Philosophical Horror Book Club: The Fervor at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Philosophical Horror Book Club participants will discuss The Fervor, by author Alma Katsu.
1944: As World War II rages on, a mysterious, deadly fervor spreads across America, transforming people into monstrous aggressors, each provoked into fits of unthinkable barbarity. It’s a contagion that, according to Meiko Briggs, might have dark, other-wordly underpinnings. With a keen and prescient eye, acclaimed author Alma Katsu crafts a terrifying story about the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and a deep excavation of how we decide who gets to be human when being human matters most.
Alma Katsu is the award-winning author of seven novels, most recently Red Widow, The Deep, and The Hunger. She is a graduate of the master’s writing program at the Johns Hopkins University and received her bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University. Prior to the publication of her first novel, Katsu had a long career as a senior intelligence analyst for several U.S. agencies. She lives in West Virginia with her husband.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/philosophical-horror-book-club-fervor
At Skylight: Amy Spaulding & At Her Service at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Amy Spaulding will present and discuss her novel, At Her Service, a sweetly sexy, sapphic rom-com about self-improvement, chasing dreams, and writing your own love story.
Amy Spalding is the author of several novels, including the bestselling We Used to Be Friends and The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), which was named a best book of 2018 by NPR, the Boston Globe, Kirkus, and more. Amy grew up in St. Louis and now lives in Los Angeles. She has a B.A. in Advertising & Marketing Communications from Webster University and an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School. Amy studied longform improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Visit her at TheAmySpalding.com.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 19th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-amy-spalding-presents-her-service
Monday Night Fiction Workshop 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 19th
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-837431880297
Cellar Door by Day Brainstorming Meetingat Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Share your thoughts and wishes for more daytime book club scheduling at Cellar Door. After the meetings, we’ll come up with some plans and let you know.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-day-brainstorming-meeting-0
Tuesday Afternoon Book Club: The Lonely City at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Book Club participants will discuss The Lonely City; Adventures in the Art of Bring Alone by author Olivia Laing.
Copies are available at the reference desk.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/year-dragon-storytime
Nonfiction Book Club: Con Artist: the life and times of the world’s greatest art forger at Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Con Artist: the life and times of the world’s greatest art forger by authorTetro, Tony.
This group of avid readers meets on the third Tuesday of each month to discuss a work of nonfiction. Books selected for discussion can be new or old and come from a wide array of genres, styles, and authors
Copies are available at the reference desk.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90069
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/nonfiction-book-club-0
Mysterious Book Club: Heaven, My Home at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Heaven My Home, by authorAttica Locke.
This is the second book featuring Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, following Bluebird, which we read for January. We welcome new members. Come even if you haven’t read the book. You can meet everyone, and you’ll know the title for next month.
Darren Matthews has another case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for antebellum Texas—and some of that era’s racial attitudes still thrive as well. A local boy’s disappearance on the lake has links to Darren’s last case and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy’s grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mysterious-book-club-18
DAW Books Launch: To Cage a God by Elizabeth May at The Ripped Bodice – Online Event
Ripped Bodice has partnered with DAW Books for a virtual event to launch Elizabeth Mays’ novel To Cage a God.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Emerson Ave. Community Garden Book Club: Wellness at The Book Jewel, Westchester – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Wellness, by author Nathan Hill.
Wellness is set in 2015 and chronicles the mid-marriage malaise of Jack and Elizabeth, a couple once dedicated to debunking fad diets and now in business to trick people into happier lives.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
Classic Detectives Book Club: Golden Age Detectives at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Golden Age Detective Stories by Otto Pender.
Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler selects some of the greatest American short stories from era. With authors including Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Anthony Boucher, this collection is a treat for those who know and love this celebrated period in literary history, and a great introduction to its best writers for the uninitiated.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/classic-detectives-book-club-golden-age-detectives
Book Talk: Scott Guild & Plastic at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Scott Guild, in conversation with Jenny Rodgers and Ilana Masad, will present and discuss his debut novel, Plastic.
Both a crypto-comedic dystopian fantasy and a deadly serious dissection of our own farcical pre-apocalypse, Scott Guild’s debut novel is an achingly beautiful, disarmingly welcoming, and fabulously inventive look at the hollow core of modern American society—and a guide to how we might reanimate all its broken plastic pieces. Readers who loved Rumaan Alam’s Leaving the World Behind, Ling Ma’s Severance, Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here, and Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story would lose themselves in this new world.
Jonny Rodgers (Cindertalk) is an Oregon-based composer and multi-instrumentalist. Best known for his “stunning” (NY Times) work with tuned glass, Jonny orients his work around organic instrumentation coupled with electronic manipulation. Unconventional sounds permeate his writing, which is often described as surprising, wistful, lovely, melancholy, intricate, and emotionally immersive.
Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, and many more. Ilana has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is the author of the novel All My Mother’s Lovers.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-scott-guilds-plastic-tickets-820693013897?aff=oddtdtcreator
The 3rd Tuesday Book Club at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss The Sentence by author Louise Erdich.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/3rd-tuesday-book-club-6
Greg Horwitz, with Scott Brick, & The Lone Wolf: An Orphan X Novel at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Greg Horwitz, in conversation with Scott Brick, will discuss his book, The Lone Wolf: An Orphan X Novel.
Once a black ops government assassin known as Orphan X, Evan Smoak left the Program, went deep underground, and reinvented himself as someone who will go anywhere and risk everything to help the truly desperate who have nowhere else to turn. Since then, Evan has fought international crime syndicates and drug cartels, faced down the most powerful people in the world and even brought down a President. Now struggling with an unexpected personal crisis, Evan goes back to the very basics of his mission—and this time, the truly desperate is a little girl who wants him to find her missing dog.
But this unlikely, tiny job quickly explodes into his biggest mission yet, one that finds him battered between twisted AI technocrat billionaires, a mysterious female assassin who seems a mirror of himself, and personal stakes so gut-wrenching he can scarcely make sense of them.
Gregg Hurwitz is the author of the New York Times bestselling Orphan X novels. Critically acclaimed, his novels have been international bestsellers, graced top ten lists, and have been published in thirty-two languages. Additionally, he’s sold scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed, and produced television for various networks. Hurwitz lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Gregg-Hurwitz-The-Lone-Wolf-Author-signing
Conchas y Café Zine Writing Workshop via DSTL Arts – In-Person Event Conchas y Café
Conchas y Café is a DSTL Arts bilingual community writing workshop series for adults that produces a biannual zine by the same name, featuring artwork and creative writing produced by our community and program participants.
The goal of Conchas y Café is to bring together our community under the arts, building skills and arts-literacy, so that more adults may appreciate the cultural and economic value the arts bring to our lives. The content taught through this workshop series is primarily for new and emerging poets and writers, or people returning to creative writing after a long-term absence from the craft.
The Conchas y Café workshop series spans 15 weeks, and is an ongoing program offered every trimester. Our program participants write on a new theme for their zine every trimester and celebrate its release with a public reading.
Enrollment via Google Classroom required for workshop participation and full access to session handouts.
For any questions regarding Conchas y Café, feel free to contact us directly by email at Info@DSTLArts.org.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Tuesday the 20th (through April the 30th)
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/conchasycafezine
Pam Jennings & Part 3 of 3-Part Series on Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Pam Jennings will lead a three-part series on William Faulkner and his masterpiece, Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner: recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature and the Pulitzer Prize. He is known for his short stories and novels set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County based on his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. His works include, The Sound and the Fury, A Light in August and As I Lay Dying. Absalom, Absalom! is considered by many to be the greatest Southern novel of all time.
Pam Jenning has led several similar book groups at {pages} including (Hemingway and the Nick Adam’s stories, Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn and F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. These are always well-attended and thoroughly enjoyed experiences for all who participate. It’s been too long, and we are very pleased to have Pam back at {pages} sharing her love of one of the great American classics.
The group will meet three times:
Tuesday, February 20th @ 6:30 pm – meet to discuss the second half of Absalom, Absalom!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Village Well Book Club: Yellowface, by RF Kuangat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/33895
ALOUD Reading Series: Rage, She Wrote, with Guests: Soraya Chemaly, Maya Jupiter, Nina Menkes, Ivy Pochoda, Susan Straight & Kristina Wong at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
This new series is a salon-style inquiry into a theme, a moment, or an emotion with a wide variety of guests in conversation. This is an evening of women artists and thinkers who have individually mined the controversial subject of “female fury.” We’ll pull back the curtain on female archetypes and delve more deeply into the power behind female rage.
Soraya Chemaly is a prolific writer and cultural critic, nationally recognized as a feminist thinker, speaker, and activist. Dedicated to bringing intersectional feminist thought, theory, and activism into the popular mainstream, she is an author (Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Angers), a freelance writer (TIME, Rolling Stone), a contributor to several anthologies (most recently, Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World), and an expert commentator (NPR, PBS, BBC). A former Executive Director of The Representation Project, Chemaly currently serves on the national board of the Women’s Media Center.
Born in La Paz, Mexico, Maya Jupiter grew up in Sydney, Australia and is now located in Los Angeles. Her love of hip hop led her into the world of radio and television, becoming a music television host and producer. Having worked with youth since the early 2000’s, Jupiter currently mentors young artists through Music Forward Foundation’s program. A recipient of Tiyya’s Owliya Community Leadership Award and East LA Community Corporation’s Mujer Guerrera Award, she is on the advisory board at Peace Over Violence and is one of the co-founders of Activist Entertainment. After her third solo album Never Said Yes, she is working on a new EP with Jessa Calderon
Nina Menkes is a cinematic pioneer and independent filmmaker. Her award-winning feature films have shown widely at major international film festivals including Sundance, the Berlinale, and Cannes. Described as a “cinematic sorceress” in The New York Times, she is a Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and a directing member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her early films have been restored by the Academy with Scorsese’s Film Foundation and her radical feature set in Las Vegas, Queen of Diamonds, was selected for the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress in 2023.
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France and has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy taught creative writing at Studio 526 in Los Angeles’s Skid Row. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.
Susan Straight is the best-selling author of several novels, including Mecca, Highwire Moon, A Million Nightingales, and In the Country of Women. A recipient of the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, the O. Henry Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, and elsewhere. She was born and continues to live in Riverside, California, with her family, where she serves as Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.
Kristina Wong is an award-winning performance artist, comedian, and writer who has been presented internationally across North America, UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She’s also been a guest on late night TV. Her most notable solo works include “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Wong Street Journal,” and “Kristina Wong for Public Office.” Most recently, Wong presented “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2023. She is a Doris Duke Award winner and Guggenheim Fellow.
Where: ALOUD Series, Mark Taper Auditorium, Central Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lfla.org/event/rage/ or https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/aloud-revue-rage-she-wrote
Jennifer Belle, with Nicholas Weinstock, & Swanna in Love at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Author Jennifer Belle, in conversation with Nicholas Weinstock, will discuss her novelSwanna in Love.
Best-selling novelist Jennifer Belle returns with a kind of inverse Lolita that explores adolescent desire from the girl’s point of view. In turns hilarious and wildly shocking, Swanna in Love will keep your feathers ruffled and the pages gliding by.
Nicholas Weinstock is the founder and president of Invention Studios, an independent movie and TV company based in Los Angeles but with executives, projects and partners all over the world. A former book editor, journalist, communications executive and novelist, Weinstock is the author of three books—As Long as She Needs Me, The Golden Hour, and The Secret Love of Sons.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jennifer-belle
North Fig Book Club: Giovanni’s Room at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Please join North Fig Book Club to discuss Giovanni’s Room, by acclaimed author James Baldwin.:
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N Figueroa St., CA 90042
Website: N/A
At Skylight: Joseph Thomas, with Traci Thomas, & SINK at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Joseph Thomas, in conversation with Traci Thomas, will discuss his bookSINK: A Memoir.
Surrounded by the failure of systems including his family, the public school system, and democratic society, Joseph Earl Thomas grew up feeling like he was under constant threat. Roaches fell from the ceiling, most lessons were taught through violence, and, to make matters worse, he always seemed to be hungry. To escape these foes, he began retreating inward. In Sink, Thomas queries the possibility of escape through fantasy worlds, while grappling with children’s inability to change their circumstances.
Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer from Frankford whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New York Times, VQR, N+1 and The Kenyon Review. He has an MFA in prose from The University of Notre Dame and is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. An excerpt of his memoir, Sink, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize and was listed by the NYTs as a notable book of 2023. Currently the Anisfield-Wolf Fellow at the CSU Poetry Center, his first novel, God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, is forthcoming in June, along with a collection of stories: Leviathan Beach. He is also an associate faculty member at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, as well as Director of Programs at Blue Stoop, a literary hub for Philly writers.
Traci Thomas is the creator and host of The Stacks, a podcast about books and the way they shape culture. Traci is also a monthly contributor for NPR’s Here & Now, and she writes a bookish advice column on shereads.com.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Book Release Event: Blake Butler, with Matthew Spector, & Molly at Stories Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Blake Butler’s Molly (@archwayeditions) is a bestselling, peerless memoir reckoning with the acclaimed author’s marriage to poet Molly Brodak and the secrets of hers he uncovers following her decision to end her life.
“Molly is a brilliant and brutal book. Blake Butler fearlessly takes on love and grief and the mysteries of this world and the next.”
—EMMA CLINE
At this in-person event, Blake will be in conversation with novelist and screenwriter Matthew Specktor (Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California).
Blake Butler is the author of nine book-length works, including Alice Knott (Riverhead), 300,000,000 (Harper Perennial), Sky Saw (Tyrant Books), There is No Year (Harper Perennial), Scorch Atlas (Featherproof Books), and Ever (Calamari Press), as well as the nonfictional Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia (Harper Perennial). His short fiction, interviews, reviews, and essays have appeared widely, including in The Believer, The New York Times, Bomb, Bookforum, and as an ongoing column at Vice. In 2021, he was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. He is a founding editor of HTMLGIANT.
Matthew Specktor’s books include the novels That Summertime Sound and American Dream Machine, which was long-listed for the Folio Prize; the memoir-in-criticism Always Crashing in The Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California, and The Golden Hour, forthcoming from Ecco Press. Born in Los Angeles, he received his BA from Hampshire College in 1988, and his MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College in 2009. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, The Paris Review, Tin House, Black Clock, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. He is a founding editor of the Los Angles Review of Books.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Laurie R. King & The Lantern’s Dance at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Laurie R. King will discuss her novel The Lantern’s Dance: A Novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, hoping for a respite in the French countryside, are instead caught up in a case that turns both bewildering and intensely personal.
After their recent adventures in Transylvania, Russell and Holmes look forward to spending time with Holmes’ son, the famous artist Damian Adler, and his family. But when they arrive at Damian’s house, they discover that the Adlers have fled from a mysterious threat.
The secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present. And it seems increasingly urgent that Russell figure out how the journal and lantern are related to Damian—and possibly to Sherlock Holmes himself.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Laurie-R-King-discusses-The-Lanterns-Dance
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic + Featured Reader Ashia Ajani – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Ashia Ajani.
Ashia Ajani is a multi-genre storyteller and educator from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains. Ajani received a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Yale School of the Environment and is a climate resilient schools educator and researcher with Mycelium Youth Network.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show – In-Person Event
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show is offered every week at the Unurban Coffee House. Hosted by DeForest Wright, all are invited to attend.
NOTE: Details at event link. Check to Verify.
Where: Unurban Co6ee House
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups or https://www.facebook.com/events/213407634459999/?active_tab=discussion
Da Poetry Lounge SLAM 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
Date: Tuesday the 20th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/open-mic-night
Coffee Time Book Club: The Fraud at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
This Book Club tends to read new release literary fiction. At each meeting we discuss and vote on what we will read and discuss for the following month to read.
The February selection for discussion is The Fraud, by author Zadie Smith.
This story is a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 10 am
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-25
African American History Month, the Washington Irving Adult Book Club will be reading Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by Dawn Turner.
Copies are now available in the branch. You can also check out an e-book here. There are no copies available in Large Type or CD.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Washington Irving Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 12 pm
Address: 4117 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90018
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-43
Graphic Novel Book Group: The Keeper of the Lost Cities at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Kids Event
Graphic novels are the coolest kind of book there is—do you think so too? If so, then our fabulous Graphic Novel Club is for you. Join us to celebrate our shared love of graphic novels and visual creativity! Iz and Apolo host this book discussion of The Keeper of the Lost Cities, The Graphic Novel Part 1: Volume 1, by Shannon Messenger, Celina Frenn (Adapted by), Gabriella Chianello (illustrator).
Best for ages 9-12. Masks are recommended.
This is a discussion-based club. Participants should come prepared to share their thoughts about that meeting’s book choice.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 4 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Rainbow Reads Book Club: Carry On at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Teen Event
Rainbow Reads: Teen LGBTQIA+ Book Club participants will discuss Carry On (Simmon Snow Trilogy #1) by author Rainbow Rowell.
This Book Club celebrates diversity in Young Adult books as we read books featuring various identities and stories. This is a safe space welcome to teens of all identities and allies! Join Iz and Apollo for our proud book club.
Best for ages 13+ Masks are recommended.
This is a discussion-based club. Participants should come prepared to share their thoughts about that meeting’s book choice.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 5 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/rainbow-reads-book-club-carry-rainbow-rowell
Book Club for Adults at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us on the third Wednesday of every month for our long-running book club for adults! Participants will discuss the February selection, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027page
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-0
Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage, with Rachel Bilson, & Welcome to the O.C. at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Authors Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage, in conversation with Rachel Bilson, will discuss their book,Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral Hstory.
Just in time for the show’s twentieth anniversary, The O.C.’s creator Josh Schwartz and executive producer Stephanie Savage are ready to dive into how the show was made, the ups and downs over its four seasons, and its legacy today. With Rolling Stone’s chief TV critic and bestselling author Alan Sepinwall conducting interviews with the key cast members, writers, and producers who were there when it all happened, Welcome to the O.C. will offer the definitive inside look at the beloved show—a nostalgic delight for audiences who watched when it aired, and a rich companion to viewers currently discovering the show while it streams on HBO Max and Hulu.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/josh-schwartz-and-stephanie-savage
North Fig Launch Party: Bucky Sinister, with Michelle Tea & Tara Jepson, & To Fear and Love Bambi Lake at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Please join North Fig for the launch party for Bucky Sinister’s To Fear and Love Bambi Lake, in conversation with Michelle Tea and Tara Jepson.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N Figueroa St., CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lrr61eqx
RECESS Open Mic Is Backat SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
RECESS Open Mic Is Backat SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.
This dynamic open mic is the most accessible public program in our curriculum and manifests our mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.
Join us at the intersection of Historic Filipinotown & The World: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where: SIPA
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm (Doors at 6:30)
Address: 3200 W. Temple St., Ste. 100, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.palmsupacademy.com or https://docs.google.com/forms
Ticketed Event: Alex Michaelidies & The Fury at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Alex Michaelides will discuss his novel The Fury.
The Fury is a masterfully told thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.
This is a tale of murder.
Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?
Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus. He has an M.A. in English Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and an M.A. in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient was his first novel, debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide. The rights have been sold in a record-breaking 51 countries, and the book has been optioned for film by Plan B. His second novel, The Maidens, was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for television by Miramax Television and Stone Village.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-presents-Alex-Michaelides-discusses-The-Fury
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 — Book Release: Albert Starr & Late Night Offerings & Morning Prayers;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $5.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.
NOTE: See site for further details, and any change in the schedule. Contact kaliflowers@gmail.com or call (323) 293-2451
Where: The World Stage
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/
Transversals: A Folio on Walking: Readings by Sesshu Foster Nabil Kashyap, Youna Kwak, Rina Palumboat Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Please join the Poetic Research Bureau, The Hopkins Review, and co-editors, Anna Maria Hong and Christine Hume, as they host this reading of essays and poems on walking by writers including Nabil Kashyap, Youna Kwak, Sesshu Foster, Rina Palumbo, and Willa Zhang.
Traversals: A Folio on Walking features essays, fiction, and poetry by 29 writers on the walk as a conceptual and generative practice and as a place where private reveries and public perception intersect. Published in 2023 in The Hopkins Review, Traversals reinvigorates the genre of the walk as a forum for both mental meandering and as a form for talking about how we move through urban and rural locales as women, writers of color, queer writers, writers with disabilities, and trans and nonbinary writers, contending with the possibility of harm and harassment, while claiming walking’s physical and intellectual pleasures and reclaiming public space. You can find the folio online and in print at website link..
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 7:30 pm (Doors at 7 pm)
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/traversals-a-folio-on-walking
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
Beyond Baroque’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered on Zoom and welcomes 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 L.A. Johnson, the author of the chapbook Little Climates (Bull City Press, 2017). She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Southern California, where she is currently a Mellon Humanities and University of the Future postdoctoral fellow. The winner of the 2022 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the 2022 Greensboro Review Poetry Prize, the 2021 Arts & Letters Rumi Poetry Prize, her poems appear in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and The Slowdown. She’s received support for her writing from Vermont Studio Center, Community of Writers, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and elsewhere. Find more about her at http://www.la-johnson.com
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. There’s an instructive video that might help.
The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Guest Feature Nicelle Davis 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 Nicelle Davis.
Nicelle Davis is a multidisciplinary artist who uses video, poetry, performance, and publication to discuss topics ranging from artistic collaboration, feminist identity, poverty and power, and the environment.
Her published books include Circe, becoming judas, In the Circus of You, The Walled Wife, and The Language of Fractions. Her work has been featured in poetry in The Language of Fractions, Moon Tide Press, CA, September 2023,
Poetry journals featuring Davis’ work include Broadside, Provence Town, NJ, 2023, Lucky Jefferson, Chicago, Il, 2023, and Rattle, Los Angeles, 2023. Also, several of her poems were published in Beat Not Beat, Moon Tide Press, Los Angeles, 2022.
$4 cover fee, cash only.
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 21st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/people/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/
Brentwood Writing Workshop: Wish Soup at Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Bring any project that you’re working on to our weekly writing group. Poetry, novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays are all welcome. You will have free time to write and even lots of support from our great group of local writers.
Note: See site for details.
Where: Brentwood. Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/brentwood-writing-workshop
Author Talk: Tlotlo Tsamaase, with Liz Harmer & Womb City at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Tlotlo Tsamaase, in conversation with, Liz Harmer will discuss her debut adult novel, Womb City.
This genre-bending African-futurist horror novel blends The Handmaid’s Tale with Get Out in an adrenaline-packed, cyberpunk body-hopping ghost story exploring motherhood, memory, and a woman’s right to her own body. Set in a cruel futuristic surveillance state where bodies are a government-issued resource, this harrowing story is a twisty, nail-biting commentary on power, monstrosity, and bodily autonomy. In sickeningly evocative prose, Womb City interrogates how patriarchy pits women against each other as unwitting collaborators in their own oppression.
Tlotlo Tsamaase (xe/xem/xer or she/her/hers) is a Motswana writer. Xer novella, The Silence of Wilting Skin, is a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and was the first Motswana nominee for the Rhysling Award. Tlotlo received support from the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and xer story “Behind Our Irises” jointly won the Nommo Award. Xer short fiction has appeared in multiple best-of anthologies, Africa Risen, New Suns 2, Chiral Mad 5, and other venues. Womb City is her debut novel.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com
Sci-Fi Short Story Club: Touched at Mark Twain Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Sci-Fi Short Story Club participants will discuss Touched by Walter Mosley, a cosmic epic-in-miniature. Available in print and eBook.
RSVP:
For the Zoom link, please send an email request to mtwain@lapl.org.
Note: See site for details.
Where: West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-book-club
Cover to Cover Book Club: Ordinary Grace at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss the novel, Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961.
Note: See site for details.
Where: Mid-Valley Regional Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address:16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club-3
Dr. Ramani Durvasula & It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Dr. Ramani Durvasula will present and discuss It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People.
The author unpacks the oft-misunderstood personality, showing how to identify the telltale signs that you may be dealing with a narcissist and protect yourself from their toxic influence. Along the way, you’ll learn how to become gaslight resistant, chip away at the trauma bonds that keep us stuck in these cycles, grieve the losses, create realistic boundaries, learn the fine art of discernment, and recover your sense of self after years of invalidation.A frequent guest on the Today Show and Good Morning America her work has also been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Men’s Health, BBC, Psychology Today, USA Today, Refinery29, and more.
Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist, Professor Emerita of Psychology at California State University Los Angeles, and the Founder and CEO of LUNA Education, Training & Consulting. She discusses narcissism on her popular YouTube channel, on social media as @DoctorRamani, her popular online program on healing from narcissistic abuse, and as the host of the podcast Navigating Narcissism with Dr. Ramani. This is her fourth book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Dr.-Ramani-Durvasula-Author-signing
Scott Nathan, with Melissa Rivers, & The Big Book of Bad Decisions at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Scott Nathan, in conversation with Melissa Rivers, will discuss his book, The Big Book of Bad Decisions.
This book is a collection of tragicomic vignettes from the hilarious true adventures of Scott Michael Nathan, as he sets out to devour everything Hollywood has to offer—bad dates, worse roommates, A-list celebrities and porn stars, models, moguls, and mushrooms.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/scott-nathan-conversation-melissa-rivers-discusses-big-book-bad-decisions
Queer Spaces: Storytelling Night: Amina Cruz, Sara Trussell, Andy Sanchez, David Castro & Carmella Martinique Bonadio at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Queer Spaces storytelling night is inspired by Sunset Junction Street Fest in the 90’s. Before it got ruined by greed and ultimately ended, the yearly street fest was an awesome queer hang. You would see families pushing baby strollers alongside gay dudes in assless chaps. It was harmonious and beautiful. Lots of great food and local bands and artists.
It is a safe bet that if you are a queer person, you have a story about a queer space that inspired and shaped you. Where you found your tribe. Where you felt safe, seen, understood, loved. This is an evening of unique individual stories about our communal gathering spots, be they historical or contemporary, in real life or virtual. Dedicated queer space will always be essential to our community. Queer Spaces Storytelling Night strives to preserve this notion through the ancient art of sharing stories.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N Figueroa St., CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lrr6bzvg
One Mic One Globe Open Mic, Hosted by VOTH via Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Zoom Event
One Mic One Globe Open Mic is hosted by VOTH and held every 4th Thursday online via Zoom. Features TBA.
This Open Mic is open to all creative folks that want to share. All genres are welcome. Share your truth.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/LosAngelesPoetSociety/
Cry Baby: A Night of Laughter and Tears with Benjamin Perry and Amy Vorpahl at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Cry, Baby explores humans’ rich legacy of weeping—and why some of us stopped. With the keen gaze of a journalist and the vulnerability of a good friend, Author Benjamin Perry, in conversation with Amy Vorpahl, explores the great paradoxes of our tears. Why do we cry? In societies marked by racism, sexism, and homophobia, who is allowed to cry—and who isn’t? And if weeping tells us something fundamental about who we are, what do our tears say?
Benjamin Perry is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in outlets like The Atlantic, Slate, The Huffington Post, Bustle and more. Cry, Baby won a 2024 Choice Award in non-fiction and has been covered on NPR, Vox, the CBC, 10 Percent Happier, The Atlantic and more.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34484
Amanda R. Edwards & Quiet Voice, Awesome Power at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Amanda R. Edwards will present and discuss her book,Quiet Voice, Awesome Power.
The author reveals how spirit isn’t an inaccessible world where deceased loved ones disappear, but a significant part of us and all life around us. She shares how to ready your mind-body-spirit ecosystem to welcome powerful daily guidance from spirit; how to invite new experiences, heal hurtful ones, and move beyond loss; how to engage your body’s physical form to receive and impart messages; and much more.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/amanda-edwards-discusses-quiet-voice
Tia Chucha’s Book Club: Dreaming of You at Tia Chucha’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse, by author Melissa Lozada-Oliva.
This novel is a macabre novel in verse of loss, longing, and identity crises following a poet who resurrects pop star Selena from the dead. It’s an absurd yet heartfelt examination of celebrity worship.
Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 22nd
Time: 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://allevents.in/sylmar/tia-chuchas-book-club-dreaming-of-you/200026059809959 or https://www.instagram.com/p/C2abxAePP80/
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!
Open to all ages. Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Poetry Writing Workshop at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Gubnit Ní Dhúinn will present five workshops, each focused on a different poetic form.
February 16: Sonnet
Equal time will be accorded to the discussion and composition of poetry. Those who come to relish the art form rather than create are also welcome.
This event is supported in part by Poets & Writers.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-writing-workshop
Poetry Reading & Open Mic at Bookman Bookstore – In-Person Event
Bookman Bookstore in Orange presents a Poetry Reading and Spoken Word Open Mic every fourth Friday of the month.
Feel free to come and read your work or just listen.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Bookman Bookstore
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 320 E. Katella Ave., Suite M, Orange, CA 92867
Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057313695880&locale=ku_TR
Black Lit Book Club participants will discuss Let Us Descend: A Novel by author Jesmyn Ward.
Black Lit Book Club: Let Us Descend at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Let Us Descend describes a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. A journey that is as beautifully rendered as it is heart wrenching, the novel is “[t]he literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours” (NPR).
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/black-lit-book-club-let-us-descend
QT Open Mic Nightat Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person Event
QT Open Mic Night is held every 4th Friday at Café con Libros, Pomona.
Liam and Charlie host a fun LGBTQ+ meeting. Share in a poem (serious, fun, or saucy) or enjoy a fun round of BEST STORY WINS!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Café con LIbros, Pomona
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calendar/
Nervous Ghost Open Mic at Brewjeria Co. – In-Person Event
Nervous Ghost Press presents the Nervous Ghost Open Mic every 4th Friday at Brewjeria in Pico Rivera.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Brewjeria Co.
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 4937 Durfee Ave., Pico Rivera CA
Website: https://www.nervousghostpress.org/openmic
Black Radiance: Poetry & Mini Arts Fest with Skew Magazine Poets at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person and Online Hybrid Event
Join us in celebrating Black Radiance, a poetry and mini arts fest with Skew Magazine poets. Featured are poets and contributors to SKEW’s 4th issue showcasing works under the theme “Black Embodiment,” including Managing Editor Bri Stokes and poets Rhys Langston, Liliana Jeanine, Jaden Fields, and Aiyana Sha’niel.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Bri Stokes is a writer, editor, curator, producer, and poet born, raised, and living in Los Angeles, on unceded Tongva land. Her writing has been featured in BuzzFeed, Visual Verse, The Myriad, SKEW Magazine, The Winged Moon Magazine, and Livina Press. She has been profiled by VoyageLA Magazine and the Los Angeles Wave. Bri is a former poetry editor at the now-disbanded Hecate Magazine, and served as the Managing Editor of Issue 04 of SKEW. Her debut chapbook, A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt, was published in late-2023 by Bottlecap Press. Bri is a stargazer, a dreamer, and an eternal seeker. More information about her work and upcoming projects can be found on her website, bristokes.com
Jaden Fields is a poet, cultural worker, and cannabis enthusiast whose work centers the healing possibilities of marginalized communities. He believes in the beauty of vulnerability and the strength in the stories our bodies hold. Jaden believes dancing has the power to heal and entice. Jaden has facilitated healing-centered writing workshops and has performed all over Los Angeles, including LA Pride, Long Beach Pride, Venice Pride, and DTLA Proudfest. Jaden self-published his first chapbook, Intentional Musings on Staying Alive When I Want To Die (2019), an honest depiction of navigating mental health and systemic oppression, and leaning into his own healing.
Rhys Langston is a musician, visual artist, and writer born, raised, and based in Los Angeles. Publications such as the NY Times, the LA Times, AFROPUNK, LA Weekly, STEREOGUM, and SPIN have praised his multimedia efforts. Notable projects include 2020’s dissertation and musical album, Language Arts Unit: a Rap Textbook, and 2022’s Grapefruit Radio, which melded his outré rap, visual art, and absurdist prose. Ever composing and plotting between disciplines, he remains the poet laureate of his living room and has a higher vertical leap than your favorite rapper.
Aiyana Sha’niel is a modern spoken word artist born and raised in Los Angeles. She has been writing for seven years, beginning at Hamilton High School, where she wrote and performed on the school’s poetry team, Hamlit. She has performed and featured for various open mics, such as Da Poetry Lounge, Junior High LA, Get Lit mic, Sunday Jump, Project Pit, and countless others. She is a Community Literature Initiative alumna and is currently a teaching artist in partnership with various organizations. Sha’niel released her first body of work, Little Black Poetry Book, before the age of 20.
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Joan Gelfand & Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Joan Gelfand will discuss her book, Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution.
Outside Voices reports the ups and downs of finding one’s way as an artist, living with a women’s band, forging an independent Jewish identity, founding a women’s restaurant, and becoming a published writer and songwriter while exploring the limits of sexuality and spirituality. The story includes road trips to music festivals in the woods, beaches in Mexico, concerts in Southern California, and a retreat in the Pacific Northwest.
This memoir is a backstage look at the women’s movement that sets the stage for decades of change.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/joan-gelfand
Saffron Cowboy Coffee Presents: Randa Jarrar & Love Is an Ex-Country at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Saffron Cowboy Coffee presents a reading and discussion with Randa Jarrar, author of the memoir Love is an Ex-Country. She is also the author of A Map of Home and Him, Me, and Mohammed Ali.
Queer. Muslim. Arab American. A proudly Fat femme. Randa Jarrar is all of these things. Her first novel, the coming-of-age story A Map of Home (2008), won her the Hopwood Award, and an Arab American Book Award. In Love is an Ex-Country, As an American raised for a time in Egypt, and finding herself captivated by the story of a celebrated Egyptian belly dancer’s journey across the United States in the 1940s, she sets off from her home in California to her parents’ in Connecticut.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Friday the 23rd
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-lrs8jswa
Book Launch: Melissa Marr, with Emma R. Alban, & Remedial Magic at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Melissa Marr, in conversation with Emma R. Alban, will discuss her novel, Remedial Magic.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Laura Pritchett & Playing with Wildfire at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Laura Pritchett will discuss her novel, Playing with Wildfire.
When a wildfire bears down on a mountain community, residents are forced to gather for safety—resulting in a tangle of love and lust that pulls people from their isolation, friendships that form across political divides, and a new hope for rethinking the ways humans inhabit the burning planet. Playing with Wildfire is a literary landscape that is an experiment in form: an astrology report; a grant application-turned-love-story; a phone call from Mother Earth; an obituary for a wildfire; a burned mountain’s conversation with a lone woman and an injured bear. Every story captures how fire affects the human psyche and life, and how destruction can lead to renewal.
Laura Pritchett is the author of five novels, two nonfiction books, and editor of three environmental anthologies, and her work has been the recipient of the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, several Colorado Book Awards, and others. Her best-known novel, Stars Go Blue, has been optioned for TV rights. She’s published over 300 essays and short stories in national venues, most recently in The Sun, Terrain, Camas, Orion, Creative Nonfiction, and others. She directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University and holds a PhD from Purdue University. When not writing or teaching, she can be found sauntering around the West, especially her home state of Colorado.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-laura-pritchett-presents-playing-wildfire
Black History Celebration: Poets Write Black History at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us in celebrating Black History Month with Poets Write Black History!
This event features:
Pw, a 23-year-old author, poet, and educator whose work, featured in Writer’s Pocket Anthologies has left a mark on literary landscapes. As a co-founder of Tuskegee University’s “Skegee Speaks,” Pw nurtures writing communities. Pw’s debut poetry collection, Fever Memory, published by World Stage Press, is not only a testament to creative depth but is also housed in branches of the LA Public Library. With over 100 performances at open mics including venues like WAN in Houston and DPL in Los Angeles, Pw’s impact resonates across literary and educational spheres.
Queen Ashay is an emerging artist both in the literary and music industry. Ashay brings to her performances an in depth, fresh and inciteful perspective of the African American’s Diaspora cultural experience. Her voice is strong, and her influence is persuasive. As she sings lyrics and recites verses that merges the soul into a personal space of positive creative writing consumption. Ashay is a purveyor of sonorities and words that captivate the imagination.
Ron L. Dowell holds two master’s degrees from California State University Long Beach. In 2017, he received the UCLA Certificate in Fiction Writing. His short stories appear in Oyster Rivers Pages and Writers Resist. His poetry resides in Troublemaker Firestarter and The Opiate.
Felicia E. is a poet, writer and performer. She’s been published in various anthologies and journals. And a Feature at libraries, festivals and museums. Her book Southern Spiced: A Brown Girl’s Tale, is a Readers Choice Book Award-Finalist. And was on tour with the Michigan State University Social Justice exhibit/Mellon Foundation.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Friday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2702 W Florence Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://events.humanitix.com/wsp-bhm
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Freewater at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids Event
Middle-grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions. This month, we will be reading Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson.
RSVP:
Please e-mail Ms. Ashley at akagan@lapl.org or Ms. Gail at gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL,
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-21
Mystery Book Club: Raven Black at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss Raven Black by author Ann Cleeves.
(Virtual meeting on Zoom this date. Please contact wwood@lapl.org for Zoom link.)
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL,
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14
Poetry Workshop at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join this inclusive, in-person poetry workshop where poets of all levels can come together, share their work, and foster a vibrant poetry community. Participants are invited to bring a poem, no longer than one page, to read and receive valuable feedback from fellow poets. Engage in thoughtful discussions and provide your own insights on the work of others. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just starting out, this workshop offers a supportive environment to refine your craft, connect with like-minded individuals, and celebrate the power of words.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-1
Mystery Book Club: Raven Black at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss Raven Black by author Ann Cleeves.
(Virtual meeting on Zoom this date. Please contact wwood@lapl.org for Zoom link.)
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL,
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14
Author Event: Christine Van Zandt & Milkweed for Monarchs at Venice Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join local author Christine Van Zandt for the release of her new book Milkweed for Monarchs.
Learn about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly and how changing environments make it harder to find food. We will have a butterfly-themed craft and snacks generously provided by the Friends of Venice Library.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Venice-Abbot Kinney Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: 501 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14
Storytime & Book Signing: Dr. Ty-Juana Taylor & A Life of Song at Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Join author Dr. Ty-Juana Taylor for the release of her new book A Life of Song.
Discover the untold story of Ella Jenkins, the First Lady of Children’s Music. While many know her from Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, few realize that her groundbreaking career in children’s music was rooted in the fight for equality.
A young girl in a segregated Chicago, Ella found her passion for music early on, believing in its potential to bring people together. This biography follows Ella’s trailblazing career from her early life influenced by jazz greats like Cab Calloway to her cross-country tours. Ella brought global sounds and stories to homes and classrooms everywhere and united people at a time of division. A Life of Song: The Story of Ella Jenkins tells the extraordinary story of a woman who has fearlessly crossed boundaries to share music and use it as a tool to fight racism. It’s a story that asks readers of all ages, “will YOU sing a song together?”
Dr. Ty-Juana Taylor received her Masters Degree in Social Welfare and a PhD in ethnomusicology from UCLA. Ty-Juana understands the value of community, the power of advocacy, and the importance of valuing the marginalized. She is a proponent of “Because of them, we can,” and that echoes in all of her work. Ty-Juana believes it is essential that she uplifts the voices and stories of people of color and the marginalized in all that she does as an educator, advocate, and therapist.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO, LB
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: 3976 Atlantic, Long Beach, CA
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/storytime-with-dr-ty-juana-taylor-a-life-of-song-tickets-806151931127
Storytime & Book Signing: Natasha Tripplett & The Blue Pickup at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Join debut picture book author Natasha Tripplett for the release of her new book The Blue Pickup.
The Blue Pickup is a charming story about a young girl who loves fixing automobiles with her grandfather on the warm grounds of Jamaica, Natasha Tripplett’s debut picture book is a perfect pick for fans of My Papi Has a Motorcycle and The Old Truck.
Natasha Tripplett lives in Northern California, where she writes from a treehouse perched in a sycamore tree. Natasha is a Jamaican Jewish American author who is passionate about cultural representation in children’s literature. She bubbles with excitement over antiques, chocolate, coffee on the front porch, and cozy movie nights in front of the fireplace with her husband and four children. You can visit her at natashabooks.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: 10580 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event
Children’s Storytime: Barney Saltzberg & Arlo Needs Glasses! at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Children’s book author Barney Saltzberg presents a reading from his newest book, Arlo Needs Glasses!
With close to fifty picture books published, Barney Saltzberg has been traveling the world talking about creativity and where ideas come from. He lectured in China and Russia through a cultural exchange program through the United States State Department.
Barney is passionate about working with children, parents, teachers, organizations on the art of making mistakes and finding play and creativity in our everyday lives.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34399
Special Musical Storytime: The Struggle with Pasadena Conservatory of Husic at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
A bright red ribbon leads to a musical journey of imagination in this musical storytime with students and faculty of the Pasadena Conservatory of Music, featuring The Squiggle by Carole Lexa Schaefer. Caregivers and children aged 3-9 will enjoy storytime, craft activities, creative movement and a mini-concert.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 11:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Special-Musical-Storytime-the-Pasadena-Conservatory-of-Music
Will Janns & Stone Pub at The Book Jewel, Westchester – In-Person Event
Will Janns is the author team name of Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zellinger, who together published 15 novels plus a couple of short stories.
Stone Pub is a thriller set in 1962 and takes the reader on a dangerous trip to Ireland where betrayal and death lurk behind every corner.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
Local Author Book Signing: The Relatable Poetry Journal, with Nicole Rose Julian at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Nicole Rose Julian’s collection of seven years of poetry is separated into 5 chapters: Life, Love, Sexy Stuff, Identity and People and Places. The poems range from topics of racial inequality, mental health, heart break and light-hearted takes on the world.
Nicole Rose Julian grew up in Culver City, California. Attended the American Musical & Dramatic Academy for Acting in Hollywood, California. They were the 2021 winner for best horror fantasy script and best local writer awards in the Boobs & Blood film festival. Nicole is a writing consultant, photographer and event organizer, who has made it their personal mission to inspire people to live as their most authentic selves through their craft, while supporting causes geared towards mental health and wellness.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34548
Big Read Book Discussion: Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? at Wilshire Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Big Read Book Discussion participants will discuss Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by author Roz Chast.
All adults and seniors welcome!
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Wilshire Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 149 N. Saint Andrews Pl., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-15
Black History Month: Bridget “Biddy” Mason: Her Open Hand at Altadena Main Library – In-Person Event
This presentation is storytelling interspersed with original spoken word prose and media projection.
Lorinda Hawkins Smith takes us on a journey from bondage to freedom where Bridget “Biddy” Mason won her freedom from enslavement in a California court.
Biddy Mason went on to be a major part of the history of medicine in California, one of the pioneers of Los Angeles, and with her wealth managed to be a blessing for all. Through Mason’s open hand flows one of the largest and oldest Black churches in Los Angeles, the pentecostal movement and downtown L.A.’s financial district.
“If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.” – Biddy Mason
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Altadena Main Library, Community Room
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 600 E. Mariposa St, Altadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.altadenalibrary.org/programs/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D172030479
Fourth Saturdays Poetry Event: James Coats & Gustavo Hernandez at Claremont Library – In-Person Event
James Coats is a poet, author, and educator, winner of the 2021 San Gabriel Poetry Slam, and became artist-in-residence at the Garcia Center of the Art in 2022. He hosts the monthly Be the Change: Social Justice Writing Workshop. His newest poetry collection is Midnight & Mad Dreams from World Stage Press.
Gustavo Hernandez is the author t-of the acclaimed collection Flower Grand First and the mini chapbooks From His Arms and Little Fleece. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles, Times, Harvard Review, and the American Academy of Poets’ Poem-a-Day series. In January he was appointed the Poet Laureate of Orange County. He was born in Jalisco Mexico and resides in Santa Ana, CA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Claremont Helen Renwick Library
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/fourthsaturdayspoetry/ or https://www.facebook.com
Poetry with HUIZACHE: The Magazine of New America at LA Plaza de Cultura, La Cocina de Gloria Molina – In-Person Event
Huizache is proud to publish voices who are as persistent and gold as the magazine’s namesake, the huizache tree.
Poets participating in this free reading are:
Audrey Harris Fernández, who has been published in Sunstone, Párafo, and elsewhere; Manuel Paul López’s books include Nerve Curriculum, These Days of Candy, The Yearning Feed, and Death of a Mexican and Other Poems;
Michael Jaime-Becerra, author of This Time Tomorrow, a novel awarded an International Latino Book Award;
Vanessa Diaz, who has been published in The Acentos Review, Dryland Lit, Kweli, and Huizache magazine.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, La Cocina de Gloria Molina
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Address: 555 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-with-huizache-the-magazine-of-new-america-tickets-828906470567
Poetry Readings: Featuring Fiction Writers from Beyond Baroque’s Monday Night Workshop at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join Beyond Baroque and writer Raquel Baker for a reading celebrating the work of Beyond Baroque’s Monday Night Fiction Workshop participants. Hear work from participants Aditi Agina, Pat Branch, Tammy C, Julia Lopate, Jill Michaels, Jen Thilman, and Marina Tumas.
Workshop Facilitator Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa, specializing in Postcolonial Studies and 20th- and 21st-century African literatures in English, 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. Baker has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and nonfiction in Little Village; and has participated in readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel lives for talking all things about the craft and social meanings of literature!
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-reading-tickets-820405373557
Miriam’s Garden Poetry Reading: Brian Dunlap, Juan Amador & Allegra Parks at Hyde Park-Miriam Mattews Branch Library, LAPL – In-Persen Event
Miriam’s Garden Poetry Reading is hosted every 4th Saturday by Yago Cura, and the features today include:
Brian Dunlap is a poet and writer, born in and still living and working in Los Ángeles. He explores and captures those stories that are hidden in plain sight. He’s the winner of a Jeff Marks (renamed Marvin Bell) Memorial Poetry Prize from december magazine judged by former Los Ángeles Poet Laurate Luis J. Rodriguez. He is the author of the chapbook Concrete Paradise (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Los Angeles Literature, an online publication that covers the Greater Los Ángeles literary community.
Juan Amador is a spoken-word artist from South Central LA. He’s excited to release his first poetry book titled Pimping My Trauma with Riots of Roses Publishing. He cannot wait to see it on everyone’s hands in Fall 2024.
Allegra Parks N/A
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Hyde Park-Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Address: 2205 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://dola.com/events/2024/2/24/miriam-s-garden-tickets or https://www.instagram.com/laplhydepark/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/C22lcyGRnU-/
Book Launch Party: Sikivu Hutchinson, with guests, & The Roar of Distant Engines and Other Stories at The Book Jewel, Westchester – In-Person Event
Speculative fiction author Sikivu Hutchinson, with special guests Cydney Wayne Davis and Mauricio “Maurock” Ortiz performing her original country rock tunes, will discuss her book, The Roar of Distant Engines and Other Stories.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
Book Club at Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Book Club participants will discuss the monthly selection which can be learned by Emailing ayosco@lapl.org with questions or for participation details.
All adults and seniors welcome!
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 6146 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/arroyo-book-club-1
Keepers of Culture: Poetry Reading Series at Northridge Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us in-person or via Zoom for Keepers of Culture. Poetry Reading Series, featuring poetry readings and open poetry mic, every 4th Saturday of the month.
RSVP:
Please email Emily at eaaronson@lapl.org for the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Northridge Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 9051 Darby Ave., Northridge, CA 91325
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/expressions-la-poetry-reading-series-and-open-mic-3
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Publishing Party for Linda Ravenswood & Four Fathers Press Poets – In-Person Event
Hosted by DKC and featuring: Linda Ravenswood publishing party+ Poets published in Four Feathers Press online edition: TUNES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: MUSIC POETRY.
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry in Singer Park
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: California Blvd. & St. John Ave., Pasadena, CA
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Friends of Hyde Park Book Club: at Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Please join us on the fourth Saturday of every month from 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. for the Friends of the Hyde Park Book Club. Every month, we read a different book; if you’d like to know which one we’re reading next, call us at the branch, 323-750-7241.
NOTE: See site for details
Where: Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 2206 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/friends-hyde-park-book-club
Cory Doctorow, with Adam Conover, & The Bezzle at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Author Cory Doctorow, in conversation with Adam Conover, will discuss his book, The Bezzle
The year is 2006. Martin Hench is at the top of his game as a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerrilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He spends his downtime on Catalina Island, where scenic, imported bison wander the bluffs and frozen, reheated fast food burgers cost 25$. Wait, what? When Marty disrupts a seemingly innocuous scheme during a vacation on Catalina Island, he has no idea he’s kicked off a chain of events that will overtake the next decade of his life.
A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash, The Bezzle is a sizzling follow-up to Red Team Blues.
Adam Conover is a comedian and television host. He created the shows Adam Ruins Everything and the G Word and serves on the Board of the Writers Guild of America, West.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle
Flypoet Classic Slam: Spoken Word Showcase at Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
Experience an all-star lineup of America’s top slam poets converging on LA to duel it out for cash and bragging rights! Also look for DJ BATTLES, Dance showoffs and other fun shenanigans between rounds. Last year the energy was through the roof and it’s going to be even bigger and better this year. You do not want to miss out. Prepare to be SEVERELY entertained! Get your tickets today at site.
Where: Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach, CA 90278
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/flypoet-classic-slam-tickets-810032879147?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Highland Island Poetry Reading: at Avenue 50 Studio – In-Person Event
Highland Island Poetry Reading features: Maestro Gamin, Ingrid Calderon-Collins, dig wayne and Jaha Zainabu.
This will be Jaha’s final reading before she moves from Los Angeles to Atlanta!
Where: Avenue 50 Studio
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 131 N. Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042
L.A. Book Launch: Jose Hernandez Diaz, with Guests, & Bad Mexican, Bad American at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Celebrate the book launch of Bad Mexican, Bad American by author Jose Hernandez Diaz and his guest readers: Rooja Mohassessy, Jose Osegura, L.A. Johnson, Jimmy Vega.
Bad Mexican, Bad American demonstrates how having roots in more than one culture can be both unsettling and rich: van Gogh and Beethoven share the page with tattoos, graffiti, and rancheras; Quetzalcoatl shows up at Panda Express; a Mexican American child who has never had a Mexican American teacher may become that teacher; a parent’s “broken” English is beautiful and masterful. Blending reality with dream and humility with hope, Hernandez Diaz contributes a singing strand to the complex cultural weave that is twenty-first-century poetry.
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020), Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024), and The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025). He teaches generative workshops for Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshops, The Writer’s Center, Beyond Baroque, and elsewhere. Additionally, he serves as a Poetry Mentor in The Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.
Rooja Mohassessy is an Iranian-born poet and educator. She is a MacDowell Fellow and an MFA graduate of Pacific University, Oregon. Her debut collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine (2023), was the winner of the 22nd Annual Elixir Poetry Award. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, The Adroit Journal, New Letters, The Florida Review, Poetry Northwest, The Pinch, The Rumpus, The Journal, and elsewhere.
L. A. Johnson is the author of the chapbook Little Climates (Bull City Press, 2017). She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Southern California, where she is currently a Mellon Humanities and University of the Future postdoctoral fellow. She is the winner of the 2022 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the 2022 Greensboro Review Poetry Prize, and the 2021 Arts & Letters Rumi Poetry Prize, and her poems appear in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and The Slowdown. She’s received support for her writing from Vermont Studio Center, Community of Writers, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and elsewhere. Find more about her at http://www.la-johnson.com.
jimmy vega is the child of Mexican immigrants, a Chicanx Los Angeles born and raised poet, writer, educator, artist, and curator. His debut poetry collection will be published by What Books Press in 2025. He holds an MFA from the School of Critical Studies, Creative Writing Program at CalArts, where they co-created the MFA in Creative Writing’s HYPERLINK reading series, and a B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from UCLA. In 2023 their work was on view at The Reef Los Angeles as part of the group exhibit Spell/ing. He is a former 2023 ELL Faculty Fellow at CalArts and is the Associate Director of Beyond Baroque.
Jose Oseguera’s writing has been featured (or is forthcoming) in Sonora Review, Chautauqua, and Catamaran. His work has also won the Nancy Dew Taylor Award and placed second in the 2020 Hal Prize Contest. He’s the author of the poetry collection The Milk of Your Blood (2021) as well as And This House is Only a Nest (forthcoming 2024).
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Local Authors Jamie Jo Hoang and Cátia Chien at theFirecracker Festival, off-site at Chinatown Plaza with Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event
Local authors Jamie Jo Hoang (My Father the Panda Killer) and Cátia Chien (On the Tip of a Wave: How Ai Weiwei’s Art Is Changing the World) will be exhibiting at the Firecracker Festival on Sunday, February 25th for their books. Books are available to be purchased ahead of time online or at the event.
The Firecracker Festival is a Lunar New Year Celebration in the heart of historic Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA. The opening ceremony hosts lion dancers and a traditional lighting of 100,000 firecrackers.
Jamie Jo Hoang is an author who is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and grew up in Orange County, California. She feels that it is important to highlight the diverse perspectives and experiences represented in literature. This includes the works of bipoc authors and biopic books, which can shed light on underrepresented communities and offer insights into different cultures. She is the author of My Father, the Panda Killer.
Cátia Chien is a Brazilian Taiwanese artist. She’s the illustrator of such titles as The Bear and the Moon, which was a Society of Illustrators Gold Medal for Original Art winner and a Golden Kite Award for picture book illustration winner, A Boy and a Jaguar, an ALA Notable Book and recipient of the Schneider Family Book Award. Her art has been shown in galleries worldwide including the Beijing National Gallery and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair exhibition. She is also the founder of A THOUSAND WORLDS—a curated picture book directory celebrating BIPOC creators.
This Event is free and family friendly.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time at Los Angeles Chinatown Plaza
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 10 am
Address: 943 N. Broadway., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Soul StufFeaturedat Melrose Trading Post – In-Person Event
Typewriter Poetry on Demand will be offered by Soul Stuf.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Melrose Trading Post
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 11 am
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, CA 90046
Website: https://melrosetradingpost.org/
Children’s Author Joe Cepeda & Wellness at The Book Jewel, Westchester – In-Person Kids Event
Hear heartfelt stories of caring and compassion, in both English and Spanish, from author Joe Cepeda, including: I Help/Ayudo and Salto/I Hop.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 11:30 am
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
VROMANS
Burning Issues Book Club: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? at Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Burning Issues Book Club (BIBC) is held online every last Sunday of the month, and participants this month will discuss Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by author Beverly Daniel Tatum.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/burning-issues-book-club-261829
Vroman’s Local Author Day, Young Readers Edition at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Alexandrina Andre presents The Pranky Monkey.
Experience Sophie, the playful monkey, in a heartwarming adventure full of giggles and valuable life lessons. As Sophie’s pranks take a surprising twist, she discovers the magic of kindness, friendship, and being true to herself. Through funny antics and heartfelt moments, young readers learn about empathy, understanding, and the joy of expressing their feelings. This delightful tale is a must-have for any young reader, a valuable lesson wrapped in fun, and a lot of heart.
Arsen & Mikayel Azatyan present The Adventures of Chik-Chik and Max: Book 1. Chik-Chik and Max are two friends who enjoy having adventures, playing with their friends, and of course—pizza.
Book 1 of The Adventures of Chik-Chik and Max includes:
An Ancient Pizza—Chik-Chik and Max travel back in time to discover the world’s very first pizza.
Christmas—Chik-Chik and Max celebrate Christmas with their friends and find the very best thing to leave for Santa Claus.
The Chocolate Factory—Who wouldn’t want to work in, or visit, a chocolate factory? Chik-Chik and Max do just that, and deal with a threat from a bad guy who wants to ruin the factory.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-Young-Readers-Edition-Feb-2024
Blacklandia:Remaking Language Workshop with James Coats via Inlandia & UCR Arts – Online Event
This generative writing workshop led by James Coats will focus on language while highlighting the impact of African American Vernacular English in writing and its influence on mainstream culture.
This workshop is intended to educate those who are unaware or misinformed about AAVE, and its history and influence in the world around us today. It will encourage writers, especially BIPOC writers, to embrace the language of their experiences and authenticity of their culture. The workshop will also prompt participants to explore poetic elements such as colloquialism, dialect, and vernacular.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: UCR Arts
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://ucrarts.ucr.edu/events/blacklandia-writing-workshop/
Latinx Book Club: Ana Maria and the Fox at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Latinx Book Club participants will discuss Ana Maria and the Fox (The Luna Sisters #1), by author Liana De la Rosa.
In this book, a forbidden love between a Mexican heiress and a shrewd British politician makes for a tantalizing Victorian season.
Liana De la Rosa is a historical romance author who writes diverse characters in the Regency and Victorian periods. Liana is a graduate of the University of Arizona, and in her past life she owned a mystery shopping company and sold pecans for a large farm. When she’s not writing, Liana is listening to true crime podcasts and pretending she’s a domestic goddess while she wrangles her spirited brood of children with her patient husband in Arizona.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com
La Palabra Reading & Open Mic Series: Mauricio Moreno & Tommy Domino at Avenue 50 Studios – In-Person & FB Live Hybrid Event
La Palbra Reading series and Open Mic is hosted every 4th Sunday by Chloe Diaz, and this month’s features are:
Mauricio Moreno is the author of Soul on Fire, his debut collection. He also co-hosts the Trenches Full of Poetry reading series at Page Against the Machine every 2nd Thursday of the month with Nikolai Garcia.
Tommy Domino is a spoken blues poet from Northwest Pasadena now residing in Long Beach area. He started preforming at open mics starting with the Griot Café out of Long Beach in 2003. In 2012, he joined the Still Waters Writers Collective at Vibrations in Inglewood. His work was first published in 2013 in the poetry anthology Sounds From the Waters. In 2015, his work was published in the anthology Poets and Allies for Resistance. The same year he performed at the 50th Anniversary of the Watts Writers Workshop “Passing the Magic”. In 2016, he was accepted to the Community Literature Initiative (4th module) Program at USC. In 2018, he performed at the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) Spoken Word Festival. In February 2018, he release his first collection of spoken blues: Switches, Hot Wheel Tracks & Extension Cords on World Stage Press. Later that year he a Panelist/Performer at the Pasadena LitFest. of the Never Speak Poets from Long Beach, who host monthly shows in the Arts District. In 2019, he became a member of the PAFF Spoken Word planning committee member. He is an author, play writ and photographer.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Avenue 50 Studios
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 131 N. Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: http://avenue50studio.org/la-palabra
Carla Rachel Sameth, Co-Poet Laureate of Altadena, with Romaine Washington & Bonnie S. Kaolan, & Secondary Inspections at Underdog Bookstore – In-Person Event
Carla Rachel Sameth presents her debut full-length collection, Secondary Inspections.
This event will also feature readings from local poets Romaine Washington and Bonnie S. Kaplan.
In Secondary Inspections, her debut full-length poetry collection, Carla illuminates grapplings with race, queerness, identity, and motherhood across generations.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Underdog Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 312 S. Myrtle Ave., Monrovia, CA 91016
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/underdog-bookstore-73171639993 or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/carla-rachel-sameth-co-poet-laureate-of-altadena-tickets-797135282087?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
Book Release:Noelle Cope & Notes From the In-Betweenat The Pop Hop – In-Person Event
NOTES FROM THE IN-BETWEEN is a debut collection of poetry informed by real life experiences before, during, and after emotional and sexual abuse. Noelle’s debut poetry collection weaves together an intimate and vulnerable tale of consuming love, deep spirituality, and finding liberation. The tale is gracefully crafted with a dash of whimsy, a fair amount of sorrow, and the perfect amount of hope.
Noelle Cope is an actress, screenwriter and poet who heralds from the snow-capped mountains of Telluride and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: The Pop Hop
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5002 York., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.thepophop.com/calendar
Readings at Sunset:Queer Poetry Featuring an All-Black Line Upat GENQ Studio – In-Person Event
Cuties Los Angeles presents Readings at Sunset! Readings at Sunset is a monthly live poetry event featuring lgbtq+ poets. This month we’re proud to bring you an all Black lineup of poets. February’s theme is Black Joy, hosted by Adrianne D.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: GENQ Studio
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 3:30 pm (Doors at 3 pm)
Address: 4700 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/readings-at-sunset-an-afternoon-of-queer-poetry-tickets-819260459087
Cozy Mystery Book Launch: Jennifer J. Chow, with Naomi Hirahara, & Ill-Fated Fortune at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Author Jennifer J. Chow, in conversation with Naomi Hirahara, presents her mystery book, Ill-Fated Fortune.
Jennifer J. Chow writes cozies filled with hope and heritage. She’s been a finalist for the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award. Her newest series is the Magical Fortune Cookie mysteries; the first book is Ill-Fated Fortune, which Booklist says “will appeal to fans of Jenn McKinlay, Eve Calder, or Joanne Fluke.” Her other series include the L.A. Night Market Mysteries and the Sassy Cat Mysteries. Jennifer currently serves as Immediate Past President on the board of Sisters in Crime and blogs at chicksonthecase.com. She is an active member of Crime Writers of Color and Mystery Writers of America. Connect with her online and sign up for her newsletter at JenniferJChow.com.
Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her first historical mystery, Clark and Division, which won a Mary Higgins Clark Award, follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. Her follow-up to Clark and Division, Evergreen, was a USA Today bestseller in August 2023. Her children’s book, A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History, will be released by Black Dog and Leventhal in April.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/33631
Vroman’s Local Author Day: Andrea L. Ambler Steven Meloan & Linda Watson at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Andrea L. Ambler presents Stoking the Poetry Flame: A Teaching Resource
Stoking the Poetry Flame shows how to develop and encourage the love of poetry, including strategies for teaching it, and suggestions for making poetry a meaningful part of a student’s life. It is a practical, easy-to-follow, field-tested guide for teachers to use at all grade levels and for all abilities and gives teachers and home-schooling parents techniques for teaching poetry to their students.
Steven Meloan presents St. James Infirmary.
Steven Meloan’s writing has been seen in Wired, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles, BUZZ, the San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly. His fiction has appeared in SOMA Magazine, the Sonoma Valley Sun, Lummox Press, and Newington Blue Press, as well as at Litquake, Quiet Lightning, and other Bay Area literary events. He has regularly written for the Huffington Post and is co-author of the novel The Shroud with his brother Michael. He is a recovered software programmer, and was a street busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.
“Reading these stories, I felt like I was hearing an original voice for the very first time. They are surreal, cinematic, poetic, and have real punch-with everything I could want in a collection of short fiction. Set in California and Europe, from the 1960s to the 1980s, they vividly capture lost times and lost places. They have echoes of Jack Kerouac and Paul Bowles, and can be read again and again with a sense of wonder and pleasure.”-Jonah Raskin, Author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955
Linda Watson presents Dr. Linda’s Comedy Marriage Boot Camp.
In Dr. Linda’s Comedy Marriage Boot Camp, you’ll discover a refreshing take on marital advice that breaks free from the mundane and breathes new life into your relationship. The author shares her unconventional, witty, and downright hilarious strategies for rekindling the flames of love. Tired of hearing the same worn-out relationship advice? Prepare to be delighted as you dive into chapters like “married to an alien,” “mothers-in-law straight outta hell” and “he’s already got a mama.”
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-Feb-2024
Poetry in the Valley Reading Event at Blacquehaus NoHo – In-Person Event
Poetry in the Valley at Blacquehaus NoHo is offered every 2nd & 4th Sunday of the month.
Where: Blaquehaus NoHo
Date: Sunday the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 11671 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood, CA
Website: https://www.google.com/search?q=blaquehaus%20noho%20event%20february%2025%202024
Historical Romance Book Club: Aphrodite and the Duke at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
February’s Historical Romance Book Club participants will discuss Aphrodite and the Duke, by author J.J. McAvoy. Orders Manager Katie S leads this book club. Please join us.
Aphrodite Du Bell has always resented her name. While the members of the town, and even the queen herself, praise her warm brown skin, perfect curls, and exquisite features, Aphrodite can’t help but think that living up to the literal goddess of beauty is asking a bit much. Her renowned loveliness certainly didn’t stop the love of her life from jilting her and marrying another woman four years ago.
When Aphrodite’s formidable mother summons her back to London to aid in her sister’s debut, she has no choice but to acquiesce. But Aphrodite is determined to ignore one man in particular: Evander Eagleman, the Duke of Everely, the man who devastated her all those years ago. Yet why does her guileless heart still flutter at the sight of him?
J. J. McAvoy has written numerous independently published novels. Her books have been translated into six languages and are bestsellers in Turkey, Israel, and France.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 25th
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 