-kiriyama (they+she)—based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles—is the author of Navigating With(out) Instruments, an award-winning multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, and community organizer. As a storyteller and Artivist, tkk is grounded in collaborative process, collective self-determination, and art+community as intrinsically tied and a critical means toward connection and healing. Their work is also featured in a wide swath of media and print publications (incl. NPR; PBS; Elle.com; Entropy; Chaparral Canyon Press; Tia Chucha Press; Bamboo Ridge Press; Heyday Books; Regent Press).
Angelina Sáenz M. Ed, MFA is an award-winning public-school teacher and poet whose work focuses on memory, mujeres and motherhood. She is a UCLA Writing Project fellow, an alumna of the VONA/Voices Workshop for Writers of Color and a Macondo Writer’s Workshop Fellow. Her poetry has appeared in venues such as Diálogo, Split this Rock, Out of Anonymity, Angels Flight Literary West, Every Other, Cockpit Revue Paris and The Acentos Review. Her debut book of poetry Edgecliff and her second collection Maestra (forthcoming in December 2023) are published by FlowerSong Press.
Born and raised in South Korea, Tanya Ko Hong (고현혜) is an internationally published poet, translator, and playwright who champions bilingual poetry and poets. She is the author of five books, including The War Still Within (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). She holds an MFA degree from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Tanya’s work has been published in several journals and anthologies and won the the Dritëro Agolli award at the International Korçare Poetry Festival, Yun Dong-ju Korean-American Literature Award, Ko Won’s 10th Literary Award was a finalist in Frontier’s Chapbook Contest, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2015, her segmented poem, “Comfort Woman,” received an honorable mention from the Women’s National Book Association, which she has now turned into a play which was previewed by Tabula RaSa at the NYC Theater and Performance Lab.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Friday the 22nd
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-book-launch-incidental-takes-by-teresa-mei-chuc-tickets-688609699147
Album Release & Art Launch with Melanie J and Vat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well will celebrate the launch of visual artist Vat Vierra’s new line and the release of singer-songwriter Melanie Jo’s new EP “This is probably about you…” The evening will consist of art, live music, poetry, art and merch for purchase, intention setting, and more.
RSVP on EVENTBRITE!
See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 22nd
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/29740
Author Event: Julie Buxbaum at Childrens’ Book World off-site at Notre Dame Academy – In-Person YA Event
Julie Buxbaum is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult novels Tell Me Three Things, What to Say Next, Hope and Other Punch Lines, and Admission and the comic sci-fi adventures of The Area 51 Files series. She also wrote the critically acclaimed The Opposite of Love and After You. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. She frequently has UFOs (Unidentified Food Objects) all over her shirt.
IMPORTANT: NO BOOKS WILL BE SOLD AT THE EVENT.
Books can be ordered below for pickup at Children’s Book World or shipping to home.
Register here to save your spot: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/686683377467?aff=oddtdtcreator
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Notre Dame Academy, High School Gym
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2851 Overland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Saturday Class: Writing and Performance Workshop & GLP Practice Event at Get Lit, Words Ignite Office – In-Person Teen Event
Get Lit, Words Ignite is a complete program of working with and sustaining poetic communities inside Los Angeles Schools and their neighborhoods.
Get Lit’s Saturday Class Workshop events are offered every Saturday for teens to expand their poetic and spoken word skills, and are followed by GLP Practice sessions.
Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Get Lit Office
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 10 am – 2 pm & 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 672 S. La Fayette Park Place #10, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.getlit.org/events
Mystery Book Club: Metropolis at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss Metropolis, by author Philip Kerr.
RSVP:
February’s meeting will be held via Zoom. Please contact wwood@lapl.org for Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14
Poetry Workshop at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join this inclusive, in-person poetry workshop 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 RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-0
ASL Storytime with Stephanie Nogueras for Deaf Awareness Month at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids & Family Event
ASL Storytime with actress, motivational speaker, & ASL instructor Stephanie Nogueras is an event for Deaf Awareness Month. Stephanie will present Just Ask! by Sonja Sotomayor with an ASL interpreter for both the hearing and deaf audience.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 11 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/asl-story-time-stephanie-nogueras-deaf-awareness-month
Beyond Barock: A Day of Latinx Punk, Social Justice, & Literature: Michelle Cruz Gonzalez, Juanita Mantz & Guests at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
This event brings together the intersections between punk rock music and the legal system. Though countercultural movements and the challenging of systematic norms are in constant clash with the law, we invite audiences to hear from four punk authors turned public defenders, scholars, and activists of Chicanx and Latinx cultural background.
Come on early and visit the local organizations tabling at the festival. All Power Free Clinic will be handing out mutual aid resources, like hygiene supplies, narcan, know-your-rights handouts for the public, and more. The LA Public Defender’s Office will provide information on the importance of expungement, that is, clearing a criminal record from past convictions. If you or anyone you know is in need of these services, come and ask away and start your process!
At 2 pm, we will have an open mic for the community. Come and share your poetry before the featured readers take the stage in the infamous black box theater. Punks, poets, and non-poets are welcomed! Please be respectful in the space and come prepared with one or two short pieces to share.
Punk authors & scholars Juanita E. Mantz, author of Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender; Richard T. Rodriguez, author of A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and U.S. Latinidad; Michelle Cruz Gonzales, author of The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk, and Margaret Elysia Garcia, author of the daughterland poems will be reading from their collections which complicate and reveal a shared love (and frustration) with a genre of music and belonging to a scene while coming of age and in the later part of life.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 12 pm – 7 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
So You Want to Be a Writer: Workshop with James Coats at Riverside Main Library – In-Person Teen 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 23rd (through November 11th)
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 3900 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, CA 92501
Open Mic Poetry, with Feature Deborah P. Kolodji at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Share your original poems, lyrics, spoken word, or just enjoy listening. Each poet will have five minutes to read an original work. If you wish to read, sign up when you arrive.
Our featured speaker will be Deborah P. Kolodji. Deborah is the California Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America, a member of the board of directors for Haiku North America and moderates the Southern California Haiku Study Group. She has published over 1200 haiku, and her first book of haiku, highway of sleeping towns, won a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award from the Haiku Foundation. Her most recent book, Distance, was a collaboration with tanka poet Mariko Kitakubo of Tokyo.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 1 pm
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/open-mic-poetry-1
Keepers of Culture: Poetry Reading Series & Open Mic at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us for a multinational spoken word event that will take place on the fourth Saturday of each month on-site at the Northridge Branch Library and online via Zoom. There will be an open reading included.
RSVP:
Please email Emily at eaaronson@lapl.org for the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Northridge Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 9051 Darby Ave., Northridge, CA 91325
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/keepers-culture-poetry
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: CALOKIE’S 89TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION with CARL, LUKE & MARK STILWELL + Four Feathers Press online edition: Hell or Heaven: – Online Event
Hosted by DKC and featured online only.
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Middle School Bites but September Events Rock at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Cellar Door Bookstore welcomes author Steven Banks to celebrate his MG book, Middle School Bites!
Starting middle school is a scary enough prospect for eleven-year-old Tom, but add getting bitten by a vampire, a werewolf, and a zombie to it, it gets even more terrifying! Hungry, howling, and undead, he has to navigate the difficulties of middle school, making friends, and wondering whether they’ll accept a Vam-Wolf-Zom in their midst.
Please note, tickets are $6.24 per child attending, as we will be providing Vam-Wolf-Zom food and other fun activities.
You can purchase your tickets below, and you can purchase the books from us online for Steven to sign at the event. All four books in the series are out in paperback now.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 4 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/
Author Event: Ernesto Cisneros & Efren Dividido at LibroMobile– In-Person Event
Join LiboMobile for an author event, with Ernesto Cisneros, in celebration of his new libro en espanol,Efren Dividido.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: LibroMobile
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1150 S. Bristol St., #A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/efren-dividido-escrito-por-ernesto-cisneros
Miriam’s Garden: Poetry Readings by Gloria Enedina Alvarez, Erika Ayon, William Gonzalez & Jeff Rogers at Hyde Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Miriam’s Garden Poetry Reading Series presents four guests to share their work:
Gloria Enedina Alvarez was born in Guadalajara and raised all over the place in Southern California—San Bernardino, San Pedro, the Mar Vista Projects, Pico-Union, East Los Angeles, South Central—she’s a real LA homegirl, home grown with sunglasses and all, but her poetry sprouts thick raíces that branch in and out of the United States, cross over time and space to constantly tap into memory and identity.
Erika Ayon emigrated from Mexico when she was five years old and grew up in South Central Los Angeles. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in English. She was selected as a 2009 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow. She was also selected as a poet for the Newer Poet XV reading, part of the Aloud Series of the Los Angeles Central Library. She has taught poetry to middle and high school students across Los Angeles. She is the author of the poetry collection Orange Lady, and her work has appeared in The Acentos Review, Chiricú Journal, Orangelandia Anthology, Wide Awake Anthology, Coiled Serpent Anthology, and elsewhere. You can find out more about her at erikaayon.com.
William Gonzalez is a poet and writer and the author of Black Bubblegum, from Tia Chucha Press.
Jeff Rogers is a poet and writer and the author of Right Wrong Night Song, from World Stage Press.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Hyde Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 2205 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.instagram.com/laplhydepark/
Historical Fiction Book Club: Matrix at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Historical Fiction Boik Club participants will discuss Matrix: A Novel, by author Lauren Groff.
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 5 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/historical-fiction-book-club-matrix
Book Launch: Brianne Gillen, with Jeanne De Vita, & A Kiss to Build a Grudge On at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents a book launch with Brianne Gillen, in conversation with author Jeanne De Vita, to discuss her new book,A Kiss to Build a Grudge On.
Recipe for Love: Take one chance encounter between two strangers, add a near-perfect first kiss…and temper it with a long-simmering grudge.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Tracy Daugherty & Larry McMurtry: A Life at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Tracy Daugherty will discuss his new biography of the late Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and screenwriter in Larry McMurtry: A Life.
In over forty books, in a career that spanned over sixty years, Larry McMurtry staked his claim as a superior chronicler of the American West, and as the Great Plains’ keenest witness since Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Larry McMurtry: A Life traces his origins as one of the last American writers who had direct contact with this country’s pioneer traditions. It follows his astonishing career as bestselling novelist, Pulitzer-Prize winner, author of the beloved Lonesome Dove, Academy-Award winning screenwriter, public intellectual, and passionate bookseller. A sweeping and insightful look at a versatile, one-of-a-kind American writer, this book is a must-read for every Larry McMurtry fan.
Tracy Daugherty is the author of over twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including biographies of Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, and Donald Barthelme. His work has been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-tracy-daugherty-presents-larry-mcmurtry-life
Literary Lounge with Mike Sonksen & Guests at the L.A. River – In-Person Event
Mike Sonksen willhost a Literary Lounge on the L.A. River, presented by Writ Large Projects and Woodbury University College of Liberal arts & Sciences.
Co-Host: Dante Mitchell
Featuring award-winning L.A. crime fiction author Gary Phillips, author most recently of One Shot Harry, and staff writer and co-producer of Snowfall on Hulu.
Spoken Word Performers:
traci kato-kiriyama is a literary organizer, educator, poet and writer, and the author of Navigating With(out) Instruments: poetry, micro essays notes to self.
Lisa Kwon is a writer, essayist and journalist, born, raised, and currently living in Koreatown. She will talk your ear off about Korean coffee culture and the dreadful effects of Los Angeles’ palm tree fetishism.
Linda Dove is an award-winning poet, and her books include, In Defense of Objects (2009), O Dear Deer, (2011), This Too (2017), Fearn (2019) and the scholarly collection of essays, Women, Writing, and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain (2000).
Doug Brown is a poet, writer, educator, DJ, and the author of two poetry collections, Zero to Three and Icon, an co-author with Geoffrey Davis of Begotten.
Javier Servin aka Foo Howser N/A
Tommy Domino is a spoken blues poet from Northwest Pasadena now residing in Long Beach area. He started performing at open mics starting with the Griot Café out of Long Beach in 2003. In 2012, he joined the Still Waters Writers Collective at Vibrations in Inglewood. In February 2018, he released his first collection of spoken blues: Switches, Hot Wheel Tracks & Extension Cords on World Stage Press. He became a member of the Never Speak Poets from Long Beach, hosting monthly shows in the Arts District. In 2019, he became a member of the PAFF Spoken Word planning committee member. He is an author, play writ and photographer.
Where: Happier Camper
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2960 Marsh St., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website: N/A
Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts: A Day of Latinx Punk, Social Justice, & Literature: Michelle Cruz Gonzalez, Juanita Mantz & Guests at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Live YouTube Event
The infamous multimedia poetry series, “Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts” for their return to LA for their 15th Anniversary!
The festivities, emceed by S.A. Griffin, will be a knockout celebration of the SWBG series and its new anthology Sparring Artists, which premieres at the event on September 23, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. at Beyond Baroque.
For more info or to submit short poems, flash fiction and art, send correspondence to producer/editor Daniel Yaryan at dyaryan@gmail.com.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 23rd
Time: 7:30 pm (Doors at 7 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sparring-with-beatnik-ghosts-tickets-692034201927
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 23rd
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Book Talk: Chris Harris & My Head Has a Bellyache at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Kids Event
Chris Harris will present his new children’s book, My Head Has a Bellyache.
Chirs Harris is the New York Times bestselling author of I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups, illustrated by Lane Smith; The Alphabet’s Alphabet, illustrated by Dan Santat; and If You Laugh, I’m Starting This Book Over, illustrated by Serge Bloch. He currently serves as showrunner and executive producer for the new Frasier; previous TV writing credits include “How I Met Your Mother,” “Acapulco,” and “The Late Show with David Letterman.” His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. He lives in Los Angeles. He invites you to learn more ridiculous things about him at http://www.justchrisharris.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Burning Issues Book Club & All We Can Save via Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Bel Canto Books’ Burning Issues Book Club participants will discuss All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K Wilkinson.
“Hopeful and illuminating, All We Can Save is an anthology of essays by women at the forefront of the climate crisis. So often climate writing can make us feel doomed and anxious, but this collection is a comfort because of its honesty and courage . . . a reminder that we can work with hope towards a better future.”—BuzzFeed
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Latinx Book Club: Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Latinx Book Club participants will read and discuss Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity by author Paola Ramos.
Latinos across the United States are redefining identities, pushing boundaries, and awakening politically in powerful and surprising ways. Many—Afrolatino, indigenous, Muslim, queer and undocumented, living in large cities and small towns—are voices who have been chronically overlooked in how the diverse population of almost sixty million Latinos in the U.S. has been represented. No longer.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Aftershock Dream Poetry & Open Mic & Guest Readers with Hannah Pachmann at Cosmic Vinyl Café – In- Person Event
Aftershock Dream is a monthly poetry event, typically held on the fourth Sunday of each month at 4 pm and hosted by Hannah Pachmann. The featured poets each have about 15 minutes to read, followed by an open mic.
Featured readers:
Jose Rios N/A
Dharma Lemon (she/her) is a writer and teaching artist at Get Lit – Words Ignite. Dharma is quirky and passionate. She writes about feminism, body positivity, the environment, and racial injustice.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cosmic Vinyl Café
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 2149 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.hannapatricepachman.com/aftershock-dream.html
Made in L.A. Reading Event (Rescheduled) at Sandpiper Books – In-Person Event
Sandpiper Books will host four authors from the new Made in L.A. anthology, including Trisha Marie Reichle-Aguilara, Christina Hoag, Ryane Nicole Granades, and Thea Pueschel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Sandpiper Books
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 4665Torrance Blvd., Torrance, CA 90503
Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064693238501
Group Reading: Elizabeth Ellen, Chloe Caldwell, Michelle Tea, Anna Dorn, Mira Gonzalez at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents a group reading by Elizabeth Ellen (publisher of SF/LD Books and author of forthcoming Far West book Estranged) with literary icons Chloe Caldwell (Women), Michelle Tea (Knocking Myself Up), Anna Dorn (Exalted), and Mira Gonzalez (i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together).
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
September Historical Romance Book Club & Ana Marie and the Fox at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Historical Romance Book Club participants will discuss Ana Marie and the Fox (The Luna Sisters #1), by author Liana De La Rose. This story is about forbidden love between a Mexican heiress and a shrewd British politician makes for a tantalizing Victorian season.
This book club is led by Katie S. The Ripped Bodice Orders Manager. Participants read all historical romance titles, all eras, both new and old. Ballrooms, carriages, and corsets oh my!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 24th
Time: 7:15 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 