World Literature Book Club at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL– Online Event
This Book Club meets weekly for a spirited and engaging discussion of the world’s best short stories!
This month’s selections are:
December 4: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
December 11: Powerhouse by Eudora Welty
RSVP: For the Zoom link, please e-mail wvally@lapl.org with “World Literature” in the subject link.
NOTE: See site for details. Submit RSVP at site link.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 10 am (Repeated at 2pm at Woodland Hills Branch Library)
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-literature-book-club-19
Mystery Book Club: Until Proven Guilty at Woodland Hills Branch Library, LAPL– Online Event
Mystery Book Club meeting via Zoom on the first Monday of every month, except holidays, which will meet the following Monday.
Discussion is facilitated by Mary C. Schaffer. Books are read in advance of the meetings and are available to borrow from the Woodland Hills Branch Library Reference Desk, or you may place a copy on hold through the library catalog Libby app.
The book selection for December 4 is Until Proven Guilty by J.A. Jance.
RSVP: For additional participation details and the Zoom link, please call the branch at 818-226-0017 or email woodln@lapl.org
NOTE: See site for details. Submit RSVP at site link.
Where: Woodland Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-36
Tone Beat Open Mic: with Juan Cardenas & LAPS at Tone Beat Studios – In-Person Event
Every 1st Monday of the month L. A. Poet Society presents Tone Beat Open Mic hosted by Juan Cardenas.
NOTE: See site for details. Submit RSVP at site link.
Where: L.A. Poet Society at Tone Beat Studios
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3226 S. Hill St., Los Angeles, CA 90077
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/
Author Event: Jake Berman and Scott Epstein & Lost Subways at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Jake Berman and Scott Epstein will present their book Lost Subways of North America and participate in a Q&A as we delve into transit-oriented development and innovative solutions to bridge the gap between transportation and urban planning.
Jake Berman is a cartographer, writer, artist, and lawyer. His debut book, The Lost Subways of North America, was born of frustration with traffic on the 101 Freeway. His work has been featured in the New Yorker, Vice, Atlas Obscura, and the Guardian. A native of San Francisco, and former resident of Koreatown, he now lives in New York City.
Scott Epstein has worked as a researcher at the RAND Corporation and UCLA CRESST, as well as a public health worker at UCLA’s Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center. As the Mid City West Neighborhood Council Chair for seven years, Scott fought for abundant and equitable housing in his community. Scott is also active in the Democratic Party, including as a board member of the Miracle Mile Democratic Club.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/31981
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 4th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-768353494987
Under Mic Influence: Featured Readings & Open Mic at LB Unified – In-Person Event
If you need an open mic, beautiful people, tasty eats, dope inspiration, good libations, and good vibrations, we have you covered!
Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and @djkevjam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites.
In the tradition of Funkmosphere, Monday Night Delight, Melodic Mondays, Project Blowed, Griot Cafe, and Lady Basco’s Speakeasy, we come to light things right back up and take the poet & the MC to new heights. Every 1st and 3rd Monday, you will be Under Mic Influence. Come level up with carefree, high-caliber spitters, and leave ready to get the bars up & come back for more!
Featured guest TBA.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details. $5 cover.
Where: LB Unified
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 2222 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mic-influence-tickets-595266627507 or https://allevents.in/long%20beach/mic-influence/10000595266627507
Author Talk: Let’s Talk World Building with YA Fantasy Author Victoria Aveyardat Beverly Hills Library – In-Person YA Event
Naomi Hirahara and Gary Phillips will present and discuss their latest novels: Evergreen and One-Shot Harry, respectively.
New York Times bestselling author of the Red Queen and Realm Breaker series, Victoria Aveyard, chats with us about YA fantasy fiction, world-building, and her incredible body of work!
In the bestselling series Realm Breaker, a strange darkness grows in Allward even Corayne an-Amarat can feel it in her small town at the edge of the sea. The long lost heir to an ancient lineage, it’s not until Corayne meets a rag-tag group of companions that she learns how to wield the magic slumbering in her blood—and how together they might stop what’s coming.
Victoria Aveyard was born and raised in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a small town known only for the worst traffic rotary in the continental United States. She moved to Los Angeles to earn a BFA in screenwriting at the University of Southern California. She currently splits her time between the East and West coasts. Visit her online at www.victoriaaveyard.com.
NOTE: Register at library site link.
Where: Beverly Hills Library, Public Auditorium
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 444 N. Rexford Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Website: https://libraryc.org/beverlyhillspubliclibrary/35760
Chris Erskine & What the Bears Know at Santa Monica Library, SMPL – In-Person Event
Join former L. A. Time Columnist and author Chris Erskine to discuss his book authored with Steve Searles, What the Bears Know: How I Found Truth and Magic in America’s Most Misunderstood Creatures—A Memoir by Animal Planet’s “The Bear Whisperer.”
This book is the incredible story of how one man went from a hired hunter to becoming one of America’s top champions for this iconic animal.
Steve Searles is a self-taught bear expert who’s been working with animals for nearly three decades. Since 1996, he has been the wildlife specialist for the ski town of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., where he developed a global reputation for his novel approaches to keeping residents—and the bears—safe. Steve founded the town’s “Don’t Feed Our Bears” program and helped formulate Yosemite National Park’s initial bear program. In 2010, he was the topic of the reality show “The Bear Whisperer” on Animal Planet. He is a native of Orange County, Calif.
Chris Erskine is a nationally known columnist, with most of his work appearing in the Los Angeles Times and distributed to 600 papers nationwide. As an editor there, he was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams. He is best known to readers for his weekly pieces on life in suburban Los Angeles. This is his fifth book. He is a native of Chicago and now lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Santa Monica Library
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 904
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/chris-erskine-santa-monica-library
Paul Small and Josh Freeman & A Celebration of Peace at Deisel Bookstore – In-Person Event
Paul Small and Josh Freeman will discuss and sign their book, A Festival of Light: The Meaning of Hanukkah.
Can Shared Human Values Keep Us All Connected?
Small and Freeman created the book because they believe that, in these divisive times, the words and values we share with our children are more important than ever. Hanukkah means dedication and the holiday itself represents the rededication of the Temple that was dishonored by Antiochus IV in 168 B. C. E. and then restored by the valiant struggle of the Maccabees. However, in a much larger sense, it can be a rededication of all the things that we hold dear in our Jewish and American life.
Dore Schary (DOR-ee) was one of Hollywood’s most distinguished hyphenates (writer-producer- director-executive). His 372 film credits are eloquent testimony to his love of people and his passionate respect for their diversity. After establishing himself as a successful screenwriter — sharing an Academy Award for Boy’s Town (1938) — he became a producer, rising through the ranks first at RKO and then MGM, where he was the only writer ever to run a studio. Upon leaving MGM he wrote and produced Sunrise at Campobello, the Tony-awarded play about Franklin Roosevelt’s struggle with paralysis, and continued to work as a writer, producer and director until his death in 1980. Dore also served as National Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, and as New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs.
Josh Freeman is president and creative director of Los Angeles-based design agency Free Associates, which partners with regional, national, and international companies to define and build their brands. Their award-winning work in identity design, websites, packaging, and retail experiences helps clients communicate their core values and expand their relationships with their customers. Josh’s grandmother was Dore Schary’s sister, Frances.
Paul Small has spent a lifetime representing the best interests of his clients; first as a talent agent encouraging and shaping the careers of actors, writers, and directors, then by advocating for and protecting the brands of advertising agencies and Fortune 500 companies alike and now as a successful Los Angeles-based realtor. Paul’s grandmother was Dore Schary’s sister, Lillian.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Diesel Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Paul-Small-Josh-Freeman-A-Festival-Of-Lights-Author-signing
Conchas y Café Zine Workshop: Fall Semester Theme: “Out of Place” at DSTL Arts – Online Event
This is a virtual only writing workshop. Register now at Google Classroom (app or web). Registration code: kdcmthg.
For more information: DSTLArts.org/conchasycafezine.
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Tuesday the 5th (through 12/19/23)
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw0cb1GLt-6/
Author Talk: Naomi Hirahara & Gary Phillipsat Beverly Hills Library – In-Person Event
Naomi Hirahara and Gary Phillips will present and discuss their latest novels: Evergreen and One-Shot Harry, respectively.
Naomi Hirahara is a USA Today-bestselling and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of the Japantown Mysteries, which includes Clark and Division and Evergreen, with the latter set in 1946 Los Angeles. Her Edgar Award-winning Mas Arai mysteries feature an Altadena gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes.
Gary Phillips has published various novels, comics, short stories and edited several anthologies including the Anthony-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. The Washington Post named his novel One-Shot Harry as one of the best mysteries of 2022.
Where: Beverly Hills Library, Public Auditorium
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 444 N. Rexford Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Gabriella Korn, with Ilana Masad, & Yours for the Taking at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Gabriella Korn, in conversation with Iliad Masad,will present and discuss her book, Yours for the Taking: a Novel.
The year is 2050. Ava and her girlfriend live in what’s left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it’s hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world. Soon, it won’t be safe outside at all. The only people guaranteed survival are the ones whose applications are accepted to The Inside Project, a series of weather-safe, city-sized structures around the world. At once a mesmerizing story of queer love, betrayal, and chosen family, and an unflinching indictment of cis, corporate feminism, Gabrielle Korn’s Yours for the Taking holds a mirror to our own world, in all its beauty and horror.
Gabrelle Korn is the author of Everybody (Else) Is Perfect and the former Editor-in-Chief of Nylon. She recently led LGBTQ+ strategy at Netflix, and her writing has been published across the internet since 2011, with bylines in Instyle, Coveteur, Autostraddle, Nylon, Refinery29, Oprah, and more. Originally from New York, she now lives in Los Angeles with her wife, and together they run The Pink Door artist and writer residency.
Ilana Masad is a queer Israeli American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, NPR, StoryQuartlerly, Tin House’s Open Bar, 7×7, Catapult, Buzzfeed, and many more. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she has received her Master’s in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she is currently a doctoral student. She is the author of the novel All My Mother’s Lovers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lorpe1gk
Nathan Mosher Is Injured: A Night of Comedy, Music, Poetry, & Storytelling at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
This event is the local premiere of Nathanael Philip Mosher’s award-winning one man show, “Nathan Mosher is Injured”, put on with the help of mental health non-profits such as NAMI, Whole Minds Symphony, and Painted Brain.
After touring the show internationally to both acclaim and sparse audiences, Mosher decided to follow his original dream of teaming up with service-oriented organizations to tell his story and lead audience members to get plugged into a network of those seeking well-being as well (NAMI, Whole Minds, Painted Brain, CAYA).
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/30174
Brooke Wentz, with Anthony Davis &Transfigured New York at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Brooke Wentz, in conversation with Anthony Davis, will discuss her book, Transfigured New York, conversations with iconic, genre-bending artists who shaped the sounds of experimental movements like no wave, avant-jazz, and electronic music.
As an undergrad in the 1980s, Brooke Wentz hosted the show Transfigured Night on Columbia University’s WKCR-FM, discussing art and ideas with avant-garde music luminaries. She unearths these candid interviews-heard before only when first broadcast-from cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes, letting readers today feel the excitement and creative energy of the 1980s New York underground scene.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Brooke-Wentz-with-Anthony-Davis-discusses-Transfigured-New-York
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: GT Foster – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest GT Foster.
GT Foster spent his childhood in the Central San Joaquin Valley. He attended U.C.R. and taught 25 years for the Los Angeles Unified School District. A Vietnam era veteran, G.T. began his exploration into poetry in the ‘60s. He is a published poet, workshop facilitator and mentor. He led many workshops at Saturday Afternoon Poetry in Pasadena.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show – In-Person Event
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show is offered every week at the Unurban Coffee House. Hosted by DeForest Wright, all are invited to attend.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups or https://www.facebook.com/events/213407634459999/?active_tab=discussion
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
Every Tuesday (except for 3rd Tuesdays 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 5th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/open-mic-night
Book Club: Lessons in Chemistry at Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Book Club participants will discuss Lessons in Chemistry by author Bonnie Garmus.
Set in 1960s California, this is the story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman’s place is in the home. Elizabeth Lott finds herself the host of America’s most beloved cooking show. She is not just teaching women how to cook but how to change the status quo.
RSVP: Please email Shawn at sstamm@lapl.org for participation details and the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 21052 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/chatsworth-branch-book-club-12
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club: The Wild Robot at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club participants will discuss The Wild Robot by author Peter Brown.
Can a robot survive in the wilderness?
When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is—but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island’s unwelcoming animal inhabitants.
As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home—until, one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her.
From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/chatsworth-branch-book-club-12
Creative Writing Workshop with Tony DuShane at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
This free 90-minute writer’s workshop presented by UCLA instructor Tony DuShane, screenwriter of the film Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, based on his novel of the same name.
This workshop is open to adults only.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-25
Be the Change Writing Workshop with James Coats – Online Event
Be the Change, a social justice writing workshop, is led by local writer James Coats and is offered online every first Wednesday of the month.
James Coats is an author, poet, and educator born in Los Angeles and raised in the Inland Empire. He received his BFA from Cal Poly Pomona and his MBA from Cal State San Bernardino. As a creative change agent, he believes the arts can inspire youth and influence positive change in the world. He is the author of Midnight and Mad Dreams.
NOTE: See site for registration, link, and details. Cost is pay what you want.
Where: N/A
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm PT
Address: Online Zoom Event ID: 826 5843 0669
Website: N/A or see Facebook
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 6th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: www.radioollin.org
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
History Book Club: The House of Wisdom at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
History Book Club participants will discuss the book The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance, by author Jim Al-Khalili.
This book gives a myth-shattering view of the Islamic world’s myriad scientific innovations and the role they played in sparking the European Renaissance. It asks why did the Islamic world enter its own dark age after such a dazzling flowering?
Jim al-Khalili is a leading theoretical nuclear physicist, a trustee of the British Science Association, and a senior advisor to the British Council on science and technology. He has written a number of popular science books, which have been translated into thirteen languages so far.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/history-book-club-house-wisdom
Author Talk via Zoom: Dr. Roy Meals & Muscle via West Los Angeles Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Dr. Roy Meals, noted Orthopedic Surgeon at UCLA Medical Center, will present and discuss his book Muscle: The Gripping Story of Strength and Movement.
Brimming with fun facts, lucid illustrations, and infectious enthusiasm, Muscle sheds light on the astonishing, essential tissue that moves us through life. As a former professor of surgery, the author has an uncanny knack for being able to explain complex medical concepts in layman’s terms, which makes this a book for everyone.
RSVP:
Please email westla@lapl.org for additional information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 29th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Douglas Preston, with Steve Elkins, & The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Douglas Preston, in conversation with Steve Elkins, will present and discuss his book, The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder.
Douglas Preston’s journalistic explorations have taken him from the haunted country of Italy to the jungles of Honduras. He was granted exclusive journalistic access to the largest tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, broke the story of an extraordinary mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous period and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and explored what lay hidden in the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island. When he hasn’t been co-authoring bestselling thrillers featuring FBI Agent Pendergast, Preston has been writing about some of the world’s strangest and most dramatic mysteries.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/douglas-preston
Los Angeles Political Economy Reading Group: Malibu Burning & Starting City of Segregation at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
This book club will discuss the case for Malibu Burning by Mike Davis and City of Segregation by Andrea Gibbons.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-loroxe1a
Ron White & On Great Fields at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Ron White will present and discuss his book, On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
How did a stuttering young boy come to be fluent in nine languages and even teach speech and rhetoric? How did a trained minister find his way to the battlefield? Award-winning historian Ronald C. White delves into these contradictions in this cradle-to-grave biography of General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, from his upbringing in rural Maine to his tenacious, empathetic military leadership and his influential postwar public service, exploring a question that still plagues so many veterans: How do you make a civilian life of meaning after having experienced the extreme highs and lows of war?
Chamberlain is familiar to millions from Michael Shaara’s now-classic novel of the Civil War, The Killer Angels, and Ken Burns’s timeless miniseries The Civil War, but in this book White captures the complex and inspiring man behind the hero.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Ron-White-discusses-On-Great-Fields
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 — Workshop Wednesday;
- 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 the6th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
Join Beyond Baroque’s longest-running free poetry workshop via Zoom online as we welcome new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please sign up for each workshop session at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, and you will be contacted with instructions on how to join the meeting.
The workshop facilitator this quarter is James Fujinami Moore, whose debut poetry collection is indecent hours (Four Way Books, 2022), winner of the GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry and finalist for the Golden Poppy’s Martin Cruz Smith Award & the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Barrow Street’s 4×2, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, Jet Fuel Review, The Margins, the Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received fellowships from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016. He lives in Los Ángeles.
Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. Here’s an instructive video that might help.
The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-769657485257
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Guest Feature Mark J. Cid at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights offers a Reading & Open Mic, with featured guest Mark J. Cid.
Mark J. Cid is literally just a guy. A guy who writes poetry, except when he’s writing stories. Hardboiled detective stories, featuring Lovecraftian cosmic horror called, “The Clam-bake Over Innsmouth.” He’s working on a book of poetry called Your Funeral Sucked, by the Way, because he wants to punch his trauma in the dick. Sometimes he writes haiku. Sometimes he writes 5 minute-long abominations in free verse full of professional wrestling references. Sometimes he writes his own bio, which some unfortunate soul is tasked to read aloud.
$4 cover fee, cash only.
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/people/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/828298985744056/?ref=newsfeed
Rosanna Xia, with Dr. David A Pepper, & California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastlines at Aquarium of the Pacific (off-site PATM event) – In-Person Event
Los Angeles Wetlands Trust and Aquarium of the Pacific present journalist and author Rosanna Xia, in conversation with Dr. David A. Pepper, to discuss her book, California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastlines.
In her new book, Pulitzer Prize finalist Rosanna Xia dives deep into the stakes, stopgaps, internecine struggles, and potential paths forward for the 27 million people who call this coastline home and reveals what we stand to lose as the world’s oceans expand—unless we can begin to imagine a more climate-wise future.
Note: See site for free tickets, RSVP, and details.
Where: Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach (Page Against the Machine, bookseller)
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1929242547477565
Writing Workshop: Writing the Unsentimental Love Poem with Nicelle Davis – Online Event
A believable love poem is awkward, ugly, sad, jealous, and gross; this class will help us write into “true” love.
It is important to avoid sentimentality in poetry because it can undermine the artistic and aesthetic qualities of a poem. Sentimentality refers to excessive or exaggerated emotions that lack depth or genuine feeling. When poets rely too heavily on sentimental language or themes, it can result in clichéd, trite, or overly saccharine expressions. This can detract from the overall impact and authenticity of the poem.
This series of five monthly generative workshops will help us get snotty, smelly, and weird with our writing.
This is 5 workshops, over 5 months.
Nicelle Davis spent a decade writing really awkward love poems for her new collection, The Language of Fractions. Using this as inspiration, she offers a 5-workshop course on writing unsentimental love poems. See nicelledavis.net.
Where: Online link has costs and other details
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://allevents.in/online/writing-the-unsentimental-love-poem/10000687544322577 or https://www.facebook.com/events/1799165140489015/1799165157155680/?event_time_id=1799165157155680
Book Launch: Tisha Marie Reichle Aguilera & Breaking Pattern at Riverside Main Library – In-Person Event
Tisha Marie Reichle Aguelara will present and discuss her debut novel Breaking Pattern.
Guest readers include: artist Rosy Cortez and writers Nikia Chaney, Melissa Chadburn, and Juanita E Mantz.
Where: Riverside Main Library
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 3900 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://tishareichle.com/?page_id=274
Skulls and Stairs Reading Series: #4 at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Skulls & Stairs is a reading series showcasing poets beyond text dwelling on the goth and the illuminating void. This fourth installment features performances in the staircase by poets Daryl Gussin, Nikolai Garcia, & Antonieta Villamil.
Before and after the readings catch the set with DJ Encinoman bringing a mix of House, Techno, and everything in-between. Hope to see you at Venice City Hall before the year ends! Let’s celebrate and toast to welcome 2024!
Daryl Gussin is the managing editor of Razorcake, where his writing and interviews can be found on a regular basis. Keep up with his other creative pursuits here-darylhq.bigcartel.com.
Nikolai Garcia has been invited to read his poems at San Francisco’s Flor Y Canto literary festival, Voices of California 2023 in Sacramento, and Lit Hop Fresno. His first chapbook, Nuclear Shadows of Palm Trees, was published by DSTL Arts in 2019. He’s currently at work on his second manuscript, currently titled, All the Sad Music.
Antonieta Villamil is an international award-winning bilingual poet with over 11 published books that brings a cross-cultural experience, performing her poetry in a reading and singing dynamic fusion. She focuses her writing on the forgotten ones and honors them with a persistence that compels us to hear their voices. She directed the poetry review and salon “Poesía Féstival” at the literary center Beyond Baroque that brings poetry to the under-served community of native Spanish speakers in Los Angeles. Her latest book Arcana de los Dominios Imaginantes, published by AVEditor in 2015, won The International Latino Book Award 2016. The Cervantes Institute of New York and Literacy Now awarded the “14 International Latino Book Award 2012” for her book Soluna En Bosque: Conjuros Para Invocar El Amor, the “International Poetry Award Gastón Baquero” in Spain with Acantilados Del Sueño. Recent anthologies: The Border Crossed Us: An Anthology to End Apartheid, edited by Mark Lipman, Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising From The Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles, introduction by Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond edited by Suzanne Lummis. Villamil appears in the documentary, Voices in Wartime.
Encinoman is a DJ and multimedia artist from the San Fernando Valley.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/skulls-and-stairs-tickets-764863446157?aff=oddtdtcreator
Stay Cool: A Winter Reading Party with Genevieve Hudson, Jean Kyoung Frazier, Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, Joseph Han + Tomas Monizat North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
This group reading event of excellent local authors includes:
Jean Kyoung Frazier is a writer who lives in Los Angeles. Her debut novel Pizza Girl was published in 2020 and she also writes for television.
Genevieve Hudson is the author of the novel Boys of Alabama, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Their other books include the critical memoir A Little in Love with Everyone and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a 2019 LAMBDA Literary Award finalist. They have received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, MacDowell, Caldera Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is the Japanese and Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) author of Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare, a USA Today national bestseller. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Granta, Conjunctions, Joyland, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature and has received support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers, where she was a Fiction Fellow. Currently a Fiction Editor for No Tokens journal, she lives in Honolulu.
Joseph Han is the author of Nuclear Family, named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a best book of the year by NPR and Time Magazine. His book was long-listed for the 2023 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and short-listed for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. He is a 2022 National Book Foundation ‘5 Under 35’ honoree and a Kundiman fellow in Fiction.
Tomas Moniz is a latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His new novel, All Friends Are Necessary, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books. He teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program. He has stuff on the internet but loves penpals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-long7c2c
Book Launch: David Edward Byrd, with co-author Robert von Goeben, & The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Celebrate the launch of this volume from one of the foremost graphic artists of 20th-century pop culture with a conversation between the artist David Edward Byrd and co-author Robert von Goeben.
Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd is a stunning retrospective on the art and stories behind one of rock ’n’ roll’s most influential artists.
David Edward Byrd is one of the world’s most renowned graphic artists. His acclaimed music art includes work for the Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Grateful Dead, as well as the original poster for the 1969 Woodstock festival. His 1968 poster for Jimi Hendrix is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He then moved on to Broadway, where he created iconic posters for Follies, Godspell, and Little Shop of Horrors, among others. He was later the art director for Advocate magazine and the senior illustrator at Warner Bros. Consumer Products for twelve years.
Robert von Goeben has contributed to many publications, including Upside magazine, CNET, HotWired, the Good Men Project, and Bold Italic. He is the author of many books, ranging from lifestyle titles to children’s books. His recent book Deep Cuts is an offshoot of his popular trivia show. He is a professor at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Tonalli Open Mic Event via Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Event
The Tonalli Open Mic is offered every 1st Thursday of the month online via L.A. Poet Society.
Hosted by Angel Miguel Lopez, the event will feature guest poets and offer an open mic via Zoom.
Features TBA
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Event via Zoom: 897 1039 1895
Website: https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety or https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
On the second Friday of every month, the current events nonfiction book club meets, and this month participants will discuss Poverty, by America, by author Matthew Desmond.
RSVP: Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/current-events-nonfiction-book-club-0
Nervous Ghost Press Open Mic at Brewjeria Company – In-Person Event
Get ready for a spine-tingling night of poetry, stories, and music at The Nervous Ghost Press Open Mic, with community guest emcee Buddy Zapata.
Come and experience the electric atmosphere as we celebrate the power of words and the beauty of self-expression. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to witness the magic unfold. Whether you’re a performer or an audience member, The Nervous Ghost Press Open Mic promises an unforgettable night of creativity, community, and inspiration. See you there!
Sign up today at ghosts @nervousghostpress.org.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Brewjeria Company
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 4937 Durfee Ave., Pico Rivera, CA 90660
Laurie Kaye & Confessions of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Name-Dropper: My Life Leading Up to John Lennon’s Last Interview at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Laurie Kaye will discuss her book Confessions of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Name-Dropper: My Life Leading Up to John Lennon’s Last Interview.
On December 8, 1980, twenty-something rock journalist Laurie Kaye entered the legendary Dakota apartments in New York to interview her longtime idol John Lennon. It was the last interview Lennon would ever give—just hours later, outside that same building, Lennon was shot dead by a twenty-five-year-old man (Kaye refuses to name him) whom the author herself had encountered after finishing the interview and stepping outside. Kaye has beaten herself up ever since over her failure to recognize that the assassin posed a danger and should have been reported. Here Kaye recounts not just her unfortunate brush with history, but also her turbulent early years growing up in LA and her fascinating, star-packed journey from radio intern to acclaimed writer/producer.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA., 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/laurie-kaye
LA Book Launch: Katie Cotugno, with Elissa Sussman & Meet the Benedettos at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Celebrate a book launch for Meet the Benedettos with author Katie Cotugno, in conversation with Elissa Sussman.
An A-list movie star moves to Los Angeles—next door to a family of five eligible sisters—in this novel or the NYT bestselling author of Birds of California.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
CalArts Celebration: Poetry Reading with Chris Santiago, Muriel Leung, and Anthony McCann at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
MFA in Creative Writing at CalArts welcomes new faculty members Chris Santiago and Muriel Leung back to Los Angeles! Santiago (author of Tula, Milkweed Editions, winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize) and Leung (author of Imagine Us, the Swarm, winner of the Nightboat Poetry Award) will be joined in this reading by current MFA program director Anthony McCann who will be debuting his new poetry collection I am the dead, who, you take care of me.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Every second Friday of the month, Village Well stays open a bit later to provide a platform for local performers through our open mic! All performers are welcome, including musicians, poets, storytellers, comedians, and magicians!
Acts are limited to 5-7 minutes in length and must be family friendly. Sign-ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:30 pm!
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/27553
Enrico Gnaulati & Flourishing Love at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Enrico Gnaulati will present and discuss his book, Flourishing Love: A Secular Guide to Lasting Intimate Relationships.
Flourishing Love is a secular defense of marriage and long-term intimate partnership. It rejects a moral-religious code to govern love lives and instead puts its faith in the human potential for couples to be benevolent, loyal, and forgiving to preserve and enhance their romantic union. Dr Gnaulati draws on a variety of sources to present the joint emotional upkeep necessary to make an intimate relationship not just satisfactory, but vital, and to illustrate what these lasting bonds look like. The latest science, anecdotes from his own 30-year marriage as well as from his psychotherapy practice, the musings of ancient and contemporary philosophers, and real-life interviews from partners in long-term happy marriages and intimate unions are all used to reveal the secrets to a successful romantic partnership.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA., 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Enrico-Gnaulati-discusses-Flourishing-Love
What Books Press Reading: Giant Claw Imprint at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Celebrate new writing by a diverse set of authors from L.A.-based What Books Press and its Giant Claw imprint.
What Books has added three brand-new collections: Sarah Maclay’s Nightfall Marginalia, composed of nocturnes and ekphrastics, the poem of the dream, and the poem as dream; Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)’s God in Her Ruffled Dress, enacting conversations between illness and wellness, body, and spirit, the temporal and the eternal; and Bryan Price’s A Plea for Secular Gods, elegies touching on violent family history, memory, and the human condition.
Its imprint, Giant Claw, is launching two new titles: The Shoes of Our Guests, a collection of surreal prose poems by Celeste Goyer, and Edendale, a novel set in 1916 Edendale, Los Angeles, written by Michael Ventura. The evening will be hosted by poet Karen Kevorkian.
Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)’s new volume of poems, God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press, October 2023), appears 34 years after publication of her debut, full-length poetry book, The Transparent Body (Wesleyan University Press). Her poems have appeared in more than 60 anthologies and periodicals, including City Lights Review, Field, Kenyon Review, Lilith, Ploughshares, Poetry International, Tikkun, and Zyzzyva. She has won creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, and others. Lisa is also a jazz and groove singer interweaving spoken and sung verse in her original songs and re-envisioned standards. She has released seven albums and various singles (available on all music platforms) to critical acclaim and international radio play, and she performs with her band throughout the country. She also works as a professional psychic reader Celeste Goyer is a poet and visual artist living in Los Angeles. She edited a literary quarterly for 14 years, hosted a reading series, and her poems have appeared in Aperçus, Columbia Review, and Times Times 3, among others. Celeste is a member of the Wild Orchid Collective, based in Venice, CA, an interdisciplinary literary and visual arts collective that created a virtual gallery show for Beyond Baroque during the pandemic. Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, Celeste has lived in California since age 11, mostly in remote towns of the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts.
Michael Ventura has written…a lot. His self-description after his latest birthday: “78, 78 – I’m a scratchy old record from 1945.”
Bryan D. Price is the author of A Plea for Secular Gods: Elegies (What Books, 2023). His stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Santa Monica Review, Diagram, Blood Orange Review, Boulevard, JMWW, Rhino Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in San Diego, California.
Nightfall Marginalia (What Books Press, 2023) is Sarah Maclay’s fifth collection. Her poems and essays—supported by a Yaddo residency and a City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship and awarded the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry and a Pushcart Special Mention, among other honors—have appeared in APR, FIELD, Ploughshares, The Tupelo Quarterly, The Writer’s Chronicle, The Best American Erotic Poetry: From 1800 to the Present, Poetry International, where she served as Book Review Editor for a decade, and beyond. She teaches at LMU and offers workshops at Beyond Baroque, roaming between L.A. and her native Montana.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Poetry Workshop at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join this inclusive, in-person poetry workshop where poets of all levels can come together, share their work, and foster a vibrant poetry community. Participants are invited to bring a poem, no longer than one page, to read and receive valuable feedback from fellow poets. Engage in thoughtful discussions and provide your own insights on the work of others. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just starting out, this workshop offers a supportive environment to refine your craft, connect with like-minded individuals, and celebrate the power of words.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-0
Indie Bookstore Field Trip #17 (Long Beach) via Bel Canto Bookstore – In-Person Event
Indie Bookstore Field Trips #17: Kitchen Lingo + Bel Canto Books at The Hangout (4th Street Holiday Market Edition)
Bel Canto Books hosts a FREE Saturday morning meetup at 1–2 bookstores in varying neighborhoods around SoCal. We’ll begin with free browsing time and end by circling up outside to introduce ourselves and share about any new books we bought or discovered. In certain months, we may even be given private tours by the bookshop owners, as well! 11am – Kitchen Lingo (2116 E 4th St, Long Beach CA 90814)
Schedule:
11am – Kitchen Lingo (2116 E 4th St, Long Beach CA 90814)
12pm – Bel Canto Books at The Hangout (2122 E 4th St, Long Beach CA 90814)
4th Street / Retro Row will also be hosting a street-wide Holiday Market from 11am to 4pm, so please plan to stick around and visit all the amazing independent businesses, restaurants, and artists along 4th Street.
Johanna Belfer is leader of this event and a lifelong book nerd, travel addict, and owner/founder of Bel Canto Books in Long Beach, California, which was featured in Bibliophile: Diverse Spines. Her favorite genres to read are literary fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, and graphic memoir. Two bookstores on her travel bucket list are Loyalty Bookstore in Washington, DC and Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Kitchen Lingo and Bel Canto Books at The Hangout
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 2116 E 4th St, Long Beach CA 90814 and 2122 E 4th St, Long Beach CA 90814
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/indie-bookstore-field-trips-17-long-beach-tickets-740598930337
Children’s Storytime: Daryl Mcculloch at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Local author Daryl Mccullough reads from Chubby the Bear’s Big Choice, a book about body image, standing up to bullies, and self-confidence.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/32249
Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, with Dana Johnson and Guests, & Breaking Pattern at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Celebrate with Beyond Baroque and Inlandia Institute the book launch of the YA novel Breaking Pattern, with author Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, in conversation with Dana Johnson and readings by Pat Alderete, Ashley Perez, Lorinda toledo, and Ryane Granados.
Featuring live music by The Brothers Inhuman
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.facebook.com/tisha-marie-reichle-aguiler
GLP Practice at Get Lit – Words Ignite – In-Person Teen Event
Get Lit Players Practice sessions every Saturday afternoon.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Get Lit – Words Ignite
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: info@getlit.org or 213-388-8639
Website: https://www.getlit.org/events
Creative Writing Group at Central Library, LAPL– In-Person Event
Calling all writers of fiction, screenplays, poetry, etc. Get feedback on your writing in a fun, supportive environment. Meetings include a writing prompt/exercise, snacks, and a rollicking good time! Whether you are just starting out or well on your way to glory, join us and banish (at least temporarily) those Lonely Writer Blues!
RSVP:
Please RSVP by emailing fiction@lapl.org today.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAP, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/writers-group-0
Author Talk; Dave Showalter & Living River at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL– In-Person Event
Author Dave Showalter will present and discuss his book, Living River.
Living River: The Promise of the Mighty Colorado provides a deeper understanding of how closely our lives depend upon water. Come enjoy this fascinating discussion and see some beautiful photographs of the Colorado River.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-dave-showalter
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Deep Critique Writing Workshop – Online Zoom Event
Deep Critique Writing Workshop led by DKC (Submit up to 3 pantoums totaling no more than 60 lines on any subject for Four Feathers Press online edition: Pantoum Festival by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, December 15th)
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
The NEW Series: Metadata, with Lily Hoang, Elizabeth Houston & Douglas Manuel at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Celebrate the final installment of the NEW Series this year!
This event features commissioned writings from selected authors to create original work for a series of readings and performances. The final installment this year features: Lily Hoang, Douglas Manuel, and Elisabeth Houston to perform new work, that has never been published or presented elsewhere, on the theme metadata.
Multidisciplinary artist and author Elisabeth Houston is a professor of creative writing for California State University. Houston is the author of Standard American English (Litmus, 2022).
Lily Hoang is the author of five books, including A Bestiary (finalist for a PEN USA Nonfiction Book Award) and Changing (recipient of a PEN Open Books Award). She has been a Mellon Fellow at Rhodes University in South Africa, a Distinguished Visiting Writer at Cornell College, and a Cultural Exchange Faculty Fellow at Wuhan University in China. To date, she has taught creative writing on five continents. She currently teaches in the MFA Program at UC San Diego. She lives in San Diego, California.
Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Whittier, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Testify (2017) and Trouble Funk (2023). His poems and essays can be found in numerous literary journals, magazines, and websites, most recently Zyzzyva, Pleiades, and the New Orleans Review. He has traveled to Egypt and Eritrea with The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program to teach poetry. A recipient of the Dana Gioia Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, he is an assistant professor of English at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Book Launch: Anastasia Helena Fenald & The Art of Job Hunting at Red Hen Press, Pasadena – In-Person Event
Celebrate the launch of Anastasia Helena Fenald’s new book, The Art of Job Hunting: A Dramedy in Verse.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Red Hen Press
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 1 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 1540 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena, CA 91103
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzmS6rDy4ao/
Writing From Our Immigrant Hearts: Poetry Reading & Panel at Avenue 50 Studio, Highland Park – In-Person Event
Writing From Our Immigrant Hearts is a poetry reading and panel featuring:
Alicia Viguer-Espert isa poet form Valenica Spain. She is the author of the chapbooks, To Hold a Hummingbird and Out of the Blue Womb of the Sea. She writes about relationships to nature, identity, language, home, and soul.
Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Born in Rome, living in Los Angeles, she is an artist, musician, and dancer. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise Press, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022), The Past, Ineffable (Cholla Needles, 2023) and Odd Arcana (Cholla Needles, 2023).
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer, educator, cultural commentator, and rezandera from Venezuela. She is the author of two books, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir, 2017. And Uprising / Alzamiento from Finishing Line Press, June 2021.
Teresa Mei Chuc (Tuệ Mỹ Chúc) is multilingual, was born in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam and fled her Vietnamese homeland with her mother and brother shortly after the American war in Việt Nam, spending three and a half months in a freight boat stranded in the South China Sea before being rescued. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, Invisible Light (Many Voices Press, 2018), Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014) and Red Thread (First edition, Fithian Press, 2012 & Second edition, Shabda Press, 2021) and two poetry chapbooks, Incidental Takes (Hummingbird Press, 2023) and How One Loses Notes and Sounds (Word Palace Press, 2016). Teresa is co-editing the poetry anthology, Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War (Scarlet Tanager Books, 2025
Moderated by Thelma Reyna, editor and publisher of Golden Foothills Press. Her latest book—WHEN THE VIRUS CAME CALLING: COVID-19 STRIKES AMERICA—broke ground as one of the first anthologies (46 distinguished authors from across the United States) writing poems, personal essays, and short fiction as they documented in real time the arrival and spread of coronavirus in America in the first 7 months of the pandemic.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Avenue 50 Studio
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 131 N. Avenue 50, Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://facebook.com/thelma-reyna
Canva Workshop Series with ARKAYLA via Sims Library of Poetry – Online Zoom Event
Have you heard of Canva? If not, it is a new, user-friendly design app that makes it super easy for anyone to design flyers, websites, social media graphics and more. In this workshop, you will learn the basics using Canva for all of your design needs. Once you understand the functions of Canva’s two main toolbars, the opportunities are endless.
At the end of the first 1.5 hour workshop, you will understand:
1. The basics of graphic design
2. How to use Canva templates to make your own branded content
3. How to download and publish your designs
Facilitated by Arkayla.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Second Sunday Poetry Series presents: Scott Millerat Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
Alex M. Frankel hosts Second Sunday Poetry Series, and will welcome guest feature Scott Miller
Second Sunday Poetry first hosted Scott Miller twelve years ago, and now he returns with new work. Scott is also a mathematician by training and holds a degree from MIT.
Alex M. Frankel noted twelve years ago that his poems “are also full of dignified emotion” and that he “writes in a variety of styles and voices—who knows what he’ll unveil, so to speak, today, but I know it will be interesting and I know that he will read it passionately.”
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd West, Los Angeles, CA 90068
(Near Universal Studios)
Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/
December Reading at the Mandrake: Chen Chen, Neelanjana Banerjee, F. Douglas Brown, Joseph Han, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Tomas Moniz, & Genevieve Hudson at The Mandrake
Dr. Akashi M. Jackson hosts a December Reading at the Mandrake with a wonderful group of featured readers:
Chen Chen is a Chinese American poet. His book, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, was longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry. Chen serves on the poetry faculty for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast.
Neelanjana Banerjee’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared widely in journals and anthologies. She is a co-editor of Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (University of Arkansas Press, 2010), and The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles (Tia Chucha Press, 2016). She is the Managing Editor of Kaya Press and teaches writing and publishing in the Asian American Studies Department at UCLA and through private writing workshops.
F. Douglas Brown is a Black and Filipino poet and the author of ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018); and Zero to Three (University of Georgia Press, 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. The recipient of fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Kundiman Foundation, he serves as director of equity and inclusion as well as an instructor of African American poetry and studies at Loyola High School of Los Angeles.
Joseph Han was born in Korea and raised in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. He is a 2022 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 Honoree and the author of a debut novel, NUCLEAR FAMILY (Counterpoint Press 2022), which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, NPR Best Book of 2022, one of Time Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2022, among other awards. He’s an Affiliate Faculty in Fiction at the Antioch University Los Angeles low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program, and is now working on a story collection and a second novel.
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants raised in San Gabriel, California. Her debut collection was Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). Bermejo’s second collection, Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press 2023), explores US monuments, memorializes Black and brown bodies murdered by state sanctioned violence, and shares love poems to family, friends, and dalliances in rituals of resistance and resilience.
Tomas Moniz is a latinx writer living in Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a FINALIST for the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel 2020 Award, a FINALIST for a LAMBDA 2020 award for Bisexual Fiction and a FINALIST for the Foreword Review Indies Award. He teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program. He has stuff on the internet but loves penpals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back.
Genevieve Hudson is the author of the novel Boys of Alabama, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Their other books include the critical memoir A Little in Love with Everyone and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist. Their work has appeared in ELLE, Oprah Daily, LA Review of Books, Electric Literature, Bomb, Bookforum, No Tokens, Bitch, Tin House, McSweeney’s, Catapult, and other places.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: The Mandrake
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2692 La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90034
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159624385806127&set=pcb.10159624393851127
Library Girl + Roar Shack Present Final Show of the Year: Out of Our Hands at The Ruskin Theatre – In-Person Event
This event is a collaboration betweenwriters and hosts Susan Hayden and David Rocklin and features:
Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins is an immigrant from El Salvador whose poetry has been published in various journals, and who has authored five volumes of poetry. She the host and curator of Serpentine Poetry and Open Mic and the former host of Bookshow Open Mic.
Angela Franklin is a poet, essayist, visual artist, activist, and documentarian. She holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and is a fellow of Cave Canem, VONA fellow, and Hurston Wright.Her work is published in anthologies such as Korean Anthology Flowers Blooming from Scars: 30 Year Anniversary of LA Riots, The Gathering, Peregrine: Black Voices Speak, The Best of Poetry Salon, Voices of Leimert Park Redux, and online publications Cultural Weekly, Portside and Spectrum. She has two books underway. Leather Sundays is a memoir examining violence’s impact on a Black family and its neighboring community. The second book is a collection of poetry, Cutting Through Keloids.
Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee in fiction, nonfiction and poetry and is the author of two poetry collections, two novels, a novelette, and a how to write magical realism craft book. She is managing editor at SHARK REEF literary magazine (currently on sabbatical) and is culture editor at large and writer at the Journal of Radical Wonder. She sits on the advisory board of Writers Bloc Presents.
Steven Meloan is authorof the story collection, St. James Infirmary, released (in 2023) on Roadside Press, with tales taking place in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, spanning from childhood to the present. He is also co-author of The Shroud, a Science-Adventure novel in the vein of Carl Sagan’s Contact
Gary Phillips is a critically acclaimed author of mysteries and graphic novels. Raised in South Central Los Angeles, Phillips grew up reading comics, classic pulp and detective fiction, and the likes of Iceberg Slim and took inspiration from all this when he created his first series character, Ivan Monk, in the early 1990s. A private detective adept at navigating the racial tensions of modern L. A. and beyond, Monk has appeared in four novels and one short story collection, Monkology (2011).
Lynne Thompson, poet laureate of Los Angeles emerita, isthe author of Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Press Book Prize, Start With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork, winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Prize. She serves on the Boards of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books and as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Scripps College.
Jimmy Vega is the son of Mexican immigrants, a Chicano L.A.-based poet, writer, educator, and bookseller. He holds a B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from UCLA and is an MFA candidate in the School of Critical Studies, Creative Writing Program at CalArts, where they co-created the MFA in Creative Writing’s HyperLink reading series. Jimmy sings out loud when he’s gridlocked anywhere in Los Angeles traffic.
Romaine Washington (she/her) is the editor of These Black Bodies Are… A Blacklandia Anthology, and the author of two poetry books, Purgatory Has an Address and Sirens in Her Belly. Washington’s poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and she is a twice-nominated Pushcart Prize poet.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Ruskin Theatre
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3000 Airport Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=163080 or https://www.facebook.com/events/883264343396424/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22group%22%7D]%7D
Fantasy Romance Book Clubat The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
December’s Fantasy Romance Book Club participants will discuss Divine Rivals: A Novel (Letters of Enchantment #1), by author Rebecca Ross.
This novel is about two young rival journalists who find love through a magical connection, but they must face the depths of hell, in a war among gods, to seal their fate forever.
Rebecca Ross is the #1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of fantasy books for teens and adults. She has written multiple highly acclaimed duologies, including Letters of Enchantment, Elements of Cadence, and The Queen’s Rising as well as two standalone novels: Dreams Lie Beneath and Sisters of Sword & Song. When not writing, she can be found in her garden where she plants wildflowers and story ideas. She resides in Northeast Georgia with her husband and her dog.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 