Los Angeles Literature Events: 10/21/24 – 10/27/24

Robertson Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Writing a book, poem, or screenplay?

Need deadlines? Want constructive feedback?

Then this is the place for you.

Bring 5 – 10 double spaced typed pages to read. Everyone will get a chance to read.

This group mostly meets in person, but email rbrtsn@lapl.org if you’d prefer to join via Zoom.

NOTE: See site for link and details.

Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 21^st

Time: 11 am

Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-writers-group-0

Book Club: Before We Say Goodbye at Fairfax Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Before We Say Goodbye by author Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Before We Say Goodbye, is the fourth novel in the internationally bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series.

The regulars at the magical Café Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with its famous legend and extraordinary time-travel offer. Many patrons have reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family and visited loved ones. But the journey is not without risks, and there are rules to follow.

In the tradition of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s sensational Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, readers will once again be introduced to a new set of visitors: the husband with something important left to say; the woman who couldn’t bid her dog farewell; the woman who couldn’t answer a proposal; and the daughter who drove her father away.

Featuring signature heartwarming characters and wistful storytelling, in the haunting Before We Say Goodbye, Kawaguchi asks: Who would you visit if you could travel through time?

Where: Fairfax Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 21^st

Time: 11 am

Address: 161 S. Gardner St., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-we-say-goodbye

Senior Writing Group at Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Kathy Katims, founder of Saved by a Story, leads an ongoing writing group for seniors. New members are welcome to all or any sessions.

Write to prompts, share (if you’d like), connect with fellow seniors in the neighborhood, hone your writing skills, and find your story.

RSVP:

RSVP to palsds@lapl.org is recommended but not required. If you RSVP we will send you a welcome packet, guidelines, and a reminder the day before the meeting.

Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 21^st

Time: 1 pm

Address: 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/senior-writing-group-2

Philosophical Horror Book Club: The Deep at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the novel The Deep by author Nick Cutter.

A strange plague called the ‘Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys, then the not-so-small things, like how to drive or the letters of the alphabet. Their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure.

But far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a universal healer hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths…and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.

Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Monday the 21^st

Time: 6 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event

Special Author Event: Marissa Stapley, with Laura Dave, & The Lightning Bottles at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Marissa Stapley, in conversation with Laura Dave, will discuss her new novel The Lightning Bottles.

This novel is a spellbinding story of rock ‘n’ roll and star-crossed love—about grunge-era musician Jane Pyre’s journey to find out what really happened to her husband and partner in music, who abruptly disappeared years earlier.

A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, The Lightning Bottles is both a love letter to the 90s and a searing portrait of the cost of fame.

Marissa Stapley is the bestselling author of Lucky, The Last Resort, Things to Do When It’s Raining, and Mating for Life. Her journalism has appeared in newspapers and magazines across North America. She lives in Toronto with her family. Visit her at MarissaStapley.com or follow her on Instagram and X @MarissaStapley.

Laura Dave is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me, Eight Hundred Grapes, and other novels. Her work has been published in thirty-eight countries. The Last Thing He Told Me has sold three million copies and is now a limited series on Apple TV+. She resides in Santa Monica, California.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Monday, the 21^st

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2024-10-21/special-author-event-marissa-stapley-conversation-laura-dave

Manuel Pastor & Charging Forward: Lithium Valley Electric Vehicles and a Just Future at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Manuel Pastor will present and discuss his book, Charging Forward: Lithium Valley Electric Vehicles and a Just Future.

A clarion call for justice in the quest for clean energy

California’s Salton Sea region is home to some of the worst environmental health conditions in the country. It is also ground zero for a new “lithium gold rush”—a race to extract a mineral critical to the rapidly expanding electric vehicle and renewable energy storage markets. With enough lithium lurking beneath the surface to provide a third of global demand, who will benefit from the development of this precious resource?

A work of stunning analysis and reporting, Charging Forward shows that the questions raised by Lithium Valley lie at the heart of the “green transition.” This tiny patch of California is a microcosm of the broad climate challenges we face; understanding Lithium Valley today is the key to grasping the future of our economy and our planet.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday, the 21^st

Time: 7 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/manuel-pastor

R.U.P.O. Open Mic at Back to the Grind in Riverside – In-Person Event (Check to Verify)

RUPO Open Mic is every Monday Night at Back to the Grind in Riverside.

Every Monday at: 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 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

Website: https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind

At Skylight: Adrian Tormina, with Elvis Mitchell, & Q&A at Skylight – In-Person Event

Adrian Tormina, in conversation with Elvis Mitchell, will discuss his book Q&A.

Q&A is part personal history, part masterclass in crafting quality entertainment. With questions pulled from his time at the Substack Writers’ Residency, and with additional, new material, Q&A is an indispensable addition to the collections of eagle-eyed fans and aspiring artists, writers, and cartoonists alike.

Tomine answers questions about his preferred tools, his creative process, the ups and downs of adaptation, and perhaps most importantly—how to pronounce his last name. Illustrated with drafts, outtakes, and photos from the artist’s personal collection, this rare peek into the mind of a contemporary cartooning giant lays out the method to his meticulous brand of madness. The artist looks back on his career in response to queries from his—maybe adoring but mostly curious—public with his signature dry wit and unflinching, self-deprecating honesty.

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney’s, Best American Comics, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Both his graphic novel Shortcomings and his memoir The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist were named New York Times Notable Books of the year. Since 1999, Tomine has been a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.

Elvis Mitchell has been the host of KCRW’s The Treatment since its creation in 1996. During that time, he has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the New York Times, and he has been a special correspondent for interview magazines. He hosted the TV series “Elvis Goes There” on Epix, and “Elvis Goes There” for Turner Classic Movies. He won the NAACP Image Award for creating and producing “The Black List” documentaries for HBO.

Where: Skylight

Date: Monday, the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-lauren-sherman-chantal-fernandez-present-selling-sexy

Book Launch: Melissa Ludtke, with Karen Grigsby Bates, & Locker Room Talk at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Melissa Ludtke, author of Locker Room Talk, discusses her experience writing for Sports Illustrated in the male-dominated 1970s, and what it means for journalists today, in conversation with NPR’s Karen Grigsby Bates.

In 1977, Melissa Ludtke was a 26-year-old Sports Illustrated reporter when she accused Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn of gender discrimination and took him to court. While male sportswriters had long been a fixture of team locker rooms, Kuhn claimed that allowing women into these spaces would violate players’ “sexual privacy.” What followed was a high-profile case that affirmed the equal rights of female journalists, but also revealed ugly public prejudices about the place of women in sports.

Melissa Ludtke was a reporter for Sports Illustrated and Time and edited Nieman Reports at Harvard University. Her books include On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America and Touching Home in China: In Search of Missing Girlhoods. She received the Yankee Quill Award and Mary Garber Pioneer Award and was a Nieman Fellow and a Prudential Fellow at Columbia University.

Karen Grigsby Bates is a former Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News (Code Switch), the author of the Alex Powell mystery series, and co-author, with Karen Elyse Hudson, of the best-selling etiquette book Basic Black: Home Training For Modern Times. She and her husband, photographer Bruce W. Talamon, are the parents of a college-aged son.

Reserve a space on EVENTBRITE!

Date: Monday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42824

Book Launch & Signing: Michael Connelly & The Waiting at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Michael Connelly signs copies of his newest release, The Waiting: A Ballard & Bosch Novel, in-store at Vroman’s!

LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a serial rapist whose trail has gone cold and enlists a new volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-four, so the genetic link must be familial: His father was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.

NOTE: See site for tickets and details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Monday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-21/ticketed-michael-connelly-signs-waiting or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/michael-connelly-signs-copies-of-the-waiting-tickets-976534690547?aff=oddtdtcreator

Monday Night Fiction Workshop via 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 21^st

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-1047823587557

Author Talk with Lisa Gottlieb: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone at Santa Monica College – In-Person Event

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gottlieb will discuss her new book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone in SMC’s Conversations with Authors Series.

In this conversation the author will examine the truths and fictions we tell ourselves. With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb reveals our blind spots, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over two million copies and is currently being adapted as a television series starring Kristen Bell. In addition to her clinical practice, she co-hosts the popular “Dear Therapists” podcast produced by Katie Couric and writes The Atlantic’s “Dear Therapist” advice column. She is a sought-after expert in media such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, and NPR’s “Fresh Air” and her TED Talk was one of the Top 10 Most Watched of the Year. She is the creator of the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Workbook: A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life and the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Journal: 52 Weekly Sessions to Transform Your Life. Learn more at LoriGottlieb.com or by following her on Instagram @lorigottlieb_author and X @LoriGottlieb1.

NOTE: See site link to register.

Where: Santa Monica College

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 11 am

Address: 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Website: https://libraryc.org/smclibrary/58471

Comic Book Club at Hastings Branch Library, Pasadena Public Library – In-Person Tween Event

Do you love Smile and Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Are you counting down the days until the next Amulet book comes out? Join us for Hastings’s new monthly Kids Comics Book Club! Read and discuss graphic novels, learn about the art of comics, and do fun crafts and activities with other kids who love comics as much as you do!

Contact the branch for this month’s book selection!

Ages 8-12. Sign up at site.

NOTE: See site link to register.

Where: Hastings Branch Library, Pasadena Public Library

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 PM

Address: 3325 East Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107

Website: https://www.cityofpasadena.net/library/calendar/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D176751878

Phi-Sci Book Club: The Man from the Future at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann by author Ananyo Bhattacharya.

This book is an electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made.

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann.

Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome.

Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

Ananyo Bhattacharya, who holds a PhD in biophysics from Imperial College London, has worked as a science correspondent at the Economist, an editor at Nature, and a medical researcher at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego, California. He lives in London.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 6 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/phy-sci-book-club-man-future

Indie Author Night at Altadena Public Library – In-Person Event

Listen to local authors read from their best and newest works. Meet them, get copies of their book after their readings and mingle with other book lovers.

About the authors:

Alla Kaluzhny, MA, MFT, MA in Spiritual Psychology and Consciousness, Health and Healing writes her first book about past lives, reincarnation and her Soul’s many journeys through lifetimes of trials, crucibles, ordeals and everything in between. Each life has its own story, and woven together, they create a compelling tale. Alla was just awarded a Silver Medal at the Readers Favorite international book competition for Turning the Pages.

Maja D’Aoust is a practicing Witch, mother of two and scholar of alchemy and occult lore. After completing her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, she earned her master’s degree in transformational psychology with a focus on shamanism, the I Ching, and ancestors. She is the author of Familiars in Witchcraft and A Witch’s Bestiary, coauthor of The Secret Source, and creator of a Tarot deck, The White Witch Tarot.

Cyndra Gernet is a long time Pasadena resident. She has been writing for 15 years and has completed two novels and 20 short stories, 4 of which have been published in Sisters in Crime Anthologies. Cyndra also writes non-mystery short stories. She finds the process of submitting work and self-promotion daunting, so she is pleased to be a part of this community project.

Elinor Bonifant is a speculative fiction writer and illustrator based in Los Angeles. She is the creator of The Haunted Hour, an award-winning audio drama about a strange little town in North Carolina.

NOTE: See site link to register.

Where: Altadena Main Library, Altadena PL

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: 600 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, California 91001

Website: https://www.altadenalibrary.org/programs/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D176589624

Conchas y Café Zine Workshop with DSTL Arts – Online Event

Be a part of a new fall bilingual writing workshop series with DSTL Arts online.

2024 – 2025 Publishing Year

Conchas y Café Zine; Vol. 10

Series/Issue 1: 9/3/24–12/17/24

Theme: Life’s Paths/Los caminos de la vida

Google Classroom Enrollment Code: rvdizwy

See links for details.

Where: DSTL Arts

Date: Tuesday, the 22^nd (through 12/17/24)

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: Online Google Classroom Event (see site)

Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/calendar or https://www.dstlarts.org/conchasycafezine

Bruce Eric Kaplan & They Went Another Way at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Bruce Eric Kaplan will discuss and sign They Went Another Way, a darkly comic memoir about being a working creative person in a world that is growing ever more dysfunctional, by the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and television writer.

In January 2022, Bruce Eric Kaplan found himself confused and upset by the state of the world and the state of his life as a television writer in Los Angeles. He started a journal to keep from going mad, which eventually became They Went Another Way.

The book traces his attempt to get a television project set up in the increasingly Byzantine world of Hollywood. But as he details the project’s ups and downs, Kaplan finds himself ruminating not only on show business but also on today’s political and social issues, on old movies and TV shows and music, on his family, on his friends, on his past, on his failing heating system, and on all the dead birds that keep showing up in his backyard. This hilarious and surprisingly moving book is about life—about art, about love, about alienation, about connection, about ugliness and beauty, about disappointment, wonder, and hope. In short, it is about everything.

Bruce Eric Kaplan was born in New Jersey and moved to Los Angeles when he was twenty-one. He had a million bad jobs until finally, he became a television writer and producer. Over the years, he worked on such shows as Seinfeld, Six Feet Under, and Girls. Currently, he is a writer/producer on two Netflix shows, No Good Deed and Too Much, both currently scheduled to premiere at the end of 2024. Kaplan is also a cartoonist. He first appeared in The New Yorker over thirty years ago and he has been a regular contributor ever since. He has done over a thousand cartoons as well as over a dozen covers for the magazine. After his children were born, he started writing and illustrating picture books. The first was called Monsters Eat Whiney Children, and he subsequently wrote four other picture books. In addition, he has three collections of cartoons published, written and illustrated four picture books for adults, and wrote and illustrated a memoir, I Was a Child.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Tuesday, the 22^nd

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 225 26^th St., # 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402

Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Bruce-Eric-Kaplan-Author-signing

Robert Hilburn, with Lenny Waronker, & A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Robert Hilman, in conversation with Lenny Waronker, will discuss his book, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman.

The definitive biography of songwriter Randy Newman, told with his full cooperation, by acclaimed biographer and longtime Los Angeles Times music critic, Robert Hilburn

Randy Newman is widely hailed as one of America’s all-time greatest songwriters, equally skilled in the sophisticated melodies and lyrics of the Gershwin-Porter era and the cultural commentary of his own generation, with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon among his most ardent admirers.

In addition to exploring Newman’s prolific career and the evolution of his songwriting, this biography also dives into his childhood and early influences, his musical family that ruled Hollywood movie scores for decades, the relationships that have provided inspiration for his songs, and so much more.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday, the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/robert-hilburn-2024

Nonfiction Book Club: On Call, A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service at pages: a bookstore – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Participants will discuss On Call, A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service by author Anthony Fauci, MD.

Facilitated by Mark Polak.

The memoir by the doctor who became a beacon of hope for millions through the COVID pandemic, and whose six-decade career in high-level public service put him in the room with seven presidents.

Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous – and most revered – doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in researching HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises, make him truly an American hero.

NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines and details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Tuesday, the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/nonfiction-book-club-6

Book Event: Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart, & BLK MKT Vintage at Reparations Club – In-Person Event

Authors Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart will present and discuss their beautiful book collection of Black cultural ephemera, Blk Mkt Vintage: Reclaiming Objects and Curiosities That Tell Black Stories. Moderator TBD.

This one-of-a-kind treasure trove of Black cultural ephemera, from the entrepreneurs behind the vintage shop BLK MKT Vintage, expands on their mission to curate vintage objects that tell Black stories and celebrate the contributions Black people have made to our American consciousness.

Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart have spent years scouring piles, stacks, bookshelves, and dilapidated boxes in search of themselves and their history, Black history. Through their Brooklyn brick-and-mortar BLK MKT Vintage and online shop, they have uncovered tens of thousands of items including vintage literature, vinyl records, clothing, art, decor, furniture and more.

Where: Reparations Club

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-event-blk-mkt-vintage-with-jannah-handy-kiyanna-stewart-tickets-1043255745017

Stacey McEwan, with Amber V. Nicole and Kate Golden, & Glacian Trilogy at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Join us for the launch of Stacey McEwan’s final installment of the Glacian Trilogy.

The author will be in conversation with Amber V. Nicole and Kate Golden. A book signing will follow the event.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets

Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club: Piranesi at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

On the fourth Tuesday of every month, we will come together and discuss a story that falls within the realms of either science fiction or fantasy (or sometimes both!). To join our emailing list, reach out to events@villagewell.com.

Participants will discuss our October selection, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42733

Georgia Jeffries, with Terry Shames, & The Younger Girl at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Georgia Jeffries, in conversation with Terry Shames, will discuss her novel The Younger Girl.

This true crime novel combines historical fiction and supernatural suspense to unravel a thrilling tale of family.

In 1933, Chicago tabloids trumpeted the death of twenty-year-old town belle Aldine Younger: “HEIRESS SLAIN, MARRIED MAN HELD.”

In the aftermath of Aldine Younger’s tragic death, her grieving brother Owen suspects that their wealthy uncle orchestrated a sinister murder plot to cover up the theft of Aldine’s inheritance. Fast forward to 1996, when an aging Owen, burdened by the weight of the past, is compelled to discover the truth before he dies. His daughter, Joanna, becomes the key to unraveling the family’s twisted history.

Father and daughter journey back to Pontiac, Illinois, to claim Owen’s rightful bequest. They find themselves caught in a labyrinth of lies born of family greed and treachery crossing three generations. Amidst violent storms and dramatic revelations, Owen’s sanity teeters on the edge as he confuses Joanna with the sister he lost. Joanna, racing against time, unearths secrets that could shatter her world and discovers a psychic bridge linking past, present, and future. But at what cost? And who will survive the revelations?

NOTE: See site for link and details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-22/georgia-jeffries-conversation-terry-shames-discusses-younger-girl

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest Charles Harmon – Online Zoom Event

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with host Rick Lupert presents guest reader Charles Harmon and an open mic.

Charles Harmon began writing poetry at age 4 and has published widely over the years. He has spent sevenyears traveling overseas in 67 countries. Worked relief and enjoyed being in three war zones. 35 years teaching chemistry and physics. Enjoys indulging his wonderful wife and three high-achieving kids.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 22^nd

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt

LiveTalks LA Presents: Barry Sonnenfeld, with Rob Reiner, & Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time at New Roads School – In-Person & YouTube Hybrid Event

Barry Sonnenfeld, in conversation with Rob Reiner, will discuss his book, Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood.

One-of-a-kind filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld tells stories only he can tell, from his blockbuster career with iconic actors, studio execs, and producers. His humor and insight provide an inside glimpse into how Hollywood really works, or how it doesn’t.

This book delivers a cavalcade of sometimes baffling, often enlightening, and always funny stories about Sonnenfeld’s many films and television shows. From battling with studio executives and producers to bad-script-solving on set to coaxing actors into finding the right light and talking faster, Sonnenfeld provides an entertaining master class in how to make commercial art in the face of constant human foible. Over four decades in Hollywood, the mega-franchises include The Addams Family and Men in Black movies; the critical favorites, Get Shorty and Pushing Daisies; and working with Will Smith, John Travolta, and Michael Jackson; and the projects that got away, Forrest Gump, Ali, and anything starring Jim Carrey.

Barry Sonnenfeld is a filmmaker and writer who broke into the film industry as the cinematographer on the Coen Brothers’ first three films: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller’s Crossing. He also was the director of photography on Throw Mamma from the Train, Big, When Harry Met Sally, and Misery. Sonnenfeld made his directorial debut with The Addams Family in 1991 and has gone on to direct a number of films including Addams Family Values, Get Shorty, and the first three Men in Blacks. His television credits include Pushing Daisies, for which he won an Emmy, Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and most recently Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon! He is the author of Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother.

Rob Reiner first came to fame as a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor in the landmark television series All In The Family. He went on to become an acclaimed director whose credits include the satire This is Spinal Tap to dramas Stand By Me, Misery, A Few Good Men, and Ghosts of Mississippi, to romantic comedies When Harry Met Sally and The American President, to the enduring classic, The Princess Pride. His now 20 films also include The Bucket List, Flipped, LBJ, Shock and Awe, and most recently, the documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, and a sequel to This is Spinal Tap. Reiner is also a dedicated political activist.

NOTE: See site for tickets, and details,

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School

Date: Tuesday, the 22^nd

Time: 8 pm

Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404

(Free Parking available at the venue)

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/barrysonnenfeld/

Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night at Greenway Court – In-Person Event

The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. 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 22^nd

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

Mystery Book Group: The Tumbling Girl at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Tumbling Girl by author Bridget Walsh.

1876, Victorian London. Minnie Ward, a feisty scriptwriter for the Variety Palace Music Hall, is devastated when her best friend is found brutally murdered. She enlists the help of private detective Albert Easterbrook to help her find justice.

Together they navigate London, from its high-class clubs to its murky underbelly. But as the bodies pile up, they must rely on one another if they’re going to track down the killer – and make it out alive.

Whether you loved it, hated it, or haven’t finished it, we want to see you at our Mystery Book Group at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!

Meets every 4^th Wednesday of the month. We will be meeting to discuss the book outside of the shop in the circle in front of Star Cafe.

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 9 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-tumbling-girl-bridget-walsh

Coffee Time Book Club: The Playground at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Playground by author Richard Powers.

A magisterial new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Be

Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the sea-steaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.

NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines and details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 10 am

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-32

Wednesday Book Club: The Wager at Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by author David Grann.

New members welcome!

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 12 pm

Address: 7114 W. Manchester Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90045

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/wednesday-book-club-11

Tiny Talks with Kenneth Tan & Tans Interwoven via Bel Canto IG – IG Event

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host an IG Live Artist Talk with Kenneth Tan, & Tans Interwoven.

Meet the Tan family: Crescenciana, Olivia, Audrey, and Kenneth. They live their lives interwoven, their stories spanning time—from the 1920s to the modern day—and geographies—from the Philippines to Canada to the United States.

After Kenneth did the running man for kindergarten show-and-tell, his older sister, Audrey, did a veritable quickstep inside their garage while balancing a tray of piping hot pastries. Their mother, Olivia, cha-chaed on Friday nights with her nursing school classmates, and her mother, Crescenciana, stole away for an evening waltz at a secret town fiesta even as Japanese forces occupied her village during World War II.

Be it dancing or admiring women with rough hands or learning a super hard—yes, that is a technical term—language, the Tans find common threads running through the stories that they take turns sharing.

Tans Interwoven is an intergenerational collection of honest, heartwarming, and humorous memoirs written by a Filipino American family, with illustrations created by matriarch Crescenciana Tan and her grandson Kenneth Tan.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Bel Canto Books, Retro Row

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: This is a virtual event, presented on IG Live (www.instagram.com/belcantobooks).

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tiny-talks-with-kenneth-tan-an-ig-live-artist-talk-tickets-1037230713987

Classics Book Club: The Fixer at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Participants will discuss The Fixer by author Bernard Malamud.

RSVP:

Please email grnhls@lapl.org for the Zoom link.

Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 1:30 pm – 3 pm

Address: 10640 Petit Ave., Granada Hills, CA 91344

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/classics-book-club-fixer

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 2^nd Monday of the month on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: KPFK 90.7 FM

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/

We Love L.A, Book Club: California Bear at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

We Love L.A. Book Club examines books and authors that weave the diversity and rich history of our city into their works.

Participants will discuss California Bear by author Duane Swierczynski. This mystery thriller follows a group of unlikely vigilantes on the trail of a prolific serial killer who has emerged from a 40-year hibernation.

The library will have copies to check out or check our e-media page for electronic access on Libby and hoopla.

Please bring suggestions for future meetings.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 3 pm

Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/we-love-la-book-club-15

Your Author Series: Jessica Parra & The Quince Project at Junipero Serra Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen & YA Event

Join us in welcoming young adult author Jessica Parra as she shares her new book, The Quince Project.

As a lawyer and daughter of Guatemalan and Cuban bakers, Jessica Parra never objects to an extra slice of cake. She’s a Los Angeles native who loves to write about Latinas with big hair (and even bigger dreams), complicated families, and the healing magic of acceptance. She’s the author of Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success, as well as the forthcoming The Quince Project, both published with Wednesday Books and many unfinished first drafts about cats living their best lives—all nine of them. When she isn’t drafting books, you can find her sipping kombucha, cuddling with her kitties, or co-piloting the Millennium Falcon at Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge.

Castillo Torres, a Student Body Association event chair, needs a fairy godmother. After a disastrous quinceañera and her mother’s passing, Cas’s plans are crumbling. A dream internship with a lifestyle guru offers hope, but she needs more experience. When she plans a quinceañera for a Disneyland vlogger, it turns out to be a publicity stunt, and she catches feelings for the chambelán. Can Cas embrace spontaneity and find her own Happily Ever After, or will she turn into a pumpkin at the end of the ball?

Those attending the program will have the opportunity to take home a copy of The Quince Project. For middle readers from sixth to ninth grade.

Where: Junipero Serra Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 3:30 pm

Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-jessica-parra-0

Book Club for Adults: Dial A for Aunties at Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a lively literary discussion at our new book club for adults! The club meets on the 4th Wednesday of each month. You may check out the book (or e-book) for free with your library card.

Participants will discuss Dial A for Aunties by author Jesse Q. Sutanto.

Where: Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 6 pm

Address: 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-2

All Genres Workshop with Victoria Waddle via Inlandia Institute – Online Event

Alternating Wednesdays, 9/11, 9/25, 10/9, 10/23, and 11/6/24, 6:00-9:00 PM PT, on Zoom.

$50. Registration required. To register: https://tinyurl.com/Fall2024CWW

In this multi-genre workshop, participants submit poetry and prose for biweekly critiques and receive feedback from other group members. Discussions include the craft of writing and the challenges writers face. The workshop leader provides biweekly articles and links related to participants’ work, particularly to problems that were discussed in the previous session.

Victoria Waddle is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, with fiction and nonfiction published in literary journals and anthologies, including in Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. A collection of her short fiction, Acts of Contrition, is available from Los Nietos Press and her chapbook, The Mortality of Dogs and Humans, is available from Bamboo Dart Press. Her YA novel about a teen escaping a polygamist cult is coming from Inlandia Books. Previously the managing editor of Inlandia: A Literary Journey, she helped to establish a yearly teen issue. In a previous life, she was a high school English teacher and librarian.

Where: Inlandia Institute

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

Address: Online Event

Website: https://inlandiainstitute.org/my-calendar/?mc_id=2364

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 23^rd

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)

Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events

Romantasy Book Club: Bride at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will be discussing Bride by author Ali Hazelwood.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres. Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was….

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11706414

Sam Pasternak & Walker at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Sam Pasternak will discuss his book Walker, now in paperback.

Back in the 1860s, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone more famous and revered than Preston Dilettante, America’s greatest long-distance pedestrian. Preston’s descendants dispersed across the U.S.A., and his most devoted among them, Walker Dilettante, decides to literally follow in his ancestor’s footsteps and walk across the country. He just wants to reunite his family before his beloved Grandpappy walks his last steps. But Walker’s walk isn’t a solo trip — he’s joined by his social media-savvy cousin Ria, and trailed by mysterious forces and ancient rivals alike. Along the way, he embroils himself in a deadly national scandal and unearths shocking secrets about his family history.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/sam-pasternack

WAWOG Reading Series Featuring Fariha Roisin and Samir Eskander at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us at North Fig in solidarity with Writers Against the War on Gaza where acclaimed author Fariha Roisin will engage in conversation with Samir Eskander.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-m287l1ot

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 the Palms Up Academy curriculum and manifests their mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.

Join them 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 23^rd

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

Helena Hunting and Tijan Joint Event: Pucked and Enemies at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Join us to hear authors Helena Hunting and Tijan present their new books.

Helena Hunting will discuss her new novel Pucked.

Tijan will discuss her new novel Enemies.

This ticketed event includes a $20 store credit,

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Wednesday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets

At Skylight: Sarah LaBrie, with Alissa Nutting, & No One Gets to Fall Apart at Skylight – In-Person Event

Sarah LaBrie, in conversation with Alissa Nutting, will discuss her poignant memoir, No One Gets to Fall Apart.

In this poignant memoir, a writer takes on the conflict between the love that binds us to home and the desire to escape it for good.

On a highway in Houston, Texas, Sarah LaBrie’s mother was found screaming at passing cars, terrified she would be murdered by invisible assailants. The diagnosis of schizophrenia that followed compelled Sarah to rethink her childhood, marked at turns by violence and all-consuming closeness.

Digging into the events that led to her mother’s break, Sarah traces her family history of mental illness, from the dysphoria that plagued her great-grandmother, a granddaughter of slaves, to her own experience with depression as a scholarship student at Brown. At the same time, she navigates a decades-long fixation on a novel she can’t finish but can’t abandon, her complicated feelings about her white partner, and a fraught friendship colored by betrayal.

Spanning the globe from Houston’s Third Ward to Paris to Tallinn and New York to Los Angeles, No One Gets to Fall Apart is an unflinching chronicle of one woman’s attempt to forge a new future through a better understanding of the past.

Sarah LaBrie is a writer from Houston, Texas. Her libretti have been performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and her fiction appears in Guernica, The Literary Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She has held residencies at Yaddo, UCross and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives in Los Angeles where she has written for television shows including Minx (Starz), Blindspotting (Starz), Made for Love (MAX), and Love, Victor (Hulu). She holds an MFA from NYU where she was a Writers in the Schools fellow.

Alissa Nutting is a novelist, screenwriter, and showrunner, most recently of the Adult Swim & MAX animated series Teenage Euthanasia and the MAX original comedy Made For Love based on her New York Times Editor’s Choice novel of the same name.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-sarah-labrie-presents-no-one-gets-fall-apart-w-alissa-nutting

Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group: Demon Copperhead at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s Meeting Room in the Atrium

Date: Wednesday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 709 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/vromans-fiction-reading-group-12

Bruce Eric Kaplan & They Went Another Way: A Hollywood Memoir at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Bruce Eric Kaplan will discuss his new book, They Went Another Way: A Hollywood Memoir

This hilarious and surprisingly moving book is about life—about art, about love, about alienation, about connection, about ugliness and beauty, about disappointment, wonder, and hope. In short, it is about everything.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-23/bruce-eric-kaplan-discusses-they-went-another-way-hollywood-memoir

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 23^rd

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/

Roof Books Launch Reading: Deborah Meadows’ Bumblebees and Norman Fischer’s Through a Window at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event

Roof Books, the legendary New York publisher of experimental and avant-garde poetry, invites you to a reading to celebrate the launch of two new titles by California poets: Bumblebees, by Deborah Meadows, and Through a Window by Norman Fischer. Hosted by the publisher and editor of Roof, James Sherry, readers also include Roof authors Diane Ward and Brian Kim Stefans.

Norman Fischer is a poet, essayist, and Soto Zen Buddhist priest. His recent poetry titles are Nature, There Was a Clattering As…, The Museum of Capitalism, and Men in Suits. Just out from Roof Books is his serial poem Through a Window. In 2022 Chax Press brought out his Selected Poems 1980-2013. His latest Buddhist title is When You Greet Me I Bow: Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen. He lives in Muir Beach CA with his wife Kathie, also a Zen priest. He is the founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation wwww.everydayzen.org

Deborah Meadows’ new book of poetry is Bumblebees. She recently had work included in Hyena, a publication that celebrates the legacy of women’s surrealism on the occasion of the journal’s centennial. Recent poetry titles include Neo-bedrooms (Shearsman, 2022): Lecture Notes, a duration poem in twelve parts (2018), and The Demotion of Pluto: Poems and Plays (2017). She is an Emerita faculty member at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, lives with her husband in Los Angeles’ Arts District/Little Tokyo. http://www.deborahmeadows.com

Diane Ward’s poetry appears in the Spontaneous Publication “What Do You Say?” and is forthcoming in Julebord. Her books include Never Without One and Relation (both published by Roof Books), and Theory of Emotion (Segue / O Books). She is working with Phyllis Rosenzweig, Rod Smith and P. Inman to edit the Collected Works of Tina Darragh, and with Jacob Kahn on a collection of essays & poems by Roberto Bedoya. She lives in Sacramento where she works withurban agriculture programs and nonprofit groups.

Brian Kim Stefans’s most recent books are For Trapped Things (Roof, 2023), a collection of poems, and Festivals of Patience: The Verse Poems of Arthur Rimbaud (Kenning Editions, 2021), translations. Word Toys: Poetry and Technics, about poetry and the philosophy of technology, was published by the University of Alabama Press in 2017. He teaches English and new media studies at UCLA. His website is: http://www.arras.net

James Sherry is the author of 15 books of poetry and prose. His selected works, Comin’ ‘Round, is just out from Chax Press. Selfie: Poetry, Social Change & Ecological Connection was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2022. Since 1976, he has edited Roof Books and Roof Magazine, publishing nearly 200 titles of seminal works of language writing, flarf, conceptual poetry, new narrative, and environmental poetry.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Poetic Research Bureau at 2220 Arts + Archives

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 7:30 pm

Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057

Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/roof-books

Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Event

The West Coast’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered by Beyond Baroque 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 be prepared to share one poem.

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. An instructive video is available at the site.

The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.

The workshop facilitator this quarter is Arthur Kayzakian.

Arthur Kayzakian is the finalist for the 2024 Kate Tufts Award, and the winner of the 2021 inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings. He is also a recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.

Where: Beyond Baroque

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops

LiveTalks LA: Richard Powers, with Steph Cha, & Playground at New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Richard Powers, in conversation with Steph Cha, will discuss his new novel, Playground, a magisterial new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory and Bewilderment.

Richard Powers is the author of fourteen novels, including The Overstory, Bewilderment, and Orfeo. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award, and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s a critic whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor, and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology.

NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre, New Roads School

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404

(Free Parking available at the venue)

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/richardpowers/

Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Guest Evan Chelsee at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event

Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights will feature Evan Chelsee.

Evan Chelsee (they/them) is a doer of many things. At any given time you might find them co-hosting The Bi Pod, skill-building in restorative culture, or taking on their umpteenth project. In addition to poetry, Evan writes fiction, essays, and the occasional rec lists. You can find them surrounded by beverages in Long Beach, CA. They live on the internet at evanchelsee.com

$4 cover fee, cash only

NOTE: See site for further details.

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 23^rd

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events or https://www.facebook.com/events/1665213050717014/?_rdr

Lit Angels: Write Because You Love It with Tracey Simmons at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Lit Angels offers classes that provide just that—a fun and freeing way to work out the creative muscles and eliminate the stumbling blocks that might be holding you back, not only in your writing, art, or performance projects, but in all areas of your life—uplifting and refreshing your mind and soul, improving relationships, work, and your outlook on the future. Taught by top-level working professionals, Lit Angels classes cultivate community and connection, something we all desperately need in these challenging times.

Come make some magic at the Village Well! All genres and levels are welcome!

Tracey Simmons has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University LA. Her writing has been published in Aunt Chloe: A Journal of Artful Candor, Wussy Magazine, Reclamation Magazine, Lit Angels, and she leads writing groups at various wellness and recovery centers. Tracey is currently finishing her debut novel, Specimen.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42649

Afternoon Book Club for Adults: The Measure at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the novel The Measure by author Nikki Erlick.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

Books are available for check-out at the library. For adults.

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 4975 Overland Ave., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11821604

Book Discussion: Middlemarch at Sunland Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the classic novel Middlemarch by author George Eliot.

Join us for this community-led book discussion of George Eliot’s Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. Published in serialized installments of eight books from Dec. 1871 to Dec. 1872, it is now widely considered one of the greatest English novels of all time. In this session, we will be discussing Books V through VIII.

Where: Sunland Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 1 pm

Address: 7771 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga, CA 91042

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-discussion-2

Mar Vista Writing Club at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Are you passionate about writing or looking for a creative outlet? Our club invites adults of all ages and backgrounds to come together and explore their creativity through writing prompts. Whether you’re an experienced writer or just getting started, our supportive and welcoming environment encourages participants to share ideas, improve their skills, and connect with fellow writers. Meetings are held in the cozy atmosphere of the library, where inspiration flows freely.

Bring your notebook, laptop, typewriter or just your ideas—everyone is welcome!

Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL, Community Room

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 1:30 pm

Address: 12006 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mar-vista-writing-club

Book Club for Adults: The Midnight Library at Lloyd Taber Marina del Rey Library, LACL – In-Person Event

This month, join us for a discussion of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. For adults.

This book focuses on the life of Nora Sneed who has had a life full of regrets and misery but is given the opportunity to change the regretful choices made in her past.

Where: Marina del Rey Library, LACL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

Address: 4533 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11829591

Poetry Workshop at Sunland Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Step by step hands-on instructions to awaken creativity in all ages by Alice Pero, Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga.

Ms. Pero is an experienced teacher with a hands-on approach that inter-relates the arts and assists all participants to become better public speakers through poetry readings.

Where: Sunland Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 3 pm – 4 pm

Address: 7771 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga, CA 91042

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-2

Marwan Kaabour & The Queer Arab Glossary at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join North Fig in welcoming Marwan Kaabour to celebrate the release of QUEER ARAB GLOSSARY, a lexicon of Arabic LGBTQ+ slang.

With beautiful, witty illustrations, The Queer Arab Glossary is a powerful response to pervasive myths and stereotypes around sexuality and an invitation to take a journey into queerness throughout the Arab world.

Contributors include Saqer Almarri, Nisrine Chaer, Sophie Chamas, Rana Issa, Adam HajYahia, Suneela Mubayi, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, Hamed Sinno and Abdellah Taïa.

Marwan Kaabour is a graphic designer, artist and writer, and the founder of Takweer—an online archive of queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture. His interdisciplinary practice builds pathways between communication and publication design, curation, pedagogy and political activism. Alongside his independent projects, Kaabour works with non-profit institutions, companies and individuals in the art and culture sector, such as the V&A, Art Basel, National Gallery, Serpentine Galleries, Hayward Gallery and Banksy. He designed the much-celebrated Rihanna book, a Time magazine Best Photo Book of 2019. Kaabour was born in Beirut and currently lives and works in London.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-m288hxza

Writing Group at Donald Bruce Kauffman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

This group offers time to focus on your writing while providing accountability and encouragement to help you keep moving forward with your projects. We are looking for writers to bring their experience and skills to the table to help other writers flourish through the challenges that come with any writing project, big or small. We welcomes writers of all genres, styles, and experience levels.

Where: Donald Bruce Kauffman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 5:30 pm

Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/brentwood-writing-group-0

Between the Lines Book Club: I Will Find You at Castaic Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us as we explore Harlan Coben’s mystery I Will Find You. Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome! For adults.

David Burroughs was a devoted father to his three-year-old son Matthew, living a dream life a short drive away from the working-class suburb where he and his wife, Cheryl, first fell in love—until one fateful night when David woke suddenly to discover Matthew had been murdered while David was asleep just down the hall.

Where: Castaic Library, LACL

Date: Thursday, the 17^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 27971 Sloan Canyon Rd., Castaic, CA 91384

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11752067

Sci-Fi Short Story Club via Mark Twain Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Explore two Cli-Fi (climate fiction) selections with UCLA Professor Stephen Tobin, author of Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity from Mexican Cyberpunk Literature.

The selections, Alberto Chimal’s The Grand Experiment and Iliana Vargas’ Seed are available in both English and Spanish and will be sent with an RSVP to the event.

Las selecciones, El gran experimento de Alberto Chimal y Semilla de Iiliana Vargas están disponibles en inglés y en español y se enviarán con una confirmación de asistencia al evento.

RSVP:

RSVP here or email mtwain@lapl.org for the Zoom link.

Where: Mark Twain Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/sci-fi-short-story-club-mexican-climate-fiction-guest-stephen-tobin

Cover to Cover Book Club: Dear America at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Participants will discuss Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas.

Copies of each month’s selection should be available for check-out at the Reference Desk. New members are always welcome.

Where: Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club

Cookies & Comics Graphic Novel Book Club: Moon Knight: City of Dead via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Do you love graphic novels? Does your family get tired of having to talk about Watchmen—again? Looking for someone to geek out with you over the new stuff from Brian K. Vaughan? Then this is the club for you!

This month, we’ll discuss Moon Knight: City of the Dead by David Pepose and illustrated by Marcelo Ferreira—Moon Knight’s most harrowing adventure yet! When death cultists attack a young runaway, he is left barely alive outside the Midnight Mission. But Marc Spector made a vow long ago to defend the travelers of the night – and as long as a spark of life remains, his mission isn’t over. Grab this title on hoopla!

The intended audience for this monthly Zoom event is teens aged 16+ and adults. J. Blakemore will continue to lead the lively discussion, just as he has since 2018.

RSVP:

Email cookiesandcomicsclub@gmail.com to be included on the monthly mailing list and for the Zoom link.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cookies-comics-graphic-novel-book-club-3

Book + Art Installation Party: Kenneth Tan & Tans Interwoven at Bel Canto Retro Row – In-Person Event

Kenneth Tan will present and discussTans Interwoven: a family memoir on words and illustration.

A family is a collection of loose strands.

It’s a choice to wind through life together.

It’s a challenge to stay tightly knit.

Braiding their stories together, the Tans remind us that in our own families, with our lives entwining, we won’t see the patterns we’re repeating unless we take a moment to stop, step back, and look at the entire tapestry altogether.

Kenneth Tan is a second-generation Filipino American living in his hometown of San Jose. He has shared stories about his grandmother, Crescenciana Tan, on NPR and StoryCorps, and he is a recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artists Award.

Kenneth has a habit of opening doors too early for approaching strangers, causing them to jog. Tans Interwoven is his second book, following Crescenciana: A Memoir in Words and Illustrations.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Bel Canto Books, Retro Row

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 2106 E 4^th St., Long Beach, CA 90814

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kenneth-tan-book-art-installation-party-tickets-1037251526237

Sports Page Turner Book Club: There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants of this quarterly book club will discuss There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by author Hanif Abdurraqib.

Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. “Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father’s jump shot,” Abdurraqib writes. “The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.”

This book is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines and details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/sports-page-turner-book-club-meeting

Peter Olney and Joel Ochoa & Labor Power and Strategy at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event

Longtime union organizers, Peter Olney and Joel Ochoa will present and discuss the book Labor Power and Strategy published by PM Press 2023. This book consists of interviews with legendary strategist, labor organizer, and Harvard historian John Womack on the topic of strategic workers and strategic sectors. Womack’s lively, illuminating thoughts are built upon by ten young labor organizers and educators, whose responses create a rich dialogue and open a space for joyful, achievable change. Both Olney and Ochoa are contributors to the book, and they will facilitate a lively and timely discussion on how the working class can build labor power and solidarity.

Peter Olney is the retired Director of Organizing for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). He has been part of the labor movement for over 50 years and has worked for numerous labor unions as an organizer and negotiator. Since coming to California in 1983 his work has focused on building organization in the immigrant working class. From 2001 until 2004 Olney was the Associate Director of the University of California’s Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE). He has a Masters in Business Administration from UCLA and currently resides in San Francisco, California.

Joel Ochoa is a retired organizer for the International Association of Machinists (IAM) who currently resides in Southern California. The son of a railroad worker and originally from Chiapas, Mexico, he participated in the 1968 student movement in Mexico City as a High School student. In 1970 he began participating in a national movement for Popular Education and helped to create independent high schools in several cities; including the Preparatoria Popular Tacuba in Mexico City.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Page Against the Machine

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 2714 E. 4^th St., Long Beach, CA 90814

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/825685376389417

Lauren Marie Fleming, with Emery Lee, & Because Fat Girl at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Join us for the book launch by Laurn Marie Fleming, in conversation with Emery Lee, of her novel Because Fat Girl.

A book signing will follow the event.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets

Queer Spaces Storytelling Night at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

Join us for Queer Spaces Storytelling Night, featuring:

Page Person N/A

Daviel Shy is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates lush explorations of queer history, sensual healing, cinema, (r)evolution, and the ways these alchemize each other.

Aeon Lux N/A

Mr. Julian Sanchez is the author of The Antiquarian: A Novel.

Cat Mahatta is a musician, educator, and filmmaker.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Thursday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 1716 W Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://storiesla.com/events

Lit Angel Writing Workshop: Ancestral Wisdom Meditation with Jen Becherer at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

As the veil thins this season, join us for a soothing meditation class that connects you with the wisdom of your ancestors. Together, we’ll breathe deeply and commune with those who came before us, tapping into their loving guidance to support you in this new chapter. Quiet your mind, open your heart, and tune into the message that your ancestors want you to hear.

From Entertainment Executive to Mindful Leadership Coach, Jen Becherer helps her clients transition from burnout to living a life that’s more abundant, stress free, and on their terms. Through breathing techniques, guided visualization meditation, creative exercises, and group sessions she’s watched her clients’ limiting beliefs and creative blocks dissolve, being replaced with a renewed passion for life and their confident place of leadership within it. http://www.jenniferbecherer.com/

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42650

Frank DeCaro & DISCO: Music, Movies, and Mania under the Mirror Ball at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Frank DeCaro will discuss his new book, DISCO: Music, Movies, and Mania under the Mirror Ball.

This volume shines new light on the songs, styles, and enduring pop culture impact of the 1970s musical genre that emerged from Black and Latin queer culture to take the world by storm.

Half a century after the drug-fueled, DJ-driven, glamour-drenched musical phenomenon of disco was born at a New York City loft party, disco’s musical and fashion influences live on in popular culture.

This is a frolicking, entertaining, yet serious tribute to the overlooked art form of disco, which has never been given its proper due, nor taken its true place in the historic struggle for LGBTQ+, gender, and racial equality…

Frank DeCaro’s work has appeared in myriad publications including the New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Vogue, and the Advocate. He is also the author of Rizzoli’s Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Thursday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-24/frank-decaro-discusses-disco

Skulls & Stairs: Adam Stutz, Nick Forman, Genesis Perez, Celestial Cyclops at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event

Beyond Baroque welcomes you to the fourth installment of Skulls and Stairs at Beyond Baroque. Featuring poets reading at the staircase, including:

Adam Stutz, celebrating two new books out from Whit Stag Press: Sham Tapestry & COMPUNCTIONS + THEFTS;

Beyond Baroque bookstore favorite and former Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate, Genesis Perez;

and wicked BB intern, USC-undergrad Nicholas Wilder Forman.

The evening will feature a synthful set of archestral anarchy by The Martian Sunset keyboardist Ryan Madariaga, aka Celestial Cyclops. Dress up in your favorite spooky ghoul or dead author. All customes are encouraged!

NOTE: See site for further details and information.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm (doors at 7 pm)

Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/skulls-stairs-adam-stutz-nick-forman-genesis-perez-celestial-cyclops-tickets-1048931491327

Tia Chucha’s Book Club: Craft Stories at Tia Chucha’s Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Craft Stories | Wrote for the Devil by author Ananda Lima.

Strange, intimate, haunted, and hungry—Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is an intoxicating and surreal fiction debut by award-winning author Ananda Lima.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 24^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm

Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAjRGcXyLJA/?hl=en&img_index=1

LiveTalks LA: Alex Van Halen, with Ariel Levy, & Brothers at Robert Frost Auditorium – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Alex Van Halen, in conversation with Ariel Levy, will discuss his memoir, Brothers, his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love.

Alex van Halen is the co-founder of the rock band Van Halen and its original drummer. Born in Amsterdam and trained as a classical pianist, he graduated from Pasadena High School.

Ariel Levy was Alex Van Halen’s collaborator on Brothers and is the author of her own New York Times bestselling memoir The Rules Do Not Apply. Levy has received a National Magazine Award for her work at The New Yorker, where she has been a staff writer since 2008. She is the host and co-creator of the podcast The Just Enough Family.

Alex Van Halen wrote Brothers, a love letter to his younger brother, while still mourning Eddie‘s untimely death.

He recounts their childhood in an 800-square foot house in Pasadena, with an itinerant musician father and proper Indonesian-born mother—how they arrived in the US from the Netherlands and struggled to fit in. He also shares stories of musical politics, infighting and bad-boy behavior. The book includes never-before-seen photos from the author’s private archives, as he sets the record straight on his brother’s life and death in the first-ever accurate account of his family and the band.

NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.

Where: Robert Frost Auditorium

Date: Thursday, the 24^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: 4401 Elenda St., Culver City, CA 90230

(Free Parking available at the venue)

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/alexvanhalen/

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 25^th

Time: 9:30 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event

Book Club: The Mysterious Affair at Styles at La Mirada Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.

Poirot is settling in England near Styles Court, the country estate of his wealthy benefactress, Emily. When Emily is poisoned and the authorities are baffled, Poirot puts his prodigious sleuthing skills to work. For Adults

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: La Mirada Library, LACL

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 13800 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, CA 90638

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11864705

Horror Book Club: Something Wicked This Way Comes and All Hallows at Compton Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Ray Bradbury’s, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Christopher Golden’s All Hollows. You may read one or both books. To borrow a print copy of the books, please contact the Compton Library directly. For ages 18+

Do you find yourself attracted to the strange and unusual? Do you enjoy what others may find frightening? If so, join the Horror Book Club where each month we’ll provide you with diverse horror authors and titles to discuss with people who enjoy the same genre as you.

Something Wicked This Way Comes, two boys’ lives are changed forever when a sinister traveling carnival stops at their Illinois town.

All Hollows, on Halloween night in 1984 Coventry, Massachusetts, four children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup blend in with the neighborhood kids trick-or-treating, begging to be hidden and kept safe from The Cunning Man.

Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required. This will be used to save your spot in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered adult. To sign up, see library staff, or register online at Visit.LACountyLibrary.org/Events and filter by location or event date.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: Compton Library, LACL

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 240 W. Compton Blvd., Compton, CA 90220

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11816765

Monthly Poetry Reading & Open Mic at Bookman Bookstore, Orange – In-Person Event

This poetry reading and spoken word Open Mic is held every 4^th Friday of the month.

All are welcome.

Where: Bookman Bookstore

Date: Friday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 320 E. Katella Ave., Orange, CA 92867

Website: https://www.instagram.com/bookmanorange/?hl=en

Black Lit Book Club: One Shot Harry at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the novel One Shot Harry (A Harry Ingram Mystery #1) by author Gary Phillips.

Race and civil rights in 1963 Los Angeles provide a powerful backdrop in Gary Phillips’s riveting mystery about an African American crime scene photographer seeking justice for a friend—perfect for fans of Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, and George Pelecanos.

Gary Phillips has published novels, comics, novellas, short stories and edited or co-edited several anthologies, including the Anthony-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Almost 30 years after its publication, his debut, Violent Spring, was named one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He was also a writer and co-producer on Snowfall, a show streaming on Hulu about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central where he grew up.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Friday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/black-lit-book-club-one-shot-harry

Special Author Event: Jim Fredrick & Opening Weekend at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us for the book launch event for Jim Fredrick & Opening Weekend: An Insider’s Look at Marketing Hollywood’s Hits and Flops.

This book recounts his journey through the realm of movie marketing. Fredrick offers readers exclusive access to behind-the-scenes anecdotes and firsthand accounts of working with studio executives and navigating relationships with famous movie stars and directors.

Across a span of thirty-five years, Fredrick’s roles as a trailer maker and studio executive allowed him to craft advertising campaigns for a range of movies, from such iconic cinematic gems as The Shawshank Redemption to the widely beloved Harry Potter franchise, to commercial failures like The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Fired Up! Opening Weekend explores the intricacies of the lesser-known business of film distribution and marketing, unraveling the complex mechanisms through which movies are sold to discriminating audiences. Replete with triumphs, setbacks, and the relentless spirit that drives the creation and promotion of cinematic masterpieces, Opening Weekend promises an enthralling glimpse into the previously untold world of Hollywood movies.

NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines and details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2024-10-25/special-author-event-jim-fredrick

Will Hermes, with Craig Marks, & Lou Reed: The King of New York at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Will Hermes, in conversation with Craig Marks, will discuss his book, Lou Reed: The King of New York.

The most complete and penetrating biography of the rock master, whose stature grows every year.

Since his death in 2013, Lou Reed’s living presence has only grown. The great rock poet presided over the marriage of Brill Building pop and the European avant-garde, and left American culture transfigured. In Lou Reed: The King of New York, Will Hermes offers the definitive narrative of Reed’s life and legacy, dramatizing his long, brilliant, and contentious dialogue with fans, critics, fellow artists, and assorted habitués of the demimonde. We witness Reed’s complex partnerships with David Bowie, Andy Warhol, John Cale, and Laurie Anderson; track the deadpan wit, street-smart edge, and poetic flights that defined his craft as a singer and songwriter with the Velvet Underground and beyond; and explore the artistic ambition and gift for self-sabotage that he took from his mentor the poet Delmore Schwartz.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/will-hermes-2024

Book Launch: Lucy Ives, with Jonathan Lethem, & An Image of My Name Enters America at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us at North Fig for the launch of Lucy Ives’s new essay collection, An Image of my Name Enters America. The author will be in conversation with Jonathan Lethem.

What would you risk to know yourself? Which stories are you willing to follow to the bitter end, revise, or, possibly, begin all over? In this collection of five interrelated essays, Lucy Ives explores identity, national fantasy, and history. She examines events and records from her own life—a childhood obsession with My Little Pony, papers and notebooks from college, an unwitting inculcation into the myth of romantic love, and the birth of her son—to excavate larger aspects of the past that have been suppressed or ignored. With bracing insight and extraordinary range, she weaves new stories about herself, her family, our country, and our culture.

She connects postmodern irony to eighteenth-century cults, Cold War musicals to a great uncle’s suicide to the settlement of the American West, museum period rooms to the origins of her last name to the Assyrian genocide, and the sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem to the development of modern obstetrics. Here Ives retrieves shadowy sites of pain and fear and, with her boundless imagination, attentiveness, and wit, transforms them into narratives of repair and possibility.

Lucy Ives is the author of three novels: Impossible Views of the World; Loudermilk: Or, The Real Poet; Or, The Origin of the World; and Life Is Everywhere. She is the 2023–2025 Bonderman Assistant Professor of the Practice in Literary Arts at Brown University.

Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including The Arrest, The Feral Detective, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-m0r8ef93

At Skylight: Steve Wasserman, with Hector Tobar, & Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It’s a Lie at Skylight – In-Person Event

Steve Wasserman, in conversation with Hector Tobar, will discuss his book, Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It’s a Lie.

An exhilarating journey through the world of books, featuring personal reflections on Susan Sontag, Huey Newton, Barbra Streisand, W. G. Sebald, and Christopher Hitchens.

These essays include the remarkable tale of a bookstore owner who wouldn’t let him buy the books he wanted, to his brave against-the-grain take on the Black Panthers, to his shrewd assessment of the fast-changing world of publishing. Here is, as Joyce Carol Oates notes, “arguably the very best concise history of Cuba and the legendary Fidel Castro; beautifully composed eulogies for two close friends, Susan Sontag and Christopher Hitchens; sharply perceptive commentary on Daniel Ellsberg; a thrillingly candid interview with W. G. Sebald.”

Steve Wasserman is the publisher of Heyday. A 1974 graduate of UC Berkeley, he holds a degree in criminology. His past positions include being deputy editor of the op-ed page and opinion section of the Los Angeles Times; editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review; editorial director of New Republic Books; publisher and editorial director of Hill and Wang at Farrar, Straus & Giroux and of the Noonday Press; editorial director of Times Books at Random House; and editor at large for Yale University Press. A former partner of the literacy agency Kneerim & Williams, he represented many authors, including Christopher Hitchens, Linda Ronstadt, Robert Scheer, and David Thomson. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Héctor Tobar is a Los Angeles-born author of six books, including, most recently, Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino,” winner of the Kirkus Prize and other honors. His nonfiction Deep Down Dark was a New York Times bestseller, and his novel The Barbarian Nurseries won the California Book Award. Tobar’s fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, and he earned his MFA in Creative Writing from UC Irvine, where he is currently a professor. At the Los Angeles Times he was a foreign correspondent and won a Pulitzer Prize. Tobar has been a Guggenheim fellow, an op-ed writer for the New York Times, and a contributor to The New Yorker. He is the son of Guatemalan immigrants.

Where: Skylight

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-steve-wasserman-presents-tell-me-something-tell-me-anything-even-if-its-lie-w-h%C3%A9ctor

TDSB: The Definitive Soapbox Open Mic at Wrigley Coffee, Long Beach – In-Person Event

The Definitive Soapbox Open Mic (TDSB) is held every last Friday of the month. All ages.

Feature: Pastiche Queen is an award-winning playwright, champion slam poet, trans director, Non-Binary, Latindigenous and queer from another dimension.

Follow for more info: https://www.instagram.com/thedefinitivesoapbox/

Where: Wrigley Coffee Co.

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 437 W. Willow St., Long Beach, CA 90806

Website: https://www.lbpoetry.com/

Debut Fiction Book Launch: Muriel Leung, with Ryka Aoki, & How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for a celebration of the launch of Muriel Leung’s new novel How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster!

Leung will be joined by Hugo finalist Ryka Aoki for a conversation about the debut book that Kirkus calls “absurd and profound.” A reading, Q&A, and signing will follow.

Acid rainstorms have transformed New York City into a toxic wasteland, cutting its remaining citizens off from one another. In one apartment building, an unlikely family of humans and ghosts survives. Mira reels from a devastating breakup with her partner, Mal, whose whereabouts are unknown, while her mother is plagued by furious dreams and her grandfather, Grandpa Why, stakes his claims as a rambunctious ghost. Across the hall, the cockroach Shin, also a ghost. As the world around them worsens, each character must learn to redefine what it means to live, die, and love at the end of the world.

From Queens, New York, Muriel Leung is the author of the novel How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster (W.W. Norton & Company) in addition to other books that include the Poetry Society of America’s 2022 Four Quartets Prize winning Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books), Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), and Images Seen to Images Felt (Antenna) in collaboration with artist Kristine Thompson. She serves on the Board of Directors for Apogee Journal, a journal dedicated to uplifting historically marginalized writers and artists. She received her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from University of Southern California where she was an Andrew W. Mellon Humanities in a Digital World fellow. She is permanent faculty at the California Institute of the Arts.

Ryka Aoki is a poet, composer, teacher, and novelist. Her latest novel, Light From Uncommon Stars (Tor Books 2021) was an Alex, SCKA, and Otherwise Award winner, and was also a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte Awards. Ryka is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for her collections Seasonal Velocities and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. She has been recognized by the California State Senate for “extraordinary commitment to the visibility and well-being of Transgender people,” and her work has appeared or been recognized in publications including Vogue, Elle, Bustle, Autostraddle, PopSugar, and Buzzfeed, as well as the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. She was also honored to work with the American Association of Hiroshima Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, where two of her compositions were adopted as the organization’s “songs of peace.”

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42734

Will Buxton & Grand Prix: An Illustrated History of Formula One at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Will Buxton will discuss his new book, Grand Prix: An Illustrated History of Formula One.

As the lead commentator on Netflix’s breakout series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Will Buxton has emerged as the most prominent journalist covering the sport for the new generation of fans. Grand Prix chronicles the past, present, and future of F1 in an engaging and easily digestible format. You’ll be introduced to historical heroes, such as Formula 1’s very first world champion, Giuseppe Farina, through every decade and every champion of the sport, including the iconic Lewis Hamilton and reigning champion Max Verstappen. You’ll meet the drivers these great champions did battle with and discover the teams they raced for and the tracks they mastered. Packed with incredible stories and epic races, this captivating collection also contains features on every aspect of the sport today.

Filled with immersive and pend an evening of nearly impossible-to-describe strangeness, whimsy, and hilarity with the one and only, Jenny Slate. As she reads you pieces from LIFEFORM – her brand new book of essays – join Jenny on a journey through all of the relatable phases of life from heartbreak to true love to pregnancy, parenthood, not to mention all of the tiny, odd details that make up a life. The actor, comedian, co-creator of Marcel the Shell, and New York Times bestselling author will host an evening complete with a live reading, a moderated conversation, and an audience Q&A. Tickets to this event will also include a signed copy of LIFEFORM. engaging information with illustrations as dynamic and bold as the sport itself, Grand Prix is the definitive introduction to the world’s fastest sport.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-25/will-buxton-discusses-grand-prix-illustrated-history-formula-1

ALOUD Reading Series Presents: Jenny Slate, with George Saunders, & LIFEFORM at The Palace Theater – In-Person Event

Spend an evening of nearly impossible-to-describe strangeness, whimsy, and hilarity with the one and only, Jenny Slate. As she reads you pieces from LIFEFORM, her book of essays. Join Jenny on a journey through all of the relatable phases of life from heartbreak to true love to pregnancy, parenthood, not to mention all of the tiny, odd details that make up a life. The actor, comedian, co-creator of The Palace Theat, and New York Times bestselling author will host an evening complete with a live reading, a moderated conversation, and an audience Q&A

Jenny Slate is an actor and stand-up comedian, and the author of the essay collection Little Weirds (an instant New York Times best seller), as well as the New York Times best-selling children’s book Marcel The Shell with Shoes On. Her feature film Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (which she co-wrote and starred in) was nominated for many awards, including a Critic’s Choice, Golden Globe, and Academy Award. Jenny Slate lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter and dog. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

George Saunders is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize; Congratulations, by the way; Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award; The Braindead Megaphone; and the critically acclaimed short story collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia, and In Persuasion Nation. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: ALOUD Reading Series off-site at The Palace Theater

Date: Friday, the 25^th

Time: 7:30 pm

Address: 630 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014

Website: https://lfla.org/venue/palace-theatre/ or https://lfla.org/event/lifeform

Spooktacular Book Party at South El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Kids & Family Event

Join us for a book party featuring your favorite spooky characters. Listen to stories and create fun art activities. For ages 5 – 12 with a parent or caregiver.

Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required. Please register every individual in your party, including kids. This will be used to save your spots in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered attendees.

Where: South El Monte Library, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

Address: 1430 North Central Ave., South El Monte, CA 91733

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11831481

Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Small Spaces via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online Kids & MG Event

Middle-grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions.

This month we will be reading Small Spaces by Katherine Arden.

RSVP:

Please e-mail: akagan@lapl.org or gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.

Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-small-spaces-katherine-arden

Mystery Book Club: Alias Emma at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Read the book and join our lively discussion!

Participants will discuss Alias Emma by author Ava Glass.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 11 am

Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14

Book Club: Hello Beautiful at Gardens Mayme Dear Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Hello Beautiful by author Ann Napolitano.

Copies of the book are available at the Customer Service Desk.

William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future.

Where: Gardena Mayme Dear Library, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 1731 W. Gardena Blvd., Gardena, CA 90247

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11933261

Cat-lover Storytime: Kristen Tracy & I Quit at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Kids Event

Author Kristen Tracy will read and discuss I Quit. Best for ages 4+.

Fans of Cat Problems and Mother Bruce will not want to miss this hiss-terical picture book! I Quit is an oh-so-relatable story about a misbehaving kitty who’s had just about enough…only to find out she’s had what she needed all along.

When kitty first got adopted, everything was purr-fect.

Then came the rules. NO eating the bread! NO chasing the baby! BAD KITTY! Excuse me? She’s not a bad kitty. Left with no choice, she says goodbye to everything she loves (even her favorite crinkled-up receipt) and quits!

But kitty’s adventure in the great outdoors doesn’t go as planned, and she realizes that she may have made a few mistakes. She knows she can do better, but how can she get home? Would her family even want her back?

A laugh-out-loud picture book perfect for anyone who has ever had that “I quit!” feeling.

Kristen Tracy is a former teacher, a poet, a winner of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award from the Poetry Foundation, and an author of numerous books for children including: I Am Picky: Confessions of a Fussy Eater, I Am Friendly: Confessions of a Helpful Bear, and the middle-grade novel Don’t Trust the Cat. She lives in Santa Clarita with her family.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 11 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/i-quit

West Hollywood Poet Laureate Anniversary Celebration – In-Person Event

Office Hours with City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng.

Drop by and visit West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng as we celebrate her one-year anniversary as laureate.

Bring your curiosity, pick up a free poem postcard, and/or get some writing tips. This outdoor meet + greet is dog-friendly and kid-friendly.

Where: Fan Girl Cafe

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 10 am – 12 pm

Address: 8157 Santa Monica Blvd., CA 90046

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBPjgLiyXsE/

AIRC Book Club: Man Made Monsters at Huntington Park Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Man Made Monsters by author Andrea L. Rogers.

Spooky season is finally here! Experience the frightening and unsettling stories through a Cherokee lens by reading and discussing YA horror crossover book Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers and illustrated by Jeff Edwards.

This collection of horror stories follow a Cherokee family throughout the centuries from the 1830s to present. And did we mention there are vampires AND zombies?!

Copies of the book are available for checkout at Huntington Park Library and may also be downloaded as an eBook or audiobook at LACountyLibrary.org

Light refreshments served courtesy of Friends of the Huntington Park Library.

For ages 18 and up.

Where: Huntington Park Library, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: 6518 Miles Ave., Huntington Park, CA 90255

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11933261

Reading Event: House of the Highest and Most Pious at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Livestream Hybrid Event

Based on anthologized material and using tongue twisting rhyming verse in the DADA tradition, Christian Georgescu’s multimedia production House of The Highest and Most Pious (HOTHAMP) depicts a prosperity preacher’s search for meaning as he contends with modern life amid late-stage Capitalism.

Featuring LA’s premier spoken word artists S.A. Griffin, Rich Ferguson, Kathleen Florence, and Nicholas Garcia, HOTHAMP meets at the intersection of literature, circus, stadium event and church service. “An exceptionally crafted inside joke. Humor at its best: first disarming the reader with charm and wit, then hitting hard with truth that alters perception.” The Pedestal Magazine

Award-winning designer, writer and performer, Christian Georgescu has appeared in Poetry Brothel and The Moth. His previous solo shows Meisner with Mama, iLucifer and House of ME have premiered at United Solo NYC and Hollywood Fringe. His written works are anthologized in It’s Animal But Merciful (Great Weather for Media) and Seflie (NYSAI Press) among others. His current multi-media theater production House of The Highest and Most Pious (HOTHAMP) is a culmination of material published over the years in the DADA Maintenant Journals (#9-#17, 2015-2024) by NYC’s Three Room Press. Brought to life with visuals, costume and song, HOTHAMP tells the tale of a prosperity preacher’s search for meaning as he contends with discontent, disconnect and late stage Capitalism. “An exceptionally crafted inside joke. Humor at its best: first disarming the reader with charm and wit, then hitting hard with truth that alters perception.” The Pedestal Magazine.

L.A. poet/spoken-word performer Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals. He is the author of the novel New Jersey Me (Rare Bird Books), and two poetry collections 8th & Agony (Punk Hostage Press), and Everything is Radiant Between the Hates (Moon Tide Press). Most recently, Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press).

Kathleen Florence writes poetry for the stage, putting down words to perform them up. She is a produced playwright member of the Dramatist Guild of America, founder of Toronto’s Garage Theatre, winner of the Evan Hughes Playwright award and contributing artist to the annual Maintenant journal of contemporary DADA published by NYC’s Three Room Press.

Nicholas Garcia is a rising entertaining character based in Southern California. He performs improv comedy in front of a live audience for Improvcity’s Tuesday Troupe in Tustin, CA. When he’s not improvising, he’s cracking up crowds as a stand-up comic across Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Orange Counties.

S.A. Griffin lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. He has been accused of being a poet and / or an actor and performance artist. Among other things, he believes that God is a left handed cheeseburger.

NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 2 pm – 5 pm (Doors at 1:30 pm)

Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/house-of-the-highest-and-most-pious-tickets-962479872207?aff=oddtdtcreator

Fourth Saturdays Poetry Series: Lory Bedikian & Anna Leahy at Claremont Library – In-Person Event

Fourth Saturdays Poetry’s October event features readings by Lory Bedikian and Anna Leahy.

Lory Bedikian’s Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Poetry Book Prize from the University of Nebraska Press. Her first collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip Levine Prize. Bedikian’s poems received the Neruda Prize for Poetry in the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards. She has been featured on Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound podcast. Her work is included in the anthology Border Lines: Poems of Migration, KNOPF, 2020. Bedikian’s manuscript-in-progress received a 2021 grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. New work appears in Massachusetts Review’s “Revisiting WOMAN,” SWWIM and is forthcoming in Ploughshares.

Anna Leahy’s latest books are the poetry collections If in Some Cataclysm, What Happened Was, and Aperture. She authored the nonfiction book Tumor and is co-author of Generation Space and Conversing With Cancer. Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Bennington Review, Comstock Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Scientific American, and more; her essays have won top prizes from the Mississippi Review, Los Angeles Review, Ninth Letter, and Dogwood. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing program at Chapman University, where she edits the international Tab Journal.

Where: Claremont Helen Renwick Library

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont, CA 91711

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/2847645328721249/?ref=newsfeed

BRC Book Club: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone & How We Can Prosper Together at Black Resource Center, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee. To check out a copy please see front desk at AC Bilbrew.

Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? Summary provided by publisher. To check out a copy please see front desk at AC Bilbrew.

Where: Black Resource Center, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm

Address: 150 E. El Segundo Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90061

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/11819562

Miriam’s Garden Poetry Series: Claudia Hernandez, Cynthia Briano & David A. Romero at Hyde Park Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Miriam’s Garden Poetry Series is hosted by Yago Cura and this month’s features include:

Claudia Hernandez is the author of The Orchid of Quetzali.

Cynthia Alessandra Briano is Director of the Rapp Saloon Reading Series and Founder of Love On Demand Global. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Southeast L.A. and teaches at Cal. State University Fullerton in the African American Studies Department as part of the Ethnic Studies Program. She has been recipient of the Lois Morrell & J. Russell Hayes Poetry Prize and finalist in the James Hearst Poetry Prize.

David A. Romero is co-founder of El Martillo Press and is the author of My Name Is Romero and Diamond Bars II.

Where: Miriam Matthews Hyde Park Libra43, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm

Address: 2205 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DA9O1idzh1K/

Creative Writing Group at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Calling all writers of fiction, screenplays, poetry, etc. Get feedback on your writing in a fun, supportive environment. Meetings include a writing prompt/exercise, snacks, and a rollicking good time! Whether you are just starting out or well on your way to glory, join us and banish (at least temporarily) those Lonely Writer Blues!

RSVP:

Please RSVP by emailing fiction@lapl.org today.

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Meeting Room B

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90071

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/writers-group-0

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Lawrence R. Berger, Patrick Thomas Jeffries & Michelle Smith Readings – Online Event

Poets hosted by DKC include Lawrence R. Berger, Patrick Thomas Jeffries & Michelle Smith + poets published in Four Feathers Press online edition Still Night.

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: https://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/

7^th Anniversary Includes Poetry, Paint, & SipEvent at Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person Event

Cafe con Libros celebrates its 7^th anniversary with a full day of events, local venders, giveaways, and fundraising, including Poetry, Paint & Sip at 5 pm.

Unleash your inner artist while listening to emotive poetry, enjoying wine in a relaxing atmosphere. 21+

Tickets on sale at site.

Where: Café con Libros Press

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 280 W. 2^nd St., Pomona, CA 91766

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAr6POnJY–/?img_index=4

Special Author Event: Oliver Jeffers & Where to Hide a Star at pages: a bookstore Off-site at American Martyrs O’Donnell Hall – In-Person Event

Oliver Jeffers will celebrate 20 years of picture book making with the release of his book Where to Hide a Star, a new picture book about the magic of friendship featuring beloved characters Boy and Penguin.

This special event will be held at American Martyrs O’Donnell Hall on Saturday, October 26th at 4:00pm and will include a story time reading, Q & A, and book signing. Tickets are required for this event.

NOTE: See site for tickets and details.

Where: American Martyrs O’Donnell Hall

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

Address: 700 15^th St., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2024-10-26/special-author-visit-oliver-jeffers

Pages on Stages: Halloween Edition of Open Mic by CLI at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event

This month we are featuring the East Los Chapter students taught by @anastasiafenald! This mic is very special for us because it creates a space for our students to practice their spoken word and feel seen and heard.

The Sims Library is home to CLI and we want to keep it alive and open for everyone. Please come support these students as well as this beloved library by joining next weeks open mic—Halloween Edition! Come celebrate with a costume and some poetry! Feel free to hop on the mic as well. We would love to have you and see familiar faces as well.

Costumes encouraged!

NOTE: See site for tickets and details. $10 at the door.

Where: Sims Library of Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBM2ECFyKZE/

Historical Fiction Book Club: The Hacienda at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Hacienda by author Isabel Cañas.

Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches…

During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.

But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined…

Isabel Cañas is a Mexica American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, and Turkey, among other places, she has settled (for now) in New York City. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/historical-fiction-book-club-hacienda

9th Annual Katipunan Poetry Slam at SIPA – In-Person Event

9th Annual Katipunan Poetry Slam at Search to Involve Pilipino Americans’ (SIPA) HiFi Collective on Saturday, October 26, 2024 in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles!

This invitational Filipino American poetry slam is about identity, lived experience, and solidarity across communities. All are welcome!

Show begins with special performances, audience judges selection, and slam competition with three rounds and announcing this year’s Katipunan Poetry Slam Champion.

Competitors:

Before Ashley C. Lanuza attended UCLA for Psychology and Film Media studies, she began exploring her sense of self. Born in America to an immigrant Filipino family, Ashley has made it her mission to explore identity and how it influences our memories and the paths we choose to take in life. Ms. Lanuza contends that it all begins in childhood “with its roller coaster of changes” and progresses throughout adulthood—an ever-changing “work in progress.” Her book of poetry, My Heart of Rice, is a collection of her experiences in self-identity and understanding.

Demetri Manabat is a 22 year old Filipinx writer who lives in Los Vegas.

Jaime Estepa (@_jaimest) is a queer Filipinx American poet, playwright, and alum of VONA/Voices and the UCLA Professional Program, TV Writing. He has received fellowships from the Periplus Collective and Lambda Literary.

Johnny Swoopz is a multi-faceted artist born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. As a poet, designer, and photographer, he aims to push what it means to expand the limits of poetry’s presence in different artistic medium. Johnny is a member of Spotlight Poetry and a two-time regional slam champion.

Maria Bolaños (she/siya/they) is the author of SANA, co-founder of Sampaguita Press, member of The Digital Sala, & co-organizer of FilCan Book Festival. Maria migrates between Tongva, Ohlone, Musqueam, Squamish & Tsleil-Waututh lands, and Inang Bayan Pilipinas, working in community to build art spaces for healing, land back, and liberation.

Matt Balane is a Filipino American Hip Hop Artist, Rap Lyricist, Spoken Word Poet, and Motivational Speaker from Perris, CA. Covering topics such as mental health, human fragility, and life adversity, his artistry seeks to convey messages of hope through poetic rhymes.

RJ Abesamis is a queer trans-masc cultural artist in the Pilipinx-American community. Currently, he is in the pursuit of creating cultural work that would normalize QTPOC representation and articulate multiculturalism, political consciousness, and queer Pilipinx excellence through spoken word, music, writing, and film.

Soul Stuf is a sometime poet, full time goof who hails from humble NY, but currently files his taxes in LA. He loves those tiny plates you get at Korean barbecue and once placed fourth in his elementary school spelling bee. Occasionally, he spews his stream of consciousness onstage.

KP is a spoken word artist and performer based in Los Angeles, California. He has performed at several unique venues, such as Biola University, the historic Greenway Court Theater, and the Asian American International Film Festival. He is the author of The Love Manifesto, a book of poetry and memoirs based on love, devotion, and navigating through relationships.

Laraisabird does a little bit of everything: interviews, vlogs, profile pieces/essays, spoken word, cooking, and a million other things.

Calibration Poet(s): Rozlind Silva

Host: arianna “lady” basco

Sound Selection: Miko/Yungbuko

Food: HiFi Kitchen

Sponsors: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans – Palms Up Academy – HiFi Kitchen – Los Angeles Poet Society – Street Poets – Arts in California Parks – Parks California – FilAm Arts

NOTE: See site for tickets and details.

Where: (SIPA) HiFi Collective

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 5 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 3200 W. Temple St., STE 100, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/9th-annual-katipunan-poetry-slam-tickets-1020251548847

Book Launch Event: Tilsa Otta and Navid Sinaki Present: The Hormone of Darkness and Medusa of the Roses at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us at North Fig for a reading and signing event with authors Tilsa Otta, author of The Hormone of Darkness and Navid Sinaki, author of Medusa of the Roses.

Tilsa Otta is a Peruvian writer and media artist. She has published books of poetry, short stories, poems for children, a comic, and a novel.

The Hormone of Darkness presents a queer, Latinx person who has lived through iterations of authoritarian rule, and who answers these conditions by creating poetry that doubles down on a life force that precedes and exceeds received notions of the poetic. Here poetry is bawdy, fabulist, and spiritual—in short, it is alive. Otta has created a heaven where readers can go after they die.

Drawing from four volumes spanning Otta’s career, translator-poet Farid Matuk has curated a playlist we can dance and dream to, one that honors Otta’s drive toward liberation through both perreo in the club and transdimensional wandering among the stars

Navid Sinaki is an artist and writer from Tehran who currently lives in Los Angeles. His works have been exhibited at museums and art houses around the world. His first solo art exhibition The Infinite Garden debuted at Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Sex, vengeance, and betrayal in modern day Tehran is found in Medusa of Roses, Navid Sinaki’s bold and cinematic debut is a queer literary noir following Anjir, a morbid romantic and petty thief whose boyfriend disappears just as they’re planning to leave their hometown for good. Anjir and Zal are childhood best friends turned adults in love. The only problem is they live in Iran, where being openly gay is criminalized, and the government’s apparent acceptance of trans people requires them to surgically transition and pass as cis straight people.

Zal vanishes. Stalking and stealing his way through the streets, clubs, library stacks, hotel rooms, and museum halls of Tehran, Anjir’s morals and gender identity are pushed to new places in the pursuit of Zal, peace, and self-determination. Steeped in ancient Persian and Greek myths, and brimming with poetic vulnerability, subversive bite, and noirish grit, Medusa of the Roses is a page-turning wallop of a story from a bright new literary talent.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-m0r8fql7

Author Event: Monica Kim & The Eyes Are the Best Part at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Debut horror author Monika Kim will talk about her newly released novel, The Eyes Are the Best Part (eeeep!!) on Saturday, October 26th at 6:00pm!

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing. In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that. For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

Monika Kim graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a B.A. in Communication. Since 2016, she has been working for an environmental agency based in Southern California. In her current role, Monika’s work is focused on environmental justice and assisting underserved communities through outreach and youth education programs. Monika is passionate about the environment and climate justice. Through her books, she seeks to raise awareness of the Asian American experience as well as of feminist issues. In her free time, Monika likes to try new foods, read, play video games, travel, and take pictures. Monika is a second-generation Korean American living in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, where she resides with her family and her tuxedo cat, Velvet. She learned about eating fish eyes and other Korean superstitions from her mother, who immigrated to California from Seoul in 1985.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/monikakim

Monthly Heartbeats Open Mic at The Libros with L.A. Poet Society in Lincoln Heights – In-Person Event

Guest host Ale Roggero will welcome this month’s featured guest readers:

Pam Conception @pamconcep5; and John White @eastlossoul.

Where: The Libros, Lincoln Heights

Date: Saturday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: 3422 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90031

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBLFOR1p7ag/

Book Event: Marcus Bridgewater & Seasons of Growth at Reparations Club – In-Person Event

Author Marcus Bridgewater will present and discuss his new self-care journal inspired by the wisdom of nature Seasons of Growth. Join us for a night of journaling and discussing the importance of living seasonally for well-being.

Using the central metaphor of a tree, Bridgewater explores how to undergo personal transformation in our minds (the leaves), in our bodies (the trunk), and in our spirit (our roots). Just as a tree yearns to grow, so do we. But as Marcus makes clear, “writing a single journal entry and expecting your life to turn around is like asking for fruit from a tree you planted yesterday. Growth doesn’t just happe–it’s a never-ending process, something we should welcome and embrace.”

In this beautiful self-care journal, we can discover powerful and healing practices organized by the seasons, each mirroring different stages of our growth process.

Marcus Bridgewater is a creator, educator, motivational speaker, and plant enthusiast. He is the personality behind Garden Marcus on social media, which demonstrates that a positive, knowledgeable approach to nurturing plants also helps us grow as people. He is the Founder and CEO of Choice Forward, a company that offers life coaching, seminars, and workshops, and he is the author of How to Grow: Nurture Your Garden, Nurture Yourself.

Where: Reparations Club

Date: Saturday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-event-seasons-of-growth-with-marcus-bridgewater-tickets-1039709498097?aff=oddtdtcreator

Weijia Pan, with Dare Williams and Sara Ellen Fowler, & Motherlands at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Livestream Hybrid Event

Beyond Baroque welcomes Weijia Pan and her book Motherlands, chosen by Louise Glück for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize.

This engrossing debut interrogates history, identity, and the power of poetry to elucidate both.

Motherlands opens with a child drawn early to poetry. “In summer I write. Two lines at a time, two vying souls / running up the wall.” The collection follows this speaker-poet through a childhood in post-Maoist China and an eventual move to the United States, laying bare cultural and linguistic tensions in both historical and modern settings. He cites Chinese laborers toiling in American factories—an echo of the brutalities endured by those who constructed the Transatlantic Railroad—and speaks to anxieties around belonging, assimilation, and identity.

In these attentive, imaginative poems, Weijia Pan questions the artist’s duty—his duty—as a chronicler of truth, especially through issues of displacement and global injustice. What can the poet do but observe? And yet, in unpacking ancestral traumas connected to Maoist China and modern-day bigotry exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, he still finds himself turning to art as a way to understand both the self and the world at large. Through elegant juxtapositions, Pan crafts an emotional world that is at once regional and universal—Li Bai and Du Fu sit alongside Glenn Gould and Sviatoslav Richter, pepper used to bless new roads is repurposed in the mace used against protesters, two languages compete on a single tongue. Lyrical and visionary, this collection embodies poetry’s capacity to ground us, teach us, and change us.

In celebration of his debut poetry collection Weija Pan will read alongside Dare Williams and Sara Ellen Fowler in the Wanda Coleman Theater. Book Signings before & after the readings.

Weijia Pan is the author of Motherlands, selected by Louise Glück for the 2023 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. A poet and translator from Shanghai, China, his poems have appeared in AGNI, Boulevard, Copper Nickel, Georgia Review, New Ohio Review, Ninth Letter, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. He is a third-year MFA at the University of Houston, where he is a winner of the Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry.

Dare Williams is a Queer HIV-positive poet, facilitator and literary worker rooted in Southern California. He has received support/fellowships for his work from Brooklyn Poets, Breadloaf, Tin House, and Vermont Studio Center. He has been awarded a California Arts Council Performance Grant, and a Peter Taylor Fellowship from The Kenyon Writers Workshop. His work has been featured in Kenyon Review, Foglifter, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He is an associate poetry editor at Hooligan Magazine and a current student in the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College.

Sara Ellen Fowler is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles, CA. Her writing has appeared in The Offing, X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, Interim, and Gigantic Sequins, among others. Her work has been supported by the Frost Place Conference on Poetry, HomeSchool—Claremont, and the Community of Writers. Sara holds a BFA in sculpture from Art Center College of Design and an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Riverside. In 2023, she was awarded a California Arts Council Individual Fellowship Award administered by Los Angeles Performance Practice for Los Angeles County. Her first book, Two Signatures, was selected by Joan Naviyuk Kane for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry in 2023 and will be published by the University of Utah Press in 2024.

NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday, the 26^th

Time: 8 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)

Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/motherlands-weijia-pan-dare-williams-sara-ellen-fowler-tickets-1039328598817

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 27^th(Every Sunday)

Time: 10 am – 5 pm

Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046

Website: https://melrosetradingpost.org/tickets/

Lit Angeles – Mindful Mornings: Journaling Workshop at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Growth Club is a dynamic community for high achievers redefining success on their terms.

Join us for a weekly journaling event to reflect, write, and connect with our inner selves and each other. Designed for those who seek to slow down and find clarity in the chaos of everyday life.

We’ll guide you through prompts that inspire deep introspection and personal growth. Whether you’re a seasoned journaler or new to the practice, this event is a safe haven to express your thoughts, set intentions and uncover the wisdom within.

Bring your favorite journal and a pen and be ready to dive into an enriching experience that nurtures your mind, body, and soul.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42807

Kids Storytime: Barney Saltzberg & The Smell of Wet Dog at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event

Barney Saltzberg will read and discuss his latest book,The Smell of Wet Dog.

Beloved author and illustrator Barney Saltzberg offers up twenty-seven poems on the evergreen topic of human’s best friend. Many have all the humor of a Shel Silverstein classic. Others are unexpectedly poignant, about separation anxiety or older dogs growing less spry. All are accompanied by Saltzberg’s lively and loveable artwork.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42997

Burning Issues Book Club (BIBC): Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers at Bel Canto KUBO – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the October selection, Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers by Deborah Tuerkheimer

Burning Issues Book Club (BIBC) is an online and local book club that gathers to read and discuss non-fiction works related to climate change, environmental degradation, environmental and social justice, and implementation of social change movements.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Bel Canto Books, LB

Date: Sunday the 27^th

Time: 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/burning-issues-book-club-261829 or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burning-issues-book-club-2024-hosted-by-bel-canto-books-tickets-780886752297?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

Your Author Series: Harry Shum Jr, Shelby Rabara and Bianca Austria & Martee Dares to Dance at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event

Join us in welcoming actors and dancers Harry Shum Jr. (Grey’s Anatomy, Glee), Shelby Rabara (Steven Universe), and illustrator Bianca Austria on their new picture book Martee Dares to Dance.

Martee loves dancing to his own beat, But, after an embarrassing experience leaves him reluctant to show off his moves, Martee grapples with the decision to attend his school’s upcoming Halloween dance. It isn’t until he meets an unlikely friend—a Martian—that he finds the courage to embrace his bold moves and discovers that creative expression knows no bounds.

Those attending the program will have the opportunity to take home a copy of Martee Dares to Dance. This book is intended for Preschool ages and up.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Bel Canto Books, LB

Date: Sunday the 27^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 630 5^th St., Los Angeles, CA (0071

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-harry-shum-jr-shelby-rabara-and-bianca-austria

LATINX Book Club: Bad Cree at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the book Bad Cree: A Novel by Jessica Johns.

In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman’s dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.

Jessica Johns is a Nehiyaw aunty and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. She is an interdisciplinary artist and winner of the 2020 Writers’ Trust Journey Prize.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/latinx-book-club-bad-cree

Dan Klassen & Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event

Jon Klassen Event Details October 20

Jon Klassen discusses The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale

Caldecott Medalist and New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Jon Klassen delivers a deliciously macabre treat for folktale fans.

Jon Klassen’s signature wry humor takes a turn for the ghostly in this thrilling retelling of a traditional Tyrolean folktale. In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otilla has escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both? Steeped in shadows and threaded with subtle wit—with rich, monochromatic artwork and an illuminating author’s note—The Skull is as empowering as it is mysterious and foreboding.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Sunday, the 20^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-20/jon-klassen-discusses-skull-tyrolean-folktale

“NEW” Zillennial Book Club: Slewfoot at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the book Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom.

Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.

Connecticut, 1666: An ancient spirit awakens in a dark wood. The wildfolk call him Father, slayer, protector.

The colonists call him Slewfoot, demon, devil.

To Abitha, a recently widowed outcast, alone and vulnerable in her pious village, he is the only one she can turn to for help.

Together, they ignite a battle between pagan and Puritan – one that threatens to destroy the entire village, leaving nothing but ashes and bloodshed in their wake.

Over the past few decades, acclaimed dark fantasy artist Brom has lent his distinctive vision to all facets of the creative industries, from novels and games to comics and film. He is the nationally bestselling author of Slewfoot, The Child Thief, Krampus, The Lost Gods and the award-winning illustrated horror novels The Plucker and The Devil’s Rose. Brom is currently kept in a dank cellar just outside of Savannah.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/new-zillennial-book-club-slewfoot

Author Event: Melissa Bent, Olivia Smith, Jessica Stamm at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Kids & Family Event

Join three authors as they talk about and share excerpts from their children’s books.

ABCs of Women in Medicine by Melissa Bent, MD:

This empowering and educational book celebrates the remarkable contributions of female healthcare professionals. From Anesthesiology to Wellness, each letter of the alphabet introduces a different medical subspecialty. Children will learn about the vital roles that women play in fields such as cardiology, dermatology, and more.

Melissa Bent, MD is a pediatrician, mother, and debut children’s author. As a woman in medicine, Melissa understands the importance of representation and aims to inspire young minds through her captivating narratives.

Dog Detectives Jacob & Bricks: The Enchanted Halloween Pumpkin by Olivia Smith: An enchanted pumpkin is turning townspeople into real-life ghouls. Join our furry heroes, Jacob and Bricks, as they navigate through spooky spectacles to reverse the chaotic spell. This tale weaves mystery, friendship and a dash of magical mischief into a delightful story that will leave readers of all ages bewitched.

Olivia Smith is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and writer who has worked for outlets like ABC News, Good Morning America and CNN. She is also an adjunct professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Big Bug Feelings: An A-Z Book by Jessica Stamm:

This book is a wonderful bridge between caregivers and children, helping guide them through even the toughest of feelings, including tantrums, stress, impulse control, and more. It engages kids and parents alike with friendly rhymes and accessible coping strategies.

Jessica Stamm is a mom and dietitian.

Where: Flintridge Bookstore

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge, CA, 91011

Website: https://www.flintridgebooks.com/instore-events/2024/10/27/author-appearance-melissa-bent-olivia-smith-jessica-stamm

LiveTalks LA Presents: Ta-Nehisi Coates, with Sam Fragoso, & The Message at Robert Frost Auditorium – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Sam Fragoso, will discuss his book, The Message.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer and Between the World and Me, for which he won the National Book Award in 2015. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, he is currently the Sterling Brown endowed chair in English at Howard University.”

Coates’s call to action is in fact a diagnosis of the political and social polarization currently sweeping the globe: the world is riven by stories. He comes to this realization not as a geopolitical wonk or a statesman, but as a journalist who has seen firsthand how stories are more powerful tools of persuasion than the assemblage of interconnected facts.

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, The Message is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Next, he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning. In the book’s longest section, he travels to Palestine, where he sees the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.

Sam Fragoso is the host of Talk Esy with Sam Fragoso, a weekly series of conversations with artists, writers, and politicians. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and NPR. After conducting interviews with Spike Lee, Werner Herzog, and Noam Chomsky, he founded Talk Easy in 2016. The program is currently distributed by Pushkin Industries.

NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.

Where: Robert Frost Auditorium

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 4401 Elenda St., Culver City, CA 90230

(Free Parking available at the venue)

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/te-nehisi-coates/

Poetry Book Launch: Stella Hayes & Father Elegies at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

What Books Press presents the newest poetry collection from its Fall 2024 lineup, Father Elegies by Stella Hayes.

Stella Fridman Hayes’s second poetry collection Father Elegies draws from an impressive range of literary forms, from familiar couplets and tercets to erasure, blackout poems, and hybrid prose. While stylistically dexterous and technically agile, Hayes’ work is unified by its deep and moving engagement with the poetics of alterity. What does it mean to be othered by and through language? How does one reconcile a self and a sociocultural landscape that are at odds? And a self and a genealogy that are to some extent opposed? As the book unfolds,

Stella Hayes is the author of poetry collections Father Elegies and One Strange Country (What Books Press). She grew up in Brovary, a suburb outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, and Los Angeles. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from NYU. Her work has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Four Way Review, Poet Lore, and Image Journal, among others. At Washington Square Review, she served as poetry editor from 2022-2023, and assistant fiction editor from 2021-2022.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42983

Vroman’s Local author Day at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Colleen Lane presents The Anthropology of Food.

In The Anthropology of Food, cultural anthropologist Colleen Lane embarks on a fascinating exploration of the intricate relationship between our culinary practices and cultural identity. This enlightening journey delves into the rich tapestry of global culinary heritage, revealing how our food choices are not just about sustenance, but also a reflection of our history, traditions, and societal influences.

Part cookbook, part historical narrative, this book presents a unique blend of academic insight and culinary antiquity. Each recipe is accompanied by detailed ethnographic and historical context, providing a deeper understanding of the dishes’ origins and their cultural significance. From the ceremonial feasts of Northern Africa to the vibrant street food culture of Southeast Asia, Lane invites readers to experience the world through its diverse food practices.

Nolan Lee presents the dystopian novel Quantum Peril.

It is the year 2058, and the world teeters on the brink of nuclear war. China is eclipsing the United States in military and technological prowess, while a weakened NATO struggles to maintain global stability. Sensing an opportunity, the Chinese Communist Party hatches a plan to dominate Asia and surpass the West once and for all.

Jump into an adrenaline-fueled odyssey through the tangled webs of cyberspace and the shadowy depths of the Pacific Ocean. Will The Party succeed in its quest for global supremacy, or will a new hero rise to thwart its ambitions?

Diana Peterson-More presents Courageous Communication: A Return to Civility.

“‘Can We All Just Get Along?’ Rodney King: Courageous Communication: A Return to Civility” explores the seismic shifts that have transformed our world over the past decade. From the pandemic and the rise of authoritarianism to the proliferation of social media and a war of aggression in Europe, these events have reshaped our global landscape and altered the way we interact.

The pandemic has revolutionized the workplace, swinging from remote to hybrid, and now back to in-office demands. Students have faced unprecedented disruptions, missing traditional milestones like graduations. Amidst these changes, the nature of truth has been challenged, with facts competing against “alternate facts” and conspiracy theories.

This book offers a hopeful perspective, revealing a readiness among many to bridge gaps and engage in civil discourse, countering the often negative portrayal in the media. It provides practical strategies for navigating our polarized world and finding common ground.

Dennis Powell presents Standing Over Home.

Standing Over Home is written to help broken sons-young men who lacked the love and direction of a father figure-discover respect and learn missed lessons about love and protection that were never passed down to them during their formative years.Through the eyes of author Dennis Powell, division champion Dodger pitcher, Standing Over Home communicates metaphorically this picture of the importance of a father’s role to stand as protector and priest over his home and family. Just as a batter “stands over home” with the battling responsibility to hit or to move the runner forward, so does a father “stand over his home” to provide for, guide, and protect his family, moving them ever forward. The book draws from the real account of a son who faced some heart-breaking tragedies in life. Since his father, who lived in the house, was not in his position as head of the household, the father’s absence only lined the son’s path to adulthood with setbacks…

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Sunday the 27^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2024-10-27/vromans-local-author-day-introducing-colleen-lane-nolan-lee-diana-peterson-more

Village Poets Presents Lory Bedikian & Mary E. Torregrossa at Bolton Hall Museum – In-Person Event

Village Poets will bring two well-known Los Angeles poets to the podium for an exciting and inspiring event on Sunday, October 27 at 4:30 pm.

In addition two segments of open mic will be available and refreshments will be served. Bring your best poems for the open and enjoy The Bolton Hall Museum.

Lory Bedikian’s second book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Prairie Schooner/Raz-Shumaker Book Prize in Poetry forthcoming September 2024 from the University of Nebraska Press and her first collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. She was recently chosen for the Poets & Writers “Get the Word Out” Poetry Cohort 2024. Bedikian earned an MFA from the University of Oregon. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Mary E. Torregrossa, often noted as a storyteller, is more importantly a story-listener, a practice honed by her job as an ESL teacher in Southern California. Originally from Rhode Island, she blends images and experiences of both coasts into her poetry. Also a collage artist, Mary feels that assembling a collage of images has a natural similarity to assembling a poem. Her first chapbook, My Zocalo Heart, is published by Finishing Line Press. Poems appear in Bearing The Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems, in Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, in Voices From Leimert Park Redux, and Miju Poetry & Poetics: Korean Poets Society of America. Mary is a winner of the Arroyo Arts Collective Poetry In The Windows and named Newer Poet of Los Angeles XIV by the Los Angeles Poetry Festival. Other publications include The Altadena Poetry Review, the SoCal Haiku Study Group Anthology, and websites for Verse-Virtual, Ekphrastic Review and Dime Show Review.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Bolton Hall Museum

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Address:10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91040

Website: https://villagepoets.blogspot.com/

Earthseed Symposium: Our Share of Night at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join the Earthseed Symposium Speculative Fiction Book Club to discuss Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez.

A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.

For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Sunday the 27^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-m16zvaoi

Memoir Discussion: Chántelle Adanna Agbro & My Soul Told on Me at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Village Well presents an intimate book signing and Q&A celebrating the powerful release of Chántelle Adanna Agbro’s My Soul Told On Me. This thought-provoking book delves into the complex themes of colorism, breaking generational curses, and the journey of self-identity, self-love, and confronting self-hate. Engage in a candid conversation with the author as they share personal insights and reflections on these critical issues.

Chántelle Adanna Agbro is a Nigerian American millennial literary artist, international self-published author, speaker & educator. Originally from Maryland, she self-published her first memoir at 23, entitled My Soul Told On Me. Since then, she’s self-published two other literary pieces. Her work is deeply rooted in emphasizing the importance of emotional and mental health for black women throughout the entire diaspora.

Letia Solomon is an award-winning filmmaker and former chemical engineer based in Los Angeles. She made her television directorial debut on Season 7 of ABC/Shondaland’s Station 19. She’s a fellow of the 2024 Disney CTDI Directing Program, Ryan Murphy’s HALF Initiative Program, and Netflix’s 2023 Episodic Directors on the Rise Masterclass with Paris Barclay.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/42730

Transangelicism: A Memoir of a Transgender Ex-vangelical at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Writer and musician Jody Galadriel Friend discusses her memoir Transangelicism in conversation with poet Alena Nimitz. Join us for a conversation about queerness, music, and transformation.

Jody Galadriel Friend is a writer, musician, actress, artist, producer, nerd, witch, and five-foot-ten neurodivergent southern-bred goth absolute dreamboat e who currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the frontwoman of queer Appalachian doom punk band Public Universal Friend, waits tables, contemplates the void, and wrote this book instead of selling everything she owns and moving to Scotland and becoming a sheep farmer. Queers think she’s a reductionist quasi-religious culturally ignorant bimbo and conservatives think she’s a philosophically irresponsible socialist bimbo with a God complex. None of it matters. We are all dust. For more information, visit https://transangelicism.com.

Alena Nemitz is a queer, nonbinary poet and model living and working in Los Angeles. More info about them can be found at https://substack.com/@alenanemitz & https://www.instagram.com/_lilgreenbean/

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday, the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. 1B, Culver City, CA 90232

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/43025

Historical Romance Book Club: The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Join us for October’s Historical Romance Book Club to discuss The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by author Jennifer Ashley.

Everyone is welcome.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Sunday the 27^th

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

Online magazine covering L.A.'s vast literary community.

Los Angeles Literature Events: 10/21/24 – 10/27/24

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Brian Dunlap

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Published by

Brian Dunlap