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:
May 6: A House on the Plains by E.L. Doctorow
May 13: Death of the Right Fielder by Stuart Dybek
May 20: The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor by Deborah Eisenberg
May 27: MEMORIAL 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 details. NO RSVP required.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-literature-book-club-35
Mystery Book Club: The Marlow Murder Club at Woodland Hills Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join our monthly Mystery Book Club meeting via Zoom on the first Monday of every month, except holidays, which will meet the following Monday.
Discussion is facilitated by Mary C. Schaffer. Books are read in advance of the meetings and are available to borrow from the Woodland Hills Branch Library Reference Desk, or you may place a copy on hold through the library catalog or Libby app.
The book selection for May 4 is The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Woodland Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-41
History Book Club: Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
History Book Club participants will discuss Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by author Tom Holland.
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian of the ancient world and the author of six previous books, including Rubicon, recipient of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and Persian Fire, winner of the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award. He lives in London.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Monday, the 6th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Book Launch & Signing: Sarah Braunstein, with Sarah Bynum, & Bad Animals at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Sarah Braunstein, in conversation with Sarah Bynum, will discuss her book, Bad Animals.
Now that her brilliant botanist daughter is off at college, buttoned-up Maeve Cosgrove loves her job at a quiet Maine public library more than anything. But when a teenager accuses Maeve of spying on her romantic escapades in the mezzanine bathroom, she winds up laid off and humiliated. Stuck at home in a tailspin, Maeve’s favorite author, Harrison Riddles, finally responds to her adoring letters and accepts an invitation to speak at the library.
Riddles, meanwhile, arrives in town with his own agenda. He announces a plan to write a novel about another young library patron, Sudanese refugee Willie, and enlists Maeve’s help in convincing him to participate. A scheme to get her job back draws Maeve further into Riddles’s universe—where shocking questions about sex, morality, and the purpose of literature threaten to upend her orderly life.
Sarah Braunstein is the author of The Sweet Relief of Missing Children. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and the Harvard Review. The recipient of a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 prize, she lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches at Colby College.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels—Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize—and a story collection, Likes.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Monday, the 6th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
L.A. Book Launch: Morgan Matson, with Maurene Goo, & The Ballad of Darcy and Russell at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Morgan Matson, in conversation with Maurene Goo, will discuss her novel The Ballad of Darcy and Russell.
In the aftermath of a Nevada music festival, one night filled with football field picnics and night swimming, and other adventures, Darcy and Russell’s lives will change forever.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Juli Min, with Xuan Juliana Wang, & SHANGHAILANDERS at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Juli Min, in conversation with Xuan Juliana Wang, will discuss her novel, SHANGHAILANDERS.
Join us for a dazzling and ambitious debut novel that follows a cosmopolitan Shanghai household backward in time—beginning in 2040 and moving through our present and the recent past—exploring their secrets, their losses, and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.
Brilliantly constructed and achingly resonant, Shanghailanders is an unforgettable exploration of marriage, relationships, and the layered experience of time.
Juli Min is a writer and editor based in Shanghai. She studied Russian and comparative literature at Harvard University, and she holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson. She was the founding editor of the Shanghai Literary Review and served as its fiction editor from 2016 to 2023. Her first novel, Shanghailanders, will be published in May 2024 by Spiegel & Grau (US) and Dialogue Books (UK). Translations are also forthcoming in Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian, and German.
Xuan Juliana Wang is the author of the short story collection Home Remedies, which received the California Book Award for First Fiction and was a New York Public Library Young Lions and PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize finalist. Her writing has appeared in New York Times, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, and Aperture. She is an assistant professor of English at UCLA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-juli-min-presents-shanghailanders-w-xuan-juliana-wang
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – 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 6th
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-894335420317
LiveTalks LA: Doris Kearns Goodwin & An Unfinished Love Story at New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. In An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, Doris Kearns Goodwin takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Dick Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work for President Johnson launched her career as a presidential historian. Her first book was Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. Next was the Pulitzer Prize–winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Homefront in World War II. She earned the Lincoln Prize for Team of Rivals, in part the basis for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, and the Carnegie Medal for The Bully Pulpit, about the friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Her last book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times was the inspiration for a History Channel docuseries which she executive produced. .
They were married to each other for forty-two years and to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when she was selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.
Over the years, with humor, anger, frustration, and ultimately, a growing understanding, Dick and Doris argued over the achievements and failings of the leaders they served and observed, debating the progress and unfinished promises of the country they both loved.
The Goodwins’ last great adventure involved opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had collected for more than fifty years—an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction that they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice.
Where: New Roads School, Ann & Jerry Moss Theatre
Date: Monday the 6th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/doriskearnsgoodwin/
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 6th
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-59526677657
Big Read Book Discussion at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Caregiving isn’t necessarily a planned stage of life.
Roz Chast’s, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? brings laughter to situations that anyone who is or has been a caregiver for their parents or has ever just worried at night about what to do will recognize. We’ll explore our relationships with our parents through writing and by creating portraits of them.
Space is limited. Please RSVP to palsds@lapl.org or come to the Reference Desk.
Free copies of the book will be available for the first 9 people who arrive for the program on May 7.
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-29
LA City College Book Program Series: Rita Williamson & If the Creek Don’t Rise: My Life Out West with the Last Widow of the Civil War at LACC Student Union, 3rd Floor – In-Person Event
Author Rita Williams guests in the LACC Book Program Series for a discussion and Q&A of her book, If the Creek Don’t Rise: My Life Out West with the Last Widow of the Civil War.
At age four, Rita’s mother died, and she was later spirited out of what she describes as the “lynching” South to her aunt Daisy, a headstrong Black Nebraska landowner. This memoir tells how she reinvented herself as a ranch hand and hunting guide in the Rockies as a way out of her crippling legacy of thwarted ambition.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: LACC Book Program, Student Union – 3rd Floor
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Address: LACC, 133 Marathon St, Los Angeles, CA 90029
Website: https://www.instagram.com/lacitycollege
Kids Creative Writing Workshop at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event
Join us for an engaging series of writing workshops designed for children in grades 1-3. Led by experienced high school volunteers, these workshops will help foster literary skills. No prior experience necessary!
RSVP:
To reserve a spot for your child, please complete this google form.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 12611 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/kids-creative-writing-workshop
Fiction Book Club: The Maltese Falcon at Donald Bruce Kauffman-Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Fiction Book Club participants will discuss The Maltese Falcon by author Dashiell Hammett.
Books selected for discussion can be new or old and come from a wide array of genres, styles, and authors.
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 4:40 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/fiction-book-club
M.E.R.G.: Memorial’s Environmental Reading Group at Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Are you eager to delve deeper into environmental issues beyond what brief news articles offer and discuss them with others? Join us as we explore best-selling books in environmental studies and natural history, focusing on California’s remarkable biodiversity, from iconic species to the intricate web of life within our forests.
Our inaugural selection for discussion is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer. Reserve your copy at the reference desk.
Where: Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 4625 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/merg-memorials-environmental-reading-group
Juli Min, with Belinda Huijuan Tang, & Sahnghailanders at Bel Canto Books – In-Person Event
Juli Min will present and discuss her new book, Shanghailanders, in conversation with Belinda Huijuan Tang.
A dazzling and ambitious debut novel that follows a cosmopolitan Shanghai household backward in time—beginning in 2040 and moving through our present and the recent past—exploring their secrets, their losses, and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.
Juli Min is a writer and editor based in Shanghai. She studied Russian and comparative literature at Harvard University, and she holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson. She was the founding editor of the Shanghai Literary Review and served as its fiction editor from 2016 to 2023. Her first novel, Shanghailanders, will be published in May 2024 by Spiegel & Grau (US) and Dialogue Books (UK). Translations are also forthcoming in Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian, and German.
Belinda Huijuan Tang is a novelist and filmmaker from San Jose, California. She is the author of A Map for the Missing, long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and one of NPR’s best books of 2022. As a screenwriter, she was a 2023 Film Independent Project Involve Writing Fellow and 2024 CAPE New Writing Fellow. She holds degrees from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Stanford University, and Peking University in Beijing.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO Long Beach
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/juli-min-shanghailanders-tickets-878214612547?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
Feminist Book Club: Crying in H Mart at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by author Michelle Zauner.
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
Michelle Zauner is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy, shoegaze-inspired indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases like Psychopomp (2016) and Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017).
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event
Alexis Landau, with Meg Howrey, & The Mother of All Things at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Alexis Landau, in conversation with Meg Howrey, will discuss her book, The Mother of All Things.
This is a daring novel from the acclaimed author of Those Who Are Saved: female rage, grief, and creativity collide in the present and animate the past, when a woman reconnects with her essential self during a summer journey and discovers an ancient female world that offers parallels to her own.
Kept busy by her obligations as a wife and mother, art history professor Ava Zaretsky has little time to devote to her research and writing. Now tagging along on her film-producer husband’s shoot in Bulgaria for the summer, where she’s mostly solo parenting her sweet son and rebellious budding tween daughter, she has a chance encounter with her fierce feminist mentor from college, which changes everything.
Alexis Landau is a graduate of Vassar College and received an MFA from Emerson College and a PhD in English literature and creative writing from the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Empire of the Senses and Those Who Are Saved. She lives with her husband and two children in Los Angeles.
Meg Howrey is the author of the novels The Wanderers, The Cranes Dance, Blind Sight, and most recently, They’re Going to Love You, which was a New York Times Best Book of the Month and a New Yorker Best Book of 2022. She is also the coauthor of the bestselling novels City of Dark Magic and City of Lost Dreams, published under the pen name Magnus Flyte
Her nonfiction has appeared in Vogue and The Los Angeles Review of Books. A former professional dancer, she currently lives in Los Angeles.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St. Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Alexis-Landau-Meg-Howrey-May-7-Author-signing
Creativity Book Club with Judith Martin-Straw at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Do you think of yourself as creative, or wish that you were? Do you get inspired by a book of reflections, or do you prefer an actual workbook with tasks and prompts? Do you wish you had more people to talk with about painting, poetry or pottery? Here is the time and the place; you just need to be here with us.
Be a part of the start – and let 2024 be your most creatively satisfying year yet!
Judith Martin-Straw has been teaching creativity classes, yoga and meditation for almost 20 years. She is also the Publisher of CulverCityCrossroads.com, a daily local news website. Her poetry has been published in the Beyond Baroque anthology Echo 681, and has been featured in the “Readers Write’ section of The Sun.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34215
Marjorie McCown, with Bobi Garland, & Star Struck at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Marjorie McCown, in conversation with Bobi Garland, will present and discuss her book, Star Struck (A Hollywood Mystery #2).
Costumer Joey Jessop is working on a movie set in 1930s Hollywood and starring two of the world’s biggest stars. The male lead is also a dedicated social activist, and the female lead, Gillian Best, is known for her lifestyle brand. After a hit-and-run near the set, Joey realizes that the car involved belongs to Gillian, and she begins to wonder if the actress has more to hide than her Botox appointments.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/marjorie-mccown-2024
Los Angeles Political Economy Reading Group at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
This event will be a discussion of Casefor Malibu Burning by Mike Dais & Starting City of Segregation by Andrea Gibbons.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Cory Wharton-Malcolm & All You Need Is Rhythm & Grit at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Apple Fitness and Nike Trainer Cory Wharton-Malcolm, in conversation with American TV host and sportscaster Selema Masekela, will discuss his Letter to Running + Motivational Guide, All You Need Is Rhythm & Grit.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Reparations Club
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/event-cory-wharton-malcolm
At Skylight: Shze-Hui Tjoa, with Charles Jensen, Dr. Cecilia Caballero, & Annlee Ellingson, & The Story Game at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Shze-Hui Tjoa, in conversation with Charles Jensen, Dr. Cecilia Caballero, & Annlee Ellingson, will discuss her book, The Story Game.
This memoir explores the complexities of sisterhood, the cost of expectation, and the power of storytelling to shape—and ultimately repair—a life.
In the humid dark of a eucalyptus-scented room, a woman named Hui lies on a mattress telling stories about herself to her listener, a little girl. She talks about her identity as the child of an immigrant, her feelings about being in a mixed-race marriage, her opinions on mental health. But as her stories progress, it becomes clear a volatile secret lurks beneath their surface. There are events in Hui’s past that have great significance for the person she’s become, but that have gone missing from her memory. What is it, exactly, that is haunting Hui? Who is the little girl she talks to? And who is Hui herself?
Shze-Hui Tjoa is the author of the debut memoir The Story Game (Tin House). She is a writer from Singapore who lives in the UK. She is a nonfiction editor at Sundog Lit, and previously served as fiction editor of Exposition Review. Her work has been published in journals including Colorado Review, Southeast Review, and So to Speak, and has been listed as notable in three successive issues of The Best American Essays series (2021-23). Her work has received support from the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Vermont Studio Center, the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, Disquiet International, and AWP’s Writer to Writer Mentorship Program.
Annlee Ellingson is co-Editor-in-Chief of Exposition Review. She is editor, digital cities, for American City Business Journals and writes a column about films directed by women. She’s a mentor and managing editor for WriteGirl, as well as treasurer of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. She holds a Master of Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California and a BA in film studies from the University of Minnesota. She tweets and instagrams about books, movies, hiking, food, travel, and nephews at @annleee.
Dr. Cecilia Caballero is a single mother, poet, writer, speaker, university lecturer, and co-editor of The Chicana Motherwork Anthology. Cecilia is currently a 2024-2023 Octavia Butler Earthseed Fellow. She is also a 2024 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow, a 2024 Anaphora Arts fellow, a 2023 Aspen Words Emerging Writer, and a 2023 California Arts Council recipient. Cecilia’s writing is forthcoming or appears in Strange Horizons, Witness Magazine, sin cesar (formerly Dryland), and elsewhere. She is currently writing a memoir about single mothering, generational poverty, and mental health.
Charles Jensen (he/him) wrote Splice of Life: A Memoir in 13 Film Genres, forthcoming in May 2024 from Santa Fe Writer’s Project. His most recent collection of poetry is Instructions between Takeoff and Landing. His previous books include two collections of poetry and seven chapbooks of cross-genre work. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs designated him a 2019-2020 Cultural Trailblazer, and his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Exposition Review, and Passages North. He hosts The Write Process, a podcast in which one writer tells the story of crafting one work from concept to completion. He lives in Long Beach and directs the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Book Release: Andy McCulloch, with Bill Plaschke, & The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Andy McCulloch, in conversation with Bill Plaschke, will discuss his biography of Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, The Last of His Kind.
This book is the definitive biography of Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, examining the genesis of his brilliance, his epic quest to win the World Series, and his singular place within the evolving baseball landscape—based on exclusive interviews with Kershaw and more than 200 others.
Andy McCullough is a senior writer at The Athletic. He has covered Major League Baseball since 2010, previously for the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star, and The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. His work has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors on seven occasions for beat writing, explanatory reporting, and feature writing. He lives in New York with his wife, the writer Stephanie Apstein. This is his first book.
Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Jessie Rosen, with Cindy Chupack, & The Heirloom at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Jessie Rosen, in conversation with Cindy Chupack, will discuss her novel, The Heirloom.
Shea Anderson’s beloved Nonna had endless rules for a happy, healthy life: avoid owls, never put a hat on a bed, and never, ever accept a marriage proposal that comes with an heirloom ring. Marriage is hard enough without bad karma in the mix.
Naturally, panic sets in when Shea’s boyfriend, John, proposes with an heirloom ring. Yes is her answer, but Nonna’s warning sets Shea on a mission to ensure the ring contains forever energy: She will find its previous owners wherever they may be. With the help of her long-suffering big sister and a nosy journalist eager for a big story, Shea embarks on a journey that takes her from Los Angeles and New York to Italy and Portugal.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Jessie-Rosen-discusses-The-Heirloom
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic + Featured Reader Martin Jago – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with host Rick Lupert will feature guest reader Martin Jago.
Martin Jago is a British-American poet, nonfiction writer, and stage director who lives between Los Angeles and London and works internationally. His debut poetry collection is PHOTOFIT (Pindrop Press, 2023). His poetry and prose have appeared in literary magazines such as Agenda, Acumen, The Moth, Presence, LIT Magazine, The Penn Review, HCE Review, Artillery Magazine, the poetry podcast Poetry Worth Hearing and forthcoming poetry in The High Window, Sierra Nevada Review and Blue Unicorn.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt
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.
Featuring: Malibu Poet Laureate Nathan Hassall who works with students in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and is an events organizer.
NOTE: Details at event link. Check to Verify.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
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
Tuesday Night Café/Project Open Mic & Featured Readers at Union Center for the Arts – In-Person Event
Join us for another evening of art, community, friends, and vibes. We have an incredible lineup prepared for you, featuring:
Halloween Sunset N/A
Adriel Luis is a community organizer, artist, writer, and curator who believes that collective liberation can happen in poetic ways. His life’s work is focused on the mutual thriving of artistic integrity and social vigilance. His ancestors are rooted in Toisan, China, and migrated through Hong Kong, Mexico, and the United States. Adriel was born on Ohlone land.
Jess X. Snow is a filmmaker, multi-disciplinary artist, writer and cultural worker of the JiangXi Chinese diaspora. Through a wide range of mediums—their work re-imagines mental health, the collective unwellness of the American dream, kinships across cultures and species, abolitionist futures. They are committed to immersing audiences in queer Asian immigrant worlds rarely seen in cinema and literature.
Uyafaafuji’s Refusal: An Ode To The Yanbaru, a short film by Joey Kamiya & Sho Yamagushiku.
Music by DJ Waxstyles.
For this show, we will be starting the night off with the Open Mic Lottery! Sign-ups start 6:40pm, so be sure to get there early!
NOTE: See sign-ups, details, and guidelines at website link.
Where: Union Center for the Arts
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 120 Judge John Also St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=932357542227817&set=a.738997354897171
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
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 the theater.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre
Date: Tuesday, the 7th
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/womenfemmes-night
Mystery Book Club: Secret Identity at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss Secret Identity by author Alex Segura.
Secret Identity is a rollicking literary mystery set in the world of comic books.
RSVP:
Please email wvally@lapl.org with “Mystery Book Club” in the subject line for information on the title to be discussed and the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 10:30 am
Address: 19036 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-43
Book Club: Crazy Rich Asians at Wilmington Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Crazy Rich Asians by author Kevin Kwan.
RSVP:
Contact klarson@lapl for more information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Wilmington Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1300 N. Avalon Blvd., Wilmington, CA 90744
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/wilmington-book-club-3
Mystery Book Club: One Puzzling Afternoon at Sylmar Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Mystery Book Club participants will discuss One Puzzling Afternoon by author Emily Chichley.
You can pick up your copy at the circulation desk or download it on the Libby or hoopla apps.
Where: Sylmar Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 14561 Polk St., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-60
Poets Café: Poetry from Around the World via KPFK 90.7 FM – Live On-Air Event
Poets Café celebrates Poetry from Around the World with host Mark Lipman and special guests.
Special guest Samuel Peralta is poet and founder of The Lunar Codex. He will be taking us on a voyage to the moon.
This program is offered monthly on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: KPFK 90.7 FM
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: On-air Event (live)
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/oe
Pajama Party with Comic Artist Katy Farina at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids & MG Event
Comic Artist Katy Farina will celebrate the release of her 8th graphic novel adaptation of the Baby-Sitters Little Sister Series! Come learn more about her process and creating a graphic novel! Wear your favorite pajamas!
This story features Kristy’s little stepsister! Karen is having her first sleepover! She and her friends are going to tell spooky stories, bake cookies, and raid the refrigerator.
But then Karen and Nancy get into a big fight, and Karen doesn’t want Nancy to come to her party. A new girl, Pamela, comes instead and she isn’t any fun. What is Karen going to do?
This is a free event, but we appreciate RSVPs!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/pajama-party-comic-artist-katy-farina
Reading in Bed with Jessica: L.A. Poet Society via 101.5 FM – Live On-Air Event
Reading in Bed with Jessica hosts poets and writers in conversation and is aired weekly on 101.5 FM.
Jessica Wilson Cardenas is the founder of the Los Angeles Poet Society.
Guests TBA
This program is offered weekly on radioollin Los Angeles 101.5 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: L.A. Poet Society via www.radioollin.com 101.5 FM
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Poetry Open Mic at DiPiazza’s Pizza, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Join us for a night filled with poetry at DiPiazza’s Our Open Mic event hosted by Tamara Madson.
Ages 21+
NOTE: See sign-ups, details, and guidelines at website link.
Where: DiPiazza’s Pizza
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 5205 Pacific Coast Highway Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups
WeHo Reads Literary Series: Asian Pacific Talk Story – In-Person & Online Event
WeHo Reads present a panel event on the theme of Asian Pacific Diaspora Talk Story.
Hear from a panel of poets and writers as they share their stories, connect across the diaspora, and discuss what it means to be Asian American during May Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
Musical guest Jett Kwong opens this event by celebrating the panel of Asian/Pacific American authors, including Ryka Aoki, Curtis Chin, Jasmin Iolani Hakes, Angela Peñaredondo, and Fariha Róisín, and hosted by West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: West Hollywood Library Community Room
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.weho.org/community/arts-and-culture/literary-arts/weho-reads or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weho-reads-asian-pacific-diaspora-talk-story-tickets-780523214947
David Alexander & Pictures of Time at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Rock star photographer David Alexander will discuss his book, Pictures of Time.
The photographs in Pictures of Time explore the intersection of art, science, and, perhaps, philosophy. Each page turn expresses a different view of time in the ordinary world, raising questions such as what is time? Can time be seen?
“To see time is to see how all of life is connected, how everything alive is simply different versions of the same basic stuff, how everything alive and natural is one.”
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/david-alexander
Launch Party: Katya Apekina & Mother Doll at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Author Katya Apekina will present and discuss her new novel, Mother Doll, a ferociously funny and moving look at how painful secrets stamp themselves from one generation to the next.
Apekina’s second novel is a family epic and a meditation on motherhood, immigration, identity, and war.
Special guests:
Sarah Labrie is a TV writer librettist, and author of the memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart.
Lisa Locasio is the author of Open Me, an erotic coming-of-age debut.
Ruth Madievsky is the author of All-Night Pharmacy and Emergency Brake.
Antoine Wilson is the author most recently of Mouth to Mouth.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lv787h40
Carla Williams, with Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, & Tender at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Photographer, archivist, editor, and writer Carla Williams, in conversation with author, sex scholar, and feminist educator Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, will discuss her monograph Tender.
Los Angeles native Carla Willaims is a photographer, archivist, editor, and writer. She is author of numerous essays and articles about photography and culture and is co-author of two histories of photography, including The Black Female Body: A Photographic History (2002) with Deborah Willis.
Williams’ first monograph, Tender, was published in 2023 by TBW Books, and was the recipient of the Aperture First Book Prize at Paris Photo. She exhibits with Higher Pictures Generation in New York. She lives in New Orleans.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Reparations Club
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/carla-williams-event
David Alexander & Pictures of Time at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Rock star photographer David Alexander will discuss his book, Pictures of Time.
The photographs in Pictures of Time explore the intersection of art, science, and, perhaps, philosophy. Each page turn expresses a different view of time in the ordinary world, raising questions such as what is time? Can time be seen?
“To see time is to see how all of life is connected, how everything alive is simply different versions of the same basic stuff, how everything alive and natural is one.”
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/david-alexander
Book Launch: Dopamine Books Presents: SLUTS Anthology at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
This event will host readings from authors in the debut anthology of Dopamine Books: SLUTS, an exploration of what it means to be sexually promiscuous in contemporary American culture.
Baruch Porras-Hernandez is the author of Lovers of the Deep-Fried Circle.
Hedi El Kholti is the author of A Place in the Sun.
Kamala Puligandla is the author of Zigzags.
D-L Alvarez is the author of Fade to Black.
Amanda Montell is the author of Cultish, Wordslut and The Age of Magical Overthinking.
Tom Cole is the author of Last Paradise.
Daniel Shy is the author of Both Shy and Sacred.
Sam Cohen is the author of Sarahland.
Lydia Conklin is the author of Rainbow Rainbow.
Drew Arriola Sands is the author of Trap Girl in South Gate.
Gabrielle Korn is the author of Yours for the Taking, Everybody (Else) Is…, The Shutouts.
Taleen Kali is the author of bandcamp.
Cheryl Klein is the author of The Magic Words.
Cristy Road Carrer is the author of Next World Tarot.
Bradford Nordeen : Because Horror (with Johnny Ray Huston), Check Your Vernacular, Dirty Looks at MoMA, Fever Pitch, the Dirty Looks Volume I-IV series (editor), and the forthcoming novel, Blessed Western.
Hosted by: Michelle TEA author of Knocking Myself Up.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2220 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/sluts-book-launch
RECESS Open Mic Is at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
RECESS Open Mic Is at 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 8th
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 6:30; Open Mic at 8 pm)
Address: 3200 W. Temple St., Ste. 100, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.palmsupacademy.com
Carla Williams, with Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, & Tender at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Photographer, archivist, editor, and writer Carla Williams, in conversation with author, sex scholar, and feminist educator Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, will discuss her monograph Tender.
Los Angeles native Carla Willaims is a photographer, archivist, editor, and writer. She is author of numerous essays and articles about photography and culture and is co-author of two histories of photography, including The Black Female Body: A Photographic History (2002) with Deborah Willis.
Williams’ first monograph, Tender, was published in 2023 by TBW Books, and was the recipient of the Aperture First Book Prize at Paris Photo. She exhibits with Higher Pictures Generation in New York. She lives in New Orleans.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Reparations Club
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/carla-williams-event
At Skylight: Colm Tóibín & Long Island at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Acclaimed author Colm Tóibín will present and discuss his new novel, Long Island.
This intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, following the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, takes place twenty years later.
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.
One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named as the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-colm-t%C3%B3ib%C3%ADn-presents-long-island
Plant Author Event: Agatha Isabel, with Danae Horst, & Houseplant Hookups at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for an evening of greenery and growth at the Houseplant Hookups Book Signing by Agatha Isabel, in conversation with Danae Horst.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/36479
Judith Orloff & The Genius of Empathy at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Author Judith Orloff will present and discuss The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Your Sensitive Self, Your Relationships, and the World.
Embrace empathy as your superpower for transformative personal healing, deeper relationships, and more potent work in the world.
Empathy is no weakness―it holds transformative power to heal ourselves, strengthen our relationships, and amplify our purpose. Dr. Judith Orloff, known for landmark works like The Empath’s Survival Guide, shares an essential new resource for cultivating empathy as a daily healing practice and a form of emotional intelligence.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Judith-Orloff-discusses-The-Genius-of-Empathy
Hype Book Club: Powerless at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss her novel Powerless by author Lauren Roberts.
The HYPE Book club is led by bookseller Paola, and meets every 2nd Wednesday of the month.
Powerless (The Powerless Trilogy) is a YA fantasy by author Lauren Roberts which follows the romance of a powerful prince and an ordinary girl as they try to survive their kingdom’s grueling laws pitting them against each other.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Wednesday the 8th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
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 — MYA;
- 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 8th
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 Rooja Mohassessy, an Iranian-born poet and educator. She is a MacDowell Fellow and an MFA graduate of Pacific University, Oregon. Her ekphrastic debut collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine (Feb 2023) was the winner of the 22nd Annual Elir Poetry Award. Rooja has been featured on NPR, The Hive Poetry Collective, and other poetry podcasts and radio stations. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Nimrod, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, The Adroit Journal, New Letters, The Rumpus, The Journal, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. Her work is also anthologized in California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology, and Colossus: Body, a compilation of writings by Californians writing on the themes of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. Rooja is an editorial assistant at the journal Prairie Schooner.
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 8th
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-896268261497?aff=erelexpmlt
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Featured Guests Sholeh Wolpe & Alexandra Lytton Regalado 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 guests Sholeh Wolpe & Alexandra Lytton Regalado.
Sholeh Wolpe is an Iranian American poet, playwright, and librettist. Her most recent book, Abacus of Loss: A Memoir in Verse, was hailed by Colorado Review as a book that “examines the masks of patriarchy in powerful metaphor and narrative.” Wolpé’s literary work number over 12 collections of poetry, translations, and anthologies, as well as librettos for opera, oratorio and art songs, several plays, and multi-genre productions. Wolpé has lived in Iran, Trinidad, and the United Kingdom and is currently a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Irvine. She divides her time between Southern California and Barcelona.
Alexandra Lytton Regalado is a Salvadoran American author, editor, translator, and educator. Her works include Relinquenda, winner of the National Poetry Series (Beacon Press, 2022), and Matria (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). She is co-founding editor of Kalina press and assistant editor at swwim.org. More info at http://www.alexandralyttonregalado.com.
$4 cover fee, cash only
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 8th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Robertson Readers Book Club: Horse at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss the novel Horse, by author Geraldine Brooks.
This book club meets on the second Thursday of every month. We will discuss the book and share any other interesting books we have been reading. New members are welcome!
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-readers-book-club-0
Mystery Book Club via Venice Abbot-Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us on Zoom for a suspenseful discussion of mystery books. New members are always welcome. Copies of each month’s selection are available for checkout at the circulation desk.
RSVP:
For the Zoom link, please email venice@lapl.org.
Where: Venice-Abbot-Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-45
Brentwood Writers Workshop at Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Are you a writer looking for creative ways to manifest your story and, most importantly, keep moving forward? Are you interested in collaborating with others to explore:
What makes a story interesting?
Why audiences invest in characters?
How to inject insight into your stories?
How to strengthen story elements?
The Brentwood Writers Workshop is looking for fellow writers to gather, brainstorm, and bring their experience and skills to their fellow writers. We’re here to workshop ideas, coach each other through challenges, and support and inspire one another, all with the goal of making traction on our writing projects.
Where: Donald Bruce Kauffman Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/brentwood-writing-group
Not So Secret Society Book Club & Summer in the City of Roses at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss Summer in the City of Roses by author Michelle Ruiz Keil.
Inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Grimm fairy tale “Brother and Sister,” Michelle Ruiz Keil’s second novel follows two siblings torn apart and struggling to find each other in early ’90s Portland.
Michelle Ruiz Keil is a Latinx writer and tarot reader with an eye for the enchanted and a way with animals. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, All of Us With Wings, was called “a transcendent journey” by The New York Times. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Michelle has lived in Portland, Oregon, for many years. She curates the fairytale reading series All Kinds of Fur and lives with her family in a cottage where the forest meets the city.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/not-so-secret-society-summer-city-roses
Diverse Romance Book Club & The Neighbor Favor at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Neighbor Favor by author Kristina Forest.
A shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he’s the obscure author she’s been corresponding with, in this sparkling and heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest.
Kristina Forest is the USA Today bestselling author of romance books for both teens and adults. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School and she lives in New Jersey, where she can often be found rearranging her bookshelf.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/diverse-romance-book-club-neighbor-favor-0
Book Talk: Gwen Kingston, with Nikki Ehrlick, & Did I Ever Tell You? at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Genevieve Kingston, in conversation with Nikki Ehrlich, will discuss her book Did I Ever Tell You?
This extraordinary memoir tells the astonishing story of a mother’s last gifts to her daughter, and the wisdom and love she bestowed upon her from beyond the grave.
Genevieve Kingston holds BAs in theater and linguistics from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in acting from Brown University/Trinity Repertory Theater. She is the author of four plays and three one acts. In May 2021, her essay, “She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box,” appeared in The New York Times’s “Modern Love” column. Did I Ever Tell You? is her first book. She lives with her partner in Brooklyn, New York.
Nikki Erlick is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Measure, which was selected as Jenna Bush Hager and The TODAY Show’s “Read With Jenna” Book Club pick, as well as the Barnes & Noble Discover Pick. Global translations of the novel are forthcoming in 24 languages. Nikki graduated Harvard University summa cum laude and earned her master’s degree from Columbia University.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Emiko Jean, with Carolyn Huyun, & The Return of Ellie Black at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Emiko Jean, in conversation with Carolyn Huyun,will discuss her book, The Return of Ellie Black.
Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers
This debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner..
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/emiko-jean
L.A. Book Release Party: Kelsey Leigh, with Alexandra Overy, & Forgotten Flare at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Kelsey Leigh, in conversation with Alexandra Overy, will discuss her kickstarter-funded YA novel Forgotten Flare and The Sunshine Chronicles.
Rayleigh isn’t a normal teen, as she’s been haunted by magical, dangerous creatures and is a powerful warrior who hasn’t developed her powers yet.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Thursday the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Helen Benedict & & Kate Gale Present: The Good Deed & Under a Neon Sun, respectively, at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Helen Benedict will present and discuss her novel, The Good Deed.
In this stark, powerful portrait of women on opposite sides of a refugee camp in Greece: the refugees trapped inside, and the troubled American tourist whose good intentions morph into a dangerous delusion, resulting in a poignant, layered novel on displacement and belonging, love and betrayal, and the jagged space between altruism and egoism.
Helen Benedict, a professor at Columbia University, is the author of seven previous novels, six books of nonfiction, and a play. Her newest novel, The Good Deed, hailed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Booklist, comes out of the research she conducted for her 2022 nonfiction book, Map of Hope and Sorrow,
Kate Gale will present and discuss her fiction debut, Under a Neon Sun.
For people living in houses and apartments, with stay-at-home jobs, the pandemic was inconvenient. For Mia—a student and housekeeper whose budget is so tight she lives in her car—the pandemic destroys the very source of her paltry income. Fortunately, Mia is a determined survivor. After weeks of cutting her limited spending even further, missing meals along the way, her wealthy employers become desperate for her services again. This time, she’s determined not to let them take advantage of her as they have in the past.
Kate Gale is the co-founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press, which has been publishing for more than thirty years in Los Angeles. She is also the author of seven books of poetry including The Goldilocks Zone and The Loneliest Girl, as well as several librettos including Rio de Sangre with Don Davis—who wrote the music to the Matrix movies. She has a Ph.D. in English literature from Claremont Graduate University and since 1989 has taught writing at universities in Los Angeles every semester, and has also taught publishing at Oxford, Columbia University, Harvard University, and USC. She served as president of PEN USA from 2005–2006. Currently, Kate teaches publishing and poetry at Chapman University and lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-helen-benedict-good-deed-kate-gale-under-neon-sun
Book Release: Nikola Pepera & Get Lost with Nikola Pepera at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Lay Down and Get Lost is a psychedelic collection of poems and illustrations. Take in the characters who smell of sage and sin. Join us among the chaparral, but be sure to unpack your mind and don your acid beret.
Nikola Pepera, the last of the Haight Ashbury Butterflies. A former peach farmer and a former lithium dealer. A degenerate beatnik who once smoked tree moss. A notorious recluse who hid her surrealist paintings of psychedelic prostitutes and acid poetry under her bed until last summer, 2023. She is the singer and lyricist of her supergroupe Chippy & Thee Psychedelic Dirtbags.
Lay Down & Get Lost is her first book.
Accompanying readings by:
Jack Skelley author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker; Jennifer Robin Portland based author of You Only Bend Once With A Spoonful of Mercury; Vanessa Matic of Agape Lodge Poetry Society & author of Romance & Revolution; artist MZ Neon; and artist Blone Noble.
Live post punk jazz esoterica from musicians Alaska Lynch and Evan LaFlamme
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series: Tatyana Roscoe, Anastasia Helena Fenald, Arthur Kayzakian at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
This month’s event brings live, in-store readings by a wonderfully diverse trio of Southern California poets: Tatyana Roscoe, Anastasia Helena Fenald, and Arthur Kayzakian.
Tatyana Roscoe is a self-educated poet currently residing in Ontario, California. She started writing and reciting after her father’s death at the age of eight, and after twenty-one years of writing was able to publish her first poetry collection, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘢𝘵𝘺𝘢𝘯𝘢: 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘗𝘰𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘴, in January 2024. She is a recent winner of a writing contest hosted by the open letter platform 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘥, and her poem “Great-Full,” was included in their poetry anthology, 𝘜𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦.
Anastasia Helena Fenald is a second-generation Ukrainian-Hispanic-American poet from California’s windy High Desert. She is the author of 𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘔𝘦, 𝘐’𝘮 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦: 𝘗𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 (World Stage Press 2022) and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘑𝘰𝘣 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨: 𝘈 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦 (Riot of Roses Publishing House 2023). She spends her time reading fanfiction, performing both comedy and poetry at open mics, and forgetting to drink water until bedtime.
Arthur Kayzakian is a recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a founding member and Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in several publications, including The Adroit Journal, Chicago Review, Cincinnati Review, and The Southern Review, among others. His collection, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘙𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 (Black Lawrence Press, 2023), was the winner of the inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series and was also a finalist for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry and the 2024 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
Trenches Full of Poets is a monthly poetry series created, curated, and hosted by Los Angeles-based poets and editors, Nikolai Garcia and Mauricio Andres Moreno with the goal of supporting published SoCal authors and the local independent bookstores that carry their works. The event takes place on the second Thursday of every month and is always free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations required!
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2712 E 4th St, Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=818960086935229&set=gm.389850494026564
Live Podcast Recording: Paula Yoo, with Hyungwon Kang, Jeff Yang & Phil Yu, & Rising From the Ashes at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join award-winning author and journalist Paula Yoo to discuss her new nonfiction book, Rising from the Ashes, about the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and its repercussions for LA’s Black and Korean American communities. “They Call Us Bruce” podcast hosts Jeff Yang and Phil Yu will moderate a conversation with Paula and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Hyungwon Kang, whose award-winning photos of the uprising are featured throughout the book. Hear how Yoo interviewed over 100 eyewitnesses and victims’ families, pieced together her narrative, and highlighted the timely relevance of this recent historical event.
Paula Yoo is a prolific TV writer/producer, freelance violinist, and author of several books for children, including her award-winning debut YA nonfiction book, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry. She lives in Los Angeles, California
Hyungwon “HK” Kang is a veteran photojournalist, columnist, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner as a member of the teams that covered the L.A. uprising (1993, Spot News), and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal (1999, Feature Photography). He is the author of two books, most recently Visual History of Korea in September 2022.
THEY CALL US BRUCE (PODCAST): Hosts Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what’s happening in Asian America.
Jeff Yang has been observing, exploring, and writing about the Asian American community for over thirty years. He launched one of the first Asian American national magazines, A. Magazine, in 1990 and writes frequently for CNN, Quartz, New York Times, and elsewhere. He has authored three books—New York Times-bestselling memoir I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action, Once Upon a Time in China, and Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture. He most recently coauthored the New York Times-bestselling books RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now and The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America. He lives in Los Angeles.
Phil Yu is the founder and editor of the popular Asian American news and culture blog, Angry Asian Man, which has had a devoted following since 2001. His commentary has been featured and quoted in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and elsewhere.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/37492
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman & Adam Sikes Present: The Far Side of the Desert & The Underhanded, respectively, at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Authors Joanne Leedom-Ackerman and Adam Sikes will present and discuss The Far Side of the Desert and The Underhanded, respectively.
Joanne Leedom- Ackerman’s The Far Side of the Desert is about a family reunion and festival upended by a terrorist attack and kidnapping.
Adam Sikes’ The Underhanded is a family drama and political thriller that explores links of terrorism, crime, and financial manipulation, revealing the grace that ultimately foils destruction.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday, the 9th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
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 10th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-75
Current Events Nonfiction Book Club: The Heat Will Kill You First at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planetby author Jeff Goodell.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday, the 10th
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: The Joy of Saying No at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss, The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want, by author Natalie Yue.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/self-care-book-club-joy-saying-no
Book Talk: Adam Levin & The Instructions at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Adam Levin will celebrate the re-release/”Bar Mitzvah Edition” of his book THE INSTRUCTIONS.
Beginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and nine hundred pages later, with the Events of November 17, The Instructions is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Expelled from three Jewish day-schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity
Adam Levin is the author of the novels The Instructions, Bubblegum, and Mount Chicago, as well as the story collection, Hot Pink. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Playboy. He has been a New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award winner, a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a National Jewish Book Award finalist. He lives in Chicago.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Thrival Open Mic at Confidential Coffee, Long Beach – In-Person Event
All arts community open mics & community plugs. All ages. More info on Instagram @thrivalopenmic.
This event is held on 2nd Fridays of the month.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Confidential Coffee
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 137 W 6th St, Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://www.lbpoetry.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/C1vFezISJjb/
Book Talk: A. Ashley Hoff, with Ann Magnuson, & With Love Mommie Dearest at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Ashley Hoff, in conversation with Ann Magnuson, will discuss With Love, Mommie Dearest: The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic.
When she died in 1977, Joan Crawford was remembered as an icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age—until publication the following year of her daughter’s memoir, Mommie Dearest.
Christina Crawford’s book was an immediate bestseller, addressing the infrequently discussed topic of child abuse.
When Paramount Pictures released the film, starring Faye Dunaway as Crawford, it was critically panned, and remains one of the most legendary critical bombs in film history. The lavish, big-screen adaptation drew unexpected laughter in the scenes depicting life in the Crawford household. Rarely have such good intentions been met with such ridicule.
A. Ashley Hoff is the author of Match Game 101: A Backstage History of Match Game and With Love, Mommie Dearest: The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic.
He previously worked for talent agencies in Chicago and Los Angeles and has written articles on Hollywood for the Advocate and Films in Review. He has been interviewed on numerous pop culture subjects in magazines such as Closer Weekly and on various local talk shows and podcasts such as The Nick Digilio Show on WGN Radio, The Frank DeCaro Show on Sirius XM, and the podcast Feast of Fun.
Ann Magnuson is an artist, writer, actor, performer, and musician whose eclectic resume traverses the entertainment landscape like few others. She has acted in Hollywood blockbusters, Off-Broadway plays, TV sitcoms and indie films; fronted various bands; made records; written for numerous publications and has presented her original performance art pieces at art institutions worldwide.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/ashley-hoff
Launch Party: M. Lopes Da Silva & Infinity Mathing at the Shore & Other Disruptions at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join North Figueroa Bookshop in welcoming M. Lopes Da Silva as we celebrate the release of their new novel Infinity Mathing at the Shore & Other Disruptions.
A non-binary model discovers that an artist is attempting to paint their soul. Glitter-vomiting deer take over the streets of Los Angeles. A trans man drives out to the desert to investigate rumors of a cult using crude oil as a drug. Heartbreaking, sexy, and grotesque, these stories are timely and insistent reminders that even though we might all be buried in capitalist garbage, we are not garbage, and never were. Infinity Mathing at the Shore & Other Disruptions is a strange and gnarly entry in the canon of 21st-century queer horror. Come, transform with us.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lv790v7g
Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Every second Friday of the month, Village Well stays open a bit later to provide a platform for local performers through our open mic! All performers are welcome, including musicians, poets, storytellers, comedians, and magicians!
Acts are limited to 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 guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/27553
Wendy Chen, with Alexandra Chang, & Their Divine Fires at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Wendy Chen, in conversation with Alexandra Chen, will present and discuss her new book, Their Divine Fires.
Drawing on the lives of her great-grandmother and her great-uncles—both of whom fought on the side of the Communists—as well as her mother’s experiences during the Cultural Revolution, Wendy Chen infuses Their Divine Fires with a passion that will transport the reader back to powerful moments in history while bringing us close to the women who persisted despite the forces all around them. Both brilliant and haunting, it’s a story about what our ancestors will, and won’t, tell us.
In this story each generation guards its secrets, leaving the great granddaughter of the patriarch, living in contemporary America, to piece together what actually happened between her mother, her sister, and the weight of their shared ancestry.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Wendy-Chen-discusses-Their-Divine-Fires
Creative Sounds Spoken Word Edition Event at Creative Grounds Art Studio, San Bernardino– In-Person Event
Michah Tasaka and Creative Grounds Art Studio will present Creative Sounds: Spoken Word Event. Sounds by DJ Sweets.
Spoken word artists are limited to 3 pieces, of poetry, spoken word, and Rap only.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Creative Grounds Studio
Date: Friday, the 10th
Time: 7:30 pm (Doors)
Address: 395 N. E St., Unit 101A, San Bernardino, CA 92401
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creative-sounds-spoken-word-edition-tickets-897734958427
Sleepover Themed PJ Breakfast with Baby-Sitters Little Sister illustrator Katy Farina at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Enjoy the ultimate friendship experience with a sleepover-themed book signing with Katy Farina the creator of the New York Times bestselling graphic novel adaptations of the Baby-sitters Little Sister series. Katy will be sharing the newest book in the series Karen’s Sleepover with the first 50 fans to RSVP. Light snacks will be served. Best for readers ages 7+.
RSVP required.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 9 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Get Lit Player Auditions at Get Lit – Words Ignite – In-Person Teen Event
Join the auditions for Get Lit Players, Amplifying Voices with Spoken World, to be offered all day today. For ages 12-19.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Get Lit
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 10 am
Address: 672 S. Lafayette St., #10, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.getlit.org/events?loxi_pathname=%2Fget-lit-player-auditions-2-1115
Women Who Submit Quarterly Panel Discussion: Libraries & Librarians: Lisa Eve Cheby and Others via Women Who Submit – In-Person & Online Zoom Hybrid Event
Women Who Submit is thrilled to feature a talk with members who are working librarians. Cybele García Kohel, Lauren Salerno, Elizabeth Galoozis, and Lisa Eve Cheby will share their knowledge, strategies, and best practices for how writers can connect with libraries and librarians for research, community, workshops, and book promotions.
If you are new to WWS, please register at link at site.
Lisa Eve Cheby, poet, librarian, school library advocate, and daughter of Hungarian immigrants, holds an MFA from Antioch University and an MLIS from SJSU. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in journals and anthologies including Santa Ana River Review, Exposition Review, So To Speak, Ruminate, TAB, Drawn to Marvel, and Coiled Serpent. She was Writer in Residence at Sundress Academy for the Arts’ Firefly Farms and Dorland Mountain Arts. Her first two chapbooks inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer are available from dancing girl press. Her third chapbook, Contact Tracing, will be released in 2024.
Elizabeth Galoozis’s poems have appeared in Air/Light, Pidgeonholes, RHINO, Witness, Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and for Best of the Net and was selected by Claire Wahmanholm for AWP’s Writer to Writer Program in 2022. She works as a librarian at the Claremont Colleges; she co-edited two books for ACRL Press and her scholarly work has been published in The Library Quarterly, College & Research Libraries, and In the Library With the Lead Pipe. Elizabeth can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @thisamericanliz, and at her website https://elizabethgaloozis.wordpress.com/.
Cybele Garcia Kohel is a Puerto Rican writer living on unceded Tongva land. She writes poetry, short stories and essays, in a loud voice from the margins. She is a mom, fierce dog lover and school librarian. You can read her individual poems the Altadena Poetry Review (2017, 2018), New American Legends (2019), Screaming from the Silence Anthology (Vociferous Press, 2020), the Women Who Submit anthology, Accolades (2020), and the Altadena Literary Review (2020, 2022). She shares her essays on Medium, here: https://cgkohel.medium.com
Lauren Salerno is a librarian who specializes in programming and community outreach. She has been in the field for over 20 years and graduated with her MLIS in 2023. Lauren is also a writer whose work has appeared in the LA Times, The Rattling Wall, and the East Jasmine Review. She lives in Pasadena with a wobbly dog and a sturdy husband.
NOTE: See site for details, full schedule, & registration.
Where: Women Who Submit at Altadena Library
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 10 am
Address: 600 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, CA
Website: https://www.instagram.com/ or https://www.altadenalibrary.org/programs/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D174462558
Intensive Workshop: The Ecopoetics of Deep Matter with Amanda Ackerman at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Amanda Ackerman will lead an intensive poetry writing workshop titled: The Ecopoetics of Deep Matter.
What are the poetics of fused, aggregate, and interdependent aliveness? Of new community arrangements that decenter and diverge from human-only subject, and that recognize and destigmatize the ways we lean on, into, and remake each other? In this workshop we will create and uncover the syntaxes of symbiosis that exist in relational poetic form: mutualism, commensalism (neutrality), and parasitism. We will gather in the Beyond Baroque Garden to work directly with the plants and flowers.
Amanda Ackerman is a teacher and herbalist whose publications include the Book of Feral Flora, the scented pamphlet Air Kissing, and the collaborative book Mans Wars and Wickedness: A Book of Proposed Remedies and Extreme Formulations for Curing Hostility, Rivalry, and Ill-Will, co-authored with Harold Abramowitz.
Her work focuses largely on the feralscape, divining techniques that allow for communication across species boundaries and interspecies art-making. With Dan Richert, she has worked with biofeedback and multi-sensory techniques that allow plants to create poems. Their olfactory installation Unknown Giants was part of The Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology’s A New We in Norway’s Kuntshall Trondheim gallery.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 11am – 2 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-ecopoetics-of-deep-matter-tickets-860937536347?aff=oddtdtcreator
Nell Cross Beckerman & From Park to Playa at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Author Nell Cross Beckerman celebrates walking L.A. trails with her newest picture book, From Park to Playa: The Trails That Connect Us.
Nell Cross Beckman’s books include, DOWN UNDER THE PIER, illustrated by Rachell Sumpter and published by Cameron Kid, WHEN THE SKY GLOWS (Beach Lane Books/ Simon & Schuster) illustrated by David Litchfield, and CAVES (Scholastic) illustrated by Kalen Chock. She is a former documentary TV producer/director and produced shows and websites for Nickelodeon, MSNBC, MTV, VH1, New Line Cinema, and The Discovery Channel in NYC, where she also co-founded a popular online parenting community, West Village Parents. Today, she lives in Culver City, CA with her two daughters and husband, and her Maltipoo, Teddy.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 11am
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Book Club: Saturday at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss the novel Saturday by author Ian McEwan.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 11am
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 details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Rooms
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 11am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-1
Teen Anime/Manga Club at Venice Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Teens ages 11-18, join the new Anime/Manga Club lead by O. Service. Each month the Club will feature a different graphic novel series.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 1pm – 2 pm
Address: 501 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/teen-animemanga-club-0
SoCal Manga Book Club at Little Tokyo Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen 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.0
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Little Tokyo Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 1pm – 2 pm
Address: 203 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/socal-manga-book-club
GLP Practice at Get Lit – Words Ignite – In-Person Teen Event
This event is for current Get Lit Players.
213.388.8639
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Get Lit
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 672 S. Lafayette St., #10, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.getlit.org/events?loxi_pathname=%2Fget-lit-player-auditions-2-1115 https://www.getlit.org/events?loxi_pathname=%2Fglp-practice-585
Creative Writing Group at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Calling all writers of fiction, screenplays, poetry, etc. Get feedback on your writing in a fun, supportive environment. Meetings include a writing prompt/exercise, snacks, and a rollicking good time! Whether you are just starting out or well on your way to glory, join us and banish (at least temporarily) those Lonely Writer Blues!
RSVP:
Please RSVP by emailing fiction@lapl.org today.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Lit/Fic Large Study Room
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 3pm – 5 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/writers-group-0
Secrets of Self-Publishing with Sarah Noffke at Platt Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Sarah Noffke will join us to discuss her journey to becoming a prolific USA Today best-selling author and share her self-publishing tips for success.
Sarah writes YA and NA science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, and urban fantasy. Most of her stories draw on her experiences living on the West Coast, growing up in Texas, or traveling the world. Her passion for art, culture, and literature drives her to create stories that are full of whimsy, humor, and philosophy.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Platt Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 3pm – 4 pm
Address: 23600 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/secrets-self-publishing-sarah-noffke
Interart and Iconotexts: Five Poets Read Images at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Come listen to five authors as they bring images to life through their words, co-presented by DoppelHouse Press. Featuring Joanna Roche, Ed Rosenthal, Ed Schad, David Starkey, and Eve Wood reading their original work with references and inspirations by painters like Liat Yossifor, Joseph Cornell, and Caravaggio. Visual artwork will accompany each of the authors’ readings and will culminate in a discussion with the group and Q&A open to the audience. Book signings to follow.
Joanna Roche is the author of numerous essays on contemporary art, as well as two books of poetry, Tyrannical Angels and Then.Now.If. She is Professor of Art History at Cal State Fullerton and holds a PhD in Art History from UCLA. Currently at work on a third poetry collection, she continues to be inspired by the talent and work ethic of her students.
Ed Rosenthal is an author, poet, and real estate broker. He has published two books of poetry and a memoir, Salvation Canyon. His socially oriented poetry combines a diversity of issues, from real estate deals, minority contractors, to homelessness, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, among others.
Ed Schad is a curator, writer for art and culture publications, and poet. His first collection of poetry is Letters Apart, a collaboration with painter Liat Yossifor. He is Curator and Publications Manager at The Broad, where he recently curated the exhibition and wrote the catalog for William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows.
David Starkey served as Santa Barbara’s 2009-2011 Poet Laureate. Founding Director of the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College, he is currently Co-editor of Anacapa Review and The California Review of Books, and Publisher and Co-editor of Gunpowder Press. You, Caravaggio will be published by Pine Row Press in August.
Eve Wood is an artist, art critic, and the author and/or illustrator of seven collections of poetry and chapbooks. Her artwork has been shown internationally, and a documentary about Wood, Unfurled, has just been released. She is currently represented by Track 16 Gallery and will have a solo exhibition at the Riverside Museum of Art in October.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 3pm – 5 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Deep Critique Writing Workshop led by Don Kingfisher Campbell – Online Zoom Event
Deep Critique Workshop led by DKC (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning historic or landmarks for Four Feathers Press online edition: Historic Landmarks by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, May 17th)
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Jazmine Joyner, with John Jennings, & Devour: A Graphic Novel at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Graphic Novelist Jazmine Joyner, in-conversation with graphic novel illustrator John Jennings (Hugo and Eisner award winner for graphic novel adaptations of Parable of the Sower and Kindred).
In this horror graphic novel written by Joyner and illustrated by Anthony Pugh, American Gods meets Get Out in a dark retelling of the West African legend of Anansi the Spider. Devour tells the story of the Turner family, who move to Alabama to care for their ailing matriarch, Vassie, when she begins suffering from dementia. But Vassie isn’t just any old lady; she’s the last of a line of powerful root women who have been caring for the community since her ancestors were first captured and enslaved by white plantation owners. Patsy, the eldest daughter in the family, is immediately suspicious; the locals’ fear and superstition of her grandmother leads Patsy to take a closer look at the Turner family home, and what she finds is beyond her wildest nightmares.
Jazmine Joyner is a Black disabled nonbinary femme who has been working in various parts of the comics industry for years. From being the first Black woman on the West Coast to own a comic shop to being an award-winning comics journalist, they have committed their life to their love of comics. They are based in Southern California and have written for Women Write About Comics, The Comics MNT, and others. Devour is their debut graphic novel.
John Jennings is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside. Jennings is co-editor of the Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of the Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art. Jennings is also a 2016 Nasir Jones Hip Hop Studies Fellow with the Hutchins Center at Harvard University. Jennings’ projects include the Eisner-winning, Bram Stoker Award-winning, New York Times best-selling graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler’s classic dark fantasy novel Kindred. Jennings is also founder and curator of the ABRAMS Megascope line of graphic novels.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/jazminejoyner
Antics: UCI MFA Reading Series at LibroMobile, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
Save the date: Saturday, May 11th at 5pm to hear Antics, the UCI MFA reading series event, featuring:
Jaime Kim is an MFA candidate in fiction. Prior to UCI, she was an attorney and worked at an immigration law firm for five years.
Alejandro Derieux-Cerezo is a poet from Ann Arbor, Michigan living his best life as a Midwest/SoCal transplant. His work can be found in The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. He has also been the recipient of the Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship and the Hopwood Poetry Award from the University of Michigan. His next big goal is to eat an entire jet airliner, like that one guy.
Mo Fowler is a writer from California and Chicago. Their work currently focuses on tapestry, water, and contemporary conceptions of the American West.
Jaime Sandoval hails from Mexicali, Baja California, a city on the border of Mexico and the United States. Through the exploration of the borderland experience, their writing aims to bridge the divide between sexuality and religion, and queerness and conservatism.
John Comerci is a fiction MFA candidate at UC Irvine and an English MA candidate at Middlebury College. At Irvine, he teaches a composition class grounded in Case & Deaton’s landmark 2015 paper on rising U.S. morbidity and mortality. His undergraduate coursework at Dartmouth College included research on the neuroscience of addiction and the ethics of paternalism, and much of his casework at L.E.K. Consulting, where he spent several years after college, involved surveying pharmaceutical supply chains. Before transmogrifying into an anteater, he worked as a semiconductor failure analyst and a server at a spaghetti western-themed restaurant.
See you here! FREE event!
RSVP.
Where: LibroMobile
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 1150 S. Bristol St., #A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/antics-uci-mfa-reading-series
At Skylight: Roger Steffens & SO MUCH THINGS TO SAY at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Roger Steffens will present and discuss So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley (paperback).
Renowned reggae historian Roger Steffens’s riveting oral history of Bob Marley’s life draws on four decades of intimate interviews with band members, family, lovers, and confidants—many speaking publicly for the first time. Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a “crucial voice” in the documentation of Marley’s legacy, Steffens spent years traveling with the Wailers and taking iconic photographs. Through eyewitness accounts of vivid scenes—the future star auditioning for Coxson Dodd; the violent confrontation between the Wailers and producer Lee Perry; the attempted assassination (and conspiracy theories that followed); the artist’s tragic death from cancer—So Much Things to Say tells Marley’s story like never before.
Roger Steffens is the world’s leading reggae historian, and former co-host of the award-winning radio program Reggae Beat. His programs on Marley’s life have been presented at the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, among other venues. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Saturday the 11th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-roger-steffens-presents-so-much-things-say
The Long Freeway: Poets Read Los Angeles at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well welcomes a new poetry series to the store. The Long Freeway: Poets Read Los Angeles is a curated seasonal reading series that aims to bring together a community of poets with diverse voices, aesthetics, and performance styles.
The evening will be hosted by Elizabeth Metzger, author of Lying In and The Spirit Papers and LA Johnson, author of Little Climates and will include four performers:
Katie Ford is the author of four books of poems, most recently, If You Have to Go (Graywolf Press). She is also a librettist whose poetry has been set to music and performed at Carnegie Hall and on tour. She is in her 20th year as a professor of poetry, now at UCR.
Prageeta Sharma is the author of five poetry collections, including Grief Sequence (Wave Books, 2019) and The Opening Question (Fence Books, 2004), winner of the 2004 Fence Modern Poets Prize. She is currently the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College, and lives in Claremont, California.
Chris Santiago is the author of Tula, winner of the 2016 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, selected by A. Van Jordan. His poems, fiction, and criticism have appeared in FIELD, Copper Nickel, Pleiades, and the Asian American Literary Review. He holds degrees in creative writing and music from Oberlin College and received his PhD in English from the University of Southern California. Santiago is also a percussionist and amateur jazz pianist. He teaches literature, sound culture, and creative writing at the University of St. Thomas. He lives in Minnesota.
Katie Peterson is the author of Fog and Smoke, published by FSG in early 2024. Poems from the collection have appeared in the Atlantic, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, and the Yale Review, among other publications. Her previous book, Life in a Field (2021) is a collaboration with the photographer Young Suh. She is the author of other books of poetry: This One Tree (New Issues, 2006), Permission (New Issues, 2013), The Accounts (University of Chicago, 2013), and A Piece of Good News (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019), a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in 2020. She is the editor of the New Selected Poems of Robert Lowell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017). Her work has been translated into French, Korean, and Portuguese, and a Selected Poems in French (translated by Aude Pivin), with an introduction by Louise Gluck, will be published by Cheyne Editeur in 2024.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/36825
Obsidian Tongues Open Mic with Ceasar Avelar & Featured Guests at Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person Event
Ceasar Avelar hosts Obsidian Tongues Poetry Series & Open Mic every 2nd Saturday of the month to celebrate the spoken word.
Feature: TBA
Where: Café con Libros, Pomona
Date: Saturday, the 11th
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.
Feature: TBA
Where: Griot Café at Shades of Africa
Date: Saturday, the 11th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Haiku Challenge at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we’re celebrating with poetry by supporting one of our favorite Eagle Rock local Asian-owned businesses. Discover your inner poet and submit your original haiku in person or by email at eaglrk@lapl.org for a chance to win a gift card. All ages are welcome to participate! Submissions will be accepted thru May 31.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Sunday, the 12th (Every Day in May)
Time: 9:30 am – 8 pm
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/haiku-challenge
Melrose Trading Post Event by Greenway Arts Alliance at Melrose Trading Post at Fairfax H.S. – In-Person Event
Melrose Trading Post is a reading and spoke word event held every Sunday, rain or shine, at Fairfax High School, and tickets are available online as well as at the ticket booth on Sunday at the event.
Where: Melrose Trading Post, Greenway Main Stage at Fairfax HS
Date: Sunday, the 12th (Every Sunday)
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: https://melrosetradingpost.org/tickets/
Cellar Door Book Club: Old God’s Time at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Old God’s Time: A Novel by Sebastian Berry.
From the five-time Booker Prize nominee and 2018-2021 Laureate for Irish Fiction, Old God’s Time is a virtuosic, profound novel exploring love, memory, grief, and long-buried secrets
Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return of his family: his beloved wife June and their two children, Winnie and Joe. But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. He is the author of eight previous novels, as well as numerous plays. He is the first novelist to twice win the Costa Book of the Year award, for Days Without End and The Secret Scripture, has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture, and has twice been longlisted for the Booker Prize, for Days Without End and On Canaan’s Side. He was the Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2018–2021, and lives in County Wicklow, Ireland.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday, the 12th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-book-club-old-gods-time
Plant Book Club: Tending the Wild at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join North Figueroa Bookshop for the second meeting of Plant Book Club, a new book club focusing on gardening, nature, and permaculture!
For our second meeting, we’ll be discussing chapters 1-4 of TENDING THE WILD by M. Kat Anderson.
Books are in stock now and members receive 20% off book club selections!
John Muir was an early proponent of a view we still hold today—that much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. But as this groundbreaking book demonstrates, what Muir was really seeing when he admired the grand vistas of Yosemite and the gold and purple flowers carpeting the Central Valley were the fertile gardens of the Sierra Miwok and Valley Yokuts Indians, modified and made productive by centuries of harvesting, tilling, sowing, pruning, and burning. Tending the Wild is an unparalleled examination of Native American knowledge and uses of California’s natural resources that reshapes our understanding of native cultures and shows how to use their knowledge in our own conservation efforts.
M. Kat Anderson presents native land management practices gleaned in part from interviews and correspondence with Native Americans who recall what their grandparents told them about how and when areas were burned, which plants were eaten and which were used for basketry, and how plants were tended. The complex picture that emerges dispels the hunter-gatherer stereotype long perpetuated in literature. We see California’s indigenous people as active agents of environmental change and stewardship. Tending the Wild argues that this traditional ecological knowledge is essential to successfully meet the challenge of living sustainably.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Sunday, the 12th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Second Sunday Poetry: Toti O’Brien at The Studio Theatre – In-Person Event
Alex M. Frankel hosts Second Sunday Poetry series and this month’s featured poet is Toti O’Brien.
Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Born in Rome, living in Los Angeles, she is an artist, musician and dancer. She is the author of four collections of poetry and three of prose—the most recent is a short story collection, Alter Alter, published this year by Elyssar Press.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd., West Los Angeles, CA 90068
Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/
Fantasy Romance Book Club: Empire of Sand at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
May’s Fantasy Romance Book Club is led by bookseller Taylor C. and meets on the 2nd Sunday of the month and reads fantasy and paranormal romance. Curse Undone). Please join us.
This month’s discussion will focus on Empire of Sand by author Tasha Suri.
Please join us. No membership is required.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
PoeTik LA: L.A. Poet Collective Reading in Silverlake – In-Person Event
PoeTik LA is a poetry collective that hosts a monthly reading event held every 2nd Sunday of the month.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: PoeTik LA
Date: Sunday the 12th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 2930 Hyperion, Silverlake, CA 90027
Website: https://www.instagram.com/poetikla/
Los Angeles Literature 