Your Author Series: Michael Martinez & Sam Says: Composting for Community at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event
Join local author Michael Martinez, founder of LA Compost, to celebrate his book Sam Says: 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 RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-michael-martinez-1
Zine Club at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teens & Adults Event
Join us for Zine Club, where our group members meet in a virtual space to co-work, chat, and share inspiration for whatever projects we’re working on. Zine Club is based on the idea of gathering to create zines, share zines we like, zines we are working on, music to make zines to, and much more.
Zine content can be personal, political, niche, artistic, or visual—there are no rules! We have zines for all ages by local and international zinesters. You can browse the collection at any of our eight zine library locations, or search our catalog to place a hold and have your zines delivered to your nearest branch.
RSVP:
Please use this link to join the Zoom meeting.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/zine-club-1
Kids Book Adventure: One Shoe Two Shoes at Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL – In-Person Kids Event
Come explore a book with friends! Join us as we celebrate the book, One Shoe Two Shoes by Caryl Hart with fun activities for toddlers and preschoolers ages 2 – 5! Play, laugh, and learn with a literacy expert.
North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder—Dr. Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed with a shard of one of his glassblower daughter’s broken vases. Then another body is found, killed in the same way.
Where: Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 5 pm – 5:45 pm
Address: 16921 East Avenue O, #A, Palmdale, CA 93591
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10815904
Book Talk & Signing: Louise Story and Ebony Reed, with Makeisha Madden Toby, & Fifteen Cents on the Dollar at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Join us for a reading of Fifteen Cents on the Dollar and a presentation/discussion about the national racial wealth gap.
Seasoned journalist-academics Louise Story and Ebony Reed provide crucial insights on American economic equity, Black business ownership, and political and business practices that leave Black Americans behind. In chronicling how these staggering injustices came to be, they show how and why so little progress on the wealth gap has been made and provide insights Americans should consider if they want lasting change.
Louise Story is a prize-winning investigative journalist who spent more than 15 years at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, where she was the top masthead editor running coverage strategy. Her work investigating corruption led to the largest kleptocracy forfeiture in U.S. history, a scandal known as the 1MDB case. Her work during the 2008 financial crisis led to a multi-billion dollar settlement in the derivative market and to Goldman Sachs’s S.E.C. settlement. Projects she led have received honors including Emmy Awards, Pulitzer Prize finalist citations, and Online News Association awards. Louise’s film “The Kleptocrats” aired on the BBC, Apple and Amazon. She teaches about racial wealth gaps at The Yale School of Management.
Ebony Reed is a seasoned journalism leader who has led coverage and operations with a focus on community news. She began her career as a reporter at The Plain Dealer, covering Cleveland public schools, documenting public education’s inequities, with her work recognized by The Investigative Reporters & Editors organization. At the Detroit News, she managed the local coverage during the 2008 economic crisis. Now the Chief Strategy Officer at The Marshall Project, she has held other senior roles at the Associated Press, Boston Business Journal, and The Wall Street Journal. She’s taught at a half dozen institutions, including co-teaching with Louise at The Yale School of Management.
Mekeisha Madden Toby is an Amazon Studios Communications Lead. Prior to Amazon, Madden Toby worked as a journalist for 23 years. The Detroit native, wife and mother wrote for TVLine, TV Guide, Essence, espnW, Variety, Shondaland.com, Los Angeles Times, The Detroit News, Tastemade, Rotten Tomatoes, CNN.com, Playboy.com, People, Parade.com, Emmys.com, Mom.me and more. When she’s not working, Madden Toby loves to read, roller skate, swim and spend time with family and friends.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
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
Date: Monday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind
At Skylight: Michael Waters, with Jonathan Parks Ramage, & The Other Olympians at Skylight – In-Person Event
Michael Waters, in conversation with Jonathan Parks Ramage, will discuss his new book The Other Olympians.
Join us for the story of the early trans athletes and Olympic bureaucrats who lit the flame for today’s culture wars.
In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era. With dogged research and cinematic flair, Waters also tracks how International Olympic Committee members ignored Nazi Germany’s atrocities in order to pull off the Berlin Games, a partnership that ultimately influenced the IOC’s nearly century-long obsession with surveilling and cataloging gender.
Michael Waters has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, WIRED, Slate, Vox, and elsewhere. He was the 2021-22 New York Public Library Martin Duberman Visiting Scholar in LGBTQ studies and lives in Brooklyn.
Jonathan Parks-Ramage is a Los Angeles based writer. His critically acclaimed debut novel Yes, Daddy (HarperCollins) was named one of the best queer books of 2021 by Entertainment Weekly, NBC News, The Advocate, Lambda Literary, Bustle, Goodreads and more. It was also optioned for television by Amazon Studios. His second novel, It’s Not the End of the World (Norton), will be released in the summer of 2025.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Book Release: Family Values: Kurt, Courtney & Frances Bean at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were notorious for representing the opposite of “Family Values.” To reframe their notoriety, they consented to a rare photoshoot for Spin magazine with their newborn, Frances Bean. Only 5 images were originally published; the rest of the photoshoot is seen here for the first time.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Monday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
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 24th
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-927827004547
Live Talks LA: Dr. Anthony Fauci, with Sean Penn, & On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service at Robert Frost Auditorium – In-Person & Online (Tape Delay) Event
Dr. Anthony Fauci, in conversation with Sean Penn, will discuss his memoir, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service.
This is the memoir by the doctor who became a beacon of hope for millions through the COVID pandemic, and whose six-decade career in high-level public service put him in the room with seven presidents.
Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this is only part of his story. Over five decades in public health, he’s played a crucial role in researching HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and provided leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises.
Dr. Anthony Fauci served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health from 1984 to 2022. He also served as the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. He is currently a Distinguished University Professor at Georgetown University with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy. He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service and has been awarded 62 honorary doctoral degrees, and is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than 1,400 scientific publications.
Sean Penn is a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, filmmaker and author. In January 2010, Penn established J/P HRO in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic Haiti earthquake. The emergency relief nonprofit was renamed CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) and continues to bring immediate aid and recovery to underserved communities across the globe.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Robert Frost Auditorium
Date: Monday, the 24th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 4401 Elenda St., Culver City, CA 90230
(Free Parking available at the venue)
Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/dr-anthony-fauci-with-sean-penn/
Lit Angeles Writing Studio Class: Morning Pages at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Come write for one hour with Tracey Simmons. Prompts will be given.
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
About the teacher:
Tracey Simmons has an MFA in Creative Writing, from Antioch University LA. Her writing has been published in Wussy Magazine, Reclamation Magazine, Aunt Chloe: A Journal of Artful Candor, and Lit Angels, and she’s a regular contributing writer for Q Bee App. She leads a writing group called, “The Written Journey ” and is currently finishing her debut novel, Specimen.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 8 am – 9 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39208
Zoom Book Club: Poverty, by America via Venice-Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us the last Tuesday of each month for a thoughtful discussion of the latest selection and share other great reads. Email venice@lapl.org for Zoom link. Copies are available at the front desk.
Participants will discuss June’s selection, Poverty, by America, by author Matthew Desmond.
RSVP:
Email venice@lapl.org for Zoom link.
Where: Venice-Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 1:50 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/zoom-book-club
Agoura Readers Book Club: North Woods at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – Online Event
Participants will discuss author Daniel Mason’s North Woods, a sweeping novel about the lives of the many people who lived in a single house in the woods of New England across the centuries.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct, Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10738807
Teen Comic Book Club at Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Learn what comic book is the #1 Banned Comic Book for three years in a row. Find out more about all the great comics the library has for teens.
Where: Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 1201 W. 48th. St. Los Angeles, CA 90037
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/teen-comic-book-club-0
Book Party: Caterpillar Summer at Lancaster Library, LACL – In-Person Kids Event
Join us at our Sumer Discovery Program book party to discuss this exciting summer book by Gillian McDunn, Caterpillar Summer. Then we will make origami fish. This book selection is appropriate for Grades 4 – 8.
Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required.
Where: Lancaster Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 601 W Lancaster Blvd, Lancaster, CA 93534
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10750006
YA Book Club: The Marrow Thieves at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person YA Event
Are you looking to discuss your favorite books with other teens your age? This book club is just for you! A limited number of copies are available for book club attendees at the library. For teens, ages 13 – 17.
June’s YA Book Club read is The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline.
Parents & Guardians: Please be aware that refreshments will be served at this program. A list of ingredients will be available.
Where: El Monte Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave, El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10970828
Tween Book Club: A Royal Conundrum (The Misfits) at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Tween Event
Start your summer off with a mystery by reading: A Royal Conundrum (The Misfits) by Lisa Yee. Then, join an engaging discussion of this book along with trivia, games and other fun activities! Recommended Ages: 9 – 12. Reading level: 3rd – 7th grade.
Physical copies of this book are available for checkout in-person and via digital formats on our website.
Register online, in person, or by phone. Library staff are available to assist.
Where: A C Bilibrew Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 150 E El Segundo Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90061
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10946432
NEW* Queer Kids Collective Book Club: Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
NEW” Queer Kids Collective Book Club participants will discussBianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything, by author Justine Pucella Winans.
Murder most fowl? In this sardonic and campy YA thriller, an anxious, introverted nonbinary teen birder somehow finds themself investigating a murder with their neighbor/fellow anime lover, all while falling for a cute girl from their birding group…and trying not to get killed next.
Justine Pucella Winans is a queer and nonbinary writer who resides in Los Angeles with their husband and cats. When not writing, they try their best at Brazilian jiu-jitsu, read an alarming amount of manga, and try to make pasta even a fourth as good as their nonna’s. They are the author of Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything, and you can find them at justinepucellawinans.com.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com
Creative Writing: The Art of Storytelling: Learning Circle at Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Explore aspects of creative writing and develop your storytelling skills in our learning circle. We will collectively explore material from the storytelling portion of Khan Academy’s Pixar in a Box course, tackling a new facet each week.
You may attend this learning circle in person or via Zoom.
RSVP:
Email ayosco@lapl.org to enroll and for more information.
Where: Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 6145 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-art-storytelling-learning-circle
One Book, One County: L.A. Weather at Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL – In-Person Adult Event
Participants will discuss L.A. Weather, by author Maria Amparo Escandón.
This bestseller follows the Mexican-American Alvarado family during a year in Los Angeles “as they wrestle with impending evacuations, secrets, deception, and betrayal, and their toughest decision yet: whether to stick together or burn it all down.”
Where: Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 16021 East Avenue O, #A, Palmdale, CA 93591
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10823440
One Book, One County: L.A. Weather at Angelo M. Iacobono Library, LACL – In-Person Adult Event
Participants will discuss L.A. Weather, by author Maria Amparo Escandón.
This bestseller follows the Mexican-American Alvarado family during a year in Los Angeles “as they wrestle with impending evacuations, secrets, deception, and betrayal, and their toughest decision yet: whether to stick together or burn it all down.”
Where: Angelo M. Iacobono Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11033981
One Book, One County: Paint an L.A. Weather Landscape at Hawaiian Gardens Library, LACL – In-Person Adult Event
Paint an L.A. Weather Landscape is inspired by our One Book, One County book, L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón. For adults.
Paint an L.A. Weather Landscape inspired by our One Book, One County book, L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón and the following book passage:
“It’s always nice out.”
“People around the country tend to think so. East Coast people, people from the Midwest. They say, ‘There’s no weather in L.A. It’s always seventy-two and sunny,’ but that’s inaccurate. Few people consider our five seasons to be different from one another, but they are. You know this. I know this because we’ve lived here all our lives. Ah, but go ahead and tell this to someone back east. Our winter rainy season overlaps with our sunny and mild spring, then with our jacaranda season, our horribly hot late summer, and the Santa Ana season. That’s five seasons there. Of course, some people in town would include the award season, but that’s not climate-related unless Oscars’ red carpet gets rained on. And then, what about the drought, the winds, the marine layer, the brushfires, the gigafires, the mud-slides, the landslides, the flash floods, the atmospheric rivers…”
Where: Hawaiian Gardens Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 11940 East Carson St., Hawaiian Gardens, CA 90716
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10893596
Off the Island Book Club: Bakery in Paris at Avalon Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Our monthly book group returns with a new series of exciting books to read each month! Join us to read Aimie Runyan’s Bakery in Paris. For adults.
Where: Avalon Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 215 Sumner Ave, Avalon, CA 90704
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10894136
Phy-Sci Book Club: The Song of the Cell at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Phy-Sci Book Club participants will discussThe Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, by author Siddhartha Mukherjee.
In The Song of the Cell, the extraordinary author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene “blends cutting-edge research, impeccable scholarship, intrepid reporting, and gorgeous prose into an encyclopedic study that reads like a literary page-turner” (Oprah Daily).
“In an account both lyrical and capacious, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human understanding: from the seventeenth-century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our cutting-edge technologies for manipulating and deploying cells for therapeutic purposes” (The New Yorker).
Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Gene: An Intimate History, a #1 New York Times bestseller; The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction; and The Laws of Medicine. He is the editor of Best Science Writing 2013. Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. In 2023, he was elected as a new member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has published articles in many journals, including Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters. Visit his website at: SiddharthaMukherjee.com.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/phy-sci-book-club-song-cell
Book Talk: Leslie Stephens, with Joy Sullivan, & You’re Safe Here at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Author Leslie Stephens will discuss her new thriller You’re Safe Here, in conversation with author Joy Sullivan.
Wellness, motherhood, and technology converge in a near future California, as three women’s seemingly innocuous decisions have further-reaching consequences than any of them could imagine in this timely, clever, and white-knuckled thriller.
In 2060, the WellPod is the latest launch from the largest tech company the world has ever seen—a fleet of floating personal paradises scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean, focused entirely on health, solitude, and relaxation. Created by an enigmatic founder who will stop at nothing to ensure her company’s success, it is the long-awaited pinnacle of wellness technology. For newly pregnant Maggie, the six-week program is the perfect chance to get away…especially since the baby isn’t her partner’s.
Leslie Stephens is the creator of the popular newsletter Morning Person. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Eater, and other outlets including Cupcakes & Cashmere, where she worked as an editor. A graduate of Wellesley College, she is currently earning her master’s in counseling, with specializations in addiction and ecotherapy, from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her pit-mix, Toast. You can find her at LeslieStephens.com and subscribe at MorningPersonNewsletter.com.
Joy Sullivan is a poet, community builder, and author of the national bestseller, Instructions for Traveling West. She received a Masters in poetry from Miami University and has served as the poet-in-residence for the Wexner Center for the Arts. In addition to leading international writing retreats, she has guest-lectured in classrooms from Stanford University to Florida International University and is the founder of Sustenance, a community designed to help writers revitalize and nourish their craft.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Zine Release Party: Erin K. Drew & Chandeliers at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join us to hear author Erin K. Drew present her zine Chandeliers, Volume 1, the first in a series of new drawing zines by the author.
Chandeliers troubles itself with cartoon research and feminist cartography. It admires art history through a glittering, prismatic lens and deploys rambunctious formalism to modulate the built environment.
Special guests Bethy Squires and Tiffany Lin will offer multimedia support. More details TBA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lwfqlf1u
Mystery Book Club: The Cuckoo’s Calling at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a discussion of The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith.
Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-50
Douglas Day Stewart & An Officer and a Gentleman’s Daughter at Deisel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Douglas Day Stewart will present and discussAn Officer and a Gentleman’s Daughter.
Thirty-five years after the events of An Officer and a Gentleman, Zack Mayo finds himself facing a very different kind of struggle. His beloved wife died tragically over a decade ago, his daughter—severely impacted by the death of her mother—disappeared after turning to drugs, and now he is being forced into retirement after a heroic career.
Convinced his daughter had died two years ago in a fire, Mayo is shocked when she shows up as a student in the last class he will teach before retirement. Shannon Mayo must accomplish the impossible if she is to pass her father’s class and prove to herself that she has fully conquered her demons.
Douglas Day Stewart has written some of the most successful films and television movies in Hollywood history. His Blue Lagoon taught a generation about sex. The Boy in the Plastic Bubble launched John Travolta as a star and was, in its day, the most-watched television film in history. An Officer and a Gentleman, which Stewart based on his own experiences as a naval officer, secured him an academy award nomination and became one of the ten highest grossing love stories of all time. Stewart is the happily married father of three. An Officer and a Gentleman’s Daughter is his first novel.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Tuesday the 25th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Douglas-Day-Stewart-Author-signing
LGBTQ Book Club: The Prophets at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join the LGBTQ Book Club for a hybrid (in-person and online) discussion of The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. For adults.
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted in-person in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room as well as on Zoom. Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.
https://library-lacounty-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register
Summary provided by the publisher:
Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 625 N, San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10244790
Joel Gion & In the Jingle Jangel Jungel at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Joel Gion will discuss his book, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time with the Brian Jonestown Massacre.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre are one of the great contemporary cult American rock and roll bands. At the peak of their anarchic reign in the San Francisco underground of the late ’90s their psychedelic output was almost as prodigious and impressive as their narcotic intake. Immortalized in one of the most unforgettable rock and roll documentaries of all time, DIG!, alongside their friends/rivals/nemeses, The Dandy Warhol’s, in their early years when the US were obsessed with grunge, the BJM felt like a ’60s anachronism.
A righteous account of the hazards and pleasures of life on and off the road, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle takes use behind the scenes of the supposed behind the scenes film that cemented the band’s legend.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday, the 251h
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/joel-gion
Non-Fiction Book Club: How the Talmud Can Change Your Life at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Non-Fiction Book Club participants will discuss the June selection, How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book, by author Liel Leibovitz.
A witty and wide-ranging exploration of a book that has perplexed and delighted people for centuries: the Talmud.
With infectious passion and candor, Leibovitz brilliantly displays how the Talmud’s wisdom reverberates for the modern age and how it can, indeed, change your life.
Liel Leibovitz is host of Tablet’s daily Talmud podcast Take One and cohost of the Unorthodox podcast. Author of A Broken Hallelujah and Stan Lee and coauthor of The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, he lives in New York City.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Tuesday, 25th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/book
At Skylight: Alana B. Lytle and Michael Deagler Present: Man’s Best Friend and Early Sobrieties, respectively at Skylight Off-site at STAY, A Zero-Proof Cocktail Bar – In-Person Event
Alana B. Lytle will present and discuss her book, Man’s Best Friend.
In this story, a failed actress must decide how much she will give up—and what lies she will overlook—in order to live a life of luxury, in this irresistibly suspenseful and slightly surreal debut that is The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Nightbitch.
Alana B. Lytle is a screenwriter whose recent credits include Netflix’s Brand New Cherry Flavor and Peacock’s A Friend of the Family. Her short fiction has been published in Guernica. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and sausage-shaped dog. Man’s Best Friend is her debut novel.
Michael Deagler will present and discuss his book 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, This Story charts the limbos that exist between our better and worst selves, offering a portrait of a stifled generation collectively slouching towards grace.
Michael Deagler’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Harper’s, McSweeneys’ Quarterly Concern, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City. He lives in Los Angeles and is a PhD candidate at USC. Early Sobrieties, a New York Times Editors Choice, is his debut novel.
Where: STAY, a Zero-Proof Cocktail Bar
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 425 Gin Ling Way, Los Angeles, CA, 90012
Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club: Black Sun at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Presenting the second Village Well Book Club offshoot, the Sci-fi Fantasy book club! To the Tolkien nerds, SJM stans, and R.F. Kuang enjoyers, this group is for you! On the fourth Tuesday of every month, we will come together and discuss a story that falls within the realms of either science fiction or fantasy (or sometimes both!). To join our emailing list, reach out to events@villagewell.com.
Our June pick for discussion is Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/36301
Debut Horror Book Launch: Monica Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
The Eyes Are the Best Part has been described as My Sister, The Serial Killer meets Crying in H-Mart, as a young Korean American woman begins to fracture as her family breaks, and in her rage, begins to crave the eyes of men, especially the blue eyes of her mother’s new, abusive partner, George. A mixture of horror, thriller, and literary, we’ve had blurbs from horror legends like Christopher Golden, Hailey Piper, CJ Leede, and more, along with very strong reviews.
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
Monika Kim is a second-generation Korean American living in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. She learned about eating fish eyes from her mother, who immigrated to Los Angeles from Seoul in 1985. The Eyes are the Best Part is her first novel and you can find her at Monika-kim.com.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39400
An Evening with DC Frost and Kate Gale, with Saul Gonzalezat Vroman’s – In-Person Event
DC Frost and Kate Gale, in conversation with Saul Gonzalez, will present and discuss their debut novels.
A Punishing Breed by DC Frost
A Punishing Breed, first in a series of mystery novels, features Latino Detective DJ Arias who pursues a murder investigation at a small private liberal arts college nestled in the heart of Los Angeles. The detective and his partner, Bobby Talbot, discover buried secrets and past misdeeds that overshadow an institution promising social justice, transparency and equity. DJ Arias fights against his own troubled history with the college, his partner, and a failed marriage. Along the way, he finds a modicum of salvation with a murdered man’s dog he names Evidence.
Under a Neon Sun by Kate Gale
Unable to afford rent, Mia—a community college student—lives out of her car, cleaning houses of the well-to-do in the LA area to meet her shoestring budget. Then Covid hits and everything changes.
For people living in houses and apartments, with stay-at-home jobs, the pandemic was inconvenient. For Mia and her fellow housekeeper friends—all living in their cars—the pandemic destroys the source of their frugal income.
Fortunately, gutsy, funny Mia is a determined survivor. After weeks of cutting her limited spending even further, missing meals along the way, her wealthy employers become desperate for her services again. This time, she’s determined not to let them take advantage of her as they have in the past. Her newfound confidence gives her new hope, until she discovers a dead body in a room she was assigned to clean. This is a gripping page turner debut novel.
About DC Frost: Denise Cecelia Frost is a second-generation Angelino. For almost twenty years, she has worked as a fundraiser for a small private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, and before that PBS and Variety. Denise has published several literary fiction short stories in journals including UCLA’s Westwind. She lives in Los Angeles with her family including three rescue dogs who keep life interesting.
About Kate Gale: Kate Gale is the co-founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press, which has been publishing for thirty years in Los Angeles. She is also the author of seven books of poetry including The Goldilocks Zone and The Loneliest Girl, as well as several librettos including Rio de Sangre with Don Davis—who wrote the music to the Matrix movies. Rio de Sangre premiered at the Florentine opera. Her current opera projects are Che Guevara and Esther.
Kate grew up in an intentional community. Since leaving, she has put herself through school, ultimately receiving a Ph.D. in English Literature from Claremont Graduate University. She had no one after she left the Farm to depend on, and spent years writing “No one,” as her emergency contact. From those beginnings, she has built a press in Los Angeles, raised a family, and lived a life as a writer and publisher on the West Coast. Since 1989, she has taught writing at universities in Los Angeles every semester. She has also taught publishing at Oxford, Columbia University, Harvard University, and USC, and was the President of Pen USA from 2005–2006. Currently, Kate teaches publishing and poetry at Chapman University and lives in Los Angeles.
About Saul Gonzalez: Saul has been the Los Angeles co-host of public radio’s statewide show, The California Report since 2019, covering such issues as homelessness and housing policy, the state’s response to climate change and the ravages of the Covid pandemic. Whenever possible, Saul tries to report from the field, connecting these issues to the daily lives of Californians.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/An-Evening-with-DC-Frost-and-Kate-Gale
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest Reader: NO READING THIS DATE – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with host Rick Lupert presents guest reader(S) and an open mic.
There will be no reading on this date. Event returns July 9th.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com
Book Launch: Little Joe: a book about queers and cinema, mostly at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
Join us to celebrate the launch of Little Joe, a new anthology compiled by editor Sam Ashby – that brings together the cult periodical’s elusive texts and proposes a new, alternative cinematic canon drawn from the fringes of taste and style.
The evening will feature readings by: Hedi El Kholti, Samara Halperin, William E. Jones, Jonesy, Adam Keleman, Ryan Linkof, Bradford Nordeen, and Sylvan Oswald.
The cult magazine Little Joe, published as a limited-edition zine from 2010 to 2021, challenged the mainstream narrative of film history with a rebellious, queer perspective.
This volume features essays, in-depth conversations, short stories and archival discoveries from a host of queer and allied writers, artists, filmmakers, and academics, including John Waters, Sarah Schulman, Douglas Crimp, William E. Jones, Erika Balsom, Jeremy Atherton Lin, John Greyson, Elizabeth Purchell, Liz Rosenfeld, Peter Strickland, Ira Sachs, Terence Davies, Shu Lea Cheang, Kevin Killian, Wayne Koestenbaum, Abdellah Taïa, Marlene McCarty, John Cameron Mitchell, Rosa von Praunheim, Stuart Comer, Ed Halter, Jenni Olson, A.L. Steiner, A.K. Burns, Desiree Akhavan, and Andrew Haigh.
Copies of the book will be for sale.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 7 pm)
Address: 2220 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/little-joe-magazine
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.
Featured poet of the month:
Mauro W. Monteiro is an Angeliño by choice. Carioca by chance.
NOTE: Details at event link. Check to Verify.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday, the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night 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.
The 3rd Tuesday of the month will be SLAM NIGHT.
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 25th
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
Lit Angels Writing Studio Class: Morning Pages 12 Questions with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Come write for one hour with acclaimed author and writing professor Francesca Lia Block! Prompts from FLB’s “12 Questions Method” will be given! Free!
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
Francesca Lia Block, M.F.A., is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association and from the New York Times Book Review, School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.
Her work has been translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Portuguese. Francesca has also published stories, poems, essays and interviews in The Los Angeles Times, The L.A. Review of Books, Spin, Nylon, Black Clock, The Fairy Tale Review and Rattle among others. In addition to writing, Francesca is a beloved and devoted teacher. She was named Writer-in-Residence at Pasadena City College in 2014 and in 2018-19 became a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Redlands where she was a finalist for Professor of the Year award. Currently she teaches fiction at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, Otis Extension, Pocket MFA, and privately in Los Angeles where she was born and raised. She is co-editor of Lit Angels journal and runs the Lit Angels Writing Studio at Village Well
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 8 am – 9 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39212
Mystery Book Group: City of Thieves at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event
Whether you loved it, hated it, or haven’t finished it, we want to see you at our Mystery Book Group at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!
Participants will meet outside the Star Café and discuss the novel City of Thieves by author David Benioff.
“During the siege of Leningrad in WWII, two young men are sent on an improbable errand. The horror of war is only heightened by the lightness with which Benioff handles their evolving friendship and the grim task that evolves from their mission. Great characters and authentic historical background make this a surprisingly winning novel.”
— Russ Lawrence, Chapter One Book Store, Hamilton, MT
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 9 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-city-thieves-david-benioff
Special Luncheon Event: Claire Lombardo & Same As It Ever Was at pages: a bookstore Off-site at The Arthur J Restaurant – In-Person Event
Claire Lombardo, author of the bestselling and very well-loved novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had for a very special luncheon at The Arthur J on Wednesday, June 26th at 11:30. Claire will be discussing her brand, new novel, Same As It Ever Was. If you know you know, The Arthur J is not open for lunch but is graciously hosting this special, three-course luncheon just for us (vegetarian and vegan options available)! We are thrilled to be hosting this beloved author and to celebrate her latest work.
In this family drama the author features an unforgettable cast of characters, this time by way of her singularly complicated protagonist. It traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end.
Ticket includes lunch and a signed copy of Same As It Ever Was. [$100]
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: pages at The Arthur J Restaurant
Date: Wednesday, 26th
Time: 11:30 am
Address: 903 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/special-luncheon-claire-lombardo-arthur-j
Wednesday Book Club: Our Missing Hearts at Westchester-Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will meet to discuss the novel Our Missing Hearts by author Celeste Ng.
New members are welcome.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Westchester-Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 7114 W. Manchester Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/wednesday-book-club-4
Classics Book Club: Gulliver’s Travels at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Participants will meet to discuss the satire Gulliver’s Travels by author Jonathan Swift.
New members are welcome.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 1:30 pm – 3 pm
Address: 10640 Petit Ave., Granada Hills, CA 91344
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/classics-book-club-gullivers-travels
One Book, One County Book Club: L.A. Weather at Sylmar Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will meet to discuss the novel L.A. Weather by author María Amparo Escandón. Free copy of the book for the first five attendees.
This is a community reading program bringing together 18 library districts in Los Angeles County! From June 1 to July 27, all participating libraries will be reading and discussing L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón. This community reading program fosters collaboration, education, and conversation across our county and emphasizes the power of connected libraries to create connected communities.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Sylmar Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 14561 Polk St., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/one-book-one-county-book-club-0
Poets Café: Celebrating Poetry via KPFK 90.7 FM – Live On-Air Event
Poets Café celebrates Poetry. 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 of this series 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, the 26th
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: On-air Event (live)
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/
One Book, One County Book Club: L.A. Weather at Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel L.A. Weather by author María Amparo Escandón.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave, Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10975858
Your Author Series: Jesus Trejo & Papa’s Magical Water-Jug Clock at Sylmar Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event
Comedian, actor and writer Jesus Trejo will present and read his first picture book for children, Papa’s Magical Water-Jug Clock.
Little Jesús is excited to spend a Saturday with his landscaper Papá, where he’s put in charge of the magical water jug, which is also a clock! When it’s empty, Papá explains, the workday will be done. It’s a big job, and Jesús wants to do it right. But he just can’t help giving water to an array of thirsty animals. Before he knows it, the magical water jug is empty—but the workday’s not over yet! Will Jesús be fired?! Or is the jug not really magical after all? This mischievous tale of a very young comedian’s life lesson will warm hearts and have high-spirited kids nodding in sympathy.
Those attending the program will have the opportunity to take home a copy of Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock. Intended for children ages 4-8.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 7936 Vineland Ave., Sun Valley, CA 91352
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-jesus-trejo
Good Trouble Reading Group: A Selection of Essays from They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us at Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join Dr. Andrea Liss online for our next Good Trouble Reading Group to discuss a selection of essays from They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib. The book is available through the Los Angeles Public Library in various formats. Email eden@lapl.org to receive the Zoom link and the selection of essays.
The Good Trouble Reading Group shares books that engage themes of social justice, with love and family at their core. Our group leader, Dr. Andrea Liss, is a Professor Emerita of Visual Culture and Cultural Theory at California State University San Marcos and a local Echo Park resident. Her teaching and research focus on feminist visual culture and writing, visual art, and photography related to historical events and representations of social justice particularly through the work of African American women.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Book Club for Adults: Mad Honey at Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel Mad Honey by author Jodi Picoult.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-1
One Book, One County Book Club: L.A. Weather at Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel L.A. Weather by author María Amparo Escandón.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave, Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10975858
Sci-Fi Book Club: The Man in the High Castle at Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel The Man in the High Castle by author Philip K. Dick.
Copies of this novel are available at the library.
This Hugo Award-winning novel broke the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.
The Science Fiction Book Club is hosted by John Tommasino.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 6260 Sylmar Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91402
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/science-fiction-book-club-man-castle
Mystery Book Discussion: Pay Dirt Road at Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Participants will discuss the novel Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen.
RSVP:
This program meets via Zoom. Please preregister here.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Palms-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-discussion
One Book, One County Book Club: L.A. Weather at Baldwin Park Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel L.A. Weather by author María Amparo Escandón.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Baldwin Park Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4181 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, CA 91706
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10960382
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 26th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Romantasy Book Club: A Court of Thorns and Roses at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel A Court of Thorns and Roses by author Sarah J. Mass.
When huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world. As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the dangerous world of the Fae.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Agoura Hilla Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct, Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10757806
Evening Book Club: Fear Is Just a Word at Carson Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss Fear Is Just a Word by author Azam Ahmed.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Carson Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 151 East Carson St., Carson, CA 90745
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10894150
Mystery & Thriller Book Club: City of the Dead at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel City of the Dead by Jonathan Kellerman.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for details.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-thriller-book-club-1
Thomas Grattan, with Greg Mania, & In Tongues: A Novel at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join us for a launch party to celebrate the release of In Tongues, the new novel by Thomas Grattan, who will be in conversation with Greg Mania.
A young gay man upends the lives of a powerful art-world couple in this steamy novel of self-discovery.
It’s 2001, and twenty-four-year-old Gordon—handsome, sensitive, and eager for direction—takes a bus from Minnesota to New York City because it’s the only place for a young gay man to go. As he begins to settle into the city’s punishing rhythm, he gets a job walking rich Manhattanites’ dogs. But it isn’t until he stumbles into the West Village brownstone of two of his clients, the powerful gallery owners Phillip and Nicola, that Gordon learns how much the world has hidden from him—and what he’s capable of doing in order to get it for himself.
Thomas Grattan is the author of the novel The Recent East, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times’s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, was long-listed for the 2021 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. His writing has appeared in several publications, including The New York Times Book Review, One Story, Slice, and Colorado Review. He lives in New York City and upstate New York.
Greg Mania’s words have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, HuffPost, Oprah Daily, PAPER, among other international online and print platforms. He is also a contributing editor to BOMB magazine, he hosts The Rumpus’s #ShowUsYourDesk on Instagram Live, and co-hosts Empty Trash, a bi-monthly reading series in Los Angeles, alongside author Jen Winston. His debut memoir, Born to Be Public, is out now from CLASH Books.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
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-lvpmgi2y
RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays. (Check to Verify)
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 HQ
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
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: Jennifer Kabat, with Chris Kraus, & The Eighth Moon at Skylight – In-Person Event
Jennifer Kabat, in conversation with Chris Kraus, will present and discuss her book, The Eighth Moon.
When Jennifer Kabat moves to the Catskills in 2005, she has no idea it was the site of the 1845 Anti-Rent War, an early episode of American rural populism. Prompted to leave London following a mysterious illness that seems to be caused by life in the city itself, she finds in these ancient mountains—at once the northernmost part of Appalachia and a longtime refuge for New Yorkers—a place “where the land itself holds time.”
Threaded with historical documents, the natural world, Kabat weaves a capacious memoir, where the past comes alive in the present. This visionary and compassionate debut gives us a new way of seeing and being in place—one in which everything is intertwined and all at once.
Jennifer Kabat received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her criticism and has been published in BOMB and The Best American Essays. Her writing has also appeared in Granta, Frieze, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Review, and The White Review. A finalist for the essay prize at Notting Hill Editions, she often collaborates with artists. She’s part of the core faculty in the Design Research MA at the School of Visual Arts. An apprentice herbalist, she lives in rural Upstate New York and serves on her volunteer fire department.
Chris Kraus is the author of eight books, including After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography. She is a co-editor of Semiotext(e) alongside Hedi El Kholti. Her next novel, The Four Spent the Day Together, is forthcoming in 2025.
Where: Skylight
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-jennifer-kabat-presents-eighth-moon-w-chris-kraus
Book Release: Zoë Hitzig & Not Us Now at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
In her vertiginous second collection, Zoë Hitzig delivers an astonishing act of ventriloquy in reverse – speaking not through the voice of a singular, lyric “I,” but through a consciousness that seems to have amassed itself out of the detritus of human life. The future world of Not Us Now is remembered in an even further future, where language is both the survivor and the cargo of an earthly wreckage. Crushed under the weight of collection and storage, what remains are those records of human curiosity, habit, and longing which have increasingly formed the information economies of the present.
Zoë Hitzig is the author of two books of poetry, Mezzanine (Ecco, 2020) and Not Us Now, winner of the Changes Book Prize (Changes, 2024). She currently serves as poetry editor of The Drift.
Featuring other readings from Corina Copp, Harmony Holiday, and Rosie Stockton
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Wednesday the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Claire Lombardo & Same As It Ever Was at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Clarie Lombardo will present and discuss her novel. Same As It Ever Was.
Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty-seven, that she has a firm handle on things. She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next.
Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life—exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Claire-Lombardo-discusses-Same-As-It-Ever-Was
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 — Alexander James;
- 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 26th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/C712cXquGyI/
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 26th
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-929168587257
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Featured Guest Gustavo Hernandez at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights features Gustavo Hernandez.
Gustavo Hernandez is the author of the poetry collection Flower Grand First (Moon Tide Press) and the micro-chapbooks Form His Arms and Little Fleece (Ghost City Press). In January 2024, Hernandez was appointed Poet Laureate of Orange County, California. He was born in Jalisco, Mexico and was raised in Santa Ana, California, where he still resides.
$4 cover fee, cash only
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 26th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events or https://allevents.in/orange/gustavo-hernandez-at-the-ugly-mug/200026623018342
Lit Angels Writing Studio Class: Morning Pages 12 Questions with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Come write for one hour with acclaimed author and writing professor Francesca Lia Block! Prompts from FLB’s “12 Questions Method” will be given! Free!
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
Francesca Lia Block, M.F.A., is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association and from the New York Times Book Review, School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.
Her work has been translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Portuguese. Francesca has also published stories, poems, essays and interviews in The Los Angeles Times, The L.A. Review of Books, Spin, Nylon, Black Clock, The Fairy Tale Review and Rattle among others. In addition to writing, Francesca is a beloved and devoted teacher. She was named Writer-in-Residence at Pasadena City College in 2014 and in 2018-19 became a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Redlands where she was a finalist for Professor of the Year award. Currently she teaches fiction at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, Otis Extension, Pocket MFA, and privately in Los Angeles where she was born and raised. She is co-editor of Lit Angels journal and runs the Lit Angels Writing Studio at Village Well
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 8 am – 9 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39232
Afternoon Book Club: The Wager at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join Culver City Library’s Afternoon Book Club to discuss The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann. For adults.
From the publisher: “The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.”
To borrow a print copy of the book, please contact the library.
Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm
Address: 4975 Overland Ave, Culver City, CA 90230
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10720868
Marina del Rey Book Club: Less at Lloyd Taber-Marina del Rey Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join the Marina del Rey Book Club to discuss the Pulitzer Prize winning satirical comedy novel Less by Andrew Sean Greer. For adults.
To borrow a print copy of the book, please contact the library.
Where: Lloyd Taber-Marina del Rey Library, LACL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 4533 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10896550
We Love L.A. Book Club: Fadeout at Eagle Rock Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
We Love L.A. Book Club examines books and authors that weave the diversity and rich history of our city into their works.
Set in the mid-1960s, Fadeout introduces insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter, a ruggedly handsome WWII vet and one of the first openly gay protagonists in crime fiction. Brandstetter must investigate the death of a beloved folk singer, but as the investigation unfolds, Brandstetter finds that none of it adds up.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/we-love-la-book-club-11
Author Talk & Celebration: María Amparo Escandón & L.A. Weather at Gloria Molina Grand Park – In-Person Event
One Book, One Country will celebrate the summer selection and reading event for the month of June with a community discussion of the novel L.A. Weather, in conversation with the author María Amparo Escandón, at Gloria Molina Grand Park.
There will also be a musical performance from Banda Las Angelinas, resources and activities, Join us!
Where: Gloria Molina Grand Park
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 200 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://lacountylibrary.org/onebook/
Brentwood Writers Workshop at Daniel Bruce Kauffman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Are you a writer looking for creative ways to manifest your story and, most importantly, keep moving forward? Are you interested in collaborating with others to explore:
What makes a story interesting?
Why audiences invest in characters?
How to inject insight into your stories?
How to strengthen story elements?
The Brentwood Writers Workshop is looking for fellow writers to gather, brainstorm, and bring their experience and skills to their fellow writers. We’re here to workshop ideas, coach each other through challenges, and support and inspire one another, all with the goal of making traction on our writing projects.
Where: Daniel Bruce Kauffman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/brentwood-writing-group
West L. A. Online Book Club via West L. A. Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
The West LA Book Club meets on the third Thursday of each month. We alternate between fiction and nonfiction.
RSVP:
For the Zoom link, please contact Carrie at cdavies@lapl.org.
Where: Palms–Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-book-club
LGBTQ Book Club: We Have Always Been Here at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the book We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by author Samra Habib.
How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don’t exist?
Samra Habib has spent most of their life searching for the safety to be themself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, they faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From their parents, they internalized the lesson that revealing their identity could put them in grave danger.
When their family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, their need for a safe space—In which to grow and nurture their creative, feminist spirit—became dire. The men in Samra’s life wanted to police them, the women in their life had only shown them the example of pious obedience, and their body was a problem to be solved.
Samra Habib (they/them) is a writer, photographer, and activist. As a journalist they’ve covered topics ranging from fashion trends and Muslim dating apps to the rise of Islamophobia in the US. Their writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Advocate, and their photo project, “Just Me and Allah,” has been featured in Nylon, i-D, Vanity Fair Italia, Vice, and The Washington Post. Samra works with LGBTQ organizations internationally, raising awareness of issues that impact queer Muslims around the world. We Have Always Been Here is their first book.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/book
Paperback Launch: Lisa See & Lady Tan’s Circle of Women at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Acclaimed author Lisa See will discuss her latest novel, now in paperback, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. See was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California and the Historymaker’s Award from the Chinese American Museum. She was also named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Books & Beverages 2024 with Children’s Literature Council of Southern California at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event
Join the Children’s Literature Council of Southern California (CLCSC) for Books and Beverages, their first lit pub crawl, on Thursday, June 27, 2024.
Meet at Once Upon a Time (6:00-7:30 pm). Explore the maze of books and LPs with us at Lost Books (7:30 pm) then finish up the evening at Basin 141 after 8:00 pm (must be 21+ to enter).
Free event. Please RSVP in advance so that we can plan accordingly.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/books-and-beverages-2024
Cover to Cover Book Club at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a discussion of the monthly book selection:
Participants will discuss Edge of Evil by author J.A. Jance.
Where: Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club-3
Cookies and Comics Graphic Novel Book Club at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Do you love graphic novels? Does your family get tired of having to talk about Watchmen—again? Looking for someone to geek out with you over the new stuff from Brian K. Vaughan? Then this is the club for you!
This month, we’ll discuss The Bend of Luck by Maria and Peter Hoey, available with your library card on hoopla.
The intended audience for this monthly Zoom event is teens aged 16+ and adults. J. Blakemore will continue to lead the lively discussion, just as he has since 2018.
RSVP:
Email cookiesandcomicsclub@gmail.com to be included on the monthly mailing list and for the Zoom link.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cookies-and-comics-graphic-novel-book-club
Nervous Ghost Open Mic at Brewjeria Co, Pico Rivera – In-Person Event
Nervous Ghost Open Mic is hosted by community guest emcee Jesse Tovar.
NOTE: See site for guidelines.
Where: Brewjeria Co.
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 4937 Durfee Ave., Pico Rivera, CA
Website: https://www.nervousghostpress.org/openmic
Joan Moran & Once a Homecoming Queen at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Joan Moran will discuss her book Once a Homecoming Queen.
Once A Homecoming Queen is a darkly humorous novel about addiction and redemption, featuring a 75-year-old, Francine-Reynolds-Richelli-Freeman, whose extreme alcohol consumption leads to a bevy of problems including her latest—a fall that breaks her neck, leaving her daughter and those who care about her to help Francine make peace with her past and re-imagine her future.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/joan-moran-once-homecoming-queen
Barb Morrison, with Margo Steines Present: In Tongues: A Novel at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join authors Barb Morrison and Margo Steines for a reading and conversation!
Barb Morrison will discuss her book, Brutalities: a Love Story.
This story is about gender euphoria, sobriety, old skool NYC, true love, past lives and coming home.
Margo Steines will discuss her book, Bottoming for God.
This book is a searing, vivid memoir that investigates the dynamics of violence, power, desire, and a body pushed to the brink.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday, the 27th
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-lxkwt5g6
Juju Bae, with Jamilah Lemieux, & The Book of Juju at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Juju Bae, in conversation with Jamilah Lemieux, will discuss her book, The Book of Juju.
Join us to hear Juju Bae discuss her debut book, The Book of Juju, with a focus on issues of race, gender, and sexuality.
Where: Reparations Club
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave LA, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/juju-bae-event
Sapphic Swoons Author Panel: Rebekah Faubion, Taleen Voskuni, Catlyn Greenwald, Emma R. Albanat The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Celebrate Pride, with a Sapphic Swoons Author Panel, including:
Rebekah Faubion (The Lovers), Taleen Voskuni (Sorry Bro and Lavash at First Sight), Catlyn Greenwald (Sizzle Reel and Director’s Cut),and Emma R. Alban (Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend).
There will be a book signing to follow. This is a ticketed event that includes a $20 store credit.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Thursday the 27th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Stan Mack, with Michael Dooley, & Stan Mack’s Rea; Life Funnies at Skylight – In-Person Event
Stan Mack will discuss seminal comic strip that ran in the Village Voice from 1974 to 1995.
Sketchbook in hand, Stan Mack haunted the New York City environs, watching, listening, overhearing, and interviewing its inhabitants. He drew a comic strip every week based on what he saw and heard, famously using verbatim dialogue for his graphic dramatizations. A mixture of humor, spontaneity, serendipity, and weirdness, Mack’s comic strip snapshots caught New Yorkers — whether it is an extortionist calligrapher, a baby evading arrest at her first protest, a stroll up Broadway with a ferret, an evening with a male liberationist, or an unlucky-in-love dolphin trainer — being who they are in all their unguarded and uninhibited glory.
Stan Mack pioneered a documentary style of cartooning with his legendary New York comic strip “Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies,” which featured real New Yorkers in their own words. The strip ran in The Village Voice for 20 years. A giant collection of those strips, Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies: The Collected Conceits, Delusions, and Hijinks of New Yorkers from 1974 to 1995 (Fantagraphics), offers a visual time capsule of two of the most colorful, gritty, and outrageous decades in New York City history. Mack’s other long-running comic strips include “Mule’s Diner” for National Lampoon, “Stan Mack’s Out-takes” (Adweek) and “Stan Mack’s RealMAD” (Mediapost.com).
Michael Dooley is a designer, author, editor, and a professor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he created the course “Design History of Comics and Animation”. He also lectures on comics and design at a variety of schools, conferences, and other venues around Southern California. Michael’s a Print magazine Contributing Editor and has been writing features, essays, and reviews for nearly 40 years. His books include The Education of a Comics Artist.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Paul Haddad & Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Invented Los Angeles at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Los Angeles is a city that should not exist—and yet it does—not so much a Paradise Found as a Paradise Willed Into Existence, owing to the collective vision of six Gilded Era-born tycoons whose legacies inform the city we know today.
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
Paul Haddad’s books include the critically acclaimed Freewaytopia: How Freeways Shaped Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times bestseller 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 57 Walking Adventures, and High Fives, Pennant Drives, and Fernandomania: A Fan’s History of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Glory Years, 1977–1981. As a Hollywood-born native, he has written about Los Angeles for the L.A. Times, LAist, and HuffPo. He has authored three novels, including the L.A. Noir Paradise Palms: Red Menace Mob. A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Haddad has been nominated for multiple Emmys as a documentary producer.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 7 pm –9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39312
Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group: & Babel at Vroman’s Reading Room – In-Person Event
The Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group meets the 4th Wednesday of every month at 7pm.
This event is free and open to the public.
June’s pick is Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution by R.F. Kuang.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s Meeting Room, Suite 120
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 709 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/vromans-fiction-reading-group-9
Skulls & Stairs Reading Series: Brittany Manjivar, Omar Barcena, Lily Lady, Jack Skelley at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event
Skulls & Stairs comes back for its 2024 season of readings in the staircase at the historic Original Venice City Hall Building, aka, BB headquarters.
Featuring poets dwelling on the occult with punk and rebel attitudes, the first installment of the year features poetry in English and Spanish by borderlands poet Omar Bárcena, author of Poemas desde el otro lado (Valparaiso); and New York – L.A. sensation Lily Lady, author of quickie (Dream Boy Book Club) and NDA (Far West Press) will feature alongside Jack Skelley, reading from his upcoming book Myth Lab: Theories of Plastic Love, and Car Crash Collective’s co-founder & parasocialite, Brittany Menjivar.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Thursday, the 27h
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 PM
Address: 681 Venice Blvd Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Special Author Event: Wayne Kalayjian & Saving Michelangelo’s Dome at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Wayne Kalayjian will discuss his new book, Saving Michelangelo’s Dome: How Three Mathematicians and a Pope Sparked an Architectural Revolution.
1742: the famous dome atop Saint Peter’s Basilica, designed by Michelangelo, is fractured and threatened with collapse. The dome is the pride of Italy and the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. And no one knows how to fix it.
This engaging and colorful narrative tells the overlooked story of how Michelangelo’s Dome was saved from disaster by three mathematicians and Pope Benedict XIV, who had asked them for help. It is a gripping story of decisive leadership, crisis management, and scientific innovation, and the resistance that was faced when sailing into the headwinds of conventional thought.
In Saving Michelangelo’s Dome, Stanford-trained engineer Wayne Kalayjian illustrates how new ideas in science and mathematics established an entirely new way of looking at the world—as well as solving its complex problems. In the end, readers will appreciate that in saving Michelangelo’s Dome from collapse, these three mathematicians and one determined pope unknowingly invented the profession of engineering as we practice it today. With it, they transformed the architectural world and ushered in generations of future buildings and structures that, otherwise, would never have been built.
Wayne Kalayjian is a civil and structural engineer who has designed bridges, buildings, tunnels, airports, pipelines, railroads, data centers, and power stations around the world. Kalayjian lectures at the University of Southern California and is an engineering expert for the California Department of Consumer Affairs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and art history from Tufts University, a master’s degree in structural engineering from Stanford University, and a master’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is his first book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Thursday, 27th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/special-author-event-wayne-kalayjian
Tia Chucha’s Book Club: The Manicurist’s Daughter at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the book, The Manicurist’s Daughter by author Susan Lieu.
This book is an emotionally raw memoir about the crumbling of the American Dream and a daughter of refugees who searches for answers after her mother dies during plastic surgery. The Manicurist’s Daughter is much more than a memoir about grief, trauma, and body image. It is a story of fierce determination, strength in shared culture, and finding your place in the world.
Available for purchase at Tia Chucha’s bookstore and online at http://www.tiachucha.org
Help us pick our next book club books! Our next book reading theme is Ancestral Histories & Futures.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 27th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7zlQPdS3sz/?hl=en&img_index=1
Lit Angels Writing Studio Class: Morning Pages 12 Questions with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Come write for one hour with acclaimed author and writing professor Francesca Lia Block! Prompts from FLB’s “12 Questions Method” will be given! Free!
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
Francesca Lia Block, M.F.A., is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association and from the New York Times Book Review, School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.
Her work has been translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Portuguese. Francesca has also published stories, poems, essays and interviews in The Los Angeles Times, The L.A. Review of Books, Spin, Nylon, Black Clock, The Fairy Tale Review and Rattle among others. In addition to writing, Francesca is a beloved and devoted teacher. She was named Writer-in-Residence at Pasadena City College in 2014 and in 2018-19 became a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Redlands where she was a finalist for Professor of the Year award. Currently she teaches fiction at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, Otis Extension, Pocket MFA, and privately in Los Angeles where she was born and raised. She is co-editor of Lit Angels journal and runs the Lit Angels Writing Studio at Village Well
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 8 am – 9 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39276
Spectacular Storytime at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Spectacular Storytime is our most popular story time and is ready to delight and dazzle! This is also the prime time to see Pippi Longstocking, our bookstore cat in action.
Open to all ages. Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-82
From Venice to Venice Anthology Poetry Reading at Venice Abbot Kinney Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to hear local, award-winning poets read from the new anthology From Venice to Venice: Poets of California and Italy, edited by Mark Lipman and Anne Lombardo.
Featuring: Susan Hayden, Anna Lombardo, Harry E. Northrup, Richard Modiano.
Where: Venice Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 501 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/venice-venice-poetry-reading
Libros y Cafecito at Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Join us for a Spanish book club discussion. Every month, members will gather to discuss the selected book of the month. Call the library to find out more about the selected book titles.
Where: Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library, Long Beach
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 5970 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90805
Website: https://www.longbeach.gov/library/events/
Anime and Manga Club at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Otakus unite! Join us as we stream and discuss popular anime and manga. For Teens, ages 13 – 17.
Where: El Monte Library, LACL
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave, El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10240730
Horror Book Club: House of Hunger at Compton Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss Alexis Henderson’s novel House of Hunger. To borrow a print copy of the book, please contact the Compton Library directly. For ages 18+
Marion Shaw is a young woman drawn into the upper echelons of a society where blood is power after seeing this ad “WANTED—Bloodmaid of exceptional taste. Must have a keen proclivity for life’s finer pleasures. Girls of weak will need not apply.” in this dark and enthralling Gothic novel from the author of The Year of the Witching.
Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required. This will be used to save your spot in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered adult. To sign up, see library staff, or register online at Visit.LACountyLibrary.org/Events and filter by location or event date.
Where: Compton Library, LACL
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 240 W Compton Blvd, Compton, CA 90220
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10896789
Poetry Reading & Spoken Word: Open Micat Bookman Bookstore, Orange – In-Person Event
The Bookman poetry reading & Open Mic is a monthly event held on the last Friday of the month, where the community comes together to share their words and works.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Bookman Bookstore
Date: Friday the 28th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 320 E. Katella Ave., Suite M, Orange, CA 92867
Website: https://www.instagram.com/bookmanorange/?hl=en
Black Lit Book Club: Rebecca, Not Becky at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel Rebecca, Not Becky by author Christine Platt.
In the vein of Such a Fun Age, a whip-smart, compulsively readable novel about two upper-class stay-at-home mothers—one white, one Black—living in a “perfect” suburb that explores motherhood, friendship, and the true meaning of sisterhood amidst the backdrop of America’s all-too-familiar racial reckoning.
Christine Platt writes literature for children and adults that centers African diasporic experiences—past, present, and future. She holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in African and African American studies as well as a juris doctorate in general law. She currently serves as Executive Director for Baldwin For The Arts.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/book
Essie Chambers, with Monica West & Trespass: Swift River at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Essie Chambers, in conversation with Monica West, will discuss her book, Swift River.
It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: she’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on.
But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she’s never met, key elements of Pop’s life are uncovered, and she is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, whose lives span the 20th century and reveal a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion.
Essie Chambers is the author of the debut novel, Swift River.
Monica West was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and received her BA from Duke University, her MA from New York University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She was a Southern Methodist University Kimbilio Fellow in 2014, and a Hedgebrook Writer in Residence in 2021.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/essie-chambers
Poetry Night at The Libros: Mike Sonksen, Linda Dove, Nikolai Garcia – In-Person Event
Join us for an evening of poetry at The Libros, featuring:
Mike Sonksen is a 3rd-generation Los Angeles native, writer and educator who teaches several courses in interdisciplinary studies, poetry and prose. He is the author most recently of Letters to My City (2nd Ed.)
Linda Dove is a poet, a critic, a professor, and a mother. She holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and is the author of In Defense of Objects (Bear Star Press, winner of the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Award, 2009), O Dear Deer, (Squall Publishing, winner of the Eudaimonia Poetry Review Chapbook Prize, 2011), This Too (Tebot Bach, winner of the Clockwise Chapbook Award, 2017), Fearn (Cooper Dillon Books, 2019), and Switchfish (Gatehouse, 2023).
Nikolai Garcia is a poet and writer and the author of Nuclear Shadows of Palm Trees. He is co-curator of the reading series Trenches Full of Poets in Long Beach.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Libros
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3422 N. Broadway, Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, CA 90031
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8EPr7XtqRF/
L.A. Book Launch: Tara Sim and Katy Rose, with Gretchen Schreiber at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Tara Sim and Katy Rose, in conversation with Gretchen Schreiber, will discuss their new romance novels: We Shall Be Monsters and Masquerade of the Heart, respectively
Tara Sim will discuss her novel We Shall Be Monsters.
Katy Rose will discuss her novel Masquerade of the Heart.
There will be a book signing to follow.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Friday the 28th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Women in Horror Panel at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Join us for a celebration of horror, featuring: Monika Kim, CJ Leede, Jennifer Thorne, and Liz Kerin, moderated by Brea Grant.
Monika Kim is the author of The Eyes Are the Best Part.
Monika Kim has been working for an environmental agency based in Southern California. In her current role, Her work is focused on environmental justice and assisting underserved communities through outreach and youth education programs. Monika is passionate about the environment and climate justice. Through her books, she seeks to raise awareness of the Asian American experience as well as of feminist issues. In her free time, Monika likes to try new foods, read, play video games, travel, and take pictures.
She is a second-generation Korean American living in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, where she resides with her family and her tuxedo cat, Velvet. She learned about eating fish eyes and other Korean superstitions from her mother, who immigrated to California from Seoul in 1985.
CJ Leede is a horror writer, hiker, and Trekkie. She is the author of Maeve Fly, winner of the Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award, and a Bram Stoker Award and Splatterpunk Award nominee. When she is not driving around the country, she can be found in LA with her boyfriend and rescue dogs.
Jennifer Thorne is the author of Lute, The Wrong Side of Right, The Inside of Out, Night Music, and (with Lee Kelly) The Antiquity Affair. American by birth, she now lives in rural England with her husband and two sons.
Liz Kerin is an author, playwright, screenwriter, and graduate of the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is also the author of The Phantom Forest (2019). She lives in Southern California.
Brea Grant is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and host of the popular book-related podcast, Reading Glasses. She has written and directed for Blumhouse, Netflix, and the CW and films at festivals worldwide including Tribeca, SXSW, and Slamdance. She has written several graphic novels including the latest, MARY, and has had short stories featured in anthologies, including the latest, HAUNTED REELS. She most recently directed the thriller TORN HEARTS starring Katey Sagal and the short film MLM, which just premiered at the Overlook Film Festival.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Friday the 28th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-women-horror-panel-moderated-brea-grant
TDSB: The Definitive Soapbox Open Mic with Danielle Mitchell & Ravina Wadhwani at Wrigley Coffee Co., Long Beach – In-Person Event
The Definitive Soap\box Open Mic is held on the last Friday of the month at Wrigley Coffee Co. in Long Beach. This month’s featured artists are:
Danielle Mitchell is a feminist, intersectional poet, and teaching artist, and the creative force behind The Poetry Lab.
Ravina Wadhwani is a south Asian American poet and spoken word artist, author of the collection Yellow, and curator of Writing as Healing.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Wrigley Coffee Co.
Date: Friday the 28th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 437 W. Willow St., Long Beach CA 90806
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7VRl7FpfmJ/?hl=en
Pride Month Launch: Karl Dunn, with Gabe Zichermann, & How to Burn a Rainbow at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Karl Dunn, in conversation with Gabe Zichermann, will discuss his book, How to Burn a Rainbow, an intimate, honest, and revealing story about divorce and self-love that questions and reframes the entire institution of marriage.
Imagine being married to your dream partner, owning a gorgeous house in LA, being at the top of the global advertising industry, and leaving it all to figure out who the hell you actually really are. That’s what happened to Karl Dunn, whose divorce from his husband in California became his crisis of identity. It’s an Eat Pray Love style, riches-to-rags journey from LA to Europe.
Karl Dunn is a multi-award-winning advertising Creative Director who has lived and worked in eleven cities throughout Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. A global citizen, Karl speaks on a broad section of topics such as Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Self-love — a culmination of his 25 years in international business, his personal experience of divorce, and his passion for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. He is the author of How To Burn A Rainbow, an intimate, honest, and revealing story about divorce and self-love.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39320
Joyce Maynard & How the Light Gets In at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Joyce Maynard will present and discuss her book, How the Light Gets In.
Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface.
How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship). With her trademark sensitivity and insight, Joyce Maynard paints an indelible portrait of characters both familiar and new making their way over rough, messy, and treacherous terrain to find their way to what is, for each, a place to call “home.”
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday, the 28th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Joyce-Maynard-discusses-How-the-Light-Gets-In
Culver City Book Festival at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event
The Culver City Book Festival is returning for its third year to the Wende Museum, celebrating the vibrant literary community of Los Angeles and Greater Southern California. This inclusive and accessible event showcases the work of local authors, publishers, journals, and literary non-profits.
We will have 20 to 30 tables featuring local authors, small presses, and literary organizations, along with engaging author panels and creative activities for both adults and children.
Open to the public. Free Entry.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Wende Museum, with Village Well Bookstore & Coffee
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 10 am – 4 pm
Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/39382
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Tumble via Sunland Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person MG Event
Middle-Grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions. This month, we will be reading Tumble by Celia Perez.
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 details.
Where: Sunland Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: Online Event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-25
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Tumble via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person MG Event
Middle-Grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions. This month, we will be reading Tumble by Celia Perez.
RSVP:
Please email akagan@lapl.org or gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: Online Event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-tumble-celia-perez
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
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-1
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Tumble via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person MG Event
Middle-Grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions. This month, we will be reading Tumble by Celia Perez.
RSVP:
Please email akagan@lapl.org or gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: Online Event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-tumble-celia-perez
Multilingual Open Mic Poetry at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Enjoy the unifying power of poetry in many languages!
Do you write in a language other than English? You are invited to recite your original poetry, lyrics, or spoken word piece and to present it in English translation. Each poet will have five minutes to read an original work.
If you don’t wish to read, please join us in the audience.
Our featured poet will be Martín Negrón-Pérez. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Martín recently moved to LA for work. They believe in the power of poetry as witchcraft and are on a journey of (re)discovering their poetic voice. Martín was awarded 1st place in the II Concurso Internacional de Poesía Julio Cortázar (Argentina, 2023), and the I Certamen Literario LGTBIQA+ “Don Benito Diverso” (Spain, 2022). Their poetry has also appeared in several journals in Latin America.
RSVP:
To sign up as a presenter, please email eaglrk@lapl.org.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/multilingual-open-mic-poetry
Mini Comic Fest at Culver Center of the Arts, with Inlandia Institute – In-Person Event
Culver Center of the Arts Mini Comic Fest is back! This event brings together artists, writers, creators, and scholars to discuss comics, culture, and industry.
The event will feature panel discussions and the Black Kirby exhibition “Whatever Happened to Dyno-Woman: The Alternative History of an Afrofuturist Icon” on view now at the Culver Center of the Arts.
NOTE: See site for registration, cost, & details.
Where: Inlandia at Culver Center for the Arts
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 1 pm – 5 pm
Address: 3824 Main Street, Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://inlandiainstitute.org/my-calendar/?mc_id=2334
Spoken Word/Spoken Art Series: Reflections (L.A. River ARTS) with Nancy Woo & Ann Wellman at Long Beach Main Library, The Miller Room – In-Person Event
Please join us for a special performance of “Reflections: How Does It Feel?” produced by LA River ARTS and poet Nancy Woo, with Ann Wellman, Artistic Director of Long Beach Community Theater.
This performance is the result of months of creative field research and “River Sessions“ led by Nancy Woo along the LA River, and presents the best of a curated call for submissions from the community. Creative prompts from Woo resulted in a communal creation of vibrant and diverse reflections about natural and impacted sites of the LA River, centering around themes of restoration, ecology, healing, climate change, environment, and social justice. Performed by professionals and non-professionals alike, these “reflections“ were coached and guided by Ann Wellman of LB Community Theater.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Billie Jean King Main Library, Miller Room
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 200 W. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://www.longbeach.gov/events?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D175163707
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 29th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 672 S. Lafayette St., #10, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.getlit.org/events/
Collective Pride with Gina Duran & Friends via Exposition Park Regional Library – In-Person Live Podcast Event
Join us for a live podcast recording of The Collective Podcast by poet and writer Gina Duran in observance of Pride Month.
Gina Duran is a Queer Indigenous Xicanc poet, playwright, essayist, educator, and founder of the IE Hope Collective, an outreach that helps people living on the streets and in shelters, which provides poetry, art, and yoga workshops for low-income, homeless, foster, refugee, and LGBTQ2S+ youth. She was a Theatre Of Hearts/Youth First Artist-In-Residence, the Guest Editor of Boundless 2022, of The Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, and is currently the Host for The Collective on KQBH, Substack, and Spotify. When she’s not making art and building community, Duran is an MFA Grad student at Antioch University (in LA) while she works as a Substitute teacher, Yoga Instructor, Massage Therapist, and youth program director. She feels art and community can and will lead to positive change.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Exposition Park Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 3900 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA
Website: https://allevents.in/los%20angeles/collective-pride-with-gina-and-friends/200026504684747
Meet & Greet Book Signing: Tiffany Haddish & I Curse You With Joy at Malik Books, Culver City – In-Person Event
Join us for a meet & greet book signing event with stand-up comedian, actress, and author Tiffany Haddish, author of the essay collection, I Curse You With Joy.
Readers last sat down with Tiffany in her bestselling debut The Last Black Unicorn. Since then, Haddish has catapulted to A-list fame as the breakout star of Girls Trip. She’s walked the Oscars red carpet, released a hit stand-up special with Netflix, and made history as the first Black female comedian to host Saturday Night Live and Shark Week.
But it hasn’t been all VIP parties and free diving with apex predators. In these humorous and heartfelt essays, Tiffany gets real about the highs and lows of life.
It took a fake penis, some help from friends, and a little encouragement from Bob Saget, but eventually Tiffany figured out Tiffany. I Curse You With Joy celebrates all the lessons she learned along the way—the joy and the pain. Tiffany reckons with the legacy of her childhood trauma, the challenges of being a Black woman in the entertainment industry, and her bittersweet reunion with her estranged father after twenty years apart. Don’t worry, she’s got plenty of advice to share, too.
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Malik Books, Westfield Culver City Mall, Suite 2820
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 6000 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230
Website: https://malikbooks.com/events-1/ola/services/meet-and-greet-booksigning-with-tiffany-haddish
Poetry From Our City: VOTH (Voice of the Harbor) & Dieagnosis at Collage – a Place for Art & Culture – In-Person Event
The work of the poet known as VOTH goes to some strange and dark places, examining bullying, the death of loved ones, and other traumas, but providing hope, reassurance, and affirmation. As a critic observed, “His words guide us all to swim out of our darkest hours toward shores of inner sanctuary where healing can begin.”
VOTH will present a reading and conversation about his challenging new book, Dieagnosis.
Collage is a 49-seat nonprofit art gallery and concert space with excellent acoustics and a quality sound system. We are located less than one and a half miles from the south end of the Harbor Freeway, and there are public lots on 7th Street and behind the building across the street. Street parking in our area is free after 6 PM and all day Sunday. There is a bus stop one block from our door with frequent service to downtown Long Beach, Downtown LA, and other destinations.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Collage – a Place for Art & Culture
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 731 S Pacific Ave, San Pedro, CA 90731
Website: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/f131e154-0b36-4ef1-9476-9ebb7d6b5509
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Four Feathers Press Online Edition Awards – Online Zoom Event
Publishing Party: Online Edition Poetry Awards for Four Feathers Press. All nominees and finalists may read at this event.
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (See site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Joseph Earl Thomas, with Bertrand Cooper, & God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Joseph Earl Thomas, in conversation with author and journalist Bertrand Cooper, will discuss his debut book, God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer.
Join us to hear author and poet Joseph Earl Thomas discuss his debut novel, God bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer.
Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer from Frankford in Philadelphia whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in VQR, N+1, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and The Kenyon Review. He has an MFA in prose from the University of Notre Dame and is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. An excerpt of his memoir, SINK, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize and he has received fellowships from Fulbright, VONA, Tin House, and Bread Loaf. He’s currently writing a collection of stories, Leviathan Beach, among other oddities. God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer is his debut novel.
Bertrand Cooper is a freelance writer with bylines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Current Affairs. His work examines popular culture as an industry and considers it in light of the economic classes its participants represent. Currently, he is writing a book on class disparity and exclusion in the production of Black art and thought.
Where: Reparations Club
Date: Saturday, the 29th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave LA, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/joseph-earl-thomas-event
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 spoken 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.
NOTE: Check every Sunday for story time and reading events
Where: Melrose Trading Post, Greenway Main Stage at Fairfax HS
Date: Sunday, the 30th (Every Sunday)
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: https://melrosetradingpost.org/tickets/
Burning Issues Book Club: via Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Burning Issues Book Club (BIBC) is an online book club that meets on the last Sunday of the month to discuss non-fiction works related to climate change and environmental and social justice issues.
Participants will discuss The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequity and Disease Collide, by author Steven W. Thrasher.
NOTE: See site for tickets, link, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/burning-issues-book-club-261829
Local Author Day – Young Readers Edition: Laura V. Restrepo & Patricia Restrepo & Another Entitled Chihuahua at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Enter the world of Another Entitled Chihuahua and meet our furry friend, the feisty Chihuahua, in this heartwarming tale for all ages. Silvestre embarks on an unexpected journey to live with Eddy, the grumpy son of his late human parent. To his surprise, there are other animals; he is no longer an only dog.
*Please note we will have a special guest appearance from Silvestre the Chihuahua at this event
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-Young-Readers-Edition-June-2024
Joyce Maynard & How the Light Gets In at Deisel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Joyce Maynard will present and discussHow the Light Gets In.
How the Light Gets In is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her beloved novel Count the Ways—a complex story of three generations of a family and its remarkable, resilient, indomitable matriarch, Eleanor.
Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface.
The story follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship). This is an indelible portrait of characters both familiar and new making their way over rough, messy, and treacherous terrain to find their way to what is, for each, a place to call “home.”
Joyce Maynard is the author of twelve previous novels and five books of nonfiction, as well as the syndicated column, “Domestic Affairs.” Her bestselling memoir, At Home in the World, has been translated into sixteen languages. Her novels To Die For and Labor Day were both adapted for film. Maynard divides her time between homes in California, New Hampshire, and Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Joyce-Maynard-Author-signing
Vroman’s Local Author Day: Barbara Hoskins, Betsy Mitchell and Ann Worthington, & Lisa L. Dorsey at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear four authors present their three books.
Barbara Hoskins presents Life Lessons: Parenting Through the Lens of the Maasai People
This book is designed to be a gift from the Maasai people to you. It offers an intimate view of the seven essential life lessons that they rely on to guide their lives and raise children who have the skills needed to face the challenges of life with courage and competence. This book allows you to look through a different lens and gain a new perspective on life and on parenting. It is the perfect book to keep on your bed stand, discuss with your friends and explore possibilities for your life and your children’s. The proceeds of this book will be donated to support the Maasai people in conserving their culture.
Betsy Mitchell and Ann Worthington present More Than Medals
Betsy Mitchell, 2 x Olympic swimmer, world record holder and champion, 7 x NCAA champion and Director of Athletics at Caltech in Pasadena. More Than Medals details in memoir-esque style the journey in her rise to greatness in swimming and the 12 life lessons that she has applied to her personal and professional life. This is a love letter to amateur athletics and a call to action for youth sport parents who are guiding the next generation of young athletes in these excessive and perhaps broken athletic times.
Lisa L. Dorsey presents Petra: An Unbroken Legacy
Petra: An Unbroken Legacy is a gripping tale of intrigue, adventure, and romance, set in a dual timeline that transports you to a realm where history and destiny collide in the heart of Petra. Follow the compelling journey of Kasim and Issa as they navigate a world of ancient secrets, where faith, love, and legacy intertwine to create an epic saga with twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Kasim, the inheritor of a profound heritage steeped in first-century Christian tradition, holds the keys to ancient secrets that need protecting. Issa, a renowned archeologist, joins Kasim on a quest to unveil centuries-old mysteries.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday the 30th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-June-2024
The Angeles Press: Prophets of Los Angeles at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
This event celebrates the written word with Los Angeles Press and readings by poets and writers:
Bernadette McCormish is a poet and teacher and the author of The Book of Johns (2018)
Christina Cha is a writer of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The Coachella Review, Pratik, and The Los Angeles Press, and was shortlisted for the 46th New Millennium Writing Award for Nonfiction. One of her pieces was just nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize.
Allegra Parks is a therapist, SMEd., LCSW-R, and poet and author of the debut collection, contact boundary.
Arthur Kayzakian is a poet,educator, and author of the Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing series award-winning collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings. He is also the author of the chapbook My Burning City.
Richard Modiano is the author of The Forbidden Lunchbox, winner of the 2022 Joe Hill Prize for labor poetry. He is alsopast executive director of Beyond Baroque.
NOTE: See site for further details and information.
Where: The Book Jewel
Date: Sunday, the 30th
Time: 4:30 pm – 6 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, CA 90045
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8X-psHzj4k/?hl=en
Earthseed Symposium Book Club: Tentacle at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Earthseed Symposium Book Club is a speculative Fiction Book Club.
June participants will meet to discuss Tentacle by Rita Indiana.
Plucked from her life on the streets of post-apocalyptic Santo Domingo, young maid Acilde Figueroa finds herself at the heart of a Santería prophecy: only she can travel back in time and save the ocean – and humanity – from disaster. But first she must become the man she always was – with the help of a sacred anemone. Tentacle is an electric novel with a big appetite and a brave vision, plunging headfirst into questions of climate change, technology, Yoruba ritual, queer politics, poverty, sex, colonialism and contemporary art. Bursting with punk energy and lyricism, it’s a restless, addictive trip: The Tempest meets the telenovela.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Sunday, the 30th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lwfqitu1
Prentice Hemphill and Sarah Jones & What It Takes to Heal at Rep Club Off-site at The Gathering Spot – In-Person Event
Prentice Hemphill, in conversation with Sarah Jones, will discuss his book, What It Takes to Heal.
Writer, embodiment facilitator, political organizer, and therapist Prentice Hemphill, in conversation with Tony award-winning performer, writer and director Sarah Jones, will discuss their new book, What It Takes to Heal.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Rep Club Off-site at The Gathering Spot
Date: Sunday, the 30th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 5211 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Los Angeles Literature 