Haiku Challenge at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person and 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 through May 31.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday, the 13th (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
Senior Writing Group at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Kathy Katims, founder of Saved by a Story, will be leading an ongoing writing group for seniors. New members are welcome to attend all sessions.
Write to prompts, share (if you want), connect with fellow seniors in the neighborhood, hone your writing skills, and find your story. RSVP is recommended but not required. If you RSVP Kathy will send you a welcome packet, guidelines, and a reminder the day before the meeting. More information and to RSVP, email Kathy at kathleenkatims@gmail.com or call 310-569-3492.
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/senior-writing-group
Your Author Series: Michael Martinez & Composting for Community at Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Michael Martinez, founder of LA Compost, a nonprofit organization providing compost access and education, reads from his new book Composting for Community.
Mateo’s father is a composter, but when the class falls silent during his career day presentation, he sets out to learn more about not only his father’s job but about composting itself. His dad’s seemingly ordinary job unveils a world of interconnectedness, family heritage, and environmental stewardship that changes Mateo’s perspective. Guided by his family, Mateo delves into the science of composting and witnesses the transformation of trash into nourishing compost that provides life for our planet.
Those attending the program will have the opportunity to take home a copy of Composting for Community. Intended for children ages 5 and up.
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 6145 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-michael-martinez
Book Club: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by author James McBride.
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 4:45 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sun-valley-branch-book-club-3
Gatsby Books Writing Group at Gatsby Books, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Participants in this writing group meet every 2nd Tuesday of the month and all styles and genres are welcome!
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Gatsby Books
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 5535 E Spring St., Long Beach CA 90808
Website: https://www.gatsbybooks.com/events
Book Club at Platt Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Practice English conversation in our Book Club every week with others who love books! The book club will provide you with extra motivation to practice reading, listening, and discussing in English each week. Expand your vocabulary with the Book Club. Join us every Monday evening!
Contact the literacy coordinator for more information: plattliteracy@lapl.org
NOTE: See site for details. NO RSVP required.
Where: Platt Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 23600 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-22
Ben Green & My Child Is Trans, Now What?: A Joy-Centered Approach to Support at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Ben Green will present and discuss his book, My Child Is Trans, Now What?: A Joy-Centered Approach to Support.
In this book Greene breaks the mold by offering a judgement-free guide to people across generations, from millennial parents to members of older generations who may not have had previous positive exposure to the trans community. Greene focuses on providing two key resources in this book: information and emotional support. He explains what to expect, what systems exist to support trans youth, and what loved ones can do to help.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday, the 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/ben-greene
Book Talk & Signing: Neil Gong & Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Sociologist Neil Gong will discuss his book, Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics.
Thiis book explains why mental health treatment in Los Angeles rarely succeeds, for the rich, the poor, and everyone in between.
Gong traces the divide between the haves and have-nots in the psychiatric treatment systems that shape the life trajectories of people living with serious mental illness. In the decades since the United States closed its mental hospitals in favor of non-institutional treatment, two drastically different forms of community psychiatric services have developed: public safety-net clinics focused on keeping patients housed and out of jail, and elite private care trying to push clients toward respectable futures.
Gong’s findings raise uncomfortable questions about urban policy, family dynamics, and what it means to respect individual freedom. His comparative approach reminds us that every “sidewalk psychotic” is also a beloved relative and that the kinds of policies we support likely depend on whether we see those with mental illness as a public social problem or as somebody’s kin. At a time when many voters merely want streets cleared of “problem people,” Gong’s book helps us imagine a fundamentally different psychiatric system—one that will meet the needs of patients, families, and society at large.
Neil Gong is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He is coeditor, with Corey Abramson, of Beyond the Case: The Logics and Practices of Comparative Ethnography. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Monday, the 13th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Meditation Monday with Alex Petunia via Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Event
Alex Petunia leads Meditation Monday, Self-Care for the Writer every 2nd Monday of the month by L.A. Poet Society via Zoom.
Bring your writing favorites and be prepared for: breathing meditation and writing prompts and support.
Register: losangelespoetsociety@gmail.com
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: Online Event on Zoom: 840 2975 5764
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
L.A. Book Launch: Katee Robert, with Olivie Blake, & Blood on the Tide at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Katee Robert, in conversation with Maurene Goo, will discuss her novel, Blood on the Tide.
Blood on the Tide is part of the author’s Crimson Sails series.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
R.U.P.O. at Back to the Grind in Riverside – In-Person Event
RUPO Open Mic is back every Monday Night at Back to the Grind in Riverside.
Every Monday at a new time: 7pm to 9pm. Sign-ups are at 6:30pm and in person only, $4 cash admission. See you then!
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Back to the Grind, Riverside
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm (Sign-ups at 6:30 pm)
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind
At Skylight: Carvell Wallace, with Jamileh Lemieux, & Another Word for Love at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Carvell Wallace, in conversation with Jamileh Lemieux, will discuss his book, Another Word for Love.
This memoir reimagines the conventions of love and posits a radical vision for healing.
In Another Word for Love, Carvell Wallace excavates layers of his own history, situated in the struggles and beauty of growing up Black and queer in America.
Wallace is an award-winning journalist who has built his career on writing unforgettable profiles, bringing a provocative and engaged sensitivity to his subjects. Now he turns the focus on himself, examining his own life and the circumstances that frame it—to make sense of seeking refuge from homelessness with a young single mother, living in a ghostly white Pennsylvania town, becoming a partner and parent, raising two teenagers in what feels like a collapsing world.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
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 13th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-900031878577
No Pulp Open Mic at “The Juice Box” (new address) – In-Person Event
No Pulp Open Mic is held every 2nd & 4th Monday in Long Beach.
All ages. Doors open at 7:30 pm.
See links for details.
Where: The Juice Box; Free 2 hour parking at Harvey Milk Prominade Park
Date: Monday the 13th
Time: 8:30 pm – 11 pm
Address: 237 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6P7M32rdnF/ or https://www.lbpoetry.com/
Book Club at Northridge Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The Northridge Branch Library Book Club meets every month via Zoom. All are welcome.
RSVP:
Please email Emily at eaaronson@lapl.org for the Zoom link and book information.
NOTE: See site for details. RSVP required.
Where: Northridge Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-21
“So Emotional” Book Club: Thinking Through Loneliness at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
“So Emotional” Book Club participants will discuss Thinking Through Loneliness, by author Diane Enns.
Byreflecting on the experience of loneliness through the author’s own life, the narratives of others and analyses from Arendt to Berardi, Thinking Through Loneliness explores the ambiguities of being alone. It seeks to defy the reductionist tendencies of the current loneliness experts, looking beyond loneliness as a collective health crisis to consider what it tells us about our great need for one another and what happens when we fail to meet this need. To be lonely is to suffer from an unfulfilled desire to be close to others. But we can also suffer from an unfulfilled desire to be separate from others.
Diane Enns is Professor of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada. She is the author of Love in the Dark: Philosophy By Another Name (2016); The Violence of Victimhood, (2012); Speaking of Freedom: Philosophy, Politics and the Struggle for Liberation (2007); and co-editor of Thinking About Love: Essays in Contemporary Continental Philosophy (2015).
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/so-emotional-book-club-thinking-through-loneliness
Jewish Tales Event with Karen Golden at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month with stories for the whole family. Travel around the world and discover the wisdom, customs, foods, traditions, and history of the Jewish People—all without leaving your seat!
Karen Golden began telling stories at the dinner table at the age of three and playing the saxophone at the age of eight. She has developed and presented over thirty commissioned works on the history of cities, organizations, and people. Karen’s performance style is both playful and serious as she weaves in and out of animating different characters and sound effects, often mixing in several different musical performances, including the saxophone, recorder, accordion, ocarina, and even a singing bowl.
NOTE: See site for details. RSVP required.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/jewish-tales-your-street-and-around-world
Poetry Open Mic at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The Westwood Branch Library hosts a Poetry Open Mic online every 2nd Tuesday of the month.
Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love! You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy. Emceed by Wyatt Underwood.
RSVP:
To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.
NOTE: See site for details. RSVP required.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic
Silver Lake Book Club: Butcher’s Crossing at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for engaging book discussions. Participants will discuss this month’s selection, Butcher’s Crossing, by author John Williams.
Copies are available at the reference desk.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/silver-lake-book-club-6
World Cultures Reading Circle: The Covenant of Water at Westchester-Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join the World Cultures Reading Circle to discuss the first half of The Covenant of Water: A Novel by Abraham Verghese.
New members welcome.
Copies are available at the reference desk.
Where: Westchester-Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 7114 W. Manchester Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-cultures-reading-circle-8
Stephanie Quayle, with Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt, & Why Do We Stay: How My Toxic Relationship Can Help You Find Freedom at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Stephanie Quayle, in conversation with Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt, will discuss her book, Why Do We Stay: How My Toxic Relationship Can Help You Find Freedom. (in the Courtyard)
In this compassionate and practical resource, Stephanie Quayle shares her powerful story alongside psychologist Dr. W. Keith Campbell’s professional insights to give you the help and hope you need—and remind you that you are not alone.
When Stephanie lost her boyfriend in a plane crash, she faced intense grief and pain. Nothing compared, though, to the shock of discovering she had not been the only woman in his life. As her world unraveled around her, Stephanie realized that it had been unraveling from the start of their relationship—back when he promised her everything.
In Why Do We Stay? Stephanie draws on her story to explain how to spot a toxic relationship, how to get out, and how to heal. Mental health expert Dr. W. Keith Campbell joins her in helping you see that:
Whether you stay in or leave your relationship, healing and freedom are possible.
Note: RSVP early for seating.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore(in the Courtyard)
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St. Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Stephanie-Quayle-Katherine-Schwarzenegger-Pratt-Author-signing
Michael Deagler, with Aimee Bender, & Early Sobrieties at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Michael Deagler, in conversation with Aimee Bender, will present and discuss his novel, Early Sobrieties.
Like a sober, millennial Jesus’ Son, Michael Deagler’s debut novel is the poignant confession of a recovering addict adrift in the fragmenting landscape of America’s middle class. Shot through with humor, hubris, and hard-earned insight, Early Sobrieties charts the limbos that exist between our better and worst selves, offering a portrait of a stifled generation collectively slouching towards grace.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/michael-deagler
Open Mic Poetry at The Library Coffee House, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Open Mic at The Library Coffee House is hosted by Chad Brian Poetry.
Chad Brian is the author of Orange Street (2016), Backways (2019) and As strangers we are now (2021).
All ages. Sign-ups at 6:45 pm.
Where: The Library Coffee House
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3418 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803
Website: https://www.lbpoetry.com/
Poetry Reading Author Event: Katie Peterson, Noah Warren, Jessica Laser at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
This event features three authors reading from their poetry collections:
Katie Peterson is the author of the poetry collections This One Tree; Permission; The Accounts, winner of the Rilke Prize; and A Piece of Good News. She lives in California and teaches at the University of California, Davis.
Noah Warren is the author of The Complete Stories (Copper Canyon, 2021) and The Destroyer in the Glass (2016), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets. His poems appear in The Nation, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He teaches at Claremont McKenna College and lives in Los Angeles.
Jessica Laser is the author of three books of poems: The Goner School, forthcoming this fall from the University of Iowa Press, Planet Drill (2022), winner of the inaugural Futurepoem Books Other Futures Award, and Sergei Kuzmich from All Sides (Letter Machine Editions, 2019). Her work has most recently appeared in Annulet, The New York Review of Books, and The Paris Review. She teaches at Claremont McKenna College and lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lvcxtd51
Mystery Book Club: Daughter of Mine at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will read and discuss the novel Daughter of Mine by author Megan Miranda.
When Hazel Sharp, daughter of Mirror Lake’s longtime local detective, unexpectedly inherits her childhood home, she’s warily drawn back to the town—and people—she left behind almost a decade earlier. But Hazel’s not the only relic of the past to return: a drought has descended on the region, and as the water level in the lake drops, long-hidden secrets begin to emerge…including evidence that may help finally explain the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.
Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls, The Perfect Stranger, The Last House Guest, which was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, The Girl from Widow Hills, Such a Quiet Place, The Last to Vanish, and The Only Survivors. She has also written several books for young adults. She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children. Follow @MeganLMiranda on Twitter and Instagram, @AuthorMeganMiranda on Facebook, or visit MeganMiranda.com.
This is a free event, but we appreciate RSVPs!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (on the Patio)
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-23
At Skylight: Hari Kunzru, with Rachel Kushner, & Blue Ruin at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Hari Kunzru, in conversation with Rachel Kushner, will discuss his book, Blue Ruin.
This novel is about beauty and power, capital, art, and those who devote their lives to creating it, from one of the sharpest voices in fiction today.
Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time, delivering an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind.
Hari Kunzru is the author of six novels, Red Pill, White Tears, Gods Without Men, My Revolutions, Transmission, and The Impressionist. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library, he is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and writes the “Easy Chair” column for Harper’s Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at New York University.
Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of the novel Creation Lake, forthcoming from Scribner in September 2024, plus three other novels: the Booker- and NBCC Award–shortlisted The Mars Room; The Flamethrowers, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times top ten book of 2013; and Telex from Cuba, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her collection of essays, The Hard Crowd, was published in 2021. She grew up in San Francisco and lives in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-hari-kunzru-presents-blue-ruin-w-rachel-kushner
Environmentalist Book Club: The Overstory at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Are you passionate about the environment? Do you love to read? Do you want to engage in meaningful discussions about pressing environmental issues with likeminded folks? Look no further! The Central Group and West LA Group of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter are thrilled to announce the launch of its Environmentalist Book Club!
Participants will discuss The Overstory: A Novel by author Richard Powers.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34842
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic + Featured Reader Kerry Cox – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with host Rick Lupert will feature guest reader Kerry Cox.
Kerry Cox is a Seattle poet who spent 7 years writing and performing poetry in New Orleans. Her poems have been published in Journals including: “online whispers & [Shouts]”, “origami condom”, and “On the Cusp” and have received Honorable Mention in Anthology magazine’s annual poetry contest. She has self-published three books of her original poems: Rainbow Karma, A Month of Sundays, and Imagined Histories.
As a troupe member of Little Red Studio in Seattle, she was responsible for preparing and producing the poetry set for each show and ran the weekly open mic. Kerry served as the Literary Art Director for the Seattle Erotic Art Festival from 2011 through 2014 and is a founding member of Floating Mountain Poets.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://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.
NOTE: Details at event link. Check to Verify.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday, the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups or https://www.facebook.com/groups/1699147113818899/
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 14th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/womenfemmes-night
Book Club: The Little Liar at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Book Club participants will discuss The Little Liar by author Mitch Albom.
The Little Liar is a debut novel of hope and forgiveness that moves from a coastal Greek city during WWII to America in the golden age of Hollywood, as the intertwined lives of three young survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.
RSVP:
Please email grnhls@lapl.org for the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 10640 Petit Ave., Granada Hills, CA 91344
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-little-liar
Poets Café: Celebrating Poetry Month via KPFK 90.7 FM – Live On-Air Event
Poets Café celebrates Poetry Month. This program is a weekly half hour literary arts discussion and reading program featuring guest authors and their works.
NOTE: Poetry from Around the World is a segment offered monthly on the 2nd Monday of the month on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: KPFK 90.7 FM
Date: Wednesday, the15th
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: On-air Event (live)
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/
Middle Grade Book Club: Olivetti at pages: a bookstore – In- Person MG Event
Middle Grade participants will discuss the novel Olivatti by author Allie Millington.
Allie Millington first wrote Olivetti on her own antique typewriter, who turned out to have an awful lot to say. She lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and their fluffy dog, Crumpet. You can frequently find her doodling in her writing shed or foraging in the woods.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/middle-grade-book-club-17
Culture Cures 2024 Poetry + Open Mic: “Homage to Home” at Community Coalition – In- Person Event
Culture Cures 2024 Poetry + Open Mic is a night of exploring themes of language, imagination, and home. Hosted by Sean Hill.
Featuring:
Benin Lemus is a poet, librarian, and artist-educator based in South Los Angeles. She earned a B.A. from Bennett College in North Carolina and an MFA in Film & Television Production from the University of Southern California. She is the author of Dreaming in Mourning. Benin’s work can be found online and in print. Learn more at beninlemus.com.
Tommy Domino is a spoken blues poet from Northwest Pasadena now residing in Long Beach area. He started preforming at open mics with the Griot Café out of Long Beach in 2003. In 2012, he joined the Still Waters Writers Collective at Vibrations in Inglewood. There his work was first published in 2013 in the poetry anthology Sounds From the Waters. In 2015, his work was published in the anthology Poets and Allies for Resistance. The same year he performed at the 50th Anniversary of the Watts Writers Workshop “Passing the Magic”. In 2016, he was accepted to the Community Literature Initiative (4th module) Program at USC. In 2018, he performed at the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) Spoken Word Festival. In February 2018, and he released his first collection of spoken blues: Switches, Hot Wheel Tracks & Extension Cords on World Stage Press. He became a member of the Never Speak Poets from Long Beach, who host monthly shows in the Arts District. In 2019, he became a member of the PAFF Spoken Word planning committee member. He is an author, playwright, and photographer.
October BLU reads her poetry at the 19th annual Connecting Cultures event presented by Poets & Writers at Beyond Baroque Literary / Arts Center, Venice, CA. B.L.U. is a spoken word artist, born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. Her first poetry collection, # My Space of Honesty & Other Hashtags was published by World Stage Press in 2018. She has been a featured poet at numerous venues including Grand Parks Voices of LA, KPCC’s UnHeard LA series, and the 2019 Pan African Film Festival Poetry Fest. (Video produced by http://www.Poetry.LA)
Andy Sanchez they/he is a Mexican poet, author of, This Body. He migrated to the U.S. at age five and grew up in Southern California and Las Vegas, NV. Andrés moved to Los Angeles, California seven years ago. It was there that he began to get involved with poetry. In October 2018, Andrés was accepted into the Community Literature Initiative Program (CLI) and became a participant in the sixth cohort of students. His book, This Body was released on December 16, 2020, and remains on the popular list on World Stage Press. Andres now teaches for CLI and has proudly seen his first cohort of students complete the program in June 2021.
Jessica Yellawoman Gallion, author/Poet/ Spoken Word Artist/Voice-over, conjurer is the author of Can’t No Woman Woman Like Me.
Angela Aguirre is an author, speaker, and teacher. A fierce advocate for women + youth in her community, she believes in using her platform to empower.
Free food, art & music and more!
NOTE: See site for details. RSVP at cocosouthla.org.
Where: Community Coalition
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 5:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: See site or cocosouthla.org
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6o_7MQShYh/
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: 101.5 FM
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Book Club for Adults: The Fraud at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club for Adults participants will discuss The Fraud by author Zadie Smith.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-0
Women Who Submit Group Readingat North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join North Fig in welcoming Women Who Submit to celebrate the release of their new anthology, Transformation.
Transformation is a collection of poems, essays, stories, and plays by Women Who Submit members from New York, South Carolina, Texas, Washington State, Europe, Long Beach, Westside, and Los Angeles chapters. This work represents the way collaborative communities transform their writing lives with support and mentorship. As WWS members share resources, encourage literary submissions, and support one another, they work to promote change in the world.
Women Who Submit is completely open to all women and non-binary writers. They promote their mission, future projects, and public events through social media channels. For information about how to create a Women Who Submit chapter in your area, visit the Join Us page on our website, womenwhosubmitlit.org
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lv79lfwe
Julian Randall, with Morgan Parker and Nick Brooks, & The Dead Don’t Need Reminding at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Author Julian Randall, in conversation with Morgan Parker and Nick Brooks, will discuss his book, The Dead Don’t Need Reminding: In Search of Fugitives, Mississippi, and Black TV Nerd Shit.
This brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-culture.
The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall’s return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather.
Julian Randall is a contributor to the #1 New York Times bestseller Black Boy Joy and his middle-grade novel, Pilar Ramirez and the Escape From Zafa, was published by Holt in 2022. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, and Milkweed Editions. He is the winner of the 2019 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle, the 2019 Frederick Bock Prize, and a Pushcart prize. His poetry has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and POETRY. His first book, Refuse, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He lives in Chicago.
Nick Brooks is an award-winning author and filmmaker from Washington, DC. In 2022 he published his first middle grade novel, Nothing Ever Happens to Ethan Fairmont, the first book in a three-book series. The second book in the series, Too Many Interesting Things Are Happening to Ethan Fairmont released November of 2023. His first YA novel, Promise Boys debuted January 2023 and has already been deemed a much-anticipated read of 2023 by Buzzfeed, Seventeen and Forbes. It was also a 2023 Boston Globe–Horn Book award honoree. Truly a multi-hyphenate, Nick is also a rapper known by the moniker, Ben Kenobe and has composed music for films such as NETFLIX’s, THEY CLONED TYRONE, and HBO’s, THE CYPHER. As a storyteller he strives to tell stories that are timely and timeless.
Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.”
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Reparations Club
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/event-julian-randall
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 15th
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
At Skylight: Lilly Dancyger, with Ruth Madievsky, & First Love at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Author Lilly Dancyger, in conversation with Ruth Madievsky, will present and discuss her essay collection, First Love.
First Love is a poignant essay collection that treats women’s friendships as the love stories they truly are, from the critically acclaimed author of Negative Space.
Each essay in this incisive collection is grounded in a close female friendship in Dancyger’s life, reaching outward to dissect cultural assumptions about identity and desire, and the many ways women create space for each other in a world that wants us small. Seamlessly weaving personal experience with literature and pop culture—ranging from fairy tales to true crime, from Anaïs Nin and Sylvia Plath to Heavenly Creatures and the “sad girls” of Tumblr—Dancyger’s essays form a kaleidoscopic story of a life told through friendships, and an expansive interrogation of what it means to love each other.
Lilly Dancyger is the author of the memoir Negative Space, selected by Carmen Maria Machado as a winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards, and the editor of Burn It Down, a critically acclaimed anthology of essays on women’s anger. Dancyger’s writing has been published by Guernica, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Longreads, The Washington Post, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and more. She lives in New York City and teaches creative nonfiction at Columbia University School of the Arts.
Ruth Madievsky is the author of the nationally bestselling novel, All-Night Pharmacy, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction and a current California Book Award and Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her writing appears in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Cut, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Originally from Moldova, she lives in Los Angeles, where she works as an HIV and primary care clinical pharmacist.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-lilly-dancyger-presents-first-love-w-ruth-madievsky
Book Launch: Sophie Appel & The World’s Largest Cherry Pie at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Sophie Appel, in conversation with guests Leng Bian, Ivanna Baranova, and Elaine Kahn, will present her book, The World’s Largest Cherry Pie.
Presented by Dreamboy Bookclub.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
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 — N/A;
- 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 15th
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 15th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-896268261497
LiveTalks LA: An Evening with The Swans of Harlem: Author Karen Valby & The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History at Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Lydia Abarca Mitchell, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Lynn Sells, Karlya Shelton-Benjamin will be in conversation with author Karen Valby to discuss her book, The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History.
A pioneering group of five Black ballerinas, the first principals in the Dance Theatre of Harlem, traveled the world as highly celebrated stars in their field and whose legacy was erased from history until now.
Lydia Abarca Mitchell is a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she danced lead roles in Agon, Bugaku, Swan Lake and many more. She has been featured on the covers of Dance and Essence and in print ads for Avon and Revlon. She performed in the movie The Wiz, and in Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ on Broadway. She has been the rehearsal director at Atlanta’s Ballethnic for over 20 years.
Sheila Rohan is a founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she was a soloist in Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla, Arthur Mitchell’s Rhythmetron, and more. She was soloist and ballet mistress for the Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theatre and toured China and Korea with the Myung Sook Chun Dance Company. She performed the role of Rosa Parks in Gordon Parks’ televised ballet Martin and, as a choreographer, assisted legends such as Louis Johnson, and Walter Rutledge among others.
Marcia Lynn Sells began her life in the arts as a ballerina at Dance Theatre of Harlem and, before that, in the Cincinnati Ballet. In 2021, she became the first Chief Diversity Officer for the Metropolitan Opera. Previously, she held positions in the private and public sectors including Reuters America, the National Basketball Association, Columbia University School of Law, Harvard Law School, and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Karlya Shelton-Benjamin began dancing at age 4 with the Colorado Concert Ballet (currently Colorado Ballet). At 17, she became the first person of color to represent the United States in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne ballet competition in Switzerland. She performed around the world with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, is a founding member of Peridance, has taught and coached at Oakland Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.
Karen Valby is a writer living in Austin, Texas. She’s the author of the books The Swans of Harlem and Welcome to Utopia. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, where she is a frequent contributor, as well as in The New York Times, O Magazine, Glamour, Fast Company, and EW, where she spent fifteen years writing about culture.
Bonnie Boswell is an award-winning producer/reporter, talk show host, broadcast commentator, writer, speaker, and moderator.
Bonnie is currently the executive producer/reporter of Bonnie Boswell Reports, a feature news series leading into PBS NewsHour on PBS SoCal, and Bonnie Boswell Presents, a documentary series producing programs such as A Conversation with Pastor James Lawson and Attorney Bryan Stevenson and Saving Moms broadcasting on PBS stations nationwide and streaming on PBS.org.
Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamor and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of their historic careers, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.
Where: Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar
Date: Wednesday the 15th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 3200 Motor Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90034
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/the-swans-of-harlem/
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Feature Lisbeth Coiman at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights offers a Reading & Open Mic with featured guest Lisbeth Coiman.
Lisbeth Coiman is a writer and educator from Venezuela. Her debut book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017) explores the intersection between immigration and mental health. Her poetry collection, Uprising/Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press, 2021) portrays the faces of the uprising in Venezuela’s complex political unrest and draws attention to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the once wealthy nation. Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA. https://lisbethcoiman.com.
$4 cover fee, cash only
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 15th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/2155080794830502
West L.A. Book Club at West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss a novel TBA.
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: West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-book-club
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Discussion for Adults at Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us each month for a comic book & graphic novel book discussion. We will rotate between indie titles and titles from Marvel & DC. A great starting point for new readers or devoted fans of the genre.
This program meets via Zoom. Please pre-register at site.
Copies are available at the reference/information desk or as ebooks (Hoopla and/or Overdrive)
Participants will discuss Nimona (2015) written and illustrated by ND Stevenson.
Where: Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/comic-book-graphic-novel-discussion-adults-0
Mystery Book Club: The Book of Cold Cases at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Book of Cold Cases by author Simone St. James.
In this story a true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.
Simone St. James is the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel and The Broken Girls. She spent twenty years behind the scenes in the television business before leaving to write full-time.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event
Book Talk & Signing: Tracie McMillan, with Erin Aubry Kaplan, & The White Bonus at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Traci McMillan, in conversation with Erin Aubrey Kaplan, will discuss her book The White Bonus.
In The White Bonus, McMillan asks a provocative question about racism in America: When people of color are denied so much, what are white people given? And how much is it worth—not in amorphous privilege, but in dollars and cents?
McMillan begins with three generations of her family, tracking their modest wealth to its roots: American policy that helped whites first. Simultaneously, she details the complexities of their advantage, exploring her mother’s death in a nursing home, at 44, on Medicaid; her family’s implosion; and a small inheritance from a banker grandfather. In the process, McMillan puts a cash value to whiteness in her life and assesses its worth.
McMillan then expands her investigation to four other white subjects of different generations across the U.S. Alternating between these subjects and her family, The author shows how, and to what degree, racial privilege begets material advantage across class, time, and place.
Raised in rural Michigan, Detroit- and Brooklyn-based writer Tracie McMillan has written for publications including the New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Mother Jones; Harper’s Magazine; Slate; and National Geographic. After putting herself through New York University and training under legendary reporter Wayne Barrett, she was the managing editor of the award-winning magazine City Limits from 2001 to 2005. A one-time target of Rush Limbaugh and a 2012-13 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow, McMillan is also the author of the bestselling The American Way of Eating (Scribner, 2012). McMillan’s work has been recognized by the Sidney Hillman Book Prize, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, and Investigative Reporters and Editors, among others.
Erin Aubry Kaplan is a journalist, columnist and author based in Los Angeles who focuses on race, politics and culture. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Politico, Huffpost, Truthdig and many other publications. In 2007 she became the first African American in the history of the Los Angeles Times to author a weekly opinion column. She is the author of two books, Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking the Color Line: Dispatches From a Black Journalista (2011) and I Heart Obama (2016). She lives in Inglewood with her five dogs.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Alder & Sage Book Club: The Evening Hero at Alder & Sage, with Bel Canto Books – In- Person Event
Alder & Sage Book Club participants will discuss The Evening Hero, by author Marie Myong-Ok Lee.
This book club meets on the 3rd Thursday of the month to discuss a hand-pick favorite from Bel Canto’s owner Johanna.
Free to attend. RSVP required, see site link,
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Alder & Sage
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 366 Cherry Ave., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/alder-sage-book-club-2851419
Big Read Book Discussion at Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss the Big Read Book of 2024, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. Please email felipe@lapl.org for more information.
Where: Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 2820 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-28
Author Discussion: Crista Polich & Admitting Abuse at pages: a bookstore – In- Person Event
Crista Polich will present and discuss her book, Admitting Abuse: You might not get over it, but you will get through it.
After living for years in a verbally and physically abusive marriage, Crista summoned up the strength to end that unhealthy relationship. She had just launched their youngest child off to college when she and her husband decided to get divorced. She knew it would be a challenging season, but little did she know what laid ahead. Only three and a half weeks later, Crista suddenly found herself a widow. Her husband had committed suicide. Crista and her children navigated through their grief together and with the help of professional therapists. Because she had been a stay-at-home mom for most of her marriage, she found herself completely unprepared and overwhelmed for what life had now presented her. However, Crista did not sit idle. She began reclaiming her life one step at a time. She started tackling the tough stuff and now she helps others do the same.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore (Courtyard)
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/author-discussion-crista-polich
The Anna Broome Room Presents: Jeff Rogers & Right Wrong Night Song at Art Share L.A. – In-Person Event
The Anna Broome Room celebrates poetry book release of the collection Right Wrong Night Song by Jeff Rogers.
Special guests include:
traci kato-kiriyama is a poet, playwright, community and event organizer and the author ofNavigating With(out) Instruments.
bridgette bianca is a poet, writer, professor, and the author of the collection be/trouble.
Luivette Resto is a poet and educator, and the author of Unfinished Portrait, Ascension, and Living on Islands Without Maps.
Richard McDowell N/A
Peter Woods is co-director of Writ Large Projects, and author of The Memory of Things, Consider the Octopus and more.
Music by Somewhere Somehow (Mike Mollett, Jeff Boynton, and Josie Roth).
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Art Share L.A
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 801 E 4th Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events
Alana B. Lytle, with Brian Evenson, & Man’s Best Friend at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Alana B. Lytle, in conversation with Brian Evenson, will discuss her book, Man’s Best Friend.
Ever since her year as a scholarship student among the ultra-wealthy at a Manhattan private school, El knows what it is like to feel rich—to feel chosen. And being not chosen is her current living nightmare: at age thirty, she has given up her dream of becoming a famous actress, she has no passions, no great love, nothing to look forward to.
Then El meets a mysterious trust-fund Cambridge grad who holds the keys to the world she has long dreamed of. Bryce may not be particularly good-looking, charming, or interesting, but he has chosen her. El allows herself to be lulled by the ease and safety that his wealth provides. But when a series of disturbing and slightly surreal events reveal that Bryce is not quite what he seems, she must face the consequences when his darkness—and her own—are unleashed.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/alana-b-lytle
Poetry Night Workshop & Open Mic at Black Box Theater at Harbor College – In-Person Event
This is the third Poetry Night and Workshop and Open Mic event of the spring at Harbor College, featuring Nailah Porter and hosted by professor and author Christian Lozada.
This is a free event and free books will be provided.
NOTE: For details, EMAIL: lozadach&laccd.edu
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Black Box Theater at Harbor College
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1111 Figueroa Place, Wilmington, CA 90744
Website: https://www.lahc.edu/campus-life/events/2024/5/16/poetry-night-0
At Skylight: Kimberly King Parsons, with Jean Kyoung Frazier, & We Were the Universe, at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Kimberly King Parsons, in conversation with Jean Kyoung Frazier will present and discuss her novel, We Were the Universe.
This is the story of a young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigating the dizzying landscapes of desire, guilt, and grief in a darkly comic, highly anticipated debut novel from Kimberly King Parsons, author of the story collection, Black Light (long-listed for the National Book Award).
Neon bright in its insight, both devastating and laugh-out-loud funny, We Were the Universe is an ambitious, inventive novel from a revelatory new voice in American fiction—a fearless exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, friendship, marriage, psychedelics, and the many strange, transcendent shapes love can take.
Kimberly King Parsons is the author of Black Light, a collection of stories that was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. In 2020, she received the National Magazine Award for fiction. Born in Lubbock, Texas, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her partner and children. We Were the Universe is her first novel.
Jean Kyoung Frazier is a writer living in Los Angeles. Pizza Girl is her first novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
All Women’s Open Mic with Kate Burns at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well is partnering with local trauma-healing poet Kate Burns to provide a platform for female poets, musicians, storytellers, and comedians. While all are welcome to attend, this is an event that aims to amplify women’s voices only.
Acts are limited to 3-5 minutes in length. Sign-ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:00 pm!
Also, please note that not all material may be considered “family-friendly” so please use discretion when deciding whether or not to bring children.
RSVP on EVENTBRITE!
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34292
Stories From the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction Anthology at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Presented in partnership with The Markaz Review & City Lights, editor Jordan Elgrably and actor Reza Sixo Safai join us at Beyond Baroque for a reading from Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024). The anthology of new short stories features 25 emerging and established writers from the greater Middle East (or SWANA), a vast region that stretches from Southwest Asia, through the Middle East and Turkey, and across Northern Africa. The authors come from a wide range of cultures and countries, including Palestine, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco, providing a unique collection of voices and viewpoints that illuminate life in the global Arab/Muslim world.
After the readings in The Wanda Coleman Theater, join us for book signings with the authors, and a reception with light refreshments in The Poets’ Garden.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Thursday, the 16th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
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 17th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Author Luncheon & Discussion: Rebecca Serle, with Gabrielle Zevin, & Expiration Dates at pages Off-site at Tin Roof Bistro – In- Person Event
Rebecca Serle, in conversation with Gabreille Zevin, will celebrate and discuss Serle’s novel, Expiration Dates.
Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration.
Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake. But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.
Rebecca Serle is the New York Times bestselling author of Expiration Dates, One Italian Summer, In Five Years, The Dinner List, and the young adult novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. Serle also developed the hit TV adaptation Famous in Love, based on her YA series of the same name. She is a graduate of USC and The New School and lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Find out more at RebeccaSerle.com.
Gabrielle Zevin is the New York Times and internationally best-selling author of several critically acclaimed novels, including The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which won the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award and the Japan Booksellers’ Award among other honors, and Young Jane Young, which won the Southern Book Prize. Her novels have been translated into thirty-nine languages. She has also written books for young readers, including the award-winning Elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles.
Zevin’s new book is titled Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
NOTE: Ticketed Event: See site for details.
Where: pages: a bookstore Off-site at Tin Roof Bistro
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 11:30 pm
Address: 3500 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Poetry Writing Workshop at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Gubnit Ní Dhúinn will present the fifth of five workshops, each focused on a different poetic form.
May 17 session will focus on: Ekphrastc poetry.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-writing-workshop
Bookish Author Event: Adam Gopnik and Susanne Park via Once Upon a Time & SoCal News Group – Online Event
Discover new book releases, meet interesting people and learn about a variety of topics with host Sandra Tsing Loh, writer, actress and radio personality.
Adam Gopnik will present and discuss his book, All That Happiness Is: Some Words on What Matters.
From New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik, comes a slim, elegant volume presenting a radical alternative to our culture of relentless striving.
Susanne Park will present and discuss her book, One Last Word: A Novel.
This novel asks: What would you say to your meddling parents, your ex-best friend, your toxic boss, or your high school crush if you didn’t have to face the consequences?
Sandra Tsing Loh is the host of BOOKISH, produced by the Southern California News Group. She is the author of several books including The Madwoman and the Roomba, the follow-up to her The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones, which was selected as one of the New York Times’ 100 Most Notable Books. A well-known voice on NPR, she is the producer of the Loh Down on Science and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Her previous book, Mother on Fire, was inspired by her hit solo show about Los Angeles public education. Her other solo shows include Aliens in America and Bad Sex with Budd Kemp.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Zoë Schlanger, with Annaka Harris, & The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger, in conversation with Annaka Harris, discusses The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth.
This book is a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.
The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence.
Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.
We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—If at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.
Annaka Harris is the New York Times bestselling author of CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind (HarperCollins, 2019) and host / producer of the forthcoming audio documentary series, Lights On: My Search for a Theory of Consciousness. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Nautilus Magazine, the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and IAI Magazine. Annaka is the author of the children’s book I Wonder, and coauthor of the Mindful Games Activity Cards.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/zo%C3%AB-schlanger
Ozge Samanci & Evil Eyes Sea at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join North Figueroa Bookshop in welcoming Ozge Samanci to present and discuss his book,Evil Eyes Sea.
This fictional graphic novel (paperback) narrates a mystery story set in Istanbul before the 1995-96 elections. The story takes place against a background of political propaganda; a conservative party is rising to power using religion to appeal to voters cynically.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Friday, the 17th
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-ltnjfgqa
L.A. Book Launch: Jilly Gagnon, with Bridget Morrissey, & Love You, Mean It at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Jilly Gagnon, in conversation with Bridget Morrissey, will discuss her new rom com Love You, Mean It.
This story is a playful romantic comedy featuring dueling delis, fake dating, an awesome ex, and just the right amount of amnesia.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Emily Jon Tobias, with Rooja Mohassessy, & Monarch at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Emily Jon Tobias, in conversation with Rooja Mohassessy,will discuss her book,Monarch.
MONARCH: Stories subverts the reader’s common perceptions about how love can heal, how loss and suffering can transform, and how every character deserves a second chance. America’s city scars, sewers, alleyways, and bars are landscape to their wars, as characters heal and transform under wind turbines and on open roads, in golden cornfields and with the wails of Chicago blues. Heroes in this collection are the marginalized, the sufferers, the down-trodden, the misfits, the wanderers, and the wounded, shaped by grief but not defined by their scars.
MONARCH is an exploration of the human condition through a lens of damaged survivors as they learn to love through small acts of kindness, given and received. Characters bear traumas with their bodies, and often, they transgress. They break in, break down, and ultimately, break open.
Emily Jon Tobias is an award-winning writer whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, along with other honorable mentions, and has been featured in literary journals such as Santa Clara Review, Talking River Review, The Opiate Magazine, The Ocotillo Review, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, Big Muddy, and elsewhere. Midwestern-raised, she now lives and writes on the coast of Southern California. She holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University Oregon.
Rooja Mohassessy is 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 Elixir 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, 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.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Friday the 17th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-emily-jon-tobias-presents-monarch-w-rooja-mohassessy
Book Launch: Honor Levy, with Sean Monahan, & My First Book at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Debut author Honor Levy, in conversation with Sean Monahan, presents My First Book. Levy’s collection of groundbreaking stories features characters grappling with formative political, existential, and romantic experiences in a web-drenched society on the brink of collapse.
Honor Levy is a writer from California. She graduated from Bennington College in 2020. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and New York Tyrant and been anthologized in Flash Fiction America.
Sean Monahan is a writer and trend forecaster based in Los Angeles, CA. He co-founded K-HOLE, the trend forecasting group and currently runs the consultancy 8Ball. The New York Times credits Mr. Monahan with helping to “coin two of the defining cultural concepts of the past decade, ‘normcore’ and ‘vibe shift.’”
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Marcelo Verdad & The Dream Catcher at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Marcelo Verdad will present and discuss his new book, The Dream Catcher.
Some people dream of perfect waves, fancy castles, or piloting a plane. Others dream of someone to laugh and play with all day long. Some just dream of having a meal for the next day.
And little Miguel? As he and Abuelito work in the hot Oaxacan sun, selling cold coconuts and macrame dream catchers to earn a few coins, Miguel has only one simple wish—to have his parents by his side. But how can he keep the faith when the truth is that dreams don’t always come to pass?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event
Zine Launch: No Me Hables de Amor + Open Mic at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
This zine launch of No Me Hables de Amor combines a poetry zine reading, followed by an Open Mic open to the community.
Los Angeles poets Maestro Gamin, Ingrid M. Calderón, Charles Kehkeh Williams, and Iván Salinas are celebrating their newest collaborative project, No me hables de amor: Shapes of Love (Resurrection Press), a zine exploring love and all its multitudes from 4 distinct perspectives. The poets will read and engage in a brief discussion on their creative process and the many ways love moves though their spirits. An open mic will follow after the readings. Limited slots available, arrive early to sign up! Before and after the readings, maestro’s live-performance documentary Highland Island will be screening in the Wanda Coleman Theater.
Reception with light refreshments will be available before and after the program.
Iván Salinas is a Mexican poet and co-editor of Drifter Zine residing in the San Fernando Valley. An alumnus of Cal State Northridge, his work has been published in The Acentos Review, Mobile Data Mag, La Raíz Magazine, Community Bridges: A Reflection on Civil Rights by DSTL Arts, and elsewhere. He is Programs Manager at Beyond Baroque Literary / Arts Center. He is publishing a bilingual zine-turned-chapbook, Dealer: prosa poetica for a carcacha, in 2024. He lives in Panorama City with Madi and their dog, Rocket.
Ingrid M. Calderón is a poet and tarot reader. She is the author of 28 poetry books and the editor-in-chief of resurrection magazine/press. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, painter John Collins.
Maestro Gamin began developing his poetry sometime in 2009/2010 after attending Vibrations writer’s group. He soon began attending open mics across the southern Los Angeles and Downtown areas, such as Lost Souls Cafe, The Monday Speakeasy, World Stage, DPL, Natural High (flight school), Our Mic, and Freedom of Speech Thursdays. He lives and rides his bike in Los Angeles.
Charles KehKeh Williams is a spoken word artist, poet, linguist, author and dope soul. His book is titled PoeticExpressionism.
Masks are encouraged while inside our center.
Please arrive early.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm (Doors at 7 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series, with host Elena Secota, via Rapp Saloon – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon: Open Mic & Featured Readers, is offered every 3rd Friday of the month by host Elena Secota.
This is a HYBRID event, live in-person while offering a Zoom option for our performers and guests.
Our featured guest poets and artists this month are:
Sharmagne Leland-St. John is best known for the poem “I Said Coffee,” for which she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2007. She has received a total of 21 Pushcart Prize nominations and won the 2013 International Book Award honoring Excellence in Mainstream and Independent Publishing for best poetry anthology.
Wayne Allen LeVine is a writer, poet, philosopher, storyteller, impassioned public speaker and author. LeVine’s previously published books include Forgiveness for Forgotten Dreams, Myths & Artists, the Amazon.com Best Seller Insights of an Ordinary Man, and now his long awaited THE FOURTH REFLECTION has arrived! LeVine’s poems and stories have been included in several award-winning journals and on-line magazines, such as Rattle, The Examiner.com and several editions of the Best-Selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series, including Chicken Soup for the Body and Soul.
Surprise Guests.
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are at 8:15 pm. Zoom ID posted 3 hours prior to event.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA – In-Person & Online Event
Date: Friday, the 17th
Time: 8:30 pm – 11 pm
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90401
Website: https://www.facebook.com/RappSaloonReading
Graphic Novel Book Club via Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Graphic novel fan or graphic novel curious? Join the Graphic Novel Book Club hosted by Bel Canto Books as we read and discuss a new graphic novel or memoir on the 3rd Saturday of each month at 10am PT | 1pm ET.
Participants will discuss Family Style by author Thien Pham.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 10 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Lucky Diaz & La Guitarrista The Rockstar at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Author Lucky Diaz will play his guitar and read his newest book, La Guitarrista The Rockstar.
From the creators of Paletero Man—Latin Grammy-winning musician Lucky Diaz and celebrated artist Micah Player—comes a story about a tenacious girl who achieves her wildest dreams with a little help from her community and a broken guitar.
Lucky Diaz is a bilingual, songwriting, taco-eating, multi-Latin Grammy Award-winning, GRAMMY nominated and six-time Emmy-nominated musician, children’s television personality and author. As a first generation Mexican American and self-proclaimed Pocho, Lucky is honored to be a representative for diversity and inclusion in children’s media.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 10:30 am
Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Three Keys at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – Online MG Event
Book Club participants will discuss the novel Three Keys by author Kelly Yang.
RSVP:
Please e-mail Ms. Ashley at akagan@lapl.org or Ms. Gail at gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-24
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Three Keys at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online MG Event
Book Club participants will discuss the novel Three Keys by author Kelly Yang.
RSVP:
Please email akagan@lapl.org or gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-three-keys-kelly-yang
LGBTQ Book Club: Before We Were Trans at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
LGBTQ Book Club participants will discuss the book Before We Were Trans by author Dr. Kit Heyam.
RSVP:
Email silver@lapl.org for the Zoom link
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/lgbtq-book-club
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 18th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-1
AAPI Cultural Celebration Day at bG Gallery After Hours, Santa Monica – In-Person Event
Join bG Gallery for a day of cultural performances and programming for the second time on May 18th
Attendees can look forward to the exhilarating beats of Improv Taiko, ancient traditional Korean music performed on the Haegeum by fifteen-year-old Kenneth Lee, thoughtful compositions of Feng Shui Poetry by Jen Cheng, and the serene rituals of a Japanese Tea Ceremony by Kaoru Kuribayashi. This year’s lineup also introduces Cold Tofu Comedy Improv and an inspiring collaboration with Share Your Asian Story, promising a day filled with laughter, reflection, and community engagement.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: bG Gallery
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 12 am – 7 pm
Address: 2525 Michigan Ave., #A2, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/aapi-cultural-celebration-day-tickets-874140657237
Big Read Book Discussion at Benjamin Franklin Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss the Big Read Book of 2024, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Benjamin Franklin Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: 2200 E. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-discussion-26
Naomi Hirahara & A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Naomi Hirahara will present and discuss her book, A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History.
This book is the perfect primer for kids ages 8-12, A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History is packed with remarkable stories, groundbreaking events, and inspirational people, that have made a lasting impact on the history and culture of the United States.
The latest entry in the award-winning Child’s Introduction series is an inspirational and essential look at the impact and influence that AAPI peoples have made to the culture of the United States. The book is packed with profiles of dozens of AAPI trailblazers from all walks of life, including political activist Grace Lee Boggs, Vice President Kamala Harris, actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and dozens of others who have made contributions to music, food, sciences, technology, and more. Kids will learn key terms like “Asian American” and “Pacific Islander,” how to pronounce common Asian names, and the discrimination members of the community have faced (and continue to face). They will be introduced to a wide variety of traditions, from Diwali to Lunar New Year and signature dishes, like poi and pho, all giving greater visibility to Asian Americans for young learners.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Healing Arts Zine Workshop with Jeanne Heo at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Join us in the Octavia Lab as teaching artist Jeanne Heo showcases some radical zines. Then stay for a demonstration on how to create your own zine.
Jeanne Heo is an artist, healing massage therapist and holistic well-being advocate.
The Octavia Lab is a do-it-yourself maker space located inside the Los Angeles Public Library’s historic Central Library.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St, Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/healing-arts-zine-workshop-artist-jeanne-heo
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 18th
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
19th Annual Celebrating Words Festival at Vaughn G3 Academy with Tia Chucha Press – In-Person Event
The 19th Annual Celebrating Words Festival is a free event for all ages! This event includes:
1,300 Book Giveaway, Live Performances, Resource Fair, Artisan Market, Food Vendors, Art Giveaways, Cultural Art Workshops.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vaughn G3 Academy
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 2 pm – 7 pm
Address: 11200 Herrick Ave., Pacoima, CA 91331
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6wYsLPxCfG/?hl=en&img_index=1
Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series & Open Mic at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us in-person or via Zoom for Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series, featuring poetry readings and open poetry mic.
Tell your story…
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Studio City Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/expressions-la-poetry-reading-series-and-open-mic-3
Santa Ana College Nealley Library 8th Annual Community Poetry Reading, with LibroMobile – In-Person Event
Students, staff, faculty and community poets are invited to participate in this reading event at the Bristol Food Court with LibroMobile. Featuring Music by DJ Ghostown.
Students, staff, faculty and community are invited to participate. Contact Stacy Russo at link at site.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Bristol Food Court, Santa Ana (Check to verify location)
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1150 Bristol Court St., Santa Ana, CA 92704
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Readings: Mr. Chai Tea, Alejandra Roggero & Molly Silver Four Feathers Press Contributors – Online Zoom Event
Four Fethers Press poets will be hosted by DKC & JRT, featuring:
Mr. Chai Tea, Alejandra Roggero & Molly Silver + Poets published in Four Feathers Press online edition: Historic Landmarks
Mr. Chai Tea, aka Chai Savathasuk, blends comedy and poetry and is the author of the collection How Chai Tea Is Made.
Alejandra Roggero is a writer/photographer and the author of many travel books.
Molly Silver is a Los Angeles based actor, writer, and producer. She is the author of My Gothic Plant Logbook.
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
AAPI Celebration: Golden Voices Across the Diaspora Open Mic – In-Person Event
The Floor Is Yours Open Mic is hosted at Zula Den by soulstuf and princessbeezy.
Open Mic: invites romans, ramens, countryfolk, and non-binary nomads— lend me your time and talents!
Where: The Zula Den
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 4011 West Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: http://www.instagram.com/p/C6g50vHJIOF/
OiYan A. Poon, with Anthony Christian Ocampo, & Asian American Is Not a Color at Bel Canto Books KUBO LB – Online Zoom Event
OiYan A. Poon, in conversation with Anthony Christian Ocampo, will present and discuss her book Asian American Is Not a Color: Conversations on Race, Affirmative Action, and Family.
In this book, a mother and race scholar seeks to answer her daughter’s many questions about race and racism with an earnest exploration into race relations and affirmative action from the perspectives of Asian Americans
Dr. OiYan Poon is a codirector of the College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative (cafcolab.org). Her research agenda brings together organizational theories and race and ethnic studies to study rejective admission and selection processes, the racial politics of Asian Americans and education, and affirmative action policies. She has received grants from the Gates Foundation, Joyce Foundation, and Spencer Foundation to support her research, and her work has appeared widely in national media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New Yorker.
Anthony Christian Ocampo, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the author of Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons and The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race, which has been featured on NPR, NBC News, Literary Hub, and in the Los Angeles Times. He is an Academic Director of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity and the co-host of the podcast Professor-ing. Raised in Northeast Los Angeles, he earned his BA in comparative studies in race and ethnicity and MA in modern thought and literature from Stanford University and his MA and PhD in sociology from UCLA.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oiyan-a-poon-asian-american-is-not-a-color-tickets-861156511307
Justinian Huang & The Emperor and the Endless Palace at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Justinian Huang, will present and discuss his debut novel about a journey through time as we follow different reincarnations of two men who are destined to fall in love lifetime after lifetime. Romantic? Yes. Tragic? Also yes. Spicy?? Yes x2.
Born to immigrants in Monterey Park, California, Justinian Huang studied English at Pomona College and screenwriting at the University of Oxford. He is now based in Los Angeles with Swagger, a Shanghainese rescue dog he adopted during his five years living in China. The Emperor and the Endless Palace is his debut novel.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com
Zine Workshop at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Chevalier’s is Los Angeles’ oldest indie bookstore (85 years!). What better place to spend an after-hours evening of craft and community!
All skill levels and all ages welcome! Participants will learn the radical history of zine culture and uncover their own unique artistic voice. Everyone will leave with their very own handmade zine and after will receive a snail-mail package of their fellow participants’’ zines!
All supplies and materials provided. Just show up and we’ll snip, glue, and create together.
Workshop led by bookseller and zine artist nat.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com
Wax Poetic: Readings with Music, hosted by Nikolai Garcia at Sonido Del Valle, Boyle Heights – In-Person Event
Wax Poetic offers its inaugural event pairing readings and music at Sonida Del Valle, Boyle Heights.
Hosted by Nikolai Garcia (Nuclear Shadows of Palm Trees). This event features poems by:
Grace Olguin
Daryl Gussin is the author of the zine The Hermit Thrush.
Mauricio “Soul on Fire” Moreno is the author of Anatomy of a Flame.
Sounds by: DJ K-SPEX
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Sonido Del Valle
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2108 E. 1st St, Boyle Heights, CA 90033
Website: FB Flyer
Lit Angels Presents: Tarot Book Launch with Alice Carrier at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well is excited to welcome back Lit Angels as they celebrate the launch of Tarot of Roses by Alice Carrier! Alice will be in conversation with Francesa Lia Block, and will be joined by special guests Tracey Simmons, Lezlie Mitchell, and Cara Lawson.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday, the 18th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/36847
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 19th (Every Sunday)
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: https://melrosetradingpost.org/tickets/
3rd Pomona Velley Poetry & Book Fest: Poetry Reading Event at L.A. County Fair, Pomona – In-Person Event
LionLike Mindstate presents Day Four of an all-day reading/performing event of literary contributors, featuring:
Matthew Balane, Mariana Franco, Carnetta Jones, Jasmine Roads, Billionaire Bryt, Maijoi, Maisha Walker, Mignon Farmani, Yawo Watts, Simone Swearingen, K Donyea, VOTH, Brian Dunlap, Lindsey Malone, Diosa X., Anna Goodman Herrick, Anastasia Fenald, Allen Imagery, Brandon Allen, Von Belowe, Shavown Cox.
Area H, Silent Disco Stage.
Where: Pomona Fairplex, L.A. County Fair
Date: Sunday, the 19th
Time: 12 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona, CA 91768
Website: lionlikemindstate.com
BGT’s Free Community Book Fair at Avenue 50 Studio – In-Person Event
Like the Scholastic Book Fair but FREE.
This event has FREE books for all ages, a Radical Clothes Swap DJ and Mariachis, Barrio Phot Booth, Crush and Touch Craft Table, Vendors & More!
Where: Avenue 50 Studio
Date: Sunday, the 19th
Time: 1 pm – 5 pm
Address: 151 Avenue 50., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.instagram.com/brown.girl.travels/
Traded con Familia y LibroMobile at LibroMobile – In-Person Event
Students, Nuevas noticias: ¡Vamos a tener unos eventos especiales adjunto nuestros Sábados de Lotería!
¡Lotería, Música y Más! (Una serie de creación de lugares en Bristol Food Court Plaza)
Ven a nuestra Tardeada Con Familia y LibroMobile a partir del 21 de abril y cada tercer domingo hasta junio.
DJ Yuri La Caminante tocará cumbias, danzón y mucha más música en español, mientras artistas locales ofrecerán actividades artísticas gratis para toda la familia.
¡Ven a bailar y hacer arte frente al Bristol Food Court!
This event is supported in part by the City of Santa Ana, LMAC & @kilsonstreet.
#tardeada #musicayfamilia #bristolfoodcourt #libromobile #santaana
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Bristol Food Court, Santa Ana
Date: Sunday, the 19th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1180 Bristol Court St., Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/tarareada-confamilia-y-libromobile-2024-05-19-15-00
Roar Shack Reading Event with David Rocklin & Guests at Echo Park Time Travel Mart – Online Zoom Event
Roar Shack returns! Host David Rocklin will welcome this stellar lineup of lit talent:
Lorinda Toledo is an acquisitions editor at Jaded Ibis Press, a nonprofit, feminist publisher. She works with writers across disciplines from the undergraduate to doctoral level at Antioch University. Previously, she was fiction editor at Witness literary magazine, and assistant editor in fiction and creative nonfiction at Lunch Ticket. She has a background as a journalist and her feature writing appeared at Chasing the Cure and Los Angeleno.
Jon Hess N/A
Barbara Williams N/A
Steven Meloan is a storyteller and journalist. His written work has appeared in Wired, Rolling Stone, Buzz, Los Angeles, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He was also a scriptwriter for a Los Angeles based “Webisodic” entertainment site (American Cybercast) that was featured in both Time and Newsweek.
Tamala Whitley N/A
Suhasini Yeeda is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a one-time nominee for The Best American Short Stories and Best of the Net. She holds her MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Texas Wesleyan University. Suhasini is a California Arts Council Emerging Artist Fellow.
Don’t miss it!
Where: Echo Park Time Travel Mart
Date: Sunday, the 19th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/echo-park-time-travel-mart/roar-shacks-may-show/3088451674631341/
Yumi Sakugawa + Fariha Roison & There Is No Right Way to Meditate at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join North Figueroa Bookshop to hear Yumi Sakagawa present her book, There Is No Right Way to Meditate.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Sunday, the 19th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 6040 N, Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lvd1waaq
Focus on Craft Book Club: When I Think of You at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
May’s Focus on Craft Book Club is led by editor and teacher Jeanne De Vita and meets on the 3rd Sunday of the month.
This month’s discussion will focus on When I Think of You by author Myah Ariel.
Please join us. No membership is required.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 19th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 