Carole Lindstrom & Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior via Children’s Book World – Online Kids Event
From New York Times bestselling picture book author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Bridget George comes Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior, an inspiring picture book biography about two Indigenous Rights Activists, Josephine Mandamin and Autumn Peltier. Indigenous women have always worked tirelessly to protect our water—keeping it pure and clean for the generations to come. Yet there was a time when their voices and teachings were nearly drowned out, leaving entire communities and environments in danger and without clean water. But then came Grandma Josephine and her great-niece, Autumn Peltier. Featuring a foreword from water advocate and Indigenous Rights Activist Autumn Peltier herself, this stunning picture book from New York Times-bestselling author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Bridget George gives voice to the water and asks young readers to join the tidal wave of change.
Carole Lindstrom is Anishinabe/Métis and is a proud member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe Indians. She was born and raised in Nebraska and currently makes her home in Maryland. She is the author of We Are Water Protectors and Girls Dance, Boys Fiddle. carolelindstrom.com
NOTE: See site for details and link for schools to participate in this event and/or to get signed books.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 9 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
NaNoWriMo Write-in with Robertson Writers’ Group at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
November is National Novel Writing Month. Come write from 10-11 with the option to share up to ten pages of your work with the Robertson Writers’ Group from 11-12:30. Adults only, please.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 10 am – 12:30 pm
Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/nanowrimo-write-robertson-writers-group
Seniors Writing Group at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Seniors Writing Group is a new writing group for seniors. Kathy Katims, of Saved by a Story, will be leading this two-part writing group for seniors. Write, share (if you want), draft stories, and workshop them. If you’ve been thinking of trying to put yourself on paper, this is your chance. Space is limited.
RSVP:
Register by emailing kathleenkatims@gmail.com or by calling 310-569-3492.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/seniors-writing-group
Memoir Writing at Venice Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Memoir Writing: Paint Your Portrait with Words is a workshop for adults.
Your life is your legacy. Whether writing short clips for your family archives or a full-fledged memoir for publication, this workshop will help you get started. You’ll learn different methods for writing entries that will help you paint your portrait and invaluable feedback on style and content. Registration required. Email venice@lapl.org or call the branch.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Venice Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 501 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/memoir-writing-paint-your-portrait-words-0
Zine Club at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online Teens, Adults Event
The Zine Club is where our group members meet in a virtual space to co-work, chat, and share inspiration for whatever projects we’re working on. Zine Club is based on the idea of gathering to create zines, share zines we like, zines we are working on, music to make zines to, and much more.
Zine content can be personal, political, niche, artistic, or visual—there are no rules! We have zines for all ages by local and international zinesters. You can browse the collection at any of our eight “zine library” locations or search our catalog to place a hold and have your zines delivered to your nearest branch.
RSVP:
Please use link at site to join the Zoom meeting.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/zine-club-1
NaNoWriMo “Write-ins” at the Fabulous Central Library, LAPL– In-Person Event
November is National Novel Writing Month. Celebrate National Novel Writing Month with weekly “Write-In” sessions in the Literature & Fiction department’s large study room. This cozy conference-style room features wi-fi, outlets, comfy chairs, and whiteboards. Light refreshments will be served along with literary inspo. What more could an aspiring novelist ask? Come Write In!
RSVP:
Space is limited, so email fiction@lapl.org to register today.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 6 am – 8 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/nanowrimo-write-ins-fabulous-central-library-0
Live Talks LA Presents: Jeff Tweedy, with Nick Offerman, & World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music – Online Virtual Event
Jeff Tweedy, in conversation with Nick Offerman, will present and discuss his memoir,World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music.
World Within a Song is a mix of memories, music, and inspiration from Wilco front man and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Tweedy, sharing fifty songs that changed his life, the real-life experiences behind each one, as well as what he’s learned about how music and life intertwine and enhance each other.
Jeff Tweedy is the founding member and leader of the Grammy Award–winning American rock band Wilco, and before that the cofounder of the alt‐country band Uncle Tupelo. He is one of contemporary music’s most accomplished songwriters, musicians, and performers. He has released four albums, written original songs for thirteen Wilco albums, and is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. and How to Write One Song.
Nick Offerman is the New York Times bestselling author of Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fundamentals for Delicious Living, Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers, and Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop, as well as co-author of The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, with his wife, Megan Mullally. Offerman is the narrator for the audiobook of Wendell Berry’s latest, The Need to Be Whole, and co-stars in Episode 3 of The Last of Us.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: LiveTalks LA Online
Date: Monday the 13th (Virtual event for five days after it airs on video-on-demand (thru November 18)
Time: 6 pm PT
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/jeff-tweedy/
Stephen Markley, with Chris Pine, and The Deluge at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Stephen Markley, in conversation with Chris Pine, will present and discuss his novel, The Deluge.
Stephen Markley is the acclaimed author of “Ohio,” which NPR called a “masterpiece.” A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Markley’s other books include the memoir “Publish This Book” and the travelogue “Tales of Iceland.”
The Deluge is a masterful American epic charting a near future approaching collapse and a nascent but strengthening solidarity. In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/stehen-markley
At Skylight: Vincent Valdez & In Memory at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
In Memory is the first monograph on Vincent Valdez’s epic painterly tales of injustice and inequity in contemporary America.
Vincent Valdez: In Memory is the first book-length study of Vincent Valdez’s work, which focuses on subjects that explore his observations and experience of life in the twenty-first century. The results are powerful images of American identity that confront injustice and inequity while imbuing his subjects with empathy and humanity.
Vincent Valdez was born in 1977 in San Antonio, Texas. He received a full scholarship to study at the Rhode Island School of Design and earned his BFA in 2000. A recipient of the Ford and Mellon Foundations Latinx Artist Fellowship (2022), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors (2016), as well as residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting (2005), the Vermont Studio Center (2011), and the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency (2014). Valdez currently lives and works between Los Angeles and Houston. Exhibitions and Collections include: The Ford Foundation, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and The National Portrait Gallery, among others. He is represented by Matthew Brown Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Where: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-vincent-valdez-presents-memory
An Evening with Maxine Hong Kingston, with David Ulin, at Visions and Voices at USC – In-Person Event
As part of the Subir & Malini Chowdhury Foundation Distinguished Speakers Series, Maxine Hong Kingston will participate in a reading and conversation, with David Ulin.
Called an “Asian-American literary pioneer, whose writing has paved the way for many immigrants’ stories” (The New Yorker), groundbreaking novelist, poet, and memoirist Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of award-winning and influential autobiographies The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts and China Men, which blurred the lines between nonfiction and fiction. She is also the author of the novel Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book and editor of the anthology Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, compiled from the work of participants in the therapeutic poetry workshops she has led for more than 500 veterans of war.
David Ulin is Professor of the Practice of English at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, and editor of the journal Air/Light. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including the novel Thirteen Question Method, and Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
Presented by the USC Department of English and USC Visions and Voices with support from the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Foundation and our media partner, KCRW.
Admission is free. Q&A with audience. Book signing to follow.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: USC, Bovard Auditorium
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3551 Trousdale Parkway Los Angeles, CA 90089
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-maxine-hong-kingston-registration-726247414567 or https://calendar.usc.edu/event/
Lee Goldberg, with Tod Goldberg, & Calico at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Lee Goldberg, in conversation with Tod Goldberg, will discuss his novel, Calico.
There’s a saying in Barstow, California, a decaying city in the scorching Mojave desert..
The Interstate here only goes in one direction: Away.
But it’s the only place where ex-LAPD detective Beth McDade, after a staggering fall from grace, could get another badge…and a shot at redemption.
Over a century ago, and just a few miles further into the bleak landscape, a desperate stranger ended up in Calico, a struggling mining town, also hoping for a second chance…
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Lee-Goldberg-with-Tod-Goldberg-discusses-Calico
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom 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 13th
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-753879954237
Teen Voice Waves: A Poetry Workshop at Burnett with Nancy Lynee Woo at Burnett Library, Long Beach – In-Person Teen Event
Teen Voice Waves is a poetry workshop for teens to create their own poem and is led by local author Nancy Lynee Woo.
After, take the stage at Open Mic Nite and/or watch others showcase their talents.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Burnett Neighborhood Library, Long Beach
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 560 E. Hill St., Long Beach CA 90806
Website: https://www.longbeach.gov/library/events/burnett/
Middle Grade Book Club at pages: a bookstore – In-Person MG Event
Middle Grade Book Club participants read new releases of middle grade fiction. Book selection is done by voting at each meeting for the following month’s meeting.
Next meeting’s book discussion if Treasure Island: Runaway Gold, by author Jewel Parker Rhodes.
In this book the author reimagines the classic novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson in a thrilling adventure set in modern-day Manhattan, in which three children must navigate the city’s hidden history, dodge a threatening crew of skater kids, and decide who they can really trust in order to hunt down a long-buried treasure. It takes the reader through little-known Black history, and under the city of Manhattan itself.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (on the patio)
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/middle-grade%C2%A0book-club-4
NaNoWriMo Write-in at Westwood Library, LAPL– In-Person Event
November is National Novel Writing Month! NaNoWriMo’s challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.
Join fellow writers from the community as we write our novels. This is all about writing, so no reading or editing during the month. These Write-In events are all about giving you the time and space to write!
Writers of all ages are welcome. They’ll be meeting in the library’s community room downstairs. Refreshments and encouragement will be provided.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 5 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/nanowrimo-write-0
So Emotional Book Club: Curious Minds at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
So Emotional Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, Curious Minds: The Power of Connection, by authors Perry Zurn, Dani S. Bassett.
Curious about something? Google it. Look at it. Ask a question. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to this book, what’s left out of the conventional understanding of curiosity are the wandering tracks, the weaving concepts, the knitting of ideas, and the thatching of knowledge systems—the networks, the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett, is a practice of connection: it connects ideas into networks of knowledge, and it connects knowers themselves, both to the knowledge they seek and to each other.
Perry Zurn is Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University. He is the author of Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry.
Dani S. Bassett is J. Peter Skirkanich Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. They are the author of more than 300 scientific research articles in neuroscience, physics, network science, and complex systems science.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/so-emotional-book-club-curious-minds
Poetry Open Mic via Westwood Library, LAPL – Online Event
Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love! You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy. Emceed by Wyatt Underwood.
RSVP: To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic
L.A. Times Book Club Presents: AI Book Club Night with Fei-Fei Li and Joy Buolamwini – Online Event
L.A. Times Book Club presents AI Book Club Nightwith Fei-Fei Li and Joy Buolamwini discussing their books:The Worlds I See and Unmasking AI, respectively.
Joy Buolamwini is the author of Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines.
Fei-Fei Li is the author of The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI.
Buolamwini and Li will be in conversation with Times audio director Jazmin Aguilera on Nov. 14.
Times technology columnist Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, also will join book club night to discuss the wave of AI and tech books published this fall.
Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League. Her book, Unmasking AI, is the story of how she uncovered “the coded gaze”—encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products. Her Massachusetts Institute of Technology research on facial recognition technologies is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary “Coded Bias.” Born in Canada to Ghanaian immigrants, Buolamwini now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Li’s memoir, The Worlds I See, is the story of a scientist coming of age as a Chinese-born immigrant who finds her calling at the forefront of the AI revolution. Li is a computer science professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. She also is a founder of the nonprofit AI4ALL, which is aimed at increasing inclusion and diversity in AI education.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Los Angeles Times Book Club
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event on YouTube, FB & Twitter (see site)
Vroman’s Presents: Comedian Maria Bamford & Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Maria Bamford will discuss her memoir, Sure. I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere.
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it.
This ticketed event is a signing only.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
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 at Google Classroom (app or web). Registration code: kdcmthg.
For more information: DSTLArts.org/conchasycafezine.
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Tuesday the 14th (through 12/19/23)
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw0cb1GLt-6/
John Densmore & The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
John Densmore will present his book, The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial.
In The Doors Unhinged legendary Doors drummer John Densmore offers an exploration of the “greed gene”—that part of the human psyche that propels us toward the accumulation of more and more wealth, even at the expense of our principles, friendships, and the well-being of society. This is the account of the legal battle to control The Doors’ artistic destiny.
John Densmore is the drummer for the legendary rock band The Doors who have sold over a hundred million albums worldwide. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and since then, he has earned a Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition to his two books, the best-selling Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison & The Doors and The Seekers: Meetings With Remarkable Musicians (and Other Artists), his writing has also been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, the Nation, and Chicago Tribune, among others. He lives in Los Angeles.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite #33, Santa Moncia, CA 90402
Village Well Book Club: The Rabbit Hutch at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
In November, Village Well Book Club participants will discuss The Rabbit Hutch, by author Tess Gunty.
Blandine isn’t like the other residents of her building.
An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents—neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana.
Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/32593
Lilly Maier & Arthur and Lilly at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Lilly Maier will present and discuss her book, Arthur and Lilly.
What do a 75-year-old Los Angeles based rocket engineer and an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Austria have in common? Not much at first glance, but Arthur and Lilly influenced each other’s lives in a fateful way.
Lilly Maier was born in Munich, Germany, in 1992 as the daughter of Austrian journalists. She holds an MA in Jewish History from the Ludwig-Maximilians- University in Munich and a second MA in Magazine journalism from New York University, where she studied as a Fulbright scholar. Since 2012, she has been working as a museum guide for the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. She regularly gives lectures about her Kindertransport research at places like the Jewish Heritage Museum or the Leo Baeck Institute in New York or at the “Kindertransport Association” conference in Detroit.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/lilly-maier
North Fig Book Club: PEACES at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
North Fig Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, PEACES by author Helen Oyeyemi.
PEACES is a new novel about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage.
When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment—and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favorite breakfast. They seem to be the only people on board, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message…
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6040 N Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lo6lauy9
Mystery Book Club: An Honest Man at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Mystery Book Club participants read new releases of mystery fiction. Book selection is done by email voting prior to each meeting so that the following month’s book will be available at the preceding month’s meeting.
Next meeting’s book discussion is about An Honest Man, by author Michael Koryta.
Israel Pike was a killer, and he was an honest man. They were not mutually exclusive.
After discovering seven men murdered aboard their yach—including two Senate rivals—Israel Pike is regarded as a prime suspect. A troubled man infamous on Salvation Point Island for killing his own father a decade before, Israel has few options, no friends, and a life-threatening secret.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (on the patio)
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-18
At Skylight: Karen Tongson, with Guy Branum, & NORMPORN at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Normporn is an irreverent look at the love-hate relationship between queer viewers and mainstream family TV shows like Gilmore Girls and This Is Us.
Karen Tongson is a Filipino-American cultural critic, writer and queer studies scholar. She is the author of Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries (2011), and Why Karen Carpenter Matters (2019). Her writing and cultural commentary have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, BuzzFeed Reader, NPR, The Washington Post, and Public Books, as well as in the academic journals Public Culture, Social Text, GLQ, American Quarterly, and Nineteenth-Century Literature, among other public and scholarly venues.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Where: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-karen-tongson-presents-normporn-w-guy-branum
Aspic Spit: A Night of Poetry with Rena Patel, Sasha Tivetsky, kat espe, Jude, Karla Lamb, and Simone Rembert at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents Aspic Spit, a literary reading suspended in gelatin and featuring: Rena Patel, Sasha Tivetsky, kat espe, Jude, Karla Lamb, and Simone Rembert.
The now is something cast in Jell-o mold, slapping wetly against past & future. Tomorrow is a meat jelly, mayo salad, key-lime mess we are all unprepared to receive. The table shakes, the world tilts on its axis, wobbling precariously, drooling on the plate. Suspending all of us in disbelief. Don’t sink to the bottom. Come, sit with us. Eat something else.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rich Boucher – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Rich Boucher.
Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, Soft Cartel, Menacing Hedge, Drunk Monkeys, Cultural Weekly and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs to Me, a collection of poems published by Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications. For more, including works unpublished anywhere else, please check out richboucher.bandcamp.com. He loves his life with his love Leann and their sweet cat Callie.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar
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 14th
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
Live Talks LA Presents: Adam Grant, with Rainn Wilson, & Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things – In-Person Event
Adam Grant, in conversation with Rainn Wilson, will present and discuss his book,Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things.
Adam Grant discusses how we can elevate ourselves and others to unexpected heights….
Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years. His books include Think Again, Give and Take and Originals and have sold millions of copies. His TED talks have been viewed more than 30 million times, and he hosts the hit podcast Re:Thinking. He has been recognized as one of the world’s ten most influential management thinkers and Fortune‘s 40 Under 40, and has received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. Grant received his B.A. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and he is a former Junior Olympic springboard diver.
Rainn Wilson is a three-time Emmy nominated actor best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on NBC’s The Office. Besides his many other comedic and dramatic roles on stage and screen, he is the co-founder of the media company SoulPancake and host of the docuseries Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss on Peacock. Rainn is the author of Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution; The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy, as well as the coauthor of SoulPancake: Chew on Life’s Big Questions, a New York Times bestseller.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: LiveTalks LA at Aratani Theatre, JANM
Date: Tuesday the 14th (Virtual event on November 19th)
Time: 8 pm PT
Address: 244 S. San Pedro St., Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
(Paid parking available in parking structure next to venue)
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/adamgrant/
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is over 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 and special events) they hold open mic nights.
NOTE: See sign-ups, details, and guidelines at website link.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theatre.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre and YouTube Live Stream
Date: Tuesday the 14th
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
Coffee Time Book Club: Wellness at page: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Coffee Time Book Club participants tend to read new releases of literary fiction. Book selection is done by voting at each meeting for the following month’s meeting.
Next meeting’s book discussion is Wellness, by author Nathan Hill.
Wellness is about the stories we tell about our lives and our loves. When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty ’90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria.
Nathan Hill’s best-selling debut novel, The Nix, was named the number one book of 2016 by Entertainment Weekly and one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Slate, and many others. It was the winner of the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction from the Los Angeles Times and was published worldwide in more than two dozen languages. A native Iowan, Hill lives with his wife in Naples, Florida.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: {pages} a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 10 am
Address: 904 Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-22
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, 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 15th
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
Graphic Novel Workshop Series at Will & Ariel Durant Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Graphic Novel Workshop Series is an opportunity to plan, write, and design your own graphic novel during this multi-week program. Each week, participants will explore diverse graphic novels and comics in our collection, complete shorter activities in design and creation, and work on a longer project to author their own pieces. Materials provided.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Will & Ariel Durant Branch Library
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 7140 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/graphic-novel-workshop-series
Feedback Circle Workshop with Danielle Mitchell via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
The Feedback Circle is a 6-week series and is set up as both a large group and a small group breakout workshop led by Diane Mitchell where participants will take turns giving and receiving feedback on one poem. Then the whole group works together in a “traditional” workshop setting. Each class time, 2-3 people will have a chance to receive feedback on one poem from the entire group, including the workshop facilitator. Every participant will have the opportunity to schedule a 1:1 editorial session with the Feedback Circle facilitator, Danielle Mitchell.
Danielle Mitchell (she/her) is an intersectional feminist, poet, and teaching artist. She is the Founding Director of The Poetry Lab and author of Makes the Daughter-in-Law Cry, winner of the Clockwise Chapbook Prize (Tebot Bach, 2017). Danielle is a survivor of sexual assault, chronic illness, and generalized anxiety disorder. As such, both her writing and her work as a mentor are informed by empathy, equity, and radical self-compassion.
Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Vinyl, Four Way Review, Transom, New Orleans Review, Nailed Magazine, and many other journals and anthologies. She holds a dual B.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies and Creative Writing from the University of Redlands and is an alumna of the Community of Writers. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems about misogyny and the Internet.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, costs, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 5 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (via Zoom)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/feedback
Book Club for Adults: Horse at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club for Adults meets on the third Wednesday of every month for our long-running book club for adults! adults only.
Participants will discuss November’s selection, Horse, by author Geraldine Brooks.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults
Reading in Bed with Jessica via Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Event
Reading in Bed with Jessica is offered every Wednesday from 6 pm – 8 pm at 101.5FM, where host Jessica Wilson Cardenas hosts literary and performance artist guests in conversation.
Guests TBA
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: www.radioollin.org
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Fleur Pierets & Julian at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Fleur Pierets will present and discuss her book, Julian.
Belgian artist Fleur Pierets wanted to marry her partner Julian in all countries where two women are allowed to marry. The aim was to raise awareness of equal marriage rights in a positive way. But the ‘world tour of love’ was interrupted: after her fourth marriage, in Paris, Julian was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour. She died two months later. Pierets had only one thing left to do: write.
Fleur Pierets is an award-winning performance artist, writer, speaker and LGBTQ+ activist whose work balances photography and theory, performance and non-fiction. Together with her wife, Julian P. Boom, she founded Et Alors? Magazine, in which they published their conversations with queer musicians, visual artists, writers and performers, capturing the zeitgeist of a world in the midst of striving for change and its cultural awareness when it comes to LGBTQ representation in art history.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/fluer-pierets-november-15
Susannah Breslin & Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Susannah Breslin will present and discuss her book, Data Baby: My Life in a What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you’re a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are?
When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of over a hundred children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year study of personality development that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in what she feels is an abusive marriage and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped her identity and life choices. Already a successful journalist, she makes her own curious history the subject of her next investigation. From experiment rooms with one-way mirrors, to children’s puzzles with no solutions, to condemned basement laboratories, her life-changing journey uncovers the long-buried secrets hidden behind the renowned study. The question at the gnarled heart of her quest: Did the study know her better than she knew herself? Psychological Experiment.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/susannah-breslin
Erin Marie Lynch & Removal Acts at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Erin Marie Lynch will present and discuss her book Removal Acts.
Drawing its title from the 1863 Federal Act that banished the Dakota people from their homelands, this remarkable debut collection reckons with the present-day repercussions of historical violence. Through an array of brief lyrics, visual forms, chronologies, and sequences, these virtuosic poems trace a path through the labyrinth of distances and absences haunting the American colonial experiment.
Erin Marie Lynch is the author of Removal Acts. Her writing appears in New England Review, Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. A winner of Narrative Magazine’s 30 Below Contest, she has been the recipient of support from the Hugo House and the William & Ruth True Foundation. Born and raised in Oregon, she is a descendant of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California, where she serves as the managing editor of Ricochet Editions.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lo6n4dxr
At Skylight: Joanne McNeil, with Hector Tobar, & Wrong Way at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Joanne McNeil, in conversation with Hector Tobar, will discuss her novel Wrong Way, about a gig worker and the new economy.
Teresa, a woman tired of the gig economy who becomes a new hire at AllOver corporation. Although she soon learns the distance between the company’s claims and its actions is wide. But the lure of financial stability and a flexible schedule is enough to keep Teresa driving forward.
Joanne McNeil, who often reports on how the human experience intersects with labor and technology brings blazing compassion and criticism to Wrong Way, examining the treacherous gaps between the working and middle classes wrought by the age of AI. Within these divides, McNeil turns the unsaid into the unignorable, and captures the existential perils imposed by a nonstop, full-service gig economy.
Joanne McNeil was the inaugural winner of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation’s Arts Writing Award for an emerging writer. She has been a resident at Eyebeam, a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow, and an instructor at the School for Poetic Computation. Joanne is the author of Lurking: How a Person Became a User.
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller, Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, The Tattooed Soldier, and, most recently, Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino, which was published in May 2023. Héctor is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, Zyzzyva, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 7 pm
Where: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-joanne-mcneil-presents-wrong-way-w-hector-tobar
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;
- 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 the15th
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 15th
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-755486419217
Live Talks LA Presents: David Brooks, with Larry Wilmore, & How to Know a Person at the Aratani Theatre– In-Person & Virtual Hybrid Event
David Brooks, in conversation with David Brooks, will present and discuss his book,Hoe to Know a Person: The art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
This book is a guide to the art of truly knowing another person in so as to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain
David Brooks is one of the nation’s leading writers and commentators. He is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, a writer for The Atlantic, and appears regularly on PBS Newshour. He is the bestselling author of The Second Mountain, The Road to Character, The Social Animal, Bobos in Paradise, and On Paradise Drive.
Larry Wilmore has been a television producer, actor, comedian, and writer for more than 25 years. He can currently be heard as host of Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air on The Ringer Podcast Network. The show features Wilmore’s unique mix of humor and wit as he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the worlds of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: LiveTalks LA at Aratani Theatre, JANM
Date: Wednesday the 15th (Virtual event on November 20th)
Time: 8 pm PT
Address: 244 S. San Pedro St., Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012
(Paid parking available in parking structure next to venue)
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/david-brooks/
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Guest Mr. Chai Tea 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 Mr. Chai Tea. The format is to welcome a featured artist for an individual reading, as well as an Open Mic reading.
Sutichai (Chai) Savathasuk, or Mr. Chai Tea, is an autistic 3rd-generation Thai American spoken-word artist from LA. With a background in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Northridge, he blends comedy and poetry, captivating audiences with laughter and inspiration. A Sunday Jump and Palms Up Academy regular, Chai promotes empathy through his unique experiences as a nerd and adventurer, reminding us to find joy in our passions and seek connection. From mics to milk teas, hiking trails or board games, his enthusiasm for life shines through. You can find him at local boba shops and on Instagram: @mr.chai_tea.
$4 cover fee, cash only.
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 15th
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/6549034045206511
NaNoWriMo Write-in Sessions at Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
November is National Novel Writing Month! NaNoWriMo’s challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.
Join fellow writers from the community as we write our novels. This is all about writing, so no reading or editing during the month. These Write-In events are all about giving you the time and space to write!
Writers of all ages are welcome. Sessions are held in the library’s community room upstairs. There will be writing sprints (short, focused time to write) and plenty of encouragement for you.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Brentwood Branch Memorial Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/nanowrimo-write-sessions
Cover-to-Cover Book Club: The Diamond Eye at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
November Book Club participants will discuss The Diamond Eye, by author Kate Quinn.
This book is a World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history’s deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story. In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kyiv, wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son—but Hitler’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path.
Where: Mid Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club-0
Mystery Book Club: Fortune Favors the Dead at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection, Fortune Favors the Dead: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery, by author Stephen Spotswood.
Stephen Spotswood is an award-winning playwright, journalist, and educator. As a journalist, he has spent much of the last two decades writing about the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the struggles of wounded veterans. His dramatic work has been widely produced across the United States. He makes his home in Washington, DC, with his wife, young adult author Jessica Spotswood.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-fortune-favors-dead
Alan Nakagawa & A.I.R.HEAD: Anatomy of an Artist Residency at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Alan Nakagawa will present, read from, and discuss his book, A.I.R.HEAD: Anatomy of an Artist Residency.
Alan Nakagawa is an interdisciplinary artist with archiving tendencies, primarily working with sound, often incorporating various media, and working with communities.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: LibroMobile Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1150 S Bristol St A3., Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/a-i-r-head-anatomy-of-an-artist-residency-by-alan-nakagawa
Double Author Eventwith Joanne Greene and Dr. Beth Ricanatiat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
For many women, the pressure to excel at work, at home, and in all our relationships can have consequences. What does it take for us to slow down, gain some balance and perspective, and understand that we cannot control everything?
For Joanne Greene, longtime radio news anchor and talk show host, and the author of By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go, it took getting hit by a car as a pedestrian. For Dr. Beth Ricanati, whose career has been focused on improving the well-being of her patients’ lives, and the author of Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs, the epiphany occurred as she dug her hands into the dough week after week.
These two authors will share their stories as well as tips for better managing stress, moving through difficult times, and being present in a busy world.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/31764
Noir Literature and Art Event: Pratik Magazine & Darkness in Style Poetry Readingat Whittier College – In-Person Event
This event celebrates the special issue of the magazine Pratik, focused on poetry, prose, and art that riffs off Film Noir and the detective novel tradition, edited by Suzanne Lummis.
Tony Barnstone hosts this poetry event, which is open to the public. He is a poet, translator, editor, and writer of fiction, and has published several textbooks on world literature. He co-edited the anthologies Human and Inhuman Monstrous Verse (2015) and Dead and Undead Poems (2014) with Michelle Mitchell Faust. In 2012 the duo Genuine Brandish released Tokyo’s Burning: WWII Songs, an album based on Tongue of War. Barnstone collaborated with the musicians on lyrics and arrangements. Barnstone is the Albert Upton Professor and Chair of English at Whittier College.
This event also features:
Lynne Thompson is the author of three chapbooks and the poetry collections START WITH A SMALL GUITAR, Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Press Book Award and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award, and FRETWORK. She was the 2020-2022 L.A. Poet Laureate.
Alexis Rhone Fancher is a poet and photographer an the author of How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here (2017), Junkie Wife (March, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (2019). Her sixth collection is EROTIC.
Elyah Braden is a poet and mixed-media artist living in Channel Islands Harbor in Ventura County, CA. Her first chapbook, Open The Fist, was released in 2020 by Finishing Line Press. Her second chapbook, The Sight of Invisible Longing, released in 2023, was a semi-finalist in Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Competition.
Cece Peri poems have appeared, or will appear, in many publications, including Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing (Kathmandu, Nepal). Cece has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and was selected to read in the ALOUD Series at the Los Angeles Central Library. She received the first Anne Silver Poetry Award and awards from NoirCon, the Arroyo Arts Collective’s “Poetry in the Windows,” and honorable mention in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize.
Tanya Ko Hong is a bilingual Korean American poet and translator, and the author of four collections, most recently The War Still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora (KYSO Flash Press, 2019), written primarily in English. She writes in both English and Korean, and she currently translates the work of Arthur Sze into Korean.
Marilyn Robertson is a poet, copywriter, and blogger whose writer appears in numerous journals.
Peggy Dobreer migrated to poetry from a career in theatre, and is a teacher, workshop instructor, and author and editor most recently of the anthology Slow Lightning: Astonished Poetry.
Yuyutsu Sharma is a Nepalese Indian poet and journalist. He was born at Nakodar, Punjab and moved to Nepal at an early age. He writes in English and Nepali. He has published nine poetry collections including, The Second Buddha Walk: Inspired by The Second Buddha : Master of Time Exhibit at The Rubin Museum, New York, A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, Milarepa’s Bones, 33 New Poems, and Nepal Trilogy, Photographs and Poetry on Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang, as well as translations.
Suzanne Lummis was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She earned her MA from CSU-Fresno, where she studied with Philip Levine. She is a poet, teacher, writer, and literary arts organizer and mentor associated with the poem noir. Her collections include Idiosyncrasies (1984), In Danger (1999), and Open 24 Hours (2014), which received the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize from Lynx House Press.
Where: Whittier College, Hanley House
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 13406 E. Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA 90602
Website: https://www.whittier.edu/calendar/noir-literature-and-art
ALOUD Reading Series Presents: Cristina Rivera Garza & Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice at Mark Taper Auditorium, Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Cristina Rivera Garza, in conversation with Ceci Bastida, will present and discussLiliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice.
In 2019, Cristina Rivera Garza traveled from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old unresolved criminal file. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she wrote in her request to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” Knowing there is only a slim chance of recovering the file, Cristina is inspired by feminist movements across the world and enraged by the global epidemic of femicide and embarks on a path toward justice. This is her account and the outcome of an amazing journey.
Cristina Rivera Garza is the award-winning author of The Taiga Syndrome and The Iliac Crest, among many other books. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, Rivera Garza is the M. D. Anderson Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies, and director of the PhD program in creative writing in Spanish at the University of Houston.
Born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico and now living in Los Angeles, Ceci Bastida is a Latin Grammy nominated musician, songwriter, recording artist, host of Punk in Translation, and activist. Formerly part of the bands Tijuana NO, Julieta Venegas, and Mexrrissey, she now works as a solo artist and has a new album, Every Thing Taken Away. An advocate of immigration reform and prison abolition, she partners with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights as a child advocate and with Revolve Impact as a musical activist.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Mark Taper Auditorium, Central Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lfla.org/event/lilianas-invincible-summer-a-sisters-search-for-justice/
Fleur Pierets & Julian at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Fleur Pierets will present and discuss her memoir Julian.
Belgian artist Fleur Pierets wanted to marry her partner Julian in all countries where two women are allowed to marry. The aim was to raise awareness of equal marriage rights in a positive way. But the ‘world tour of love’ was interrupted: after her fourth marriage, in Paris, Julian was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour. She died two months later. Pierets had only one thing left to do: write.
Fleur Pierets and Julian P. Boom worked as an artist duo under the name JF. Pierets and created, among other things, the magazine Et Alors? On 20 September 2017, they launched their performance Project 22 in New York. Julian died on 22 January 2018.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/fleur-pierets
Book Launch: Antonia Crane & Pandemic Peepshow at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
North Figueroa Bookshop hosts Antonia Crane to launch her book Pandemic Peepshow with a panel discussion.
Clubs shut down so we built a world.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lo6m2g10
At Skylight: Chin-Sun Lee, with Katya Apekina, & Upcountry at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Chin-Sun Lee, in conversation with Katya Apekina, will discuss her novel Upcountry.
Claire Pedersen and her husband are relocating from NYC to the Catskills—they have found a terrific deal on a property in foreclosure. The house has been in April Ives’ family for three generations, but the single mother of three children from two different fathers needs the money. Claire and April are instantly antagonistic, but the sale proceeds, and renovations begin…
Chin-Sun Lee is the youngest child of North Korean exiles; both her parents having fled their native provinces for Seoul at the outset of the Korean War. After a long career in fashion design, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School in New York. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Joyland, Your Impossible Voice, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, and The Believer Logger, among other publications. She’s also a contributor to the New York Times bestselling anthology Women in Clothes (Blue Rider Press/Penguin 2014) and has participated in the Blood Jet and Lady Fest Reading Series in New Orleans, the Franklin Park, Earshot, and Renegade Reading Series in Brooklyn, and the inaugural Riverviews Artspace event in Lynchburg. She currently lives in New Orleans, working on her second novel. Upcountry is her debut.
Katya Apekina is a novelist, screenwriter, and translator. Her debut novel, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish (Two Dollar Radio), was named a Best Book of 2018 and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Katya translated poetry and prose from Russian for Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and about Mayakovsky (FSG, 2008), short-listed for the Best Translated Book Award. Born in Moscow, she lives in Los Angeles. Her new novel, Mother Doll, is coming out Spring 2024 from Abrams/Overlook.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm
Where: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-chin-sun-lee-presents-upcountry-w-katya-apekina
Book Launch: Piper Ferguson & Indie Seen at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents the book launch of Indie Seen,with renowned music photographer Piper Ferguson presenting a live Q&A at this book launch event moderated by writer and editor Steffie Nelson.
Indie, Seen is a journey through the alternative music scene via the lens of music photographer Piper Ferguson.
Piper Ferguson is a music, fashion, and entertainment photographer and director. She has spent decades shooting some of the greatest entertainers of our time through a creative, rock-and-roll lens. Her work focuses on the adventure and excitement that can be found in life if you dare to look. She is currently based in Los Angeles, California.
Longtime journalist Steffie Nelson is the editor of the essay collection Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing by Joan Didion’s Light (Rare Bird) and the coauthor of Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass (Angel City Press). Her 2022 Red Canary Magazine profile of the artist Lauren Bon received the Sigma Delta Chi award for feature reporting. She lives in Los Angeles. http://www.steffienelson.com
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Shibani Mahtani & Timothy Laughlin, with Ben Rhodes, & Among the Brave at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Shibani Mahtani & Timothy Laughlin, in conversation with Ben Rhodes will discuss their book, Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy.
In Among the Braves, Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin tell the story of Hong Kong’s past, and what the sacrifices of its people mean for global democracy’s shaky foundation.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 16th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Shibani-Mahtani-Timothy-McLaughlin-with-Ben-Rhodes-Among-the-Braves
Live Talks LA Presents: An Evening with Adam Kinzinger, with David Ono, & Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country at National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum – In-Person & Virtual Hybrid Event
Adam Kinzinger, in conversation with David Ono, will present and discuss his book,Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country.
Once a rising star of the Republican Party, Adam Kinzinger became a traitor when he voted to impeach Donald Trump after the January 6 attacks on the Capitol. Now he shares a gripping firsthand account of the events that led to this moment, and the sacrifice required to do what is right.
Adam D. Kinzinger served in the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2023, representing Illinois’ Sixteenth Congressional District. During his tenure, he served on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, as well as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Prior to being elected to Congress, Kinzinger served in the Air Force in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard and a Senior Political Commentator on CNN.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum
Date: Thursday the 16th (Virtual event on November 15th)
Time: 8 pm
Address: 100 North Central Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-adam-kinzinger-tickets-715542265177?aff=oddtdtcreator
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 17th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club: saving time at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss November’s selection, Saving time: discovering a life beyond the clock by Jenny Odell.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/current-events-nonfiction-book-club-0
Bookish Discussion with David Ulin, Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, and Tess Gerritsen – presented by Southern California News Group via Once Upon a Time – Online Event
Bookish is a monthly literary discussion with authors presenting their new books, hosted by Sandra Tsing Loh, and featuring:
David Ulin will discuss his novel, Thirteen Question Method. This story is a churning psychological thriller, set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles. In a novel inspired by classic noir, David L. Ulin excavates the depths of a disintegrating soul.
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright will discuss Alice Sadie Celine: A Novel. This story is a hypnotic, sexy, and incisive debut adult novel following one woman’s affair with her daughter’s best friend that tests the limits of love and ambition from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Riding Hood.
Tess Gerritsen will discuss The Spy Coast: A Thriller. In this story a retired CIA operative in small-town Maine tackles the ghosts of her past in this fresh take on the spy thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.
Register for the Zoom event at: https://scng.zoom.us/webinar/register/
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/bookish-november-2023
Southern California Poetry Festival 2023: Day 1, Launch Event at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
The fifth Southern California Poetry Festival opens on November 17 with the official renaming of Beyond Baroque’s performance theater after groundbreaking poet, Beyond Baroque alumna, and Los Angeles icon, Wanda Coleman. The evening will feature a ceremony and reception, performances by Terrance Hayes and Mimi Tempestt, and readings of Coleman’s poems by Pam Ward, Luis J. Rodriguez, Laurel Ann Bogen and Sesshu Foster.
Following the readings, stay for the reception outdoors with light refreshments and a DJ Set by F. Douglas Brown.
Reservation Policy: Please RSVP if you are planning to attend this event. Limited seating is available in the theater, so seating may not be guaranteed in the case of a full program; we recommend arriving early.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Stephen Hilger, with Matthew Specktor and Rebecca Morse, & Stephen Hilger: In the Alley at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Stephen Hilger, in conversation with Matthew Speckto and LACMA photography curator Rebecca Morse, will present and discuss the book, Stephen Hilger: In the Alley.
In the Alley features 22 panoramic photographs in a leporello-folded format so the reader can leaf through the photographs or expand the book-object for display. An essay by novelist Matthew Specktor maps out the significance of Hilger’s alley views in the context of personal histories and Hollywood stories. In a conversation, Hilger and photographer James Welling discuss their respective practices.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/stephen-hilger
La Matriarca Launch & Readingat Midnight Books LA with Alejandra Roggero – In-Person Event
Midnight Books LA with Alejandra Roggero (IG: @Whateverguera)will present and discuss the book launch of La MatrIarca. It’s a collection of poetry by Latina poet and writer Alejandra Roggero, about love and everything to do with it!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Midnight Books LA
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 7201 Greenleaf Ave., Suite D, Whittier, CA 90602
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzCNzdgPn-fLIrazFUHzlOgdL9QYooyswaTUag0/
Book Launch: Angela Montoya, with Nicola & David Yoon, & Sinner’s Isle at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice hosts an in-store event with author Angela Montoya, in conversation with Nicola & David Yoon to discuss Sinner’s Isle.
There will be a book signing to follow. This is a ticketed event that includes a copy of the book.
Sinner’s Isle is a spellbinding romantic fantasy about a powerful witch who will do anything to escape the remote island she’s being held captive on, including blackmailing a notorious, charming pirate who washes up on shore.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
The Post Up: Readings & Open Mic hosted by Brenda Vaca at Casa Verde LA – In-Person Event & Hybrid IG Live
Riot of Roses publisher and author Brenda Vaca hosts The Post Up Readings & Open Mic Event on every 3rd Friday of the month at Uptown Plants at Casa Verde LA. This month’s feature is musical guest Emery Hernandez.
Emery Hernandez is a fifteen-year- old girl who has been composing her own songs since the age of seven. She is a writer, singer, and guitarist, and ninth-grade student at King-Drew Magnet High school of Medicine and Science.
Come for: Storytelling x Friends and Vendors x Vibes.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details. $5 (at door)
Where: Casa Verde LA
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 12909 Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA
Website: https://www.instagram.com/iambrendavaca/?hl=en or https://www.facebook.com/riotofroses/
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event & Open Mic by Lorenzo Frank at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us to hear a featured poet, plus an Open Mic, hosted by Lorenzo Frank on the first and third Friday of the month.
Featured artist: TBA
Lorenzo Frank is the author of ‘Nzinga Teaches/Learns a Lesson’ book series.
NOTE: See site for costs, guidelines, and details.
Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 8 pm – 11 pm
Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.facebook.com/swaampoetry
Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series, with host Elena Secota, via Rapp Saloon – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon Open Mic & Featured Readers is an event offered every 3rd Friday of the month, curated by host Elena Secota.
RSVP at site.
Featured guest poets and artists this month: Yuyutsu Sharma & James Ragan, plus Surprise Guests.
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are: 8 pm – 8:30 pm.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 8:30 pm – 11 pm
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90401 (Zoom link in bio)
Website: https://www.facebook.com
Graphic Novel Book Club: BORDERS via Bel Canto Books, Long Beach – Online Event
Graphic Novel Book Club participants will discuss November’s selection, BORDERS by author Thomas King and illustrated by Natasha Donovan.
This book is the story of a boy and his mother whose road trip is thwarted at the border when they identify their citizenship as Blackfoot. Refusing to identify as either American or Canadian first bars their entry into the US, and then their return into Canada.
NOTE: See site for link and event details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: Online event (see site)
Women Who Submit Workshop: Mapping Our Grief with Fei Hernandez at Hyde Park Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Women Who Submit facilitates free quarterly workshops and panels on writing, publishing, career building, and community. These workshops and panels are one hour long and are led by local professional women and nonbinary writers, editors, publishers, agents, and other leaders in literary publishing.
WWS workshops and panels are archived on our YouTube channel.
WWS workshops and panels are followed by an in-person new member orientation. Interested writers much attend a new member orientation in order to become a member of WWS-Los Angeles. There are no membership fees to join. Registration is required and opens one month prior to the event.
If you are not in Los Angeles, please visit our Join Us page for more information.
NECESSARY MATERIALS:
– Laptop or desktop computer for orientation, research, and online submissions
– Crafted poems/essay/short story: something submission ready
If you are new to WWS, please register.
NOTE: See site for Zoom link and event details.
Where: Hyde Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 10 am – 1 pm
Address: 2205 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/workshops/
Southern California Poetry Festival 2023: Day 2 at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Day two of the 2023 Southern California Poetry Festival features generative workshops on the craft of poetry and present emerging voices of the SoCal Literary scene curated by Huizache, World Stage Press, Lambda Literary, Air/Light and more.
Iranian American poets Frieda Afary, Majid Naficy, and Sheida Mohamadi will read poetry in translation celebrating Iran’s Woman Life Freedom movement in a program curated by PEN America.
The day concludes with readings by Juan Felipe Herrera, Safia Elhillo, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, who will present wholly original, new works commissioned by Beyond Baroque for the festival. Organized in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. All events are free. For information about the festival, including the complete schedule, visit beyondbaroque.org
Schedule:
11:00 am – 1:00 pm – Workshop with Mimi Tempestt
“Writing with the Noise”
Utilizing meditation, music, and improvisation to enhance your writing practices. A jazz habit. An emcee’s tool. A poetic practice. This is a writing intensive dedicated to holding the noise of the mind. Through embracing our intellectual freak flags, this workshop allows us to gain access to methods that capture the frenetic whisperings which are natural to our consciousness. We’ll attempt to remove the blockages from our path to paint freely on the page. Talking with all the characters our soul inhabits; a free-fall into Wonderland. This is the absorption of chaos on canvas. This is an eclipse of spirit. This is an attempt to break reality and exist solely through phantasmagoria. THIS ISN’T REAL. This is a structured mind experiment on how to channel your mess into mode and medium. We’ll build from contemporary Jazz artist, Kamasi Washington’s The Epic, to explore the ideas of free-range, bigness, alternative use of voice(s), and rhythmic over standings. This is an exclusive workshop. Shy/Polite writers aren’t invited. Those wishing to develop their attitudes on the page, pissing on persona (punks, mavericks, and radicals alike) ARE HAPPILY WELCOMED.
11:00 am – 1:00 pm – A Workshop with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
A generative poetry workshop with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of Children of the Land: a Memoir; Cenzontle, and Dulce. He is a founding member of the Undocupoets, which eliminated citizenship requirements from all major poetry book prizes in the U.S, and was recognized with the Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers award.
*workshops will be capped at fifteen people and will not be overbooked. Please note that our morning workshops happen at the same time, therefore you can only reserve a spot for one workshop. If you have reserved a space in a workshop and will not be able to attend, kindly email jimmy@beyondbaroque.org, or call 310-822-3006 so that we can release your spot to another person.
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – SoCal Lit Showcase: Huizache, World Stage Press, Air/Light
A showcase of independent presses, organizations, and literary journals publishing and supporting poetry in Southern California.
Huizache:
Elda María Roman
Manuel Paul López
Mirlanda Robles
World Stage Press:
Pam Ward
Benin Lemus
Ron L. Dowell
Air / Light:
Marci Vogel
Michelle Bitting
Andrew Navarro
3:30 – 4:30 pm: Queer & Trans Poetics
Poets féi hernandez, J. Jennifer Espinoza, Chekwube Danladi, & Charles Jensen read from their newest collections, celebrating queer & trans voices in SoCal. Presented in partnership with Lambda Literary, the largest arts organization dedicated to amplifying LGBTQIA+ authors across the U.S.
5:00 – 6:30 pm: Iranian Poetry in Translation of the Woman Life Freedom Movement
PEN America’s Translation Committee co-chair Frieda Afary reads poetry in translation with Sheida Mohamadi, and Majid Naficy, celebrating Iran’s Woman Life Freedom movement.
7:00 – 8:00 pm: NEW Series: Juan Felipe Herrera, Safia Elhillo, & Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Safia Elhillo, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo present a series of entirely new poems commissioned especially for the festival on the theme “The Human Touch.” This program is part of Beyond Baroque’s ongoing NEW Series, in which different authors present original work on a common theme or prompt.
All festival events are free & in-person at Beyond Baroque. Masks are required while inside our center.
Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.
Reservation Policy: Please RSVP if you are planning to attend this event. Limited seating is available in the theater, therefore seating may not be guaranteed in the case of a full program; we recommend arriving early.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 11 am – 8 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Vroman’s Special Storytime: Jennifer Gray Olson & Party Pooper at Vroman’s Main Store – In-Person Kids Event
Jennifer Gray Olson will read her children’s book, Party Pooper.
In Party Pooper, Jennifer Gray Olson tackles complex SEL themes with expertise, grace, and laugh-out-loud humor. It’s a thoughtful, yet entertaining examination that has equal empathy for the party goers and, of course, the party pooper.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 11 am
Address: 695 E Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Special-Storytime-Jennifer-Gray-Olson-Party%20Pooper
Poetry Workshop with Nancy Lynne Woo at Whittier Art Gallery – In-Person Event
Nancy Lynee Woo offers a free poetry workshop to learn how to write poetry inspired by photographs.
Nancy Lynee Woo is a poet and workshop leader and the author of the collection, I’d Rather Be Lightning and the chapbook Bearing the Juice of It All.
Where: Whittier Art Gallery
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: Whittier Art Gallery, 8035 Painter Ave, Whittier, CA 90602
Website: https://www.whittierartgallery.org/events
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Juan Amador, Cunthia Atkins & Sydney Vogl + Poets published in Four Feathers Press online edition: Points & Lines at Rosebud Café/Wild Parrot – In-Person Event
Poetry readings by features Juan Amador, Cynthia Atkins, Sydney Vogl and poets published in Four Feathers Press, and hosted by DKC and JRT.
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry at Rosebud Café/Wild Parrot
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 2302 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Cody Smyth & The Strokes: The First Ten Years at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Cody Smyth will discuss his book, The Strokes: The First Ten Years.
This book is an intimate and impressionistic narrative of The Strokes’ first ten years, including images of the guys when they were students at the Dwight School in Manhattan and would gather for lunches at their local diner. This is a peerless window into the group through the lens of a close friend who was there before it even began.
The book features hundreds of color and black and white images of the band in public and in private. A truly personal look at the rise of The Strokes—one of the biggest and most enduring bands in the world.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/cody-smyth-rescheduled
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club: Spear at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club participants will discuss Spear, by author NIcola Griffith.
Spear is a reimagining of the many tales surrounding King Authur.
Nicola Griffith (she/her) is a dual UK/US citizen living in Seattle. She is the author of award-winning novels including Hild and Ammonite, and her shorter work has appeared in Nature, New Scientist, New York Times, etc. She is the founder and co-host of #CripLit, holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, and enjoys a ferocious bout of wheelchair boxing. She is married to novelist and screenwriter Kelley Eskridge.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/book/9781250819321
PRATIK MAGAZINE: Darkness in Style The Noir Issue at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Chevalier’s Books will celebrate Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing’s Darkness in Style, Noir Issue featuring 8 writers!
Edited by the world-renowned Himalayan poet, Yuyutsu RD Sharma, Pratik is a purely non-profit literary publication and is published by White Lotus Book Shop, Kathmandu for Mrs. Prabha Adhikary. The magazine was founded by Nepalese poet, Hari Adhikary who along with several distinguished Nepali poets including Mohan Koirala published it initially in Nepali language. The magazine was later revamped and published in English language by Yuyutsu Sharma in 1989.
ABOUT THE WRITERS:
Suzanne Lummis guest-edited the noir-themed, Darkness in Style, issue for the international literary journal, Pratik. Poetry.la produces her long-running YouTube series that connects contemporary poetry and film noir, They Write by Night. NPR’s “All Things Considered” profiled her in an episode called “Noir Poetry with L.A. as a Backdrop.” She’s published three full-length collections and her poetry has appeared in noted literary journals. She’s a longtime teacher with the UCLA Extension Writers Program and leads a series of Zoom explorations involving workshops together with close readings of important poetry, Deep Poetry Knowledge.
Yuyutsu Sharma is the chief editor of Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing. He is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently, Lost Horoscope & Other Newer Poems, Yuyutsu has read his works at several prestigious places and held workshops in creative writing and translation at Queen’s University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California, Beijing Open University, New York University, New York and Columbia University, New York. When home, he goes trekking in the Himalayas.
William Archila’s The Gravedigger’s Archaeology won the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize and his first collection The Art of Exile won an International Latino Book Award. He was featured in Spotlight on Hispanic Writers, Library of Congress. His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Agni, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, American Poetry Review, Copper Nickle, and The Missouri Review. He has poems forthcoming in The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Guesthouse, Salamander and South Indianan Review. He lives in Los Angeles, on Tongva land.
Tony Barnstone teaches at Whittier College and is the author of 21 books and a music CD. His books of poetry include Pulp Sonnets; Beast in the Apartment; Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki; The Golem of Los Angeles; Sad Jazz: Sonnets; and Impure. He is also a translator or co-translator of world literature, primarily Chinese but also Spanish and Urdu. His awards include: The Poets Prize, the Strokestown International Prize, the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, The John Ciardi Prize, The Benjamin Saltman Award, and fellowships from the NEA, NEH, and California Arts Council. He has also co-edited the anthologies Republic of Apples, Democracy of Oranges; Dead and Undead Poems; and Monster Verse.
Christina Cha writes poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The Coachella Review, and The Los Angeles Press, and was shortlisted for the 46th New Millennium Writing Award for Nonfiction. One of her pieces was just nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize. She is featured in and a consulting producer for You Are My Audience, a documentary in 10 self-portraits, which released in October. Her portrait is about her writing and relationship to her aunt, the artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Christina is also an editor and writing mentor and has been teaching in Sarah Selecky’s Writing School since 2013. She currently lives and writes in Los Angeles, after many years in San Francisco.
Lou Mathews lives in Los Angeles and is a fourth generation Angeleno. Married at 19, he worked his way through U.C. Santa Cruz as a gas station attendant and mechanic and continued to work as a mechanic until he was 39. His first novel, L.A. Breakdown, about illegal street racing, was picked by the Los Angeles Times as a Best Book of 1999. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a California Arts Council Fiction Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize. His short stories have been published in Short Story, ZYZZYVA, New England Review Witness, Black Clock, nine fiction anthologies and two textbook series. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s renowned Writer’s Program since 1989 and is a recipient of Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor Awards.
Charles Harper Webb’s latest collection of poems, Sidebend World, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Red Hen Press published his novel Ursula Lake in Spring, 2022. He is the recipient of grants from the Whiting and Guggenheim foundations and he received the 1998 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for Reading the Water. Webb teaches Creative Writing at California State University, Long Beach.
Alison Turner is the author of The Second Split Between, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2021 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets. Her work has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. She lives under the Hollywood sign with her husband writer Lou Mathews.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 9004
Book Launch: Erin La Rosa, with Lacy Waldon, & Plot Twist at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Erin La Rosa, in conversation with Lacy Waldron, will discuss her novel Plot Twist.
She’s written off more than she can chew…
Romance author Sophie Lyon’s ironic secret just went viral: she’s never been in love—and it’s ruining her reputation. With a manuscript deadline looming, Sophie makes an ambitious plan to overcome her writer’s block: reunite with her exes (including her last girlfriend Carla, the one person she could have loved) to learn why she’s never fallen in love, and document it all for her millions of new online followers.
There will be a book signing to follow. This is a ticketed event that includes a copy of the book.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Book Launch & Reading & Showcase: Adrian Ernesto Cepeda & La Lengua Inside of Me at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
North Figueroa Bookshop hosts Adrian Ernesto Cepeda to launch his book La Lengua Inside of Me with a poetry reading, Open Mic, and a Small Press Showcase featuring:
FlowerSong Press poets:
Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass and City on the Second Floor. He is a renowned political poet and performance artist, nationally and internationally, and serves several positions tasked with expanding literary culture.
Luivette Resto is the author of Living On Islands Not Found On Maps, published by FlowerSong Press. Her first two books of poetry Unfinished Portrait and Ascension were published by Tía Chucha Press. She is a teacher, poet, and board member of Women Who Submit.
Iris De Anda is the author of most recently of Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent from FlowerSong Press and the author of Codeswitch: Fires From Mi Corazon.
Alegria Press Poets:
Jesenia Chavez is a writer, teacher, and the author of the poetry collection This Poem Might Save You (Me).
Solany Lara is a Chicana who is the product of her immigrant parents’ hard work and tenacity. Working as an academic interventionist, she assists K-8 students with literacy and math development. She’s pursuing a Master’s degree in Library Science at San Jose State University. Her work has been published by Breadfruit Magazine, Azahares Literary Magazine, and Sims Library of Poetry: Poem-a-Week.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 6040 N Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lnpgi46x
Pages on Stages: CLI’s East L.A. Chapter & Readers at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event
The Pages on Stages event for CLI’s East L.A. Chapter is hosted by Karo Ska and features:
La Rae Cantley also known as: L.A. Ra, Native Angeleno, Daughter, Niece, Sister, Aunt, Mother, Neighbor and Friend. LaRae: Loves, Lives, Thrives, and Liberates with creative artistic expression ever since she has known how to read and write.
Clara Wagner N/A
Honeybee Rose is a returning poet with a unique voice that resonates with listeners through her evocative verses. Although she has been off the stage for several years, her passion for poetry never faded. With every poem, she dives into the intricacies of the human experience; weaving imagery, emotion, and memory into thought-provoking pieces. Her words illustrate vivid images of the heart, revealing both the beauty and struggle of living. As she makes her way back onto the stage, Honeybee Rose invites you on her poetic journey that explores the extraordinary within the ordinary, the many facets of love, and the complexity of human connection.
Hope N/A
Shirley Anderson Ilcken N/A
Gia N/A
Albert Alford’s work consists of everything from Life, Truth, to Love. He’s a writer, forward thinker, and poet, dedicated to conquering Myasthenia Gravis. Passionate about expressing himself through the art of writing. Join him on this journey of Creativity and Resilience. Follow him @Librappetite
Macías N/A
Diana Redman is a former pro soccer player for the Israel National Team, who now works as a Clinical & Sport Psychologist in Los Angeles. She uses poetry to honor and explore Jewish and Israeli voices of grief, loss, connection, and war. She also works as a visual artist and her pieces can be seen at http://www.ComfortableBeingUncomfortable.com
Yaz Archer N/A
Karo Ska (she/they) is a South Asian and Eastern European gender-fluid writer living on unceded Tongva land. Their writing focuses on identity, mental health, survivorship, and the intersections of trauma and politics. Anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist, they find joy where they can. They are a teaching artist for Community Literature Initiative’s Poetry Publishing class, author of loving my salt-drenched bones (World Stage Press, 2022) and are currently working on a memoir. For updates, follow them on instagram @karoo_skaa or check out their website karoska.com.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/pages-on-stages-east-la-chapter
Susan Straight, with Gustavo Arellano, & Mecca, at LibroMobile, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
Susan Straight, in conversation with moderator, journalist and author Gustavo Arellano, will present and discuss her most recent novel, Mecca.
Susan Straight is the author of six novels, including A Million Nightingales and the National Book Award finalist Highwire Moon. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Her short stories have won an Edgar Award and an O. Henry Award. She teaches at the University of California, Riverside. Her new novel Mecca is the first in a trilogy set in Southern California.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: LibroMobile Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 18th
Time: 7 pm (Confirm Start Time with Store)
Address: 1150 S Bristol St A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/a-conversation-with-susan-straight
Southern California Poetry Festival 2023: Day 3 at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Day three is the last day of the 2023 Southern California Poetry Festival and will include a bilingual reading with three dynamic Latinx poets featured in Donde Somos Humanos/Somewhere We Are Human Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings anthology moderated by editor Sonia Guiñasca. The influence of the avant-garde poetics of the Language movement will get a special spotlight with a panel of multi-generational authors curated by Diane Ward. The festival will conclude with a powerful set of readings by Asian American poets, including Muriel Leung, Sally Wen Mao, and more.
Schedule:
11:00 am – 1:00 pm – Let Your Words Be Plants: Plant Poetics & Ecotones: A Workshop with Amanda Ackerman
“The medium becomes subject and the subject becomes medium…”
“To act and be acted upon are formally indistinguishable…”
– Emanuele Coccia, The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture
What poetics emerge when we can affirm that we are not single selves? What poetic forms emerge, decompose, and recompose, when we can affirm that knowledge is not a single-subject point of view, but instead emergent and composite: formed from entanglements of organismic becoming and mutualism? In this workshop, we will hone practices for engaging plant intelligence and communication, foregrounding that everything is already communicating in embodied, creaturely ways. Everything is transmissible, as life translates itself. We will gather in the Beyond Baroque garden to work directly with the plants and flowers. We will also work with herbs and plant essences that can facilitate greater opening into interrelated language practices and awareness.
11:00 am – 1:00 pm – Sonic Boom; the Pleasure of Writing Sound in Poetry: A Workshop with William Archila
In this workshop we will attempt to write a poem conscious of its sounds. We will look at John Berryman’s The Dream Songs for their musical notes of the language and follow them with other poet selections on how they manipulate sounds. We will then write our own noise and make it sound for meaning and pleasure. Participants will be encouraged to share their new creations.
*workshops will be capped at fifteen people and will not be overbooked. Please note that our morning workshops happen at the same time, therefore you can only reserve a spot for one workshop. If you have reserved a space in a workshop and will not be able to attend, kindly email jimmy@beyondbaroque.org, or call 310-822-3006 so that we can release your spot to another person.
1:00 pm – 2:15 pm – Donde Somos Humanos / Somewhere we are Human
Una Lectura de poesía bilingüe celebrando las voces de poetas indocumentades, immigrantes, y Latines / A bilingual poetry reading celebrating the voices of undocumented, immigrant, and Latinx poets. Featuring Alexa Vasquez, Sól Casique, Francisco Aviles Pino, & Sonia Guiñasca.
2:30 – 4:30 pm: Southern California Literary Showcase: Tuesday Night Project, Graywolf Press, Inlandia Institute.
A showcase of independent presses, organizations, and literary journals publishing and supporting poetry in Southern California.
Graywolf Press
Dana Gioia
Katie Ford
Tuesday Night Project
Faith Santilla
Taz Ahmed
Naiya Choi Kim
Inlandia Institute
Cati Porter
Alexandra Martinez
Angelica Maria Barraza Tran
5:00 – 6:30 pm: After Language: A Reading & Discussion
A reading & conversation exploring the influence of Language Poetry, its influence, movement from the 70s to the present day and other adjacent avant-garde poetics. Featuring Will Alexander, Michael Davidson, Danny Snelson, Paul Vangelisti, Diane Ward, and others.
7:00 – 8:00 pm: Closing Reading: Sally Wen Mao, Muriel Leung and more
The 2023 Southern California Poetry Festival closes with a powerhouse line up featuring Muriel Leung, Sally Wen Mao, and more poets TBA.
All festival events are free & in-person at Beyond Baroque. Masks are required while inside our center.
Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.
Reservation Policy: Please RSVP if you are planning to attend this event. Limited seating is available in the theater, therefore seating may not be guaranteed in the case of a full program; we recommend arriving early.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 11 am – 8 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/southern-california-poetry-festival-2023-sunday-nov-19-tickets-745472968717
Bucket List Book Club: The Nice and the Good at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Bucket List Book Club participants will discuss the book The Nice and the Good, by author Iris Murdoch.
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, comes a story about revenge and reconciliation, and the difference between being nice and being good.
John Ducane, a respected Whitehall civil servant, is asked to investigate the suicide of a colleague. As he pursues his inquiry, he uncovers a shabby, evil world of murder, blackmail, and black magic. He begins to feel more trapped than trapping…
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) was born in Dublin and brought up in London. She studied philosophy at Cambridge and was a philosophy fellow at St. Anne’s College for 20 years. She published her first novel in 1954 and was instantly recognized as a major talent. She went on to publish more than 26 novels, as well as works of philosophy, plays, and poetry.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/bucket-list-book-club-nice-and-good
Joan Meyerson, with Gary Goldstein, & Who Needs Paris? at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Joan Meyerson, in conversation with Gary Goldstein, will present and discuss Who Needs Paris?
Who needs Paris? Certainly not Kate Miller. Ever since she was a student at the Sorbonne in the ’60s, she’s avoided Paris like the plague. But now it’s 1977, and her life as a documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles is going nowhere. She’s smart and clever, but dark memories of that youthful past have shut her down. When a French TV director offers her a job in Paris, she knows this is a chance to free herself of those memories. Kate reluctantly returns.
Joan Meyerson is an award-winning writer/director/producer of documentaries and television programs for which she won two Writers Guild of America awards. A native of Los Angeles, Joan is busy finding more stories in her Valley Village neighborhood. Who Needs Paris? is her first novel.
NOTE: RSVP, guidelines, and details at site.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Joan-Meyerson-November-19-Author-signing
Book Launch Celebration: We Cook Filipino via Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB – In-Person Event
Bel Canto Books is delighted to host the We Cook Filipino Book Launch Celebration at KUBO LB on Sunday 11/19 from 5pm to 7pm, with contributors Jennifer Estacio of Flipp Family, Cynthia Cherish Malaran aka DJ CherishTheLuv, and Amormia Orino of Kamayan ATL.
This book is a compendium of food and people, the 51 delicious recipes in this book are not just “from the heart”—they are also “good for the heart”—specifically included for their health benefits. The result is a cookbook presenting food as something central to Filipino culture and emotional well-being as well as being nutritious and amazingly tasty!
Jennifer Estacio is the founder and CEO (Chief Experience Officer) of Flipp Family. She’s a full-time working mom working in the advertising industry with over 15 years of experience in media strategy and digital marketing.
Cynthia Cherish Malaran aka DJ CherishTheLuv is a radio host and DJ for Heritage Radio Network, the world’s pioneer food radio station. Her shows, Wedding Cake and Primary Food, center on conversations about food, as well as activities that nourish our heart, mind and soul.
Of Bicolano roots, 2022 James Beard Award semi-finalist Amormia Orino started hosting pop-up restaurants when she moved from Virginia to Atlanta in 2018. Her popular Kamayan pop-ups have won her awards and media coverage. She took part in a PBD documentary about food in Atlanta and the South and is a contributor to the book Fearless Innovation: Atlanta’s Food Story.
We Cook Filipino, compiled and edited by Jacqueline Chio-Lauri.
NOTE: See site for tickets and event details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/we-cook-filipino-book-launch-celebration-tickets-738881042087
Lindsey Boldt, Ivanna Baranova, Steve Orth at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
The Poetic Research Bureau presents a poetry reading by visiting East Bay poets Lindsey Boldt and Steve Orth, along with Los Angeles poet Ivanna Baranova.
Lindsey Boldt is the author of Weirding (Dogpark Collective), Overboard (Publication Studio), and several chapbooks including Titties for Lindsey and There Are No Cops in America and the Streets are Paved w/ Cheese. With Steve Orth she writes plays and teaches Poets Theater Workshops. She is the editorial director of Nightboat Books and lives in Oakland, California.
Ivanna Baranova is a writer, editor, teacher, and artist currently living in Los Angeles on Tongva land. She is the Creative Communications Coordinator at the Poetry Project, copy editor at Clockshop, and author of Continuum (2023) and Confirmation Bias (2019), both available from Metatron Press. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blush Lit, Cixous72, DIAGRAM, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.
Steve Orth is a poet based out of Oakland, CA. His books include, Lust for Life (Travelin’ Lite, 2018), The Life & Times of Steve Orth (Dogpark Collective, 2020), and most recently Inflatable Ball (Bottlecap Press, 2023). His work has appeared in Hot Pink Magazine, SFMOMA blog, Art Practical, and Brooklyn Rail.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 5 pm (Doors); 5:30 pm Reading
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/lindsey-boldt-ivanna-baranova-steve-orth
Focus on Craft Book Club: Stars in Your Eyes at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
November’s Focus on Craft Book Club participants will discuss Stars in Your Eyes, by author Kacen Callender. This novel is about a space princess on the run and a notorious outlaw soldier who become unlikely allies in a sexy space opera adventure—the first in an exciting science fiction trilogy.
Jeanne De Vita leads this romance book club!
This event meets at the store on the 3rd Sunday of the month at 7:15pm.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 