Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Calling all writers! Get those creative juices flowing and join our writers’ group as everyone shares their work and gives feedback.
This group mostly meets in person, but email rbrtsn@lapl.org if you’d prefer to join via Zoom.
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm
Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/writers-group-1
Community Book Discussion: The Sum of Us at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the book The Sum of Us, by author Heather McGhee.
Join the Office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell for a discussion on key themes in the book The Sum of Us, including our journey to collective prosperity and the impact racism has on our communities. The discussion is open to all; prior reading of the book is not required to attend.
The book club selections will align with Racial Justice Learning Exchange public events focused on shared histories and current dynamics impacting racial justice.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Monday, the 29th
Time: 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/40750
Bilingual Family Storytime at Anaheim Public Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Calling all writers! Get those creative juices flowing and join our writers group as everyone shares their work and gives feedback.
This group mostly meets in person, but email rbrtsn@lapl.org if you’d prefer to join via Zoom.
Where: Anaheim Public Library, Central Children’s Room
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 200 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim, CA 92805
Website: https://anaheim.net/calendar.aspx?CID=38,24,52&showPastEvents=false
Fiction Book Club: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by author Gabrielle Zevin.
In this story, two friends who become partners in the world of video design find that success brings fame, joy, deceit, and a kind of immortality.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Monday, the 29th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/calendar
R.U.P.O. Open Mic at Back to the Grind in Riverside – In-Person Event
R.U.P.O. Open Mic is every Monday Night at Back to the Grind in Riverside.
Every Monday at a new time: 7pm to 9pm. Sign-ups are at 6:30pm and in person only, $4 cash admission. See you then!
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Back to the Grind, Riverside
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind
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 29th
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-953367406577?aff=erelexpmlt
Author Talk: Dan Santat & Telling Your Own Story in a Graphic Novel via L.A. County Library, LACL – Online Event
Join this year’s winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, Dan Santat, and get inspired to tell your story through the exciting and growing medium of graphic novels. Recommended for school age kids and families.
Dan Santat is a Caldecott Medal winner, a National Book Award winner, and a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. His artwork is also featured in numerous picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels. Santat created the animated television show, “The Replacements,” as well. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.
Where: L.A. County Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10946593
Tween Book Club: The Last Last-Day-of Summer at A.C. Bilbrew Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Continue your summer of fun by reading: The Last-Day-of-Summer by Lamar Giles. Join us for a brief chat about this book along with trivia, games, crafts and other fun activities! Recommended for ages 9 – 12. Reading level: 3rd – 7th grade.
Where: A.C, Bilbrew Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm
Address:150 E El Segundo Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90061
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11056651
Zoom Book Club: Vaster Wilds via Venice Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Zoom Event
Join us the last Tuesday of each month for a discussion of our current selection. Copies are available at the front desk. For Zoom link email venice@lapl.org
Participants will discuss the survivalist novel Vaster Wilds by author Lauren Groff.
Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/zoom-book-club-0
Virtual Book Launch: Tammy Winfrey-Harris & A Black Women’s Guide to Getting Free via Bel Canto Books, Long Beach – Online Event
This is a virtual event, hosted via Zoom. Please kindly RSVP to receive the meeting link.
Tammy Winfrey-Harris will present and discuss her book A Black Women’s Guide to Getting Free.
Tamara Winfrey Harris harnesses her knowledge as a two-time author and storyteller of the Black femme experience and nationally known expert on the intersections of race and gender to deliver a sharp feminist analysis that is illustrated by real-life stories and examples plucked from popular culture and intimate Black woman-to-Black woman truth-telling.
This book is separated into two parts. First, the meaning of liberation is explored and Black women will be guided in creating sustaining practice to mature their well-being along the freedom journey.
In part two, readers are introduced to the 6 pillars of living free as a Black woman:
Spot the distortions
Know your truth
Celebrate the real you
Understand the cost of liberation
Practice freedom
SEE free Black women everywhere
Tamara Winfrey-Harris is a writer, speaker and dedicated champion for all women and girls. She serves as president of Women’s Fund of Central Indiana, a special interest fund of Central Indiana Community Foundation that convenes, invests and advocates so all who identify as women or girls in Central Indiana have an equitable opportunity to reach their full potential no matter their place, race or identity. As a writer, Tamara specializes in the ever-evolving space where current events, politics and pop culture intersect with race and gender. She says, “I tell the stories of Black women and girls to deliver the truth to all those folks who got us twisted—tangled up in racist and sexist lies. My sisters are better than alright. We are amazing.”
Tamara is the author of the award-winning The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America (Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2015); Dear Black Girl: Letters From Your Sisters On Stepping Into Your Power(Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2021); and A Black Woman’s Guide to Getting Free(Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2024). Her commentary, articles and essays have been published in media outlets, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” and books, including The Lemonade Reader: Beyonce, Black Feminism and Spirituality (Routledge, 2019); The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery (Wayne State University Press, 2018); and Black in the Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest (Black Belt Publishing, 2020).
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-book-launch-with-tamara-winfrey-harris-tickets-933848083757
Persian Poetry Forum & Ronit Farzam: Metamorphosis in Conversation at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
For Dr. Ronit Farzam, her poetry is a reflection of her own development, like a mirror. The juxtaposition and combination of words, whether with a classic meter or in a modern style, has formed a body of work that captures her personal and spiritual development while simultaneously facilitating her becoming and metamorphosis. Her poetry explores themes of love, loss, immigration, family, and personal and spiritual development. Her recently published book, divided into five chapters, compiles a selection of poems written over the past 30 years. In this program, Ronit will discuss her poetry and the experiences that shape it.
The Persian Poetry Forum of Los Angeles (PerPForm LA) is a library-founded, library-centered programming framework for people of all backgrounds to come together to learn about Persian poetry. The emphasis of the group is to build bridges, engender dialogue, and create a sense of community and well-being in the Los Angeles area by sharing an interest in Persian poetry. We encourage the understanding, interpretation, and discussion of the deeper meanings of Persian poetry in day-to-day life for the development of a community, promotion of mental and enhancement of emotional health and well-being. Our forum promotes a platform to share and discuss both classical and modern Persian poetry and encourages both well-versed and amateur poets to also come and share their poetry. Our programs are mostly presented in the Persian language.
For more information, please email Persian@lapl.org.
Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7:15
Address: 12006 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/los-angeles-persian-poetry-forum
Book Club: What Lives in the Woods at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss What Lives in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall.
Bibliophiles welcomed! Join us each month for a facilitated discussion of fiction and nonfiction titles. A limited number of copies are available for book club attendees at the library. For adults.
Where: El Monte Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave, El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11022771
Iacoboni Book Club: Calico Joe at Iacoboni Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel Calico Joe by John Grisham.
Join us for our monthly book club! This month we’ll be discussing Calico Joe by John Grisham. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.
Where: Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11056632
Off the Island Book Club: L.A. Weather at Avalon Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the One Book, One County novel L.A. Weather by Maria Amparo Escadon. For adults.
We’ll have special materials on display and can discuss plans to watch an author talk taking place in downtown LA that will be attended by everyone in LA County! Also, snacks will be served!
Where: Avelon Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11145563
Three Authors Event: Christian Gullette, Dan O’Brien and Noah Warren Present: Coachella Elegy, Survivors’ Notebook and The Complete Stories at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Winner of the 2023 Trio Award, Christian Gullette’s Coachella Elegy explores the queer promised lands and poolside utopias of the American West even as they are threatened by environmental destruction.
With precision and clarity, Gullette’s poems wander the desert landscape of California, reveling in its beauties and challenging its sacred myths. His speaker seamlessly transports us from a hospital room where his husband battles cancer to the Palm Springs oasis where the vacationing couple celebrates survival. But their days of mimosas and the “spirit of unrestraint” are haunted by tragedy—the death of a young brother, the danger of climate change. In this utterly original debut, Gullette casts “a dream world that doesn’t erode, doesn’t mold,” a story of pleasure against the odds, a story of endurance. Coachella Elegy is a lament for what is lost, and also an unforgettable song of hope and renewal.
Christian Gullette is the author of the debut poetry collection Coachella Elegy, winner of the 2023 Trio House Press Trio Award and included in 2024 must-read lists by LitHub, Electric Lit, Alta and Debutiful. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, the Poem-a-Day (Academy of American Poets), and The Yale Review. Christian completed his Ph.D. in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley, and when not serving as the editor-in-chief of The Cortland Review, he works as a lecturer and translator. He lives in San Francisco.
Dan O’Brien’s powerful companion to Our Cancers catalogs the recovery of a cancer survivor, whose wife has recently survived her own cancer, as he returns to his daily life while raising a young daughter. This prose-poem sequence is a true survivor’s notebook, using photos and the tools of memoir to evoke how disaster can constellate our past, present, and future.
In his poems, plays, and nonfiction, Dan O’Brien has explored, as he says in a 2023 interview, “how trauma shatters identity, and in its aftermath we reconfigure and rewrite, as it were, the story of who we were and are and maybe will be.” In highly personal poems reminiscent of dramatic monologues, as well as shorter lyric fragments, the protagonist reconsiders the people and places he knew before his illness, including his estranged family and others with cancer. While looking back he moves forward again, resuming his career as a writer and teacher, revisiting Ireland, and making a kind of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There is a confiding and at times comical tone in these poems as O’Brien awakens to the delights, absurdities, and wonders of existence, and as he and his wife work through the aftershocks of their trauma toward a deeper love.
Dan O’Brien is a poet, playwright, and nonfiction writer. His recognition includes the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Noah Warren is the author of The Complete Stories (Copper Canyon, 2021) and The Destroyer in the Glass, chosen by Carl Phillips for the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets. His poems appear in The Nation, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, among other venues. He holds a PhD in English from UC Berkeley and joins the University of Vermont this fall as Assistant Professor.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., #33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Christian-Gullette-Dan-O-Brien-Noah-Warren-Author-signing
Sci-Fi Book Launch: Grand Theft AI at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
“The Matrix meets Blade Runner” in Grand Theft AI, the debut novel by filmmaker James Cox!
Cox and moderator Nicq Hale (First Wives Club) will discuss the writing process, their careers in film and television, and what the future holds for James, the entertainment business, and the world at large in the coming Golden Age of AI.
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
James Cox is an award-winning filmmaker who has written and directed several motion pictures, including Wonderland starring Val Kilmer and the acclaimed short film “Atomic Tabasco.” A die-hard 49ers fan, James lives with his fiancée in Los Angeles, where he is writing the sequel to his debut novel, Grand Theft AI.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/40733
LGTBTQ Book Club: The Man Who Say Everything at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Zoom Event
Participants will discuss The Man Who Saw Everything by author Deborah Levy.
Summary provided by the publisher:
It is 1988 and Saul Adler, a narcissistic young historian, has been invited to Communist East Berlin to do research; in exchange, he must publish a favorable essay about the German Democratic Republic. As a gift for his translator’s sister, a Beatles fanatic who will be his host, Saul’s girlfriend will shoot a photograph of him standing in the crosswalk on Abbey Road, an homage to the famous album cover. As he waits for her to arrive, he is grazed by an oncoming car, which changes the trajectory of his life.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10749601
Owen Elliot-Kugell & My Mama: Cass at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Owen Elliot-Kugell will discuss her memoir My Mama: Cass, the story of her mother Cass Elliot, the chariscmatic rock star from the Mamas and Papas band.
In the nearly 50 years since Cass Elliot’s untimely death at the age of 32, rumors and myths have swirled about, shading nearly every aspect of her life. In her long-awaited memoir, Owen Elliot-Kugell shares the groundbreaking story of her mom as only a daughter can tell it.
At its core, My Mama, Cass is a beautifully crafted testament befitting of Cass Elliot’s enduring cultural impact and legacy, written by the person who knew and loved her best
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/owen-elliot-kugell
Soizick Jaffre & A Good Sport at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
Soizick Jaffre will discuss and present her graphic memoir, A Good Sport.
Written and drawn by Soizick Jaffre, this graphic novel details her participation in the 2018 Gay Games, her lifelong love of athletics, and her own personal search for freedom as she journeys from the beaches of France to the streets of Saigon, from the cafes of Tel Aviv to the bowling alleys of America. Along the way we learn some of the history of the Gay Games and their origins in Olympian Tom Waddell’s fight against discrimination. We also see how the Games provide a gathering point for a world of queer athletes whose drive to compete is also an expression of their personal struggles for equal rights in their home countries. With her colorful stylized illustrations, Jaffre deftly balances both personal and world history to paint a picture of feminist triumph and queer self-determination.
Soijick Jaffre is an author and comics artist born in Angoulême, France in 1978. She has published fiction, poetry, comics, and autobiographical stories in various independent publications in North America and Europe, such as 𝘈𝘓𝘗𝘏𝘈𝘉𝘌𝘛 (Stacked Deck Press) and 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 (Abrams Books). She is known for her visually rich, expressive style that runs the gamut from realistic portrayal to eye-popping surrealism.
We are pleased to present this event in conjunction with 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀, a California-based publishing house specializing in comics and coloring books of LGBTQAIU interest. Check out their other offerings at https://stackeddeckpress.com/
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/3675912899329024
At Skylight: Maria Bamford and Scott Marvel Cassidy, & Hogbook and Lazer Eyes at Skylight – In-Person Event
Maria Bamford and Scott Marvel Cassidy will sign their book Hogbook and Lazer Eyes.
NOTE: This is a signing only event.
Fans of Maria Bamford’s acclaimed quasi-autobiographical Lady Dynamite Netflix series already know of her romance with LA painter Scott Marvel Cassidy, as well as her droll pug sidekicks Blueberry and Bert. Now the story has been recounted in this graphic novella written by Bamford/Cassidy, drawn by Cassidy, and narrated by the rescue dogs they’ve adopted.
Newly single fortysomethings Maria Bamford and Scott Cassidy each signed up on the dating site OkCupid, under the respective usernames “Hogbook” and “Lazer Eyes.” They went on a date, and then another, and soon, despite a history of Bipolar II disorder and unhealthy relationships for each of them, they fell in love and were married in 2015. We view all of this through the prism of their pug housemates, including Blueberry and Bert (who has an unnatural obsession with Michael Flatley of “Riverdance” fame), and the elderly bonded pair Betty and Arnold (who recount their star turn as interplanetary canine scientists in the second season of Lady Dynamite).
Cassidy’s fine art training translates with ease into graphic storytelling, with a naturalistic illustrative style that is a pitch-perfect match for Bamford’s comic timing, making Hogbook and Lazer Eyes a beautifully illustrated love story, told by some incredibly charming pugs.
Maria Bamford is a writer, actor, and stand-up comedian. She and husband, Scott Marvel Cassidy, live in Los Angeles, CA.
Scott Marvel Cassidy is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts whose work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N, Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027
Muse of Fire Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show – In-Person Event
The Muse of Fire Open Mic is hosted by Philosophy at The Wicked Wolf. Ages 21+
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: The Wicked Wolf
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 9: pm
Address: 2332 Pacific Ave., Long Beach, CA 90806
Website: https://www.lbpoetry.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/philosophystyle/
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest Reader Ruth Bavetta – Online Zoom Event
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with host Rick Luper presents guest reader Ruth Bavetta and an open mic.
Ruth Bavetta’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod, North American Review, Slant, American Journal of Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been an Associate Editor for Good Works Review and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, fundamentalism and sauerkraut. What’s Left Over is her fifth book.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com
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 Inurbane Coffee House. Hosted by Deforest Wright, all are invited to attend.
Guest poet of the month: Jennifer Kelly, author of Coming to Love My Darkest Places.
NOTE: Details at event link. Check to Verify.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
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: Women + Femmes at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
Every 5th Tuesday of the month we celebrate Women and Femme voices only on the mic. This open mic is hosted by Yesika Salgado and Jasmine Williams, with music and vibes by DJ Faucet.
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 30th
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
The Book Bridge Panel: Connecting Generations Through Literature via Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a panel of three Ghanaian authors as they discuss how writers like them can help reconnect children to their culture.
Elizabeth-Irene Baitie is a multiple award-winning author of books set in Ghana for children and young adults.
Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a multi-genre author, working across poetry, radio, fiction, and children’s writing.
Mamle Wolo is a children’s author whose books include The Kaya Girl and Flying Through Water.
Moderator Isaac Quist has enjoyed an extensive career as an educator in Ghana and beyond.
Streaming live on LAPL’s YouTube channel.
This event is a collaboration with the Writers Project of Ghana.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 31st
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-bridge-connecting-generations-literature
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 31st
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: On-air Event (live)
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/
Iacoboni Book Club: Calico Joe at Iacoboni Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the novel Calico Joe by John Grisham.
Join us for our monthly book club! This month we’ll be discussing Calico Joe by John Grisham. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.
Where: Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11056633
One Book, One County Book Club: L.A. Weather at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will meet to discuss the novel L.A. Weather by author María Amparo Escandón.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 3 pm
Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/one-book-one-county-book-discussion
Creative Journalingat El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Teen Event
Creative journaling is a form of self-expression that allows you to record your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Join us to make your own journal. All materials will be provided. While supplies last. For teens, ages 13 – 17.
This type of journaling can be used to work through problems, form new ideas, or just to relax and reflect.
Where: El Monte Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave, El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11104402
Looking at Art: The Book – Create Your Own Zine at Teen Council at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
It’s Teen’Scape’s turn to celebrate Looking at Art: The Book with a fun program to make our own Zines to add to Teen’Scape’s growing Zine collection. A Zine is a kind of self-published magazine. Before the internet, during the 1970s-1990s, everyday people made Zines as a way to convey information, start discussions, or share important ideas. Join us for this one-hour program where we’ll learn to make a simple, eight-page Zine. Participants can choose to donate copies to Teen’Scape’s Zine Collection.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Teen’Scape
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/looking-art-book-create-your-own-zine-teen-council
Sci-Fi Book Club: The Road to Roswell at Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us as we discuss The Road to Roswell by author Connie Willis. Copies of this novel are available at the library.
Part alien-abduction adventure and part road trip saga, this novel is packed full of Elvis impersonators, Men in Black, tourist traps, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world and still make it back for the wedding?
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 6250 Sylmar Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91401
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sci-fi-book-club-road-roswell-connie-willis
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 31st
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Mystery Book Discussion: The Violin Conspiracy at Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Mystery book discussion is back and online. Join us for an engaging conversation about these books.
Participants will discuss The Violin Conspiracy by author Brendan Slocum.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-discussion
Community Conversation: The Anxious Generation at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us at Village Well Books & Coffee for a community-led discussion of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
Frances Rosenau and Danielle Weiner, local parents involved with Culver City schools, will facilitate a conversation about the impact of cell phones in schools. The conversation will focus on whether educators and parents should put restrictions on cell phone use, with Haidt’s book as a guide.
The discussion is open to all; prior reading of the book is not required to attend.
Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/40792
Mystery & Thriller Book Club: Everybody Knows at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us on the last Wednesday of the month for our Mystery and Thriller book club.
Participants will discuss Everybody Knows by author Jordan Harper.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for details.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-thriller-book-club-1
One Book, One County Book Club: L.A. Weather at Hawaiian Gardens Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss L.A. Weather by author María Amparo Escandón. For adults.
The book 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: Hawaiian Gardens Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 11940 E. Carson St., Hawaiian Gardens, CA 90716
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11129623
Personal Essay Boot Camp: the Fourth Genre with Jerry Mathes via Inlandia Institute – Online Zoom Event
Participants will explore moments from their lives and utilize research to uncover connections between themselves and the wider world–topics can include nature, science, travel, culture, history–to write personal essays that ring with humanity.
J.D. Mathes grew up a feral child in the deserts of the American Southwest who loved to read library books and take photographs. He is a 2019-2020 PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow, a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar alumnus, an award-winning author of four books, photographer, screenwriter, and arts reporter. Although Mathes still struggles with subject-verb agreement and where to put commas, he is finishing work on his memoir, Of Time and Punishment.
NOTE: See link for cost, details.
Where: Inlandia Institute
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://docs.google.com/forms
James Ishmael Ford, with Dr. Chris Hoff, & The Intimate Way of Zen at Book Soup – In-Person Event
James Ishmael Ford, in conversation with Dr. Chris Hoff, will discuss his book The Intimate Way of Zen.
The author reflects on more than fifty years of practice in Zen Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, and other contemplative traditions, and invites us into a journey through life’s mysteries and the stages of spiritual development.
Ford’s exploration is rooted in the Zen way while being deeply enriched by various strains of world mysticism. The book, sprinkled with insights and quotes from Buddhist, Daoist, and Christian traditions, serves as a map and a companion to spiritual seekers or pilgrims—whether within one religious tradition or cobbling together a way of one’s own.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/james-ishmael-ford
RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.
This dynamic open mic is the most accessible public program in our curriculum and manifests our mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.
Join us at the intersection of Historic Filipinotown & The World: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where: SIPA HQ
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
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: Andrea Freeman, with Priscilla Ocen, & Ruin Their Cops on the Ground at Skylight – In-Person Event
Andrea Freeman, in conversationwith Priscilla Ocen, will sign her book Ruin Their Crops on the Ground.
In 1779, to subjugate Indigenous nations, George Washington ordered his troops to “ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.” Destroying harvests is just one way that the United States has used food as a political tool. Trying to prevent enslaved people from rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only enough to fuel labor. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses.
From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on over fifteen years of research to argue that U.S. food law and policy have created and maintained racial and social inequality. In an epic, sweeping account, Andrea Freeman, who pioneered the term “food oppression,” moves from colonization to slavery to the Americanization of immigrant food culture, to the commodities supplied to Native reservations, to milk as a symbol of white supremacy. She traces the long-standing alliance between the government and food industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities, and she shows how these practices continue to this day, through the marketing of unhealthy goods that target marginalized communities, causing diabetes, high blood pressure, and premature death.
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground is a groundbreaking addition to the history and politics of food. It will permanently upend the notion that we freely and equally choose what we put on our plates.
Andrea Freeman, a pioneer in the field of food politics, is a Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School. A Fulbright scholar and author of Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice, Freeman has published and appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, The Takeaway, Here & Now, The New Yorker, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Agenda Report, and more. She lives in Los Angeles.
Priscilla Ocen is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School. Her work explores intersections of race, gender, class, and criminalization. Her writing appears in academic journals and The Atlantic, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Ebony, and Al Jazeera. She received the inaugural PEN America Writing for Justice Literary Fellowship, served as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the California Department of Justice, former Chair of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Oversight Commission, and Fulbright Fellow in Kampala, Uganda.
Where: Skylight
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N, Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027
Book Launch: Chia-Lun Chang & Prescribee at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
An arch, precise collection of poems that casts world-historical hierarchies in an aspic mold and serves them back to us on a warped platter.
Wielding English as a foreign language and medium, Chang redefines the history of Taiwan and captures the alienation of immigrant experience with a startlingly original voice.
Chia-Lun Chang is the author of Prescribee (2022), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, named among the “Best Poetry of the Last Year” by Ms. magazine, and honored as a Poets & Writers debut poet. She has published three chapbooks: Sinkable Notion, An Alien Well-Tamed and One Day We Become Whites. Her recent work appears in Academy of American Poets, Granta, Bomb, Columbia Journal, 2021 Best Taiwanese Poetry, and Brooklyn Rail. Chang has received support from the Jerome Foundation, Vermont Studio Center and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan, Chia-Lun lives in Brooklyn, where she teaches hybrid poetry at the Poetry Project.
In conversation with James Fujinami Moore. Moore’s debut poetry collection is indecent hours (Four Way Books, 2022), winner of the 2023 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry and the 2024 AAAS Outstanding Achievement Book Award in Poetry, and finalist for the Golden Poppy’s Martin Cruz Smith Award & the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Barrow Street’s 4×2, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, Jet Fuel Review, The Margins, the Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received fellowships from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016. He lives in Los Angeles.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Melissa Mogollon, with Greg Mania, & Oye at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Melissa Mogollon, in conversation with Greg Mania, will discuss her book Oye: A Novel.
Structured as a series of one-sided phone calls from our spunky, sarcastic narrator, Luciana, to her older sister, Mari, this wildly inventive debut “jump-starts your heart in the same way it piques your ear” (Xochitl Gonzalez). As the baby of her large Colombian American family, Luciana is usually relegated to the sidelines. But now she finds herself as the only voice of reason in the face of an unexpected crisis: A hurricane is heading straight for Miami, and her eccentric grandmother, Abue, is refusing to evacuate. Abue is so one-of-a-kind she’s basically in her own universe, and while she often drives Luciana nuts, they’re the only ones who truly understand each other. So when Abue, normally glamorous and full of life, receives a shocking medical diagnosis during the storm, Luciana’s world is upended.
Oye unfolds like the most fascinating and entertaining conversation you’ve ever eavesdropped on: a rollicking, heartfelt, and utterly unique novel that celebrates the beauty revealed and resilience required when rewriting your own story.
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. He lives and writes in Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s in the Atrium next door,
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 709 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 120, Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/vromans-fiction-reading-group-10
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, at vkaliflowers@gmail.com.
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — TBA;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $5.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.
NOTE: See site for further details and any change in the schedule. Contact kaliflowers@gmail.com or call (323) 293-2451.
Where: The World Stage
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/ or https://www.facebook.com/anansiwritersworkshop/
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
Beyond Baroque’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered on Zoom and welcomes new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please sign up for each workshop session at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, and you will be contacted with instructions on how to join the meeting.
The workshop facilitator this quarter is Rooja Mohassessy, an Iranian-born poet and educator. She is a MacDowell Fellow and an MFA graduate of Pacific University, Oregon. Her ekphrastic debut collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine (Feb 2023) was the winner of the 22nd Annual Elir Poetry Award. Rooja has been featured on NPR, The Hive Poetry Collective, and other poetry podcasts and radio stations. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Nimrod, Poet Lore, RHINO Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, CALYX Journal, Ninth Letter, Cream City Review, The Adroit Journal, New Letters, The Rumpus, The Journal, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. Her work is also anthologized in California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology, and Colossus: Body, a compilation of writings by Californians writing on the themes of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. Rooja is an editorial assistant at the journal Prairie Schooner.
Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. There’s an instructive video that might help.
The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
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-957244944397
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Featured Guests: Robert Wynne and Marcos James at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights features Robert Wynne and Marcos James.
Robert Wynne earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. A former co-editor of Cider Press Review, he has published 6 chapbooks, and 3 full-length books of poetry, the most recent being Self-Portrait as Odysseus, published in 2011 by Tebot Bach Press. He’s won numerous prizes, and his poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies throughout North America. Having retired from IT word in 2023, he lives in Burleson, TX with his wife and their German Shepherd Charlie.
Marcos James (she/they) is an award-winning spoken word artist, teacher, and community advocate. They have performed at venues across California including, Dodgers Stadium, Warped Tour and Verses & Flow. Her work has been recognized by the United Nations, Planned Parenthood, and the California Endowment for the Arts. She was a co-writer for the Sundance premiering film Summertime (2020) directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada. Since then, they have worked alongside Estrada developing a short docu-series for the LA Times known as LA Food Art Music highlighting food and culture throughout the Los Angeles region. Currently, they reside in Berkeley, CA where they are a co-creator of Camp Cvnt: an art collective focused on curating content and events that are queer as fuck.
$4 cover fee, cash only
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 31st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events or https://allevents.in/mobile/amp-event.php?event_id=200026826833124
Book Club: The Orphan Collector at Hermosa Beach Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will meet to discuss the novel The Orphan Collector by author Ellen Marie Wiseman.
Books are available for check out at the library. For adults.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Hermosa Beach Library, LACL
Date: Thursday, the 1st
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 Am
Address: 550 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11146425
L.A. Book Signing: Elena Armas & The Fiance Dilemmaat The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Celebrate The Fiance Dilemma with author Elena Armas at her ticketed signing event.
NOE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Were: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Thursday the 1st
Time: 3 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 9032
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Open Mic Night at Anaheim Central Library – In-Person Event
Calling all performers: join us every first Thursday of the month at 5:00 p.m. for Open Mic Night at the Anaheim Central Library.
Nancy Lynée Woo will feature and offer a reading of her new work.
A signup sheet will be available on site.
Where: Anaheim Central Library
Date: Thursday the 1st
Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Address: 500 West Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-mic-night-at-anaheim-central-library-tickets-699278188887
Brentwood Writers Workshop at Donald 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 do 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.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Donald Bruce Kauffman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 1st
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-discussion
Flash Fiction Boot Camp with John Brantingham via Inlandia Institute – Online Event
Join John Brantingham for a unique asynchronous class experience, “Flash Fiction: From Your First Flash to Your Full Collection.” While the class will be done remotely and asynchronously, Brantingham will work with students personally, giving them live, one-on-one manuscript consultations as part of the class, so while the lectures are pre-recorded the instruction will be with you and personal focusing on your growth as a writer and your career. The class will cover how to write meaningful stories and how to create a cohesive collection.
John Brantingham was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines, Writers Almanac and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has nineteen books of poetry and fiction including Life: Orange to Pear (Bamboo Dart Press). He is the founder and general editor of The Journal of Radical Wonder. He lives in Jamestown, NY.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Inlandia Institute
Date: Thursday, the 1st (through August 31st)
Time: See site for more info and registration.
Address: Online Event
Website: https://docs.google.com/forms or https://inlandiainstitute.org/events/?month=8&yr=2024
Chris Nashawaty, with Darren Franich, & The Future Was Now at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Chris Nashawaty, in conversation with Darren Franich, will discuss his book The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982.
From legendary entertainment journalist and author of Caddyshack comes a rollicking history of 1980s cinema—how eight legendary sci-fi films changed Hollywood forever
In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within six weeks of one another. E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior changed the careers of some of Hollywood’s now biggest names—altering the art of movie-making to this day.
In The Future Was Now, he recounts the riotous genesis of these films, featuring an all-star cast of Hollywood luminaries and gadflies alike.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday, the 1st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/chris-nashawaty
Inlandia Institute at Artswalk at Riverside Main Library – In-Person Event
Join Inlandia Institute at the Riverside Main Library Community Room during Artswalk on Thursday, August 1, for a “meet and greet” with Creative Writing Workshop Leaders and other members of the Inlandia Community. Learn about fall writing workshops, boot camps, upcoming events, literary prizes, and more. There will be a raffle for free books and the fall workshop of your choice (registration may be limited), plus free Inlandia swag. The presentation starts at 7:00 PM, but doors open at 6:30. Don’t miss it!
Riverside Main Library Community Room is located at 3900 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CA 92501. Free parking is available from the University Avenue entrance.
ASL interpretation will be provided.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Inlandia Institute at Riverside Main Library
Date: Thursday, the 1st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3900 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://inlandiainstitute.org/events/?month=8&yr=2024
At Skylight: James Kilgore, with Vic Liu, & The Warehouse at Skylight – In-Person Event
James Kilgore, inconversationwith Vic Liu, will discuss his book, The Warehouse: A visual Primer on Mass Incarceration.
Mass incarceration is a lived, sensory experience.
The most eye-popping statistics alone cannot relate the enormity of its psychological and societal impacts. This concise, illustrated primer is a collaboration between one of mass incarceration’s sharpest opponents, James Kilgore, and information artist Vic Liu. It brings to life the histories and means of daily survival of the marginalized people ensnared in this racist, ableist system of class-based oppression. The book elegantly weaves together the most insightful activist scholarship with vivid testimonials by incarcerated people as they fight back against oppression and imagine freedom.
Those targeted for incarceration do not simply submit to a monochromatic existence behind bars. The Warehouse showcases the abolition futures being crafted from the inside as people resist through direct action and artistic expression. This book is designed to inform, enrage, and ultimately inspire the same radical hope propelling incarcerated underminers of the carceral state.
James Kilgore is an activist, researcher, and writer based in Urbana, Illinois, where he has lived since paroling from prison in 2009. He is the director of the Challenging E-Carceration project at MediaJustice and the co-director of FirstFollowers Reentry Program in Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of five books, including Understanding E-Carceration and the award-winning Understanding Mass Incarceration (both from The New Press).
Vic Liu is an artist and author who uses design to communicate complex information with empathy. Most recently, Vic published the expanded version of her visually-designed masturbation sex-ed book for all genders and abilities, Bang! Masturbation for All Genders and Abilities, with Microcosm Publishing. Bang! sold approximately 49,000 copies as of April 2023. The cover design also was chosen by AIGA as one of the 50 Books | 50 covers in 2021.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday, the 1st
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N, Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-james-kilgore-vic-liu-present-warehouse
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 2nd
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-87
First Fridays Book Club: L.A. Weather at Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a lively book discussion. Each month, we select a different title to read and discuss.
Call the Memorial Branch at 323-938-2732 to find out the month’s featured title.
Where: Memorial Library, LAPL
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 1 pm
Address: 4625 W. Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90619
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/first-fridays-book-club
Dreaming in Poetry at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
This is a fun, 6-week program to write poetry. Improve your English reading, writing, and presentation skills too! At the end of the program, we will present your poem(s) to an audience. Everyone is welcome; different age groups are encouraged.
For all ages.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Friday, the 2nd (through August 18)
Time: 3 pm
Address: 7935 Vineland Ave., Sun Valley, CA 91352
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/dreaming-poetry
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 26th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave, El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/10240735
Tia Chucha’s Open Mic & El Martillo Press Authors at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event
The Tia Chucha Open Mic is where you can share your palabra, song, or any form of expression up on the mic. All languages and ages are welcome. Sign-ups will be available upon arrival.
This event will feature authors from El Martillo Press reading and sharing their work.
Free entry food and refreshments.
This event is held on the first Friday of the month.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 6:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.tiachucha.org/events
David Alexander & Pictures of Time at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Photographer David Alexander will present and discuss his book Pictures of Time.
The photographs in Pictures of Time explore the intersection of art, science, and, perhaps, philosophy. Each page turn expresses a different view of time in the ordinary world, raising questions such as what is time? Can time be seen?
In his commercial career, David Alexander photographed the Eagles’ Hotel California album cover, the Blues Brothers’ album covers and movie poster, The Terminator movie poster, and many other classic record album covers and movie posters.
Tommy Steele, the Grammy-winning music industry art director and designer for over 40 years with packaging for such artists as Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young, Tina Turner and Foo Fighters, also authored several pop culture recollectible books such as “The Hawaiian Shirt” and “Bowl-O-Rama.”
From Pictures of Time: In the picture collections that follow, there are pictures of people, trees, and flowers in similar or familiar shapes. There are pictures of groupings of people, trees, and flowers organized into related configurations. Flowers and trees that reflect sexuality. Plants and people in similar rhythmic forms. Plants, people, and birds paired in related ways. Flowers and trees aging in ways that are familiar to us. The Pictures of Time project looks at these connections, commonalities, similarities, reflections – these samenesses that reveal time in living things.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/david-alexander
HLT Quan & Become Ungovernable at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Political theorist and award-winning filmmaker H.L.T. Quan, author of BECOME UNGOVERNABLE, in conversation with Steven Osuna, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at California State University, Long Beach, will discuss the current state of feminism, democracy, and the upcoming election.
H. L. T. Quan is a political theorist and an award-winning filmmaker. She is an Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Quan is the author of Growth Against Democracy: Savage Developmentalism in the Modern World and editor of Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lyjd1v82
James Kilgore and Vic Liu & The Warehouse at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
James Kilgore and artist Vic Lui will discuss and present, The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration.
A collaboration between one of mass incarceration’s sharpest opponents, James Kilgore, and information artist Vic Liu, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 is an attractive and accessible illustrated primer that elegantly weaves together insightful and concise activist scholarship with vivid testimonials by incarcerated people as they fight back against oppression and imagine freedom. The book brings to life the histories and means of daily survival of the marginalized people ensnared in this racist, ableist system of class-based oppression and showcases the abolition futures being crafted from the inside as people resist through direct action and artistic expression. This book is designed to inform, enrage, and ultimately inspire the same radical hope propelling incarcerated underminers of the carceral state. Alex S. Vitale, author of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨, called the book “an essential resource for classroom teaching and movement building from someone on the front lines of the battle to dismantle the prison-industrial complex.”
James Kilgore is a researcher and activist based in Urbana, Illinois. He is the author of six books, including the National Book Foundation Award-winning 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: 𝘈 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦’𝘴 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘦𝘺 𝘊𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘙𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦. He drafted four of those volumes during his six and a half years in California prisons. He is currently a Building Community Power Fellow at Community Justice Exchange and formerly a research fellow at MediaJustice, where he founded the Challenging E-Carceration project. He is also director of advocacy and outreach for FirstFollowers Reentry Program in Champaign, Illinois.
Vic Lui is an artist and author who uses design to communicate complex information with empathy. Most recently, Vic published the expanded version of her visually designed masturbation sex-ed book, 𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘨! 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴, with Microcosm Publishing.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/3837139273270505
At Skylight: Sarah Gerard and Juliet Escoria Present Their Books at Skylight – In-Person Event
Sarah Gerard will discuss her book Carrie Carolyn Coco.
On the night of September 28, 2016, twenty-five-year-old Carolyn Bush was brutally stabbed to death in her New York City apartment by her roommate Render Stetson-Shanahan, leaving friends and family of both reeling. In life, Carolyn was a gregarious, smart-mouthed aspiring poet, who had seemingly gotten along well with Render, a reserved art handler. Where had it gone so terribly wrong?
This is the question that has plagued acclaimed author Sarah Gerard and driven her obsessive pursuit to understand this horrific tragedy. In Sarah’s exploration of Carolyn’s life and death, she spent thousands of hours interviewing Carolyn’s and Render’s friends and family, poring over court documents and news media, reading obscure writings and internet posts, and attending Carolyn’s memorials and Render’s trial.
What emerged from Sarah’s relentless instinct to follow a story and its characters to their darkest ends is a book that is at once a striking homage to Carolyn’s life, a chilling excavation of a brutal crime, and a captivating whydunit with a shocking conclusion.
Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, a New York Times critics’ choice; the novella Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times first fiction prize; two chapbooks; and the novel True Love. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Granta, The Baffler, Vice, BOMB Magazine, and other journals, as well as anthologies. She’s been supported by fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Tin House, PlatteForum, Ucross, and the Whiting Foundation. She lives in Denver.
Juliet Escoria will discuss her book You Are the Snake.
In You Are the Snake, we peer into the life of a community college student, the life of an abusive grandmother is imagined, and a young woman takes up gardening. Escoria’s characters are trying their best, or they aren’t, as they bump against the boundaries of society’s expectations.
Exploiting the form of the short story in a voice entirely her own, You Are the Snake resists easy moralizing by subverting our expectations of how narrative functions. While Escoria plumbs the depth of girlhood and new womanhood, she leaves room for oddness, impulse, and yearning. Each story contains its own world, be it the suburbs of California or the mountains of West Virginia, but taken as a whole, this collection is expanding and challenging, corrupting expectations about what women can be and what they can write.
Juliet Escoria is the author of the novel Juliet the Maniac (Melville House, May 2019), which was named a “best of” book by Nylon, Elle, Buzzfeed, and others, and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize. She also wrote the poetry collection Witch Hunt (Lazy Fascist Press, 2016) and the story collection Black Cloud (CCM/Emily Books, 2014), which were both listed in various best of the year roundups. Her writing can be found in places like Prelude, VICE, The Fader, BOMB, and the New York Times, and has been translated into many languages. She was born in Australia, raised in San Diego, and currently lives in West Virginia, where she teaches English at a community college.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Skylight
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90027
Beth Hetland & Tender at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Beth Hetland will discuss her psychological thriller Tender, about a woman obsessed with her vision for a picture-perfect, curated life.
Carolanne wanted a perfect wedding, a perfect husband, a perfect family. She carefully performs her own roles (gal pal, bestie, girlfriend, wife, and expectant mother) and in trying to enact agency over her life, sacrifices it completely. Her desire to control the uncontrollable ultimately becomes her undoing. When things don’t go her way, she exerts dominance over the one thing she does have total control over: her body; until that “betrays” her. After suffering a horrible loss, Carolanne spirals into a literal, all-consuming delusion that will engross comics readers and horror aficionados alike.
Chicago cartoonist and educator Beth Hetland’s graphic novel debut is a brilliant psychological thriller that tears down the wall of a genre—body horror—so often identified with male creators. Heady and visceral, Tender uses horrific tropes to confront women’s societal expectations of self-sacrifice despite those traditional roles often coming at the expense of female sexuality and empowerment.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Beth-Hetland-discusses-Tender
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music is offered every 1st & 3rd Friday of the month and hosted by Loranzo Frank.
Featured guest TBA.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 8 pm – 12 am
Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.depoet.info/swaam
First Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series & Open Mic with host Cynthia Alessandra Briano at Rapp Saloon, Santa Monica – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
First Fridays at Rapp Saloon: Open Mic & Featured Readers, is offered every 1st Friday of the month by host Cynthia Alessandra Briano.
This is a HYBRID event, live in-person while offering a Zoom option for our performers and guests.
Our featured guest poets and artists this month TBA
We invite you to join us in amplifying and celebrating Black voices by bringing a poem or prose excerpt by a Black author to read alongside your own work. All themes/formats welcome. All languages welcome.
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are at 8:15 pm. Zoom ID posted 3 hours prior to event.
Featured guest TBA.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA – In-Person & Online Event
Date: Friday, the 2nd
Time: 8:30 pm – 12 am
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.facebook.com/RappSaloonReading or https://www.instagram.com/rappsaloon/?hl=en
Western Edge Writers at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Writers and aspiring writers, join us for a group that supports writing endeavors of all genres: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and memoir.
Please emaileaglrk@lapl.orgfor the writing prompt.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 10 am
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/western-edge-writers-0
Book Club: Ban The Book of Longings at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Book of Longings by author Sue Monk Kidd.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 11:30 am
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-0
Middle School Book Club: The Lost Year at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person MG Event
Participants will discuss The Lost Year by author Katherine Marsh.
Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation. But when Matthew finds a tattered photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.
Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor–the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11078903
Adult Book Club: The Paris Library at Littlerock Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Paris Library by author Janet Skeslien Charles.
This book is inspired by the true story of librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II, two young women come of age under very difference circumstances—one in occupied Paris and one in rural Montana some forty years later.
If you would like to participate, please visit Littlerock Library to pick up a copy or use Libby for a digital version.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Littlerock Library, LACL
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 35119 80th St E, Littlerock, CA 93543
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11333148
Chelsea Lynn Wallace & Dare to Be Daring and The Boo Boos at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids Event
Celebrate getting ready to start school with two wonderful and funny picture books about the joys, the daring adventures, and the boo-boos of school. Plus, special book related give-aways, fun art activities, and all hosted by the magnificent author herself, Chelsea Lin Wallace.
Celebrate her newest picture books, Dare To Be Daring and The Boo Boos of Bluebell Elementary.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Kids Storytime: Jenny Liao & Everyone Loves Career Day but Zia at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Celebrate an empowering story about a Chinese American girl who proudly translates for her mom, helping her to demonstrate her skill as a seamstress on Career Day at school.
Jenny Liao is a Chinese American author of stories that inspire children to find pride in every part of their identity. Her work has also been featured in the New Yorker and Bon Appétit. Jenny is the author of Everyone Loves Lunchtime But Zia.
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/40276
Explore Art with Sara Luna at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Come hang out with local illustrator (and prolific reader) Sara Luna. Her specialties include children’s picture books and covers for middle grade and young adult novels. Sara’s illustrations have been published in books, magazines, board games, and even as a puzzle! Join her at 11am as she leads attendees in a variety of crafts and drawing activities.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 695 E Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Summer-Reading-Program-QUEST-3-Explore-art-with-Sara-Luna
Kids Graphic Novel Book Club: Enlighten Me at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Book Club participants will discuss the graphic novel Enlighten Me, by author Minh Lê and illustrator Chan Chau.
When Bình fights back against a bully who makes fun of his Vietnamese heritage, he expects to be cheered as the hero. He defeated the bad guy, right?
Instead, it gets him a stern warning from his vice principal and worried parents. Now he’s stuck on a family trip to a silent meditation retreat. That means no talking—and no video games!—for a whole weekend. Could things possibly get any worse?
However, when a nun gathers all the kids to tell them the Jataka tales—the stories of the Buddha’s many past lives—Bình takes a fantastical dive into his imagination and starts to see himself in these stories. Will he retreat further into himself, or will he emerge from the weekend open to change?
Minh Lê is the author of The Blur, the Eisner-nominated Lift, Drawn Together (winner of the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature), Green Lantern: Legacy, and more. He is also on the faculty of the Hamline University MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, serves on the board of We Need Diverse Books, and has written for a number of national publications, including NPR, HuffPost, and the New York Times. Minh does not meditate as much as he should, but he does savor every moment of life with his wonderful wife and children at their home in San Diego.
Chan Chau is a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. They are the artist of New York Times bestselling Baby-Sitter’s Club graphic novel adaptations of Kristy and the Snobs and Jessi’s Secret Language. Before this, they worked in animation and were featured in multiple award-winning anthologies. In their free time, they love to play video games, read manga, and spend quality time with their found family. They currently reside in Washington state.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 1 pm
Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/kids-graphic-novel-book-club-enlighten-me
Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series and Open Micat Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us in-person or via Zoom for Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series, featuring poetry readings and open poetry mic.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/expressions-la-poetry-reading-series-and-open-mic-2
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Workshop with Meri Tumanyan – Online Zoom Event
Poetry Writing Workshop led by MERI TUMANYAN (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning school or shoes for Four Feathers Press online edition: School Shoes by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, August 16th).
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event (See site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
The Sun Inside You: An Art & Poetry Collaboration at Avenue 16 Studio A4 – In-Person Event
Bukowski famously wrote “don’t do it / unless it comes out of / your soul like a rocket, / unless being still would / drive you to madness or / suicide or murder, / don’t do it. / unless the sun inside you is / burning your gut, / don’t do it.” In this poem, the poet in raw and unambiguous language, rejects pretension and artifice in favor of the sheer struggle and intensity of a true and authentic artistic practice. In celebration of the compulsivity of creativity, this exhibit pairs visual artists with poets to create something breathtakingly new. The artist and poet pairs have:
Fatemeh Burnes + Jeremy Ra
Juri Koll + Jeff Rogers
Poul Lange + Jen Cheng
Aline Mare + Alexandria Hall
Michael Lewis Miller + Lee Boek,
Marylinda Moss + Nicelle Davis
John David O’Brien + Molly Bendall
Mei Xian Qiu + Mello Bluez
Neal Taylor + Mike Mollett
Marjan Vayghan + Hafez complete freedom in their collaborations.
Curated by Mei Xian Qiu. A UOOORS Collective Exhibition
Opening Reception: August 3, 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Poetry Readings and Performances begin at 6:00 p.m., emceed by Lee Boek of Public Works Improv!
Where: Avenue 16 Studio A4
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 5 pm – 8 pm
Address: 338 S. Avenue 16, Studio A4. Los Angeles, CA 90031
Monthly Open Mic at LibroMobile, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
Join us for our open mic series hosted by Local Poet Kunthon “Katon” Meas, who will be featuring local writers & hold the mic for all of you!
We hope to keep up with our tradition of prioritizing BIPOC voices as well as honoring a safe space for all.
We’re a community in various stages of our writing & performing experience. We aspire to cultivate a space of empowerment, not a critical feedback or workshop circle.
Where: LibroMobile
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1150 S. Bristol St . A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/libromobiles-monthly-open-mic-2024-08-03-18-00
Adam Greenfield, with Cory Doctorow, & Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World of Fire at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Eell
Adam Greenfield, in conversation with Cory Doctorow, will discuss his bookLifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World of Fire.
We are living through a Long Emergency: a near-continuous train of pandemics, heatwaves, droughts, resource wars and other climate-driven disasters. In this book, Adam Greenfield asks what might happen if the tactics and networks of care that spring up in response to these times might be brought together in a single, coherent way of life, creating a “lifehouse” as an institution at the heart of each neighborhood that responds to the terrifying reality of climate collapse in our own communities. Using examples from the Black Panthers’ “survival programs,” the astonishingly effective Occupy Sandy disaster-relief effort and the neighborhood-based mutual aid groups that sustained many during COVID lockdowns to the large-scale, self-organized polities of municipalist Spain and Kurdish Rojava, the author shows how practices of mutual care and local power can help shelter us from a future that often feels like it has no place for us or the values we cherish. In short, Lifehouse offers us an urgent yet practical manifesto for building community resilience and reclaiming power in a time of perpetual crisis.
Adam Greenfield has spent the past quarter-century thinking and working at the intersection of technology, design and politics with everyday life. Selected in 2013 as Senior Urban Fellow at the LSE Cities centre of the London School of Economics, he previously taught in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and the Urban Design program of the Bartlett, University College London. His previous books include 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺 (2013) and 𝘙𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 (Verso, 2017).
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘻𝘻𝘭𝘦 (Tor Books, 2024) and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 (Tor Books, 2023), a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘯: 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘚𝘦𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (Verso, 2023). In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/837938428323731
Debut Novel Launch: Soma Mei Sheng Frazier & Off the Books at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us at Village Well Books & Coffee for the launch of Soma Mei Sheng Frazier’s acclaimed debut novel Off the Books! Frazier and historian Samuel Yamashita will discuss the writing life, road trips, and international politics through the prism of this thrilling story.
Recent Dartmouth dropout Mei, in search of a new direction in life, drives a limo to make ends meet. Her grandfather convinces her to allow her customers to pay under the table, and before she knows it, she is working as a routine chauffeur for sex workers. Mei does her best to mind her own business, but her knack for discretion soon leads her on a life changing trip from San Francisco to Syracuse with a new client.
Handsome and reserved, Henry piques Mei’s interest. Toting an enormous black suitcase with him everywhere he goes, he’s more concerned with taking frequent breaks than making good time on the road. When Mei discovers Henry’s secret, she does away with her usual close-lipped demeanor and decides she has no choice but to confront him. What Henry reveals rocks her to her core and shifts this once casual, transactional road trip to one of moral stakes and dangerous consequences.
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier’s work has earned numerous awards, with Off the Books named one of 2024’s most anticipated novels. Her stories appear in Glimmer Train, ZYZZYVA, the Mississippi Review, Hyphen, and elsewhere. Frazier attended Pomona College and served as a San Francisco Library Laureate before relocating to New York.
Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/40249
Literary Event: Katie Berta and Guests & Retribution Forthcoming at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join us for a group reading to celebrate the publication of Retribution Forthcoming, the new poetry collection by Katie Berta, with readings by Ricco Villanueva Siasoco and Chloe Martinez!
Influenced by Alice Notley, Eileen Myles, Rachel Zucker, and other poets of the New York school, the poems in Retribution Forthcoming blend a talky, quick, funny voice with candid examinations of gender norms, class pressures, and the existential. Their speaker explores her mortality anxiety through her experiences of gendered exploitation, reflecting on bodily autonomy and the nexus of violences that women face. Using oblique and direct strategies, these poems recount sexual coercion, the ways consumerist society reinforces and reifies gender conformity and performativity, and the psychological ramifications of these abuses of power. Retribution Forthcoming examines selfhood, consciousness, and mortality as they intertwine with our identities and the ways those identities are politicized. At its core, though, this book is an account of sexual assault and its aftermath, exploring how trauma interacts with belief and our ability to trust others and ourselves.
Katie Berta is the author of the poetry collection retribution forthcoming, from Ohio University Press, which won the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Black Warrior Review, The Yale Review, Blackbird, The Massachusetts Review, West Branch, The Rumpus, and Sixth Finch, among other magazines.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-ly94vlpe
Griot Café Readings and Open Mic at Shades of Afrika, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Griot Cafe Open Mic and Poetry. All ages. Hosted by Sistah Shy and Samuel Rain.
Featured guest: Albert Starr, author of Late Night Offerings & Morning Prayers.
$5 Cover & bring a friend – Save $2. {$5.00 for 1st person and $3.00 for each addl. friend after that}
More info at https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Shades of Afrika
Date: Saturday, the 3rd
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1005 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://allevents.in/long%20beach/griot- caf%C3%A9/200026782479044 or https://www.lbpoetry.com/
Melrose Trading Post Event by Greenway Arts Alliance at Melrose Trading Post at Fairfax H.S. – In-Person Event
The Melrose Trading Post is a pioneering arts-based marketplace held every Sunday at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, CA with 275 local creative small business vendors, delicious food booths and local live music.
MTP was founded in 1997 with a mission to champion small businesses, art and community. The market funds Greenway Arts Alliance’s arts education programming and provides employment and leadership development opportunities for students at Fairfax High School.
NOTE: Check every Sunday for story time and reading events
Where: Melrose Trading Post, Greenway Main Stage at Fairfax HS
Date: Sunday, the 3rd (Every Sunday)
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: https://melrosetradingpost.org/tickets/
Special Storytime: Michelle Lam & Meesh the Bad Demon #2 at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event
Author Michelle Lam will present her children’s book Meesh the Bad Demon #2.
Meesh the Bad Demon is no stranger to saving the world—but she never thought she’d have to do it twice! Can she defeat the darkness once and for all in this sequel of epic proportions?
Book signing afterward the reading and Q&A.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday, the 4th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 695 E Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Michelle-Lam-discusses-Meesh-the-Bad-Demon-2
Storytime: Teddie Lynn Chichester & Wildlife Crossings of Hope at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Author Teddie Lynn Chichester will read from her book, Wildlife Crossings of Hope, followed by fun and educational activities!
The author will take us through activities that teach us about the importance of preserving wildlife. Coloring books and bookmarks will be given out as a part of the reading!
We all need safe places to live and safe paths to travel. Animals, too.
Meet the people who are stitching the planet’s habitats back together.
Teddi Lynn Chichester grew up in California’s fertile Central Valley, land of farms, tule fog, and country western music. She spent many childhood summers hanging out with banana slugs and the world’s tallest trees in Northern California’s coast redwood forests, where her father worked as a State Parks Interpreter. She teaches writing and literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, and loves spending time with her sons Alexey and Nicolai, her orange tabby Benjamin, and her horse Mischa. When she’s not grading papers or reading books about the natural world, she volunteers at the nursery where native plants for the world’s largest wildlife crossing await the bridge’s completion. Teddi lives very close to Griffith Park, and though she never met the beloved mountain lion P-22 during her frequent hikes there, she still feels his presence all around.
Jamie Green is an illustrator and maker living in Chicago, IL. While growing up on the beaches of Florida, they nearly changed their career path to Marine Biology. Now, they find joy in the happy medium of illustrating the natural world. They were named the 2019 Society of Illustrators Zankel scholar in 2019 and graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2020.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Sunday, the 4th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
At Dynasty Typewriter: An Afternoon with Chuck Tingle & Bury Your Gays – In-Person Event
Join us offsite at Dynasty Typewriter at the Hayworth for the launch of BURY YOUR GAYS, the new novel by Chuck Tingle!
Bury Your Gays is a heart-pounding new novel from USA Today bestselling author Chuck Tingle about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.
Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell.
But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, “for the algorithm,” in the upcoming season finale.
Misha refuses, but he soon realizes that he’s just put a target on his back. And what’s worse, monsters from his horror movie days are stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles.
Haunted by his past, Misha must risk his entire future—before the horrors from the silver screen find a way to bury him for good.
Chuck Tingle is the USA Today bestselling author of Camp Damascus. He is a mysterious force of energy behind sunglasses and a pink mask. He is also an anonymous author of romance, horror, and fantasy. Chuck was born in Home of Truth, Utah, and now splits time between Billings, Montana and Los Angeles, California. Chuck writes to prove love is real, because love is the most important tool we have when resisting the endless cosmic void. Not everything people say about Chuck is true, but the important parts are.
NOTE: See site for ticket sales and details.
Where: Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth
Date: Sunday, the 4th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-lxwceunx
Forever35 Podcast Taping: Sable Yong & Die Hot with a Vengeance at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for a live taping of Forever35, a lifestyle and beauty podcast hosted by Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu!
The duo will be joined by Sable Yong to discuss her debut book Die Hot with a Vengeance, a sharp-toothed and hilarious collection of essays delving deep into the machinations of the multi-billion-dollar beauty industry that offers an incisive yet wry analysis of what it means to be “hot”—and arguing that real hot behavior is found in redefining vanity as a tool for self-discovery.
Sable Yong is a freelance writer and editor. Formerly a beauty editor at Allure, she got her start in beauty as a writer and editor at xoVain, championing the personal, individual, and truly weird nature of beauty. She co-hosts a podcast about all things scent-related called Smell Ya Later. Sable’s extensive work and talent has appeared in Vogue, Elle, The New York Times, Manrepeller, GQ, and others.
Get your tickets at EVENTBRITE!
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday, the 4th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/40022
Vroman’s Local Author Day: Tiffany Thomas. Joelle Maletis & Andrew Miller at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
AuthorsTiffany Thomas. Joelle Maletis & Andrew Miller will present and discuss their books.
Tiffany Thomas presents The Grief Experience: Tools for Acceptance, Resilience and Connection.
Grief is the last act of love we have to give.
In The Grief Experience you’ll receive the gift of understanding the important and life-changing healing work that happens when you let go of old, conditioned patterns of belief around the grief process and gain new, healthier, more aligned and effective knowledge and tools. The 25 experts who came together for this collaboration share intimate stories and powerful strategies that will help you if you’re struggling with deep loss. Where there is deep grief, there was great love, and this book is the ultimate guide back to that love.
Joelle Maletis presents Give Yourself Self Love.
Increase Your Self Love in 1 Month
In today’s fast-paced work, learning to love yourself unconditionally is crucial. It is the foundation for abundance, trust, success, happiness, and fulfillment. By practicing self-love, you become the driving force behind positivity in your life.
But how do you generate and start practicing self-love?
Start your journey today and unlock the incredible benefits of practicing self-love.
Andrew Miller presents Namaste Mart Confidential.
Los Angeles, 2013: Adam Minor and Richie Walsh work at Namaste Mart, a hippie grocery store in West Hollywood frequented by celebrities, cult members, and every variety of absurd character L.A. has to offer.
They’re best friends, but couldn’t be more different. Brooding and analytical, Adam dreams of one day becoming a famous novelist. Richie is an unpredictable navy veteran with a weakness for booze, women, and fighting who’s just begun his stand-up comedy career.
Adam and Richie also have a special talent: They’re good at finding people. On top of their gig as Hollywood grocery clerks, they supplement their income as unlicensed private detectives on the streets of L.A.
A new case arrives: Joan Goldman is a veteran Hollywood actress of 1980s action blockbusters turned entrepreneur, now running a chain of high-end lingerie stores. Shayla Ramsey, one of her top employees, has mysteriously vanished. Joan hires the Grocery Clerk P.I.s to find out what happened.
On the trail of the missing Shayla, Adam and Richie encounter the Armenian mob, high-society Pasadena lawyers, Hollywood gangsters, and a family of fundamentalist Mormon polygamists led by a devout, wealthy and violent patriarch.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Sunday, the 4th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 695 E Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Vromans-Local-Author-Day-August-4-2024
Sunday Jump Open Mic: Ariana Lady Basco Features at Pilipino Workers Center – In-Person Event
Sunday Jump is a community arts organization at Pilipino Workers Center in LA’s Historic Filipinotown. Open Mics are 1st Sundays, 5-7 pm. May – Nov.
In their 12th year, Sunday Jump Sunday Jump was founded as an open mic series in 2012 by poets and community organizers Eddy M. Gana, Stephanie Sajor, and Janice Sapigao. Eventually, the team added more programming to include monthly workshops, publications, and special events.
Affectionately known as Lady Basco, is a single mom, storyteller on and off stage, in front of and behind the camera. A cultural architect founding Palms Up Academy, Executive Director of Fil Am Creative, Festival Director of Lagetdown, and serving as a board member of Filipinos Advancing Creative Education (FACE), Past Forward, and Chair of Arts, History, and Culture at HiFi Coalition she lives by ‘You shine, I shine’. Her family was honored at Search to Involve Pilipino’s American’s (SIPA) 50th Gala and FilAm Arts 25th Philippine Arts and Culture (FPAC) for their contributions to the arts. They were recognized by the State of California, City of Artesia and Cerritos, and named ‘The First Filipino Entertainment Family’ by the City of Los Angeles. She co-wrote and is in The Fabulous Filipino Brothers now on Hulu, directed Glimmer with Rosario Dawson, produced My First Horror Film currently in distribution, and is about to have a festival run with Heartstorm that she stars, produced, and co-wrote.
Open mic-ers have 4 minutes MAX. Guaranteed 9 performers will be chosen through lottery, with the rest on on-call. No repeat performers on the same day. Order is randomized. For on-call, priority is given to first timers and open mic-ers have 3 minutes MAX or only one piece, whichever comes first.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Pilipino Workers Center
Date: Sunday the 4th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 153 Glendale Blvd., 1st Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sunday-jump-open-mic-series-tickets-879264984237 or https://www.facebook.com/thesundayjump/
Tantra Barz #2 Workshop at The Wicked Wolf, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Writing workshop series on first Sundays in the Wrigley district at the Wicked Wolf 5-7 pm PST. It’s $15 with a $5 drink ticket. Led by Beach City Poetress https://www.instagram.com/beachcitypoetress/
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: The Wicked Wolf
Date: Sunday the 4th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 2332 Pacific Ave., Long Beach, CA 90806
Website: https://www.lbpoetry.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/beachcitypoetress/
Queer Romance Book Club: Self-Made Boys at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
August’s Queer Romance Book Club is led by bookseller Binta, and participants will discuss romance novel Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by author Anne-Marie McLemore.
Everyone is welcome!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 4th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 