World Literature Book Club at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a spirited and engaging discussion of the world’s best short stories! All selections are from The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction (HarperCollins, 2008) eds. Joyce Carol Oates and Christopher R. Beha. This month’s selections are:
March 4: Off by Aimee Bender
March 11: Mercy by Pinckney Benedict
March 18: The Love of My Life by T.C. Boyle
March 25: Cesar Chavez Day – Library closed.
We meet every Monday morning (excluding holidays).
RSVP:
For the Zoom link, please send an e-mail request to wvally@lapl.org with “World Literature” in the Subject line.
Note: See site for link and details.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 10 am (Repeats at Woodland Hills Branch Library at 2pm)
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-literature-book-club-26
Robertson Writers Groupat Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Calling all writers! The Robertson Writers Group meets every Monday. Get those creative juices flowing and join the group as everyone shares their work and gives feedback.
This group mostly meets in person, but email rbrtsn@lapl.org if you’d prefer to join via Zoom.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-writers-group
Mystery Book Club: The Family Chao at Woodland Hills Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss The Family Chao by author Lan Samantha Chang.
An acclaimed storyteller returns with “a gorgeous and gripping literary mystery” that explores “family, betrayal, passion, race, culture and the American Dream” (Jean Kwok).
RSVP:
Please call the branch at 818-226-0017 or email woodln@lapl.org with any questions or for the Zoom link to the meeting.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Woodland Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-39
Zine Club with Audrey Toth & Erik Feliz at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us online for our next LAPL Zine Club meeting with Audrey Toth and Erik Felix!
Erik Felix is a musician & photographer based in Los Angeles. He has spent fifteen years playing music with friends. Throughout that time, he has taken photographs of the daily happenings that catch his eye. His first zine, titled In Passing was published by Arts ‘N’ Crass in 2017. His follow-up, Mixed Use, was his first on his own zine publishing label, no really not really. His zines have been showcased at the LA Art Book Fair, LA Zine Fest, and Long Beach Zine Fest.
Audrey Toth teaches 8th grade English and Yearbook. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. This is her first zine.
Zine Club is where members of our group meet in a virtual space to co-work, chat, and share inspiration for whatever projects we’re working on.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/zine-club-audrey-toth-erik-felix
History Book Club: Operation Paperclip at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
History Book Club participants will discuss Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, by author Annie Jacobsen.
Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and with access to German archival documents (including previously unseen papers made available by direct descendants of the Third Reich’s ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and dossiers discovered in government archives and at Harvard University, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into a startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secret of the twentieth century.
In this definitive, controversial look at one of America’s most strategic, and disturbing, government programs, Jacobsen shows just how dark government can get in the name of national security.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/history-book-club-operation-paperclip-0
Poetry Reading: Love, Roots, Soil with Ivy Raff, Briana Munoz & Jeremy Ra at Next Chapter Books – In-Person Event
The poetry reading is on transplanting families.
Ivy Raff is the author of Rooted and Reduced to Dust.
Briana Munoz is the author of Everything Is Returned to the Soil.
Jeremy Ra is the author of Another Way of Loving Death.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Next Chapter Books
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 21616 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA 91303
Website: https://www.facebook.com/missbrianamunoz
Anaphoric Arts Salon & Residency in DTLA – In-Person Event
If you’re in the LA area, join us for the Literary Salon. We’ll have intimate conversations with our wonderful speakers. Spend March 4-15, 2024 with Chiwan Choi, Deesha Philaw, Forrest Gander, Gabrielle Civil, Gail Wronsky, Lilliam Rivera, Safia Elhillo & Vanessa Hua. Need we say more? Sign up today. Open to all writers & writing enthusiasts. See link in bio for more details.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Anaphoric Arts Salon
Date: Monday the 4th (through 15th)
Time: See site
Address: See site
Website: https://www.facebook.com/anaphoralitarts/ or info@anaphoraarts.com
R.U.P.O. at Back to the Grind in Riverside – In-Person Event
RUPO Open Mic is back every Monday Night at Back to the Grind in Riverside.
Every Monday at a new time- 7pm to 9pm. Sign-ups are at 6:30pm and in person only, $4 cash admission. See you then!
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Back to the Grind, Riverside
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm (Sign-ups at 6:30 pm)
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind or https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind
At Skylight: Sloane Crosley, with Susan Orlean, & Grief Is for People at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Sloan Crosley, in conversation with Susan Orlean, will present and discuss her memoir, Grief Is for People.
This witty and poignant memoir explores multiple kinds of loss following the death of the author’s closest friend. Following the death of her friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
Sloane Crosley is the author of the novels Cult Classic and The Clasp and three essay collections: Look Alive Out There and the New York Times-bestsellers I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number.
Susan Orlean is the author of nine books, including The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup; My Kind of Place; Saturday Night; and On Animals. In 1999, she published The Orchid Thief, a narrative about orchid poachers in Florida, which was made into the Academy Award-winning film “Adaptation” starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Her book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend won the Ohioana Book Award and the Richard Wall Memorial Award. In 2018, she published The Library Book, about the arson fire at the Los Angeles Public Library. It won the California Book Award and the Marfield Prize and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. It is being adapted for television. Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992, and has also contributed to Vogue, Rolling Stone, Outside, and Esquire.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-sloane-crosley-presents-grief-people-w-susan-orlean
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
This free Monday Night Community Writing Workshop led by Raquel Baker is a workshop in which participants are asked to bring copies of 2-3 pages of fiction to read, and to use for critique and discussion. Registration is required.
Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial and Transnational Literatures at California State University Channel Islands, teaching courses on creative writing and contemporary African literatures. Raquel has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and non-fiction in Little Village; and has done readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel lives for talking about all things about the craft and social meanings of literature!
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online event
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-851627359357
Kara Swisher, with Bob Iger, & Burn Book: A Tech Love Story at Live Talks LA at New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Live Talks LA presents Kara Swisher, in conversation with Bob Iger, and her book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story.
From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.
Award-winning journalist Kara Swisher is the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher and the cohost of the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway. She was also the cofounder and editor-at-large of Recode, host of the Recode Decode podcast, and co-executive producer of the Code conference. A former contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and host of its Sway podcast, Swisher has also worked for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. This is her third book.
Robert A. Iger is Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, having returned to the company in November of 2022 after serving as CEO and Chairman from 2005 to 2020, and then as Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board through 2021.
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech’s most powerful players— the inside story we’ve all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world. It’s a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Live Talks LA at New Roads School. Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/kara-swisher
Under Mic Influence: Featured Readings & Open Mic at LB Unified – In-Person Event
If you need an open mic, beautiful people, tasty eats, dope inspiration, good libations, and good vibrations, we have you covered!
Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and @djkevjam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites.
In the tradition of Funkmosphere, Monday Night Delight, Melodic Mondays, Project Blowed, Griot Cafe, and Lady Basco’s Speakeasy, we come to light things right back up and take the poet & the MC to new heights. Every 1st and 3rd Monday, you will be Under Mic Influence. Come level up with carefree, high-caliber spitters, and leave ready to get the bars up & come back for more!
Featured guest TBA.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: LB Unified
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 2222 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mic-influence-tickets-595266657597
Fiction Book Club: Christine Falls at Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Fiction Book Club participants will discuss the novel, Christine Falls, by author Benjamin Black.
In the debut crime novel from the Booker-winning author, a Dublin pathologist follows the corpse of a mysterious woman into the heart of a conspiracy among the city’s high Catholic society.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Donald Bruce Kauffman-Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/fiction-book-club-0
Feminist Book Club: Talking Back at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Talking Back: Native Women and the Making of the Ameriana South, by author Alejandra Dubcovsky.
Historian Alejandra Dubcovsky tells a story of war, slavery, loss, remembrance, and the women whose resilience and resistance transformed the colonial South. In exploring their lives she rewrites early American history, challenging the established male-centered narrative.
Dubcovsky reconstructs the lives of Native women—Timucua, Apalachee, Chacato, and Guale—to show how they made claims to protect their livelihoods, bodies, and families. Through the stories of the Native cacica who demanded her authority be recognized; the elite Spanish woman who turned her dowry and household into a source of independent power; the Floridiana who slapped a leading Native man in the town square; and the Black woman who ran a successful business at the heart of a Spanish town, Dubcovsky reveals the formidable women who claimed and used their power, shaping the history of the early South.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/feminist-book-club-talking-back
Author Event: Lamont Jones & The Gist of Bid Whist at Octavia’s Bookshelf – In-Person Event
Combining the strategic engagement of Bridge and the risk-taking swagger of Poker, Bid Whist has captivated luminaries like Justice Thurgood Marshall, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson—and inspired a passionate following in Black American communities for generations.
Accessible to players of all ages and backgrounds, the fast-paced game sparks camaraderie and rewards teamwork worthy of the best jazz ensembles and basketball teams.
Lamont Jones is a boxing lawyer and card game enthusiast devoted to helping Bid Whist reclaim its cultural prominence. The Gist of Bid Whist is part celebration, part workshop, part cultural history—with a generous dash of humor, sports anecdotes, and tips contributed by a vibrant cast of engaging personalities.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Octavia’s Bookshelf
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6 pm – 7 :30 pm
Address: 1365 N. Hill Ave., Pasadena, CA 91104
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events/the-gist-of-bid-whist-w-lamont-jones
Radhi Devlukia-Shetty & Joyfull: Cook Effortlessly, Eat Freely, Live Radiantly at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Radhi Devlukia-Shetty, in conversation with Tia Mowry, will discuss her book, Joyfull: Cook Effortlessly, Eat Freely, Live Radiantly.
A passionate self-taught cook and nutritionist, Radhi Devlukia-Shetty’s JoyFull is abundant and inviting. With more than 125 plant-based recipes, it is designed to balance health and satisfaction; her wide-ranging dishes bring vibrant flavors to every meal of the day and rely on accessible ingredients. Radhi also shares her daily wellness practices: her revitalizing morning skincare routine, ancient rituals to nourish and strengthen your hair, meditations and prayers for staying present, and breathwork that will carry you through each phase of the day.
Radhi Devlukia-Shetty is a clinical dietician, nutritionist, and always-learning cook who brings a modern approach to the ancient principles of holistic wellbeing. Radhi grew up in the UK and lives in Los Angeles with her husband Jay.
Tia Mowry has had a career spanning three decades after becoming a pop culture icon starring in the hit sitcom Sister, Sister. She has acted and produced in various TV shows and movies and currently stars in the hit Netflix series Family Reunion, which won two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Children’s Program. She hosts her own YouTube channel, “Tia Mowry’s Quick Fix,” which is Kin Community’s fastest growing channel to date. She has published several books including her second cookbook, The Quick Fix Kitchen. Tia is also an entrepreneur and in 2023 launched her own hair care line 4U by Tia and in 2021 her homewares collection “Spice by Tia Mowry.”
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Radhi-Devlukia-Shetty-Tia-Mowry-Author-signing
Conchas y Café Zine Writing Workshop via DSTL Arts – In-Person Event
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 5th (through April the 30th)
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/conchasycafezine
Anita Rosenberg, with Catherine Hardwicke, & How to Be the Star of Your Life at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Anita Rosenberg, in conversation with Catherine Hardwicke, will present and discuss his book,How to Be the Star of Your Life.
Anita Rosenberg writes:
As a pioneering film director, I invited my most interesting and successful movie business friends—writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, production designers, costume designers, editors, and actors to explore what it takes to succeed in a famously difficult, male-dominated, and competitive industry. Each chapter consists of a short biographical sketch and well-edited excerpts from these intimate conversations, which are absolute gems of lessons learned, advice, and inspiration.
The stories in this book will inspire and empower you to go beyond where you think you are capable of going—to be the star of your life.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/anita-rosenberg-catherine-hardwicke-eg-daily
At Skylight: Diana Khoi Nguyen and Cindy Juyoung Ok Present: Root Fractures and Ward Toward at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Diana Khoi Nguyen and Cindy Juyoung Ok will present and discuss their books: Root Fractures and Ward Toward, respectively.
In Root Fractures, Diana Khoi Nguyen excavates the moments of rupture in a family: a mother who was forced underground after the Fall of Saigon, a father who engineered a new life in California as an immigrant, a brother who cut himself out of every family picture before cutting himself out of their lives entirely. And as new generations of the family come of age, opportunities to begin anew blend with visitations from the past. Through poems of disarming honesty and personal risk, Nguyen examines what takes root after a disaster and how we can make a story out of the broken pieces of our lives.
Poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen was born and raised in California. Her debut poetry collection Ghost Of was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Omnidawn Open Contest and was a finalist for the National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It received the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Colorado Book Award. A Kundiman fellow and member of the Vietnamese diasporic artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s), Nguyen’s other honors include awards from the 92Y “Discovery” Poetry Contest, Key West Literary Seminars, and Academy of American Poets. She teaches creative writing at Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
There are places,” Cindy Juyoung Ok writes, “where shaking is expected, loss is / assumed.”
In the 118th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Ok moves assuredly between spaces—from the psych ward to a prison cell, from divided countries to hospice wards. She plumbs these institutions of constraint, ward to ward, and the role of each reality’s language, word to word, as she uncovers fractured private codes and shares them in argument, song, and prayer.
Using visual play in invented forms, Ok counters familiar narratives about mental illness, abuse, and death, positing that it is not a person’s character or will that makes survival possible, but luck, and other people. The poems disrupt expectation with the comedy of institutionalized teens, nostalgia after the climate crisis, tenderness in a nursing home, and the wholeness of faltering Englishes. How do pagodas, Seinfeld, ransoms, swans, and copays each make or refuse meaning? Ok’s resolute, energized debut shifts language’s fissures to reassemble them into a new place of belonging.
Cindy Juyoung Ok writes, edits, and teaches poetry.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Thriller Book Launch: Ben H. Winters & BIG TIME at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well welcomes Ben H. Winters, author ofThe Quiet Boy, Underground Airlines, Golden State, and the Last Policemantrilogy, for a discussion of his new novel, BIG TIME.
NOTE: THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT. See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34807
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic + Featured Reader Dion O’Reilly – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest Dion O’Reilly.
Dion O’Reilly is a poet and writer of essays, short stories, and flash fiction.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show – In-Person Event
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show is offered every week at the Unurban Coffee House. Hosted by DeForest Wright, all are invited to attend.
NOTE: Details at event link. Check to Verify.
Where: Unurban Co6ee House
Date: Tuesday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups or https://www.facebook.com/events/213407634459999/?active_tab=discussion
Da Poetry Lounge 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 5th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/open-mic-night
Book Club: Dragon Teeth at Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Book Club participants will discuss the novel, Dragon Teeth, by author Michael Crichton.
A tale set in the Wild West during the golden age of fossil hunting. The story follows the exploits of two rival paleontologists who sabotage each other in what comes to be known as the Bone Wars.
Email sstamm@lapl.org for Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 21052 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/chatsworth-book-club-7
Social Justice Book Club: Brave Girl at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids & Family Event
Book Club participants will discuss Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtmakers’ Strike of 1909, by author Michelle Markle.
Check out the book of the month at your local library and bring your thoughts and feelings to the conversation.
Books can transform the way we look at the world. Join children’s librarians from the Los Angeles Public Library to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family.
RSVP:
Please register at http://tinyurl.com/3be34rer.
For more information, email cquinn@lapl.org.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/social-justice-book-club
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club: The Lost Library at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club Book Club participants will discuss The Lost Library by authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Maas.
When a mysterious little free library (guarded by a large orange cat) appears overnight in the small town of Martinville, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change.
Evan and his best friend Rafe quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.
This story is about owning your truth, choosing the life you want, and the power of a good book (and, of course, the librarian who gave it to you).
Rebecca Stead is the New York Times bestselling author of When You Reach Me, Liar & Spy, First Light, Goodbye Stranger, Bob, and, most recently, The List of Things That Will Not Change. Her books have been awarded the Newbery Medal, the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Fiction, and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Rebecca lives in New York City, where she is always on the lookout for her next story idea.
Wendy Mass is the New York Times bestselling author of The Candymakers series, Bob, and many other novels for young readers, including the Schneider Family Book Award-winner A Mango-Shaped Space, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (which was made into a feature film), Every Soul a Star, Pi in the Sky, the Twice Upon a Time series, and the Willow Falls series that began with 11 Birthdays. She and her family live in New Jersey.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 900266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2nd-3rd-grade-book-club-3
Feedback Circle Workshop via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
The Feedback Circle workshop is appropriate for writers who have at least 5 poems ready for revision. Participants will have opportunities for feedback in small groups, large groups, and one-on-one settings. Much attention will be paid to giving feedback to others compassionately and equitably. Craft-focused feedback will be strongly encouraged, and a review of elements of craft will be made available to facilitate this focus.
Maximum class size: 12 people
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Wednesday the 6th (Six weeks: continuing on March 13th, 20th,27th, & April 3rd, 10th,17th, and 24th)
Time: 5 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/feedback
Be the Change: Social justice Writing Workshop with James Coats – Online Event
Be the Change, a Social Justice Writing Workshop, is held every 1st Wednesday of the month and led by poet and author James Coats.
Workshop is free: name your own price.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event Zoom ID: 826 5843 0669 Password: justice
Sarah Rose Etter, with Alexandra Chang, & Ripe at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Sarah Rose Etter, in conversation with Alexandra Chang, will discuss Ripe: a Novel.
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of unhoused people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.
Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, growing or shrinking in relation to her distress. The black hole watches, but it also waits. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever closer as the world around her unravels.
Ripe portrays one millennial woman’s journey through our late-stage capitalist hellscape and offers a brilliantly incisive look at the absurdities of modern life.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/sarah-rose-etter
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 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 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
The Reformatory: Tanarive Due, with Paul L. Woods,at Reparations Club Off-site at UCLA’s Royce Hall 314 – In-Person Event
American Book Award winning author Tanarive Due, in conversation with Book Critic & Author Paul L. Woods, will present and discuss her haunting new historical fiction novel. The Reformatory.
This novel pieces together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and brings back his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting story.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Reparations Club at UCLA Royce Hall 314
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7 pm
Address: UCLA Royce Hall 314, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Website: https://afam.ucla.edu/event/book-talk-the-reformatory-by-tananarive-due/
Book Launch: Gretchen Schreiber, with Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka & Ellie Haycock IS Totally Normal at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Gretchen Schreiber, in conversation with Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund-Broka will discuss her novel Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Daniel A. Olivas, with Desiree Zamorano, & Chicano Frankenstein at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Daniel A. Olivas, in conversation with Desiree Zamorano, will present and discuss his novel,Chicano Frankenstein.
An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a near-future world that both needs and resents him. As the United States president spouts anti-reanimation rhetoric and giant pharmaceutical companies rake in profits, the man falls in love with lawyer Faustina Godínez. His world expands as he meets her network of family and friends, setting him on a course to discover his first-life history, which the reanimation process erased. With elements of science fiction, horror, political satire and romance, Chicano Frankenstein confronts our nation’s bigotries and the question of what it truly means to be human.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
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 — TBA;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $5.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.
NOTE: See site for further details, and any change in the schedule. Contact kaliflowers@gmail.com or call (323) 293-2451
Where: The World Stage
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
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 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-852896786247
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Guest Feature Kunthon Meas 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 Kunthon Meas.
Kunthon Meas is a first-generation Cambodian American poet hailing from the city of Santa Ana. He is the author of Sunsets and Regrets, a poetry collection filled with introspective topics dealing with love, technology, death, and everything in between. He is currently working on a second manuscript chronological depicting his parents’ experience migrating from their homeland of Cambodia to settling in America to his firsthand experience growing up in Santa Ana. Kunthon is also the host of LibroMobile’s open mic night during the first Saturday of every month.
$4 cover fee, cash only See less
$4 cover fee, cash only.
NOTE: See site for further details. CHECK TO VERIFY.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/people/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/908030000708281
Big Read: Movie Screening of Throw Momma From the Train & Book Discussion of Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? at Hyde Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
This Big Read event will explore excerpts of Throw Momma from the Train (1987) and a discussion of similarities between the film and the graphic novel, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. Program discussion will also explore what it takes to be an Adult Caregiver.
Note: See site for details.
Where: Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 2206 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-movie-screening-and-book-discussion
Big Read Book Discussion: Can’t We Discuss Something More Pleasant? at Washington Irving Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss this year’s 2024 Big Read selection: Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast.
The discussion is open to teens and adults.
Pick up your copy in the branch while supplies last.
Note: See site for details.
Where: Washington Irving. Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 4117 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90018
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-18
Book Talk & Signing: Tia Williams, with Taylor Jenkins Reid, & A Love Song for Ricki Wilde at Chevalier’s Off-site at The Ebell – In-Person Event
Tia Williams, in conversation with Tayor Jenkins Reid, will discuss her novel, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde.
In this enchanting love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician are irreversibly linked through the history, art, and magic of Harlem.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Off-site at The Ebell
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 743 S. Lucerne Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90006
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-tia-williams-a-love-song-for-ricki-wilde-tickets-809708960297?aff=oddtdtcreator
Vroman’s Ed: Romance Writing Class with Amy Spaulding (8 weeks) at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Amy Spaulding will lead an 8-week Romance Writing Class titled: Meet Cute to HEA (Happily Ever After): Writing the Modern Romance Novel.
This class will focus on structure, with specialized lectures each week to learn more about each beat, from the setup to the meet-cute, all the way through to that glorious HEA. Topics covered will include genre conventions (yes, like tropes!), dialogue/banter, building tension (sexual and otherwise!), inclusivity/diversity in storytelling, common pitfalls, and more.
Amy Spalding is the author of several adult and YA novels, including the bestselling romance For Her Consideration, We Used to Be Friends and YA romance 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 Reviews, and more. She is a recipient of the 2023 Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award for the authentic, funny, and diverse representation of the LGBTQ+ community in her books.
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.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s Meeting Room – in the Atrium
Date: Thursday the 7(plus March 14th, 21st, 28th, & April 4th. 11th, 18th, & 25th)
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 709 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 120, Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Ed-Romance-Writing-Class-with-Amy-Spalding
Unspun Threads Readings: Reading Poetry on Generational Healingat The Libros, Lincoln Heights – In-Person Event
Ivy Raff, Amy Shimshon-Santo & Briana Munoz will read their work on the theme of generational healing.
Ivy Raff is a poet, editor, copywriter, and grant writer interested in how we connect with one another—and ourselves. She is the author of Rooted and Reduced to Dust among others.
Amy Shimshon-Santo is a writer, teacher, and culture maker who believes that creativity is a powerful tool for personal and social transformation. She is the author of Catastrophic Molting (Flowersong Press, 2020), Even the Milky Way is Undocumented (Unsolicited Press, 2018), and the limited-edition chapbook Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder Press, 2020). Her essays have appeared in numerous academic journals including Urban Education, Geo Humanities, and Education, Citizenship, and Social Justice. Keep an eye out for her forthcoming ecopoetics collection Random Experiments in Bioluminescence (Flowersong Press, 2024), and Radical Piecework: Ethnographies of Place (Unsolicited Press, 2025).
Briana Munoz is a poet, author, and Mexican folkloric dancer, among her many talents. She is the author of Loose Lips, and Everything Returns ot the Soil.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Libros, Lincoln Heights
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 3342 North Broadway, Los Angeles, CA90031
Website: N/A
Author Maria Caponi & An Accidental Pilgrim at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Maria Caponi will present and discuss her memoir, An Accidental Pilgrim.
In An Accidental Pilgrim, retired physicist and Argentinean immigrant Maria Caponi, a non-religious widow of Jewish heritage, takes readers on a transformative journey along the rugged and challenging “El Camino de Santiago” trail.
While it may seem like a typical hiking story, Maria’s memoir is anything but ordinary. Her prose and poetry are woven together to create a tapestry of her life, including her childhood in Argentina, her experiences as a graduate student in the U.S., her marriage to her best friend, and the many journeys that have shaped her identity..
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/author-maria-caponi-shares-her-memoir
ALOUD Reading Event: Leslie Jamison, with Sarah Manguso, & SPLINTERS at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Leslie Jamison, in conversation with Sarah Manguso, will discuss her book, SPLINTERS: Another Kind of Love Story.
Leslie Jamison has become one of our most beloved contemporary voices, a scribe of the real, the true, the complex. She has been compared to Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, acclaimed for her powerful thinking, deep feeling, and electric prose. But while Jamison has never shied away from challenging material—scouring her own psyche and digging into our most unanswerable questions across four books—Splinters enters a new realm.
In her first memoir, Jamison turns her unrivaled powers of perception on some of the most intimate relationships of her life: her consuming love for her young daughter, a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope, and the shaping legacy of her own parents’ complicated bond. In examining what it means for a woman to be many things at once—a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover—Jamison places the magical and the mundane side by side in surprising ways. The result is a work of nonfiction like no other, an almost impossibly deep reckoning with the muchness of life and art, and a book that grieves the departure of one love even as it celebrates the arrival of another.
Leslie Jamison is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Recovering and The Empathy Exams; the collection of essays Make It Scream, Make It Burn, a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award; and the novel The Gin Closet, a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, and her work has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, Harper’s, the New York Times Book Review, the Oxford American, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among many others. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.
Sarah Manguso is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Very Cold People, which was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, as well as a story collection, two poetry collections, and four acclaimed works of nonfiction: 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, and The Two Kinds of Decay, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. Her novel Liars is forthcoming in July 2024. Her work has been recognized by an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship, and the Rome Prize, and her writing has been translated into 12 languages. She teaches Creative Writing at Antioch University.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Forum
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/aloud-words-splinters-another-kind-love-story or https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/mark-taper-auditorium-leslie-jamison-presents-splinters-w-sarah-manguso
Brian Hyman, with Maury Sterling, & Recovery with Yoga at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Brian Hyman, in conversation with Maury Sterling, will discuss his book, Recovery with Yoga: Supportive Practices for Transcending Addiction.
This collection of 30 yoga and mindfulness tools will help support those in recovery from addiction of all kinds. Thirty accessible, pointed teachings offer inspiration, comfort, and solidarity in the moment, helping us cultivate a powerful and purposeful life in recovery and to create a new design for living. Each chapter focuses on a quality—such as vigilance, acceptance, accountability, among others—and delves into how to manifest it in your recovery journey.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/brian-hyman
Author Appearance: J. Shuyler Sprowles & Piper & The Young Samaritan at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Event
J. Shuyler Sprowles will present his book The Young Samaritan.
Fearing for his life, Joshua, a Samaritan boy, is forced to flee home. In this extraordinary adventure, Joshua endures a harsh and unexpected world as heartbreaking as it is joyful. From an aged mystic woman with a haunting vision, a wild dog that curiously stays by his side and a reclusive uncle who hides from the world, Joshua finds uncommon love in a forsaken land. One night he is suddenly awakened by an unusual band of sojourners led by a man they call Rabbi. Many say he is the Messiah. Despite their efforts to leave Joshua behind, this strong-willed boy joins them. Little does Joshua understand that he has embarked on a transformational journey that will lead him to the cross and beyond.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge, CA, 91011
Dr. Julia Ojeda & Dr. Adria Martin-Mor: In Conversation at Page Against the Machine – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Dr. Julia Ojeda & Dr. Adria Martin-Mor in a special multi-lingual event will discuss feminism, independentism, and internationalism in the Mediterranean nations of Sardinia and the Catalan Countries.
Live songs performed by Adrià Mor about the struggles of these territories will complement Júlia Ojeda’s contextualization of the current movements for emancipation, both at the gender and at the national level.
Dr. Julia Ojeda (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) is a researcher and literary critic. She is part of the Matriotes collective that authored the Manifesto for a Feminist Nationalism that widely circulated in the Catalan Countries on March 8, 2023. She is at present editing her upcoming book 𝘔𝘢̀𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘰 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘢̀𝘳𝘪𝘦. 30 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘢̀ (‘Matriarchy or Barbarianism. 30 views of the Catalan feminism’), which gathers contributions from all Catalan Countries.
Dr. Adria Martin-Mor is a musician and assistant professor of Translation Studies at Cal State Long Beach. He is part of language activist groups in Sardinia and the Catalan Countries that translate software into these languages. As a musician, he published in 2020 his first solo album, 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘳𝘪́𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘢 (‘the smile of the pomegranate’) and is currently working on his new album.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2712 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/409052288271495
Paperback Release Event: Susanna Hoffs, with Margaret Stohl, & This Bird Has Flown at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Songwriter and Bangles co-fonder Susanna Hoffs, in conversation with Margaret Stohl, will discuss her book, This Bird Has Flown.
Susanna will also give an acoustic performance followed by a book signing at this ticketed event.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Tonalli Thursdays Open Mic via Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Zoom Event
Angel Miguel Lopez hosts Tonalli Thursdays Open Mic and Featured Readers every 1st Thursday of the month via Zoom.
Features TBA.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event: ZOOM: 897 1039 1895
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C1qMKSfJilR
Cara Black & Murder at La Villette (Aimée Leduc #21) at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Alliance Française de Pasadena and Vroman’s will present Cara Black to discuss her novel Murder at La Villette (An Aimée Leduc Investigation #21).
Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc doesn’t know that her life is about to be upended. Her ex, Melac, has been hounding her to move their daughter, Chloé, to Brittany. Aimée is fed up with his threats to take her to court and has stopped answering his calls. Which is why she doesn’t know he’s waiting for her by the Bassin de la Villette as she leaves a client’s office late one night. When she finds him there, bleeding in the canal, he has just been stabbed by an assailant, who knocks Aimée unconscious and plants the bloody knife in her hands.
Cara Black is the author of twenty-one books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series as well as the thrillers Three Hours in Paris, a national bestseller, and Night Flight to Paris. She has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, and her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and visits Paris frequently.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cara-Black-discusses-Murder-at-La-Villette
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 8th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club:The castle on Sunset at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club participants will discuss The castle on Sunset : life, death, love, art, and scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont by author Shawn Levy.
Join us on the second Friday of every month for the current events nonfiction book club.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/current-events-nonfiction-book-club-1
Self-Care Book Club: Ab(solutely) Normal at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Ab(solutely) Normal): Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes, by authors Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rocky Callen.
Channeling their own experiences, sixteen exceptional authors subvert mental health stereotypes in a powerful and uplifting collection of fiction.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/self-care-book-club-absolutely-normal
Saffron Coffee Presents: Sarah Yanni, with Guests & Lola Goes by Tom at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Lola Goes by Tom guests include: Simone Rembert, Ruby Zuckerman, Kamala Puligandla.
Sarah Yanni is a writer, editor, and Co-Founding Editor of Lola Goes By Tom, a queer zine project in Los Angeles. Her work can be found in Mizna, Autostraddle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.
James Moon is an artist originally from London but not really because he doesn’t have the accent. He is the Co-Founding Editor of Lola Goes By Tom.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Friday the 8th
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-lsuygtww
At Skylight: Emmeline Clein, with Eliza McClamb, & Dead Weight at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Emmeline Clein, in conversation with Eliza McClamb, will discuss her book, Dead Weight.
In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein recounts her struggle with disordered eating alongside the stories of other women: historical figures, pop culture celebrities, and the girls she’s known and loved. Through the story of her own sickness, the raw recollections of interview subjects, and dispatches from social media rabbit holes, the author challenges stereotypes and renders statistics and science deeply personal and urgent. From her first encounters with icons of the thin ideal to her years ricocheting between hunger and bingeing, from the pro-anorexia blog that unexpectedly saved someone’s life to the residential treatment centers that make so many people sicker, from a wrenching elegy for those who didn’t survive to a manifesto for sisterhood, solidarity, and recovery, Clein uncovers girlhood’s appetites and injuries to reveal the economic, cultural, and political history of an epidemic.
Emmeline Clein’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Yale Review, The Nation, Smithsonian, Berlin Quarterly, VICE, BuzzFeed, Catapult and Antigravity, among other publications. Her chapbook Toxic was published by Choo Choo Press in 2022. She received her MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts; she lives in New York.
Eliza McLamb is a writer and musician. She hosts a cultural commentary podcast called Binchtopia and her debut album Going Through It came out earlier this year via Royal Mountain Records. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Paste Magazine among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-emmeline-clein-presents-dead-weight-w-eliza-mcclamb
Tia Chucha’s Monthly Open Mic at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event
Tia Chucha’s offers a monthly Open Mic every first Friday of the month.
Share your palabra, song, or any form of expression up on the mic. All languages and ages are welcome. Sign-ups will be available upon arrival.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Friday the 2nd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.tiachucha.org/events
Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Every second Friday of the month, Village Well stays open a bit later in order to provide a platform for local performers through our open mic! All performers are welcome, including musicians, poets, storytellers, comedians, and magicians!
Acts are limited to 3-5 minutes in length and must be family friendly. Sign-ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:30 pm!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/27553
Caroline Frost, with Amy Nicholson, & The Last Verse at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Caroline Frost, in conversation with Amy Nicholson, will present and discuss his novel,The Last Verse.
In this novel, Twyla Finch arrives in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1977, and the nineteen-year-old Texan is dazzled by the fringe-and-rhinestones country music scene. Live music flows from bars, open mic nights tempt with the chance of stardom, and record label execs seek the next hot new act. As Twyla finds her way in this vibrant town, she soon falls for Chet Wilton, country music hopeful and son of blue-blooded Nashvillians. When a night out with Chet goes terribly wrong, Twyla finds herself involved in a shocking crime. Hoping to process what happened that fateful night, she composes a haunting ballad that she performs only once in an empty bar. But weeks later, when she turns on the radio, she hears another woman singing her song. Twyla must decide: Should she claim her ballad and secure the fame she’s always wanted? Or stay quiet and avoid implicating herself in the terrible crime she’s desperate to put in the past?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Caroline-Frost-discusses-The-Last-Verse
Pratik: Darkness in Style, The Noir Issue at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Live YouTube Hybrid Event
Join us for a poetry reading where femme fatale meets poetry, hosted by Suzanne Lummis, and featuring contributors:
Peggy Dobreer is a Los Angeles poet, four-time Pushcart nominee, and author of three collections: Forbidden Plums (2021), Glass Lyre Press, Drop and Dazzle (2018), and In the Lake of Your Bones (2012), all with Moon Tide Pres. She is the curator of Slow Lightning Lit, and editor of Slow Lightning: Impractical Poetry Anthology, Vol. I and Slow Lightning: Astonished Poetry, Vol. II. Dobreer’s poetry highlights include having her poetry featured on a billboard on Hollywood Boulevard for National Poetry Month and her winning poem on display at NASA headquarters after receiving a Poetry Matters Prize, on a space-related theme. Dobreer has received fellowships from Community of Writers, Charles University in Prague, and the Institute for the Study of Los Angeles at Occidental College. She has been interviewed on KPFK radio and featured in Cultural Weekly, Yoga Magazine, Aeolian Harp Review Vol. I & V, and most recently in Pratik’s Marilyn N. Robertson is a poet from Northeast Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Miramar, Salt I and II, and Askew. She has a poem and essay in the book, Master Class: The Poetry Mystique. Two of her poems appear in Wide Awake, the Poets of Los Angeles and in Pratik, a magazine of Contemporary Writing, Vol. XVIII, No.4, edited by Suzanne Lummis. Her chapbook, NOIR LIBRARIAN, is available on Amazon.
Alison Turner is the author of The Second Split Between, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2021 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals including Mid-American Review, Hudson Review, Nimrod, American Journal of Poetry, and Southland Alibi. She lives under the Hollywood sign with her husband, writer Lou Mathews.
Mehnaz Sahibzada is a 2022 Jack Hazard Fellow in fiction writing for her first novel-in-progress, Jaani, a coming-of-age story set in Pakistan. Her writing has appeared in Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen, Jaggery, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. A high school English teacher and author of the poetry collection, My Gothic Romance (2019), she lives in Los Angeles. For inquiries, contact Mehnaz through her website at http://www.poetmehnaz.com
Cece Peri’s poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies including Luvina: The LA Poets Issue, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, San Diego Poetry Annual, MORIA, SALT 2, Cobalt Review, and Pratik: Vol. XVI The LA Poetry Issue & Vol. XVIII The Noir Issue. Cece received two Pushcart Prize nominations, the Anne Silver Poetry Prize, and honors and awards from NoirCon, the Arroyo Arts Collective, the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, and–to her husband’s delight–was a Cobalt Review Finalist for the Earl Weaver Baseball Writing Prize. She divides her time between Los Angeles and New York.
Tony Barnstone, a poet, essayist, and translator with a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and both his MA and PhD in English and creative writing from the University of California, Berkeley. Barnstone has authored 21 books and produced multimedia work, including both a compact disc of music based on his poetry and a tarot deck, The Radiant Tarot: Pathway to Creativity, which draws upon the neuroscience of creativity to turn the tarot into a tool for creativity both in the arts and in reinventing one’s life. Barnstone’s poetry collections include Pulp Sonnets (Tupelo Press, 2015), illustrated by fellow poet and professor Amin Mansouri; Beast in the Apartment (Sheep Meadow Press, 2014); Tongue of War (BKMK Press, 2009); The Golem of Los Angeles (Red Hen Press, 2008); Sad Jazz: Sonnets (Sheep Meadow Press, 2005); and Impure: Poems (University Press of Florida, 1999). His selected poetry collection, Buda en Llamas: Antología Poética [Buddha in Flames: Poetry Anthology] (1999–2012), appeared in a bilingual Spanish-English edition published by Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia in 2014, with translations by Mariano Zaro. Barnstone has won numerous fellowships and has also been awarded the Poets’ Prize, the Grand Prize of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival in Ireland, and the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, among others. Barnstone is a professor of literature and creative writing at Whittier College.
Christina Cha is a writer of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The Coachella Review, Pratik, and The Los Angeles Press, and was shortlisted for the 46th New Millennium Writing Award for Nonfiction. One of her pieces was just nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize. She is featured in and a consulting producer for You Are My Audience, a documentary in 10 self-portraits, which was released in December 2023. Her portrait is about her writing and relationship to her aunt, the artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Christina is also an editor and writing mentor and has been teaching in Sarah Selecky’s Writing School since 2013. She currently lives and writes in Los Angeles, after many years in San Francisco. Find more about her writing and film on IG @christina.wj.cha.
Gail Wronsky is the author, coauthor, or translator of 16 books of poetry and prose. Her latest collection of poems, The Stranger You Are, with artwork by the renowned artist Gronk, is recently out from Tía Chucha Press. Other titles include the poetry collections Under the Capsized Boat We Fly: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press); Dying for Beauty (Copper Canyon Press); Poems for Infidels (Red Hen Press); and Fuegos Florales/Flowering Fires, a translation of Argentinean poet Alicia Partnoy’s poems, winner of the American Poetry Prize from Settlement House Press.Special Noir Edition and Kyoto Journal: “Reflections on Asia.”
Suzanne Lummis guest-edited the special “Noir” issue of the international publication Pratik under the title “Darkness in Style.” The Los Angeles Times named her poem, “Really Mystic River” one of 14 essential Los Angeles “poems or collections of poetry” in its article “The Ultimate L.A. Bookshelf.” She’s published three poetry collections, the most recent a winner of the Blue Lynx Prize and published by Blue Lynx Press, and her poems have appeared in literary publications across the country and in The New Yorker. Suzanne Lummis was the fifth recipient of Beyond Baroque’s George Drury Smith Award for Excellence in Poetry and a 2018/19 City of Los Angeles Fellow. She is editor of the Beyond Baroque Books imprint, The Pacific Coast Poetry Series.
NOTE: See site for further details, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 8th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pratik-darkness-in-style-the-noir-issue-tickets-829550697467?aff=oddtdtcreator
Drag Story Hour at Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
It’s just what it sounds like! Join us for an extra sparkly storytime with a drag performer bringing costume, humor, and play to read inclusive children’s books to delight families and kids of all ages. We’re excited to celebrate diversity and individuality and invite you to be yourself and bring your imagination!
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Memorial Branch Library, LAPL,
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 4625 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/drag-story-hour
Dress Up Storytime: Katherine Holabird & Angelina Ballerina & Twinkle at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids Event
Katharine Holabird grew up in a family of architects and artists in Chicago. As a child, she lived in an imaginary world of fairy tales, princesses, and ballerinas, and loved to perform and dance with her sisters. She wrote the first Angelina Ballerina at the kitchen table with her daughters twirling around her. Katharine has three grown children and three grandchildren, and now lives in New York City with her husband.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 10580 W. Pico Blvd.,Los Angeles, CA 90064
Book Club: Anxious People at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club Participants will discuss the novel Anxious People by author Fredrik Backman.
“[A] quirky, big-hearted novel…Wry, wise, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” —People
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a charming, poignant novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL,
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-3
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 9th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-1
Children’s Reading: A.Z. ‘s Adventures to the Sugar Tree Forest – In-Person Event
This story is about the adventures of a little boy on a quest to collect “glycan fruit”, which his body needs to remain healthy and happy. Along the way, he and friends find the solutions they need to reach the Sugar Tree Forest and return home.
A.Z. ‘s Adventures to the Sugar Tree Forest by Nare Garibyan is inspired by the determination of children with CDG, who live and thrive in a non-CDG world. Individuals with CDG overcome adversity every day. The message of the book is that of inclusion, teamwork, and perseverance.
What is CDG? Congenital disorders of glycosylation are a group of rare genetic disorders where glycans (sugar trees) are missing or unable to attach to proteins that are essential for healthy cell function, which can affect mobility, speech, cognition, and various other functions within the body.
Nare Garibyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia and lived in Tallinn, Estonia as a young child, before immigrating to the United States. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA and a master’s degree in college counseling from USC. She is an academic counselor at Glendale Community College. Nare is also a published poet and has an extensive writing resume.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Octavia’s Bookshelf
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 1365 N. Hill Ave., Pasadena, CA 91104
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events/azs-adventure-to-the-sugar-tree-forest-childrens-reading
Children’s Storytime for Ramadan at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Community member Maya Aylouish will be leading a children’s storytime for everyone to learn about Ramadan! After, we will do an art activity and make paper lanterns to celebrate the holiday. This event is free and open to children of all ages, we would love for you to join us!
Make sure to RSVP on our EVENTBRITE!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/35005
Special Storytime: Estaban the Green Crayon at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Estaban the Green Crayon will be in-store celebrating St. Patrick’s Day & Earth Day with a special story time reading of the new book Happy St. Patrick’s Day from The Crayons and The Crayons Love Our Planet. Hope to see you there!
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 11 am
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Special-Storytime-featuring-Esteban-the-Green-Crayon
Storytime for Middle Grade Readers: Maple’s Theory of Fun at Chevalier’s – In-Person MG Event
Authors Kate McMillan and Ruthie Prillaman will read from their debut illustrated children’s book for middle grade readers, Maple’s Theory of Fun.
This first book in a diary-style illustrated middle grade series follows an anxious, science-minded sixth grader determined to become fun and win back her friend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Teen Poetry Club at Altadena Main Library – In-Person Teen Event
Moderated by WriteGirl/Bold Ink Writers, this is a wonderful trans and LGBTQ friendly space to learn and build poetry writing skills, share your work, and get inspired by fellow writers. Bring your imagination and love of writing and join the club!
Trans and LGBTQ friendly space.
For Teens (8th – 12th Grade)
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Altadena Main Library, Small Meeting Room
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 600 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.altadenalibrary.org/programs/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D170543261
Kids Book Club: The Inquisitor’s Tale and Finch House at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Kids Book Club participants will discuss two books this meeting: The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz and Finch House by Ciera Burch.
An announcement:
Adam Gidwitz will be coming to Cellar Door Bookstore on Wednesday March 13th at 6:00 pm to talk about his newest book, Max in the House of Spies.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/kids-book-club-inquisitors-tale-and-finch-house
Anime Your Way with Carlos Nieto III at Venice Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Meet Carlos Nieto III, former Simpson’s artist.
This comprehensive step-by-step drawing program will teach participants how to create and modify an anime character from scratch. All drawing levels are welcome.
This program is for young adults ages 11-18.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Venice-Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 601 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/anime-your-way-4
SoCal Manga Book Club at Little Tokyo Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join our book club dedicated to uniting manga and anime enthusiasts. Each month, we cover a different series and focus on the first volume. Come by and suggest your favorite series that rarely gets discussed.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Little Tokyo Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 203 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA 9001
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/socal-manga-book-club
Teen Lit League Book Club at Billie Jean King Main Library, Long Beach – In-Person Teen Event
Do you love to get lost in your reading journey? Do you want to talk with others who love to read as well? Join our teen book club, we meet twice a month and discuss the books we’ve chosen. Reach out for more information on what we are currently reading, new members always welcome. Snacks and compelling conversations await you. Join us.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Billie Jean King Main Library, Long Beach
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 200 W. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://www.longbeach.gov/library/events/
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Deep Critique Writing Workshop – Online Event
Hosted by DKC,join a Deep Critique Writing Workshop.
(Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning pie or sigh for Four Feathers Press online edition: Pie Sighs by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, March 15th).
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Book Launch & Storytime: Anna Suk Wang & The House Before Falling into the Sea at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Kids Event
Author Anna Suk Wang will present and discuss her bookThe House Before Falling into the Sea.
This is a beautifully told story of family and neighbors coming together during dark times. Ann Suk will read her book, answer questions from the audience, and then sign books.
Best for ages 4+.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/house-falling-sea
Lili of the Valley Release Party: An evening of poetry, music, and community at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural – In-Person Event
Join us for the book release of Lili of the Valley, with author Rosalillia M. Mendosa and guest readers: Alex Petunia, Maria D. Duarte, Combi Flores Solis, Caesar Avelar, Erica Lopez, Jessica Wilson Cardenas, & Andrea Lee.
Rosalillia M. Mendosa is a Xicana born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, releasing her poetry collection, and sharing her journey from heartbreak to heARTworks.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd.,Sylmar, CA 91342
Cailler in Conversation with Shonda Buchanan at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Live YouTube Hybrid Event
Celebrate a book launch with Mathieu Cailer, in conversation with Shonda Buchanan, to discuss his book of short fiction, Forest for the Trees & Other Stories.
Mathieu Cailler delivers a diverse collection of fifteen shorts that perfectly captures characters steeped in their own troubles. With clear and pointed prose, Cailler creates a conduit through which readers experience the characters’ sufferings, losses, revelations, their moments of connection, and their snippets of happiness. The author’s experimentation with voice and point of view makes this collection honest and accessible, allowing readers to feel true compassion by better understanding others and the imperfect world we all inhabit.
Mathieu Cailler is the author of seven books: one novel, two short story collections, two volumes of poetry, and two children’s titles. His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in over 100 publications, including the Saturday Evening Post and Los Angeles Times. He is the recipient of numerous awards, most notably the Shakespeare Award, the Short Story America Prize, the New England Book Festival Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Festival Prize, and the Paris Book Festival Prize. Feel free to connect with him on social media @writesfromla or at mathieucailler.com.
Shonda Buchanan is the author of five books, including the award-winning memoir, Black Indian. Buchanan is also a faculty member in Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. An award-winning poet, fiction, nonfiction writer, and educator, Buchanan is the recipient of the Brody Arts Fellowship from the California Community Foundation, a Big Read grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, several Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grants, the Denise L. Scott and Frank Sullivan Awards, and an Eloise Klein-Healy Scholarship. Consulting Curator Poet for The Broad Art Museum, Buchanan is also a Sundance Institute Writing Arts fellow, a PEN Center Emerging Voices Fellow, and a Jentel Artist Residency Fellow. Finalist for the 2021 Mississippi Review poetry contest, Buchanan’s memoir, Black Indian, won the 2020 Indie New Generation Book Award and was chosen by PBS NewsHour as a “Top 20 books to read” to learn about institutional racism. About to enter a third printing, Black Indian begins the saga of Buchanan’s family’s migration stories of Free People of Color communities exploring identity, ethnicity, landscape, and loss. Her first collection of poetry, Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?, was nominated for the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the Library of Virginia Book Awards. Buchanan also is proudly serving as the President of the Board of Trustees of Beyond Baroque.
NOTE: See site for further details, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Saturday the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Obsidian Tongues Open Mic & Featured Guests at Café con Libros Press, Pomona – In-Person Event
Caesar Avelar hosts Obsidian Tongues Open Mic every 2nd Saturday of the month, where the spoken word is celebrated!
Features include: Brenda Vaca and Oscar Velasquez, Donato Martinez.
Brenda Vaca was born in Huntington Park, CA and raised in South Whittier CA in a Mexican/Xicana family where the Apostolic and Roman Catholic traditions were hardcore influences. She is the author the poetry collection Riot of Roses and Founder of Riot of Roses Publishing.
Donato Martinez was born in in small pueblo, Garcia de la Cadena, Zacatecas, Mexico and immigrated into the USA at six years old. He’s a poet and teaches English Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. He writes about his barrio experience, his community, his Chicano culture, bilingual identities, and other complexities of life. He is influenced by the sounds and pulse of the streets, people, music, and the magic of language. His debut collection is Touch the Sky (El Martillo Press, 2023).
Oscar Velasquez is a young emerging poet from Orange County, CA.
Where: Café con Libros, Pomona
Date: Saturday the 8th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St., Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://cafeconlibrospress.org/event-calendar/
Griot Café Open Mic with Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain & Featured Guest at Shades of Africa, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain host the Griot Café Open Mic & Poetry event every Saturday evening at Shades of Africa in Long Beach. See site to subscribe for reminders, etc.
Where: Griot Café at Shades of Africa
Date: Saturday the 8th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Women Who Submit Presents: A Conversation with Carmen Gimenez, with Luivette Resto, at Avenue 50 Studio – In-Person Live Broadcast Event
About the Panel: Carmen Giménez is Director of Graywolf Press. She will be interviewed by WWS Board member and Tia Chucha Press Associate Editor, Luivette Resto. Together Giménez and Resto will discuss indie publishing, the editorial process, and traversing the literary publishing world as Latinas/women of color.
Carmen Giménez is the publisher and director of Graywolf Press. She was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and is the author of several books including Be Recorder, a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award.
Luivette Resto (she/her), Living on Islands Not Found on Maps (FlowerSong Press), a mother, teacher, poet, and Wonder Woman fanatic, was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. She is a CantoMundo and Macondo Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is on the Board of Directors for Women Who Submit. Some of her latest work can be read on Spillway, North American Review, and the anthology, Gathering. Her first two books of poetry Unfinished Portrait and Ascension were published by Tía Chucha Press where she is now Associate Editor. Resto lives in the San Gabriel Valley with her three children aka revolutionaries.
Where: Women Who Submit
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 10 am
Address: 131 N. Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://womenwhosubmitlit.org/workshops/
Young Reader Storytime: Marion Kadi & Harriet’s Reflections at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Kids Event
Author Marion Kadi will read from her illustrated children’s book for young readers, Harriet’s Reflections.
This imaginative tale is about a rambunctious lion reflection and the fierce little girl he decides to mirror. It explores themes of confidence and identity with colorful illustrations and a sly sense of humor. Delightful and unconventional, Harriet’s Reflections is the perfect read-aloud for anyone who’s ever wondered about the face on the other side of the mirror—and what they might do next.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Cellar Door Book Club: The Heart of It All at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Cellar Door Book Club participants will discuss The Heart of It All, by author Christian Kiefer.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/talkingback
Acid Verse: The Mixtape Poetry Reading via L.A. Poet Society – Online Event
Acid Verse: The Mixtape Poetry reading features:
Angelica Sanchez N/A
Jennifer “Miss B” Baptiste is a writer, poet and copywriter who loves creating introspective pieces that resonate with the heart and mind.
Nathan Castellanos was born and raised in Highland Park, CA. His mother came to California in the 80s after his abuelo had worked the fields here in LA county, saving money to bring his family from Guadalajara. He his the author of several books including Salted Plastic: Tales of Gentrification.
Sol Qari N/A
Zachary Jensen is a writer, journalist, educator, and editor of Angel City Review.
Giselle Bousstani-Fonteneleis a writer, theatre director, and administrative assistant at CAL Arts.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: Online Event Meeting ID: 862 2050 0981
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4AC0usOGSS/
Author Event: Shelby Van Pelt & Remarkably Bright Creatures at Long Beach City Hall (with Long Beach Public Library) – In-Person Family Event
The Blanche Collins Forum and Friends of the Long Beach Public Library Present: An Afternoon with Shelby Van Pelt and her Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Author Shelby Van Pelt will present and read from her book, Remarkably Bright Creatures.
All ages are invited to join us on Sunday, March 10, 2024 at 2 pm. at the City Council Chambers at Long Beach City Hall and listen to a wonderful author, Shelby Van Pelt, as she reads her novel. Doors open at 1:30 pm.
FREE Admission • No Reservations Required
Amazon synopsis:
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.
Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
Author Shelby Van Pelt will present and read from her book, Remarkably Bright Creatures.
All ages are invited to join us on Sunday, March 10, 2024 at 2 pm. at the City Council Chambers at Long Beach City Hall and listen to a wonderful author, Shelby Van Pelt, as she reads her novel. Doors open at 1:30 pm.
FREE Admission • No Reservations Required
FREE Parking at Civic Center Parking Lot on Broadway between Chestnut and Pacific
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Long Beach City Hall
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 411 W Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, CA
Website: https://www.longbeach.gov/library/events/
L.A. MADE Presents: 404 by L.A. Times at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join your favorite Los Angeles content creators, “404 by L.A. Times,” for a fun and entertaining discussion about the city we love. Creators Tom Carroll, Safi Nazzal, and Micah Fluellen will talk about how they approach storytelling for Los Angeles, what inspires them in our bright and colorful city, and how they bring journalistic integrity to their work. Times Assistant Managing Editor for Audience Samantha Melbourneweaver will moderate the discussion.
RSVP:
Sign up via Eventbrite. This event is free but reservations are recommended.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/la-made-404-la-times
Women Writers in Community: Tisha Marie Rechle-Aguilera + Friends & Breaking Pattern at Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB – In-Person Event
Bel Canto Books at KUBO LB & members of Macondo are hosting Women Writers in Community, featuring author Tisha Marie Rechle-Aguilera, presenting her new book, Braking Pattern, in conversation with authors:
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites), Désirée Zamorano (The Amado Women), Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley (Somewhere We Are Human), liz gonzalez (Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos New and Selected), and Karina Muñiz-Pagán (Mujeres Mágicas: Domestic Workers Right to Write).
Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University and a PhD at USC. Her fiction has been nominated for Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and spotlighted in Best Small Fictions 2022. Her YA novel, Breaking Pattern, is available from Inlandia Books. She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit. You can read her published work on her website: https://tishareichle.com/
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications) and Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, and National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park. She teaches poetry with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit. Inspired by her Chicana identity, she works to cultivate love and comfort in chaotic times.
Désirée Zamorano is the author of the highly acclaimed literary novel, The Amado Women. An award-winning and Pushcart prize nominee short story writer her work is often an exploration of issues of invisibility, injustice, or inequity. A selection of her writing can be found in Catapult, Cultural Weekly, The Kenyon Review Online and Akashic’s South Central Noir. “Caperucita Roja” was chosen as a distinguished short story in Best of American Mystery and Suspense, 2022. Her novel Dispossessed is forthcoming from Rize Press.
Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley is a nonfiction writer, filmmaker and mother of two. A Dominicana via Washington Heights residing in Long Beach, California. She is the Chapters Liaison at Women Who Submit, a Tin House, Macondo and VONA alum. She advocates for representation of BIPOC women and non-binary writers in creative spaces. http://www.lucyrodriguezhanley.com/
liz gonzález is a 2023 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow. She is the author of the creative nonfiction chapbook The Original OLG: San Bernardino’s First Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (Los Nietos Press forthcoming) and the multigenre book Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos New and Selected (Los Nietos Press 2018). Her writing appears in various journals and anthologies, most recently in Transformation HTI Open Plaza, Air/Light, and Poets DOMESTIC WORKERS RIGHT TO WRITE).
This event is organized by members of the Macondo workshop community and celebrates individual efforts as writers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807
Library Girl Reading Series at The Ruskin Theatre – In-Person Event
March’s Library Girl Reading Event, hosted by Susan Hayden and curated by Steve Hochman, will feature:
Readings by:
Paul Body N/A
Mary Camarillo is the author of Those People Behind Us and The Lockhart Women. Her awards include the 2023 Finalist in the American Book Awards for General Fiction and the 2022 Willa Literary Award Finalist in Multiform Fiction.
Jane Cantillon N/A
Cory Cofer (Besskepp) is a poet and storyteller who blends his distinct voice and deep-rooted origins into his sought-after writings and performances. An HBO Def Poet and member of two National Poetry Slam teams, his debut collection of poetry—Dreaming Under Polka-Dot Stars— was published in January 2023 by World Stage Press.
Jonathan Feldman N/A
Steve Hochman became a rock critic at 7 when the Beatles hit America, but didn’t get paid for the avocation until he was 27. Since then he’s covered the full spectrum of popular—and unpopular – music for the Los Angeles Times, writing the behind-the-scenes column Pop Eye for 14 of those years, as well as contributing regularly to Rolling Stone, Spin, Entertainment Weekly and many other major—and minor—publications. In addition to his Times work, he currently writes the global music column “Around the World” for AOL’s Spinner.com and is heard as pop music critic for radio newsmagazine The California Report, produced by San Francisco public station KQED-FM and aired throughout the state. The most influential non-relative figures on his character have been John Lennon, Willie Mays and Bugs Bunny.
Veronica Jauregui is the creator at Paper Apothecary Studios. She has been creating journals, writing short stories, and blogging about personal development for as long as she can remember. She hopes her books will remind readers of their capacity for growth, courage, resilience, and possibility. Veronica lives in Northern California with her husband. Follow on Instagram: @PaperApothecaryStudios.
Melissa Marie Monroe is a mom, acupuncturist, author of the blog Mothering in Memoriam, and host of the podcast This Club Suuucks: Grief Support for Parents After the Lasagnas Are Long Gone. Her book Mom’s Search for Meaning won Honorable mention from Writer’s Digest and was a finalist in two categories in the Independent Author Network Book Awards. She lives in Los Angeles with her daughter and dog but heads to the mountains whenever possible.
Original music by Thee Holy Brothers (Willie Aron + Marvin Etzioni).
Admission: $20 includes dessert + free parking.
Tickets available NOW at https://ruskingrouptheatre.com
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ruskin Theatre
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3000 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=220942 or https://marycamarillo.com/upcoming-events/library-girl-at-the-ruskin/
Fantasy Romance Book Club: Rhapsodic at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
March’s Fantasy Romance Book Club participants will discuss Rhapsodic (The Bargainer), by author Laura Thalassa. Bookseller Taylor C leads this book club. Please join us.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
From bestselling indie author Laura Thalassa comes the newly revised and edited first book in her smash-hit dark fantasy romance between a siren and the “bargainer” she owes countless favors to.
Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past.
For the last seven years Callie has been wearing a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she once received. Only death or repayment will fulfill her obligations.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Poetik LA: Community Art & Poetry & “March of Rhymes” at Silverlake Location – In-Person Event
Poetik LA and iamaustinalexander present “March of Rhymes on Sunday, March 10th.
$10 donation suggested.
Where: Poetik LA
Date: Sunday the 10th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 2930 Hyperion, Silverlake, CA
Website: https://www.instagram.com/
Los Angeles Literature 