Mystery Book Club: Everyone on This Train is a Suspect at Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Where: Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL

Date: Monday the 17^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Participants will discuss The Rust Maidens by author Gwendolyn Kiste.

Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.

It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Monday the 17^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/philosophical-horror-book-club-rust-maidens-0

Book Club: The Exiles at Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Participants will discuss The Exiles, by Christina Baker Kline.

In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

RSVP:

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

Where: Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 17^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site) 

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/sherman-oaks-book-club-exiles-christina-baker-kline

Laila Lalami, with Antoine Wilson, & The Dream Hotel: A Novel at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Laila Lalami, in conversation with Antoine Wilson, will discuss and signs The Dream Hotel: A Novel.

From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 17^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/laila-lalami

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

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

Every Monday at 7 pm to 9 pm. Sign-ups are at 6:30 pm 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 17^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

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

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 Literary Arts Center – Online event

Date: Monday the 17^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-1279153956919

Under Mic Influence: Featured Readings & Open Mic at LB Unified – In-Person Event

If you need an open mic, beautiful people, tasty eats, dope inspiration, good libations, and good vibrations, we have you covered!

Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and @djkevjam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites.

Every 1st & 3rd Monday of the month.

Featured guest TBA.

NOTE: See site for tickets and details.

Where: LB Unified

Date: Monday the 17^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)

Address: 2222 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, CA 90804

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mic-influence-tickets-388452220047

Lit Angels: Healing Through Writing with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

Francesca Lia Block is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association, and from the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, and PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY. Currently she teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, Pocket MFA, and numerous workshops across the country. Francesca also edits LIT ANGELS, a literary journal available on Substack. Her latest novel is HOUSE OF HEARTS now out in paper ack. https://www.francescaliablock.com/

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/1885820250318

Virtual Book Club: The Queens of Crime at La Crescenta Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us for a weekly discussion on Zoom of The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13068981

Hunger Games Release Party: Sunrise on the Reaping at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event

Join our celebration party for the newest Hunger Games book by Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping.

Books will be available for sale and pre-order can pick-up starting Tuesday, March 18th. Fans can participate in trivia and games with fun giveaways all day.

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 12 pm – 6 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/sunrise-reaping-release-party

Books and Bagels: The Last Painting of Sara de Vos at Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by author Dominic Smith.

Join us on the third Tuesday of each month for fresh-baked bagels, coffee, tea, and a thoughtful discussion of the current selection, and share other great books with the group.
New members welcome! Copies are available at the front desk.

Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 12:30 pm

Address: 501 S. Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/books-and-bagels-1

Nonfiction Book Club at Donald Bruce Kaufman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us on the third Tuesday of each month to discuss a different work of nonfiction. We read a wide variety of styles, genres, and authors, so please make sure to check in with the branch for a list of what we’re reading.

Where: Donald Bruce Kaufman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 1 pm

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

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

Tuesday Afternoon Book Club: 1984 at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join the Tuesday Afternoon Book Club to enjoy engaging discussions of great literature.

March title: 1984 by George Orwell.

Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 1 pm

Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/tuesday-afternoon-book-club-1

Before the Ban Book Club: Olive’s Ocean at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes.

A brilliant, touching coming-of-age story, and a Newbery Honor Book.

Martha Boyle and Olive Barstow could have been friends, but they weren’t. Weeks after a tragic accident, all that is left are eerie connections between the two girls, former classmates who both kept the same secret without knowing it.

Now, even while on vacation at the ocean, Martha can’t stop thinking about Olive. Things only get more complicated when Martha begins to like Jimmy Manning, a neighbor boy she used to despise. What is going on? Can life for Martha be the same ever again?

Multiple award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Kevin Henkes brings his insightful, gentle, real-world insight to middle grade novels.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 1 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/ban-book-club-olive%E2%80%99s-ocean

Adult Book Club: The Barbizon: The Hotel that Set Women Free at Norwood Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss our latest selection, The Barbizon by Paulina Bren. For Adults.

Bren uses the Barbizon, a historic woman only hotel in NYC, to take a highly focused tour of the lives and expectations of young, mostly white, women in the 20th century, providing us with a fascinating snapshot of a place in a changing time.

If you would like a copy of the book, please drop by Norwood Library to pick up a copy or get a digital copy.

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

Where: Norwood Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 4550 Peck Rd., El Monte, CA 91732

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12987702

Book Club: Lady Tan’s Circle of Women at Pico Rivera Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by author Lisa See., for Women’s History Month. For adults.

Tan Yunxian was educated by her grandmother, a female doctor in China, about Chinese medicine and women’s illnesses. She develops a close friendship with a young midwife in training, Meiling, and they vowed to be forever friends. However, Yunxian marries and she is forced to put away her education and training. Despite this, she is able to break free of tradition to treat women of all social classes. Inspired by the true life of a woman physician from 15th century China, this book is a captivating story of women helping each other.

Where: Pico Rivera Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 9001 Mines Ave., Pico Rivera, CA 90660 

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12928803

Book Release Party: Sunrise on the Reaping at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will celebrate the release of Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth installment of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Game series, on Tuesday, March 18th at 6:00am.

Mundial Coffee (mundialriverside.com) will be here for your coffee and matcha needs, and Dana’s Root Store (IG: @danasrootstore) will be here for your baked goods needs!

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight…and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Participants will discuss Rim of the Pit by author Hake Talbot, a pen name of the American writer Henning Nelms (1900-1986).

“I came here to make a dead man change his mind.”

So begins a creepy and unusual mystery celebrated to this day as one of the greatest “impossible crime” novels of all time. When a family’s promise to protect the beloved pine grove of their dead father creates a financial strain, a seance is suggested to summon the ghost of the late logger and ask its permission. A mixed group of skeptics and believers convene at a snow-bound lodge to call the spirit with a group that includes a gambler, a businessman, a clairvoyant, a professor, and a refugee, among others. With so many diverse interests at the table, the tensions run high—but when one of the participants ends up dead, there is reason to suspect that a nefarious spirit is to blame.

Hake Talbot is a pen name of the American writer Henning Nelms (1900-1986). Nelms reserved his real name for writing non-fiction about showmanship (his chief occupation was as a stage magician), but wrote several mysteries and stories under the Talbot moniker. He is best remembered today for his impossible crime novel, Rim of the Pit.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/classic-detectives-rim-pit

Conchas y Café Bilingual Writing Zine Workshop via DSTL Arts – Online Event

Our Conchas y Café bilingual community writing workshop series is a 15-week virtual course that explores skills in poetry and other forms of creative writing. Writers of all skill levels are welcome to join.

The SPRING 2025 SEMESTER will culminate with the publishing of Conchas y Café Zine; Vol. 10, Issue 2.

The theme we will be exploring during this series and zine is the concept: “TBD.”

Where: DSTL Arts

Date: Tuesday the 18^th (through May 6, 2025)

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: Online Event

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

Book Club: Parable of the Sower at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Book Club participants will discuss The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler.

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions.

Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith…and a startling vision of human destiny.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2090120250318

Open Mic Readings Every Tuesday at the Aftermath Bar, Sherman Oaks – In-Person Event

CALLING ALL WRITERS! Every Tuesday we’ll be having Open Mic Readings open to the public! Read your poems, fiction, and spoken word at our open mic reading EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT from 7 pm – 10 pm!

Read your poetry, fiction, spoken word, or lyrics.

Free event. 21+

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: The Aftermath Bar

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

Address: 14537 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDniBCVy64L/

Nicole Graev Lipson, with Elizabeth L. Silver, & Mothers and Other Fictional Characters at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Nicole Graev Lipson, in conversation with Elizabeth L. Silver will discuss her book Mothers and Other Fictional Characters.

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters. Whether she’s testing the fragile borders of fidelity, embracing the taboo power of female friendship, escaping her family for the solitude of the mountains, grappling with what to do with her frozen embryos, or letting go of the children she imagined for the ones she’s raising, Lipson pushes beyond the easy, surface stories we tell about ourselves to brave less certain territory.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/nicole-graev-lipsonTicketed

Ticketed Event: Torrey Peters & Stag Dance at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Torrey Peters will discuss her collection Stag Dance.

In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’ keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday the 18^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-18/ticketed-torrey-peters-discusses-stag-dance

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest Jacqueline Allen Trimble – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes guest Jacqueline Allen Trimble to read and discuss her work.

Jacqueline Allen Trimble lives and writes in Montgomery, Alabama. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, a Cave Canem Fellow, and an Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellow. American Happiness, her debut collection (NewSouth Books, 2016), won the Balcones Poetry Prize. Poetry Prize, and How to Survive the Apocalypse was named one of the ten best poetry books of 2022 by the New York Public Library. She has won several teaching and writing awards, including the Exemplary Teacher Award (for junior faculty), The Todd Award for Outstanding Teaching (for senior faculty), The Julia Lightfoot Sellers Award (given by the Huntingdon College junior and senior class to the faculty member who has most inspired them to learning), and The University of Alabama’s Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award, for Race, Gender Culture.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 18^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Sunflower Nights at Tabula Rasa Bar presents a poetry reading event hosted by Katja Grober, with music by r.e.l., featuring:

Joré Aaron is a multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer based in Los Angeles, CA.

Veronika Kelemen N/A

Alexa Wise N/A

Belinda Cai is a writer, editor, and content creator. Graduating from the University of Southern California, Belinda has an M.S. degree in journalism & communications.

Tori Gesualdo is a graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing.

Aiden Brown is a multi-talented individual with experience in sports, acting, and the arts, known for his roles in “The Flash” (2023), “The Batman” (2022), and “Snow White” (2025). He is also an artist and writer, with work published in Hobart and the LA Review of Books.

Hanna Pachman is a poet, whose work is forthcoming in or has been published by Rattle, Catamaran, The MacGuffin, Maudlin House, and others. She hosts Underground Incantation a poetry reading series.

Where: Tabula Rosa Bar

Date: Tuesday, the 18^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

Address: 5125 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027 

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHJ7wE9SE9o/

Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night at ORA – In-Person Event (NOTE NEW MARCH LOCATION)

The nation’s largest weekly spoken word Open Mic event is 26 years strong. DPL is a community space for every poet to be heard. They provide a platform to celebrate poetry while using it as the foundation for creativity, innovation, and expression across an array of media outlets.

SLAM Night hosted by Matthew Cuban Hernandez.

NOTE: DPL’s home, The Greenway Court Theatre is currently being renovated and they will return there next month.

$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 pm Free parking adjacent to the theater.

Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.

Join us at a new location for March 4^th March 11th, March 18^th & March 25^th!

Where: Greenway Court Theatre at ORA

Date: Tuesday, the 18^th

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm

Our Coffee Time Book Club meets monthly, generally on the third Wednesday of each month at 10 am. We tend to read new-release literary fiction. At each meeting we discuss and vote on what we will read and discuss for the following month.

Participants will discuss Orbital: A Novel by Samantha Harvey.

A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.

Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.

Samantha Harvey is the author of five novels, Orbital, The Western Wind, Dear Thief, All Is Song, and The Wilderness, and one work of nonfiction, The Shapeless Unease. Orbital was the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, and her other work has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize. The Wilderness was awarded the Betty Trask Prize. She lives in Bath, UK, and teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 10 am

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

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-03-19/coffee-time-book-club

Book Club: Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us for a lively discussion of Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (call number 636.8 M998) by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter.

Where: Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 1:30 am – 3 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-dewey-small-town-library-cat-who-touched-world

Poets Café 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.

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 19^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

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

Book Party: Rosie Revere, Engineer at Cudahy Library, LACL – In-Person Kids Event

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we will read aloud Rosie Revere, Engineer. After the reading we’ll learn about women’s contributions during World War II. For ages 7 – 10.

Just like the main character in the book, we will use our engineering design skills to build a paper helicopter!

Where: Cudahy Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 5218 Santa Ana St., Cudahy, CA 90201

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12695256

Middle Grade Book Club: The Enemy’s Daughter at pages: a bookstore – In-Person MG Event

Our Middle Grade Book Club meets monthly, generally on the third Wednesday of each month at 4:30 pm. Run by local middle grade author, Nedda Lewers, we read new releases of middle grade fiction. Book selection is done by voting at each meeting for the following month’s meeting.

Participants will discuss The Enemy’s Daughter by Anne Blankman.

In the spirit of Lauren Wolk and Ruta Sepetys comes the tale of a girl fighting her way back home after surviving the sinking of the Lusitania—and learning to think for herself rather than accept the prejudice of wartime.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 4:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-03-19/middle-grade-book-club

Book Club for Adults: Remarkably Bright Creatures at San Fernando Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Copies of the current title are available at the Information Desk. New members are always welcome!

This book is a charming, witty, and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow’s unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus. After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium and she becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captor—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

Where: San Fernando Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Address: 217 North Maclay Ave, San Fernando, CA 91340

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13083824

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 radio in Los Angeles 101.5 FM.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: 101.5 FM

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

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

Sci-Fi Book Launch: Philip Fracassi, with Collin Hinckley, & The Third Rule of Time Travel at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for the launch of store favorite Philip Fracassi’s newest novel, The Third Rule of Time Travel!

Fracassi will discuss the writing process, blending new ideas into a familiar genre, and more in conversation with bookseller and author Colin Hinckley.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

About the book:

Rule One: You can only travel to a point within your lifetime.

Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.

Rule Three: You can only observe.

The rules cannot be broken.

Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She’s built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time—to any point in the traveler’s lifetime—and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it’s not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth’s husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella—their only daughter—and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.

As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.

Philip Fracassi is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of the story collections Behold the Void and Beneath a Pale Sky. His novels include A Child Alone with Strangers, Gothic, and Boys in the Valley. His stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Interzone, and Black Static. Philip lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Copps Literary Services.

Colin Hinckley is the author of The Black Lord published by Tenebrous Press. The book landed on The Line Up’s Top 12 Indie Horror Releases of 2023 along with several year end best-of lists, and was translated into Italian to wide acclaim. His work has appeared in Tales to Terrify, Thank You for Joining the Algorithm, Whisk(e)y Tit, and is forthcoming in Cosmic Horror Monthly. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and cat and is a bookseller at Village Well Books & Coffee.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2100820250319

Book Club for Adults: The Briar Club at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us on the third Wednesday of every month for our long-running book club for adults!

March (3/19): The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

RSVP:

Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address:12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604

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

WEHO Reads Event: Feminism and Fearlessness: 4 Women Writers for Women’s History Month via City of West Hollywood – Online YouTube Event

This literary reading and panel discussion in the WeHo Reads 2025 series explores feminism and bold creative expression.

As part of Women’s History Month, this literary reading and panel discussion in the WeHo Reads 2025 series explores feminism and bold creative expression. Four exceptional writers, each with a unique voice and perspective, will discuss their artistic journeys, inspirations, and how their work uplifts communities and advocates for social justice.

The event will feature: Katya Apekina, an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and translator, whose second novel, Mother Doll, was named a Best Book of 2024 by Vogue; Olga García Echeverría, a bilingual poet and cultural archivist whose work amplifies queer and feminist voices, including her stewardship of the literary legacy of lesbian Colombian writer tatiana de la tierra; Angelina Sáenz, an award-winning educator, poet, and author of Waiting for Luna and two poetry collections, Edgecliff and Maestra; and Kate Stayman-London, the bestselling author of One to Watch, a screenwriter, and a political strategist.

The event is free and available to watch via YouTube Live on the WeHo Arts channel. Learn more at http://www.weho.org/wehoreads.

Where: WEHO Reads, City of West Hollywood

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weho-reads-feminism-and-fearlessness-during-womens-history-month-tickets-1256953294139

The More Things Change Event: Afrofuturist Literature & Music with Lynell George at Pasadena Public Library – In-Person Event

“The More Things Change: Afrofuturist Literature & Music” comes to Hastings Branch on Wednesday, March 19, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. To attend, sign up using the link in our bio.

Experience a live, in-person interview with Lynell George, author of A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler, as she discusses Afrofuturist themes and a pre-recorded jazz performance from SFJAZZ.

Light refreshments will be served, and attendees can purchase copies of Lynell George’s books.

Where: Hastings Branch, Pasadena Public Library

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHJE3VsJmwZ/

Hannah Deitch, with Rufi Thorpe, & Killer Potential at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Hannah Deitch, in conversation with Rufi Thorpe, will discuss and sign her book, Killer Potential.

A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she’d be someone. But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles.

Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors’ Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. As Evie works to free her, the two are spotted—and within moments, they go from bystanders to suspects to fugitives.

By turns cuttingly hilarious and deeply insightful, Killer Potential is a strikingly original debut. A literary novel with the page-turning intensity of a thriller that asks timely questions about our belief in the romance of social mobility, and how the stories we’re sold about our potential can shape the course of our lives.

Hannah Deitch is a former SAT tutor with an M.A. in English from UC Irvine, where she studied Marxist theory and contemporary pop culture. She previously worked as an arts magazine editor and holds an M.A. in journalism from USC. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Killer Potential is her first novel.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/hannah-deitch

Romance Book Club: Myah Ariel & When I Think of You at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Our new Kiss & Tell romance book club meets monthly to discuss a romance novel and generally takes place on the third Tuesday of each month at 7:00 pm. But this month it’s TODAY and author Myah Ariel will join us.

March Book: When I Think Of You by Myah Ariel.

In this sweeping second chance romance from debut author Myah Ariel, the unexpected spark of two former flames may force them to choose between their dreams and each other.

Kaliya Wilson has paid her dues. But all the years behind the reception desk at a flashy film studio have only pushed her movie-making dreams further out of reach. That is, until a surprise reunion presents an opportunity that could make her career, or break her heart…a second time.

It’s been seven years since Kaliya’s whirlwind college romance with Danny Prescott went up in flames. While her passions have stalled, his career is taking off. So when the hot shot director reappears to offer her a job on his next production, it’s a shock to the system. Working with Danny may recapture the intensity of their film school days, but trusting him again won’t come as easily.

Myah Ariel is the author of debut contemporary romance WHEN I THINK OF YOU (Berkley ’24). Her early love of movies led her from Arkansas to New York City where she earned a BA in cinema studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She also holds an MA in specialized journalism for the arts from USC Annenberg. For several years Myah worked across multiple roles in the film and entertainment industry before pivoting to work in academia. As a medical mom and a hopeless romantic, Myah is passionate about inclusive love stories.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-03-19/romance-book-club

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 Filipino town & The World: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.

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

Where: SIPA HQ

Date: Wednesday, the 19^th

Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 6:30; Open Mic at 8 pm)

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

Website: https://www.palmsupacademy.com

At Skylight: CD Eskilson, with Edwin Bodney, Sara Ellen Fowler & Dare Williams, & Scream/Queen at Skylight – In-Person Event

CD Eskilson, in conversation with Edwin Bodney, Sara Ellen Fowler & Dare Williams, will discuss Scream/Queen.

A debut poetry collection drawing on horror-movie tropes to examine the body—both its traumas and its possibilities.

Scream / Queen, CD Eskilson’s debut poetry collection, examines queerness, mental illness, and transgender identity through the lens of thrillers and B movies. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Michael Myers, and the Headless Horseman are just a few of the fright-film villains and monsters that populate this book.

Eskilson’s formally innovative poems document how a body—a nonbinary transgender body, a chronically ill body, a body carrying trauma—can be understood, accepted, and healed even in a violent sociopolitical climate. Drawing on the language and images of horror cinema, the poems’ speakers find strength and the means to survive both family legacy and the pain inflicted on them: “I want to behemoth, be the biggest / violence in the galaxy,” says one who thinks about Godzilla and dreams of “learning how to roar.”

Though an atmosphere of trans panic and state legislation against trans bodies pervades the book, Scream / Queen ultimately conjures a world of hope and tenderness through connection and care. It celebrates all the body’s possibilities: the glorious and the monstrous. As a werewolf in the book says, “I kiss the moon; it took so long / to get here.”

CD Eskilson is a trans nonbinary poet, editor, and literary translator. Their work appears in Kenyon Review, The Offing, Pleiades, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, Passages North, and others. They are a recipient of the C.D. Wright / Academy of American Poets Prize and the Lily Peter Fellowship in Translation at the University of Arkansas, among other honors. They are the assistant poetry editor at Split Lip Magazine and a member of the Beloit Poetry Journal reading team, and they previously worked at and served on the board of Exposition Review. Eskilson’s debut poetry collection, Scream / Queen, is forthcoming from Acre Books and their translation of poet Edith Södergran’s groundbreaking 1916 collection, Modern Woman, will be published by World Poetry Books in 2026. Once, they were in a punk band.

Edwin Bodney is a Black, Queer, non-binary artist, award-winning educator, and nationally recognized poet from Los Angeles. As someone living with M.S—along with the rest of the world’s chaos—they strive to remind all vulnerable communities of their joy and laughter. Edwin and their work has been featured in publications like: Button Poetry, Platypus Press, The Exposition Review, The Advocate, Lexus, TvOne, Amazon Prime, UW-Madison, and many others. Their full-length book of poetry, A Study of Hands (2017), is available for purchase through Not A Cult Media. edwin currently resides in East L.A with their cat, Myko, and currently co-hosts Da Poetry Lounge, one of the largest and longest-running poetry venues in the country.

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 was published by the University of Utah Press in 2024.

Dare Williams is a Queer HIV-positive poet 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 with the Kenyon Review 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 received his MFA from The Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cd-eskilson-presents-screamqueen-w-edwin-bodney-sara-ellen-fowler-dare-williams

Jennifer Chien, with Edward Underhill, & Hangry Hearts at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Jennifer Chien, in discussion with Edward Underhill, will discuss her novel, Hangry Hearts.

Love, family, and food collide in this sparkling Romeo and Juliet inspired romance.

Julie Wu and Randall Hur used to be best friends. Now they only see each other on Saturdays at the Pasadena Farmers Market where their once close families are long-standing rivals.

When Julie and Randall are paired with ultra-rich London Kim for a community-service school project, they are forced to work together for the first time in years. It quickly becomes obvious that London has a major crush on Julie. But Julie can’t stop thinking about Randall. And Randall can’t stop thinking about how London is thinking about Julie. Soon, prompted by a little jealousy and years of missing each other, school project meetings turn into pseudo dates at their favorite Taiwanese breakfast shop and then secret kisses at the beach—far from the watchful eyes of their families.

Just as they’re finally feeling brave enough to tell their grandmas, the two matriarchs rehash their old fight and Julie and Randall get caught in the middle and Julie’s brother finds out they are dating. Their families are heartbroken.

But it’s the Year of the Dragon, an auspicious time to resolve disagreements and start anew, and Randall isn’t going down without fighting for what—and who—they love. Could the Lunar New Year provide not only a second chance for Randall and Julie, but for their families as well?

Jennifer Chen’s Hangry Hearts is a funny, big-hearted romance about friendship, family, and first love—and being brave enough to have it all.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 19^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-19/jennifer-chen-conversation-edward-underhill-discusses-hangry-hearts

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 — Stella the Poet;
• 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.

Stella the Poet is insightful, honest and inspirational. She comes from generations of community activists who instilled in her cultural pride and resilience. She’s a graduate of Beverly Hills High School and holds a journalism degree from Howard University. 

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 19^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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.

Tom Laichas is author of four books of poetry, including Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023) and the forthcoming Landscapes From An American Afterlife (The Los Angeles Press, 2025). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Plume, BarBar, The Los Angeles Times, the Irish Times, The High Window Review (UK), and elsewhere. He is the winner of poetry prizes from Jabberwock Review, Puerto del Sol, and Prime 53, and has been shortlisted in competitions sponsored by The Moth (Ireland), Aesthetica, Arts & Letters, New Letters and Gunpowder Press. He lives with his family in Venice, California.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Wednesday, the 19^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-1284080331839

Poetry Nights with East Los Soul at East Los Angeles Rising Youth Club – In-Person Event

East Los Soul presents Poetry Nights every Wednesday from 8 pm – 9:45 pm at East L.A. Rising Youth Club. Poetry starts at 8:15 pm.

Every 2^nd Wednesday will be a poetry contest with a $200 prize for the poet winner, via unanimous vote.

Every 4^th Wednesday will be an art contest with a $200 prize for the artist winner, via unanimous vote.

$2 entrance fee

Where: East Los Angeles Rising Youth Club

Date: Wednesday, the 19^th

Time: 8 pm – 9:45 pm

Address: 324 N. McDonnell Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90022

Website: https://www.bgcela.org/

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

Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights and the feature is Victoria Lynne McCoy.

Victoria Lynne McCoy holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA in “The Power of Words: Creative Expression as a Catalyst for Change,” focusing on activism in the arts, from the University of Redlands’ Johnston Center for Integrative Studies. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Blackbird, The Boiler Journal, The Collagist, The Offing, and Washington Square Review, among others. You can find her in Pasadena.

$4 cover fee, cash only

NOTE: See site for further details.

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 19^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1563285761045850

Lit Angels: Heal Through Writing with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

Do you want to write professionally or for personal satisfaction and healing but aren’t sure where to start and need some inspiring tips and support? Do you have a project that needs revision? Are you feeling stuck creatively? Join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block for a discussion of her 12 Questions followed by free writing and Q&A. Come be a part of the supportive Lit Angels writing community and consider writing a story to share at our Valentine’s event on 2/7 for possible submission in Lit Angels Journal.

Francesca Lia Block is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association, and from the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, and PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY. Currently she teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, Pocket MFA, and numerous workshops across the country. Francesca also edits LIT ANGELS, a literary journal available on Substack. Her latest novel is HOUSE OF HEARTS now out in paper back. https://www.francescaliablock.com/

About Lit Angels Writing Studio:

There are so many fitness classes available for the body, but what are you doing to exercise your creative mind?

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!

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/1880320250320

Author Talk: Clara Bingham & The Movement: How Women’s Liberation Transformed America via Virtual Event, LACL – Online Event

Participants will discuss The Movement: How Women’s Liberation Transformed America with author Clara Bingham. This book is a comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement.

The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the captivating individual voices of the people who lived it, The Movement tells the intimate inside story of what it felt like to be at the forefront of the modern feminist crusade when women rejected thousands of years of custom and demanded the freedom to be who they wanted and needed to be.

This engaging history traces women’s awakening, organizing, and agitating between 1963 and 1973 when a decentralized collection of people and events coalesced to create a spontaneous combustion. From Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique to the underground abortion network the Janes, to Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign and Billie Jean King’s 1973 battle of the sexes, Bingham artfully weaves together the fragments of that explosion person by person, bringing to life the emotions of this personal, cultural, and political revolution. Artists and politicians, athletes and lawyers, Black and white, The Movement brings readers into the rooms where these women insisted on being treated as first-class citizens and, in the process, changed the fabric of American life.

Clara Bingham is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Movement, Witness to the Revolution, Women on the Hill, and the co-writer of Class Action. A former Washington, DC, correspondent for Newsweek, her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and The Daily Beast, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Where: Hermosa Beach Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12605034

Outdoor Book Club: The River at Malibu Library LACL Off-site – In-Person Event

Join the Outdoor Book Club at Malibu Equestrian Park to discuss The River in the fresh air! It is the story of two college friends on a wilderness canoe trip – a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence. For adults.

This is a masterful tale of wilderness survival in the vein of Into the Wild and The Call of the Wild.

We will meet at the picnic tables under the trees. Parking and restrooms available. Copies are available to pick up at Malibu Library.

Where: Malibu Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 23519 West Civic Center Way, Malibu, CA 90265

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12860064

Big Read Book Club (ESL/ELL- Low Intermediate) With Leah: The House on Mango Street at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The House on Mango Street, by author Sandra Cisneros.

Are you an English language learner and interested in practicing your reading? This book club is for ESL/ELL adults who want to work on vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills. Read selections from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros in class with other learners. Books will be provided. For more information, please call 213-228-7037 ext. 0 or email singleton@lapl.org.

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Singleton Adult Literacy Center

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 1 pm – 2:20 pm

Address: 630 W. 5^th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-club-house-mango-street-0

Mystery Book Discussion: A World of Curiosities at Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us for engaging conversation about whodunnits, thrillers, and cri-fi. Light refreshments will be provided by Friends of the Palms Rancho Park Library. We meet on the 3rd Thursday of the month with the exception of June this year.

Participants will discuss

A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny.

Where: Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 1:30 pm – 2:20 pm

Address: 2920 Overland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90064

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-discussion-0

Book Club for Adults: Thank You for Listening at Chet Holfield Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Thank You for Listening by author Julia Whelan. For Adults.

Pick up a copy of the book at the information desk today!

Whether you like historical fiction, sci-fi, romance, or memoirs, this book club reads it all.

Where: Chet Holfield Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 1060 South Greenwood Ave., Montebello, CA 90640

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12946022

Open Mic Night at the Anaheim Library: Jonathan Humanoid at Euclid Branch Library, Anaheim – In-Person Event

Open Mic Night at the Euclid Branch Library in Anaheim Public Library features guest Jonathan Humanoid.

Bring your talents such as singing, acting, dancing, recite poetry, deliver a speech or play an instrument on stage. A show open to ALL AGES.

Where: Anaheim Public Library

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 5 pm (Doors at 4:45 pm)

Address: 1340 S. Euclid St., Anaheim, CA 92892

Website: https://www.anaheim.net/Calendar.aspx?EID=39671&month=3&year=2025&day=10&calType=0

Arroyo Writing Group at Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Writers of any level of experience are invited to join our writing group for practice both writing short pieces across many genres and sharing your writing with others. Each month we will engage with a different writing prompt preparing our own short work in response and bringing it to share at our meeting.

If you are unable to join us in person you are welcome to join us virtually.

RSVP:

Contact us at ayosco@lapl.org for this month’s writing prompt or to request the meeting link

Where: Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 6145 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

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

Mystery Book Club: Murder by Degree at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Murder by Degree by author Rita Mukerji.

An Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Novel

Philadelphia, 1875: It is the start of term at Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Lydia Weston, professor and anatomist, is immersed in teaching her students in the lecture hall and hospital. When the body of a patient, Anna Ward, is dredged out of the Schuylkill River, the young chambermaid’s death is deemed suicide. But Lydia is suspicious and she is soon brought into the police investigation.

Aided by a diary filled with cryptic passages of poetry, Lydia discovers more about the young woman she thought she knew. Through her skill at the autopsy table and her clinical acumen, Lydia draws nearer the truth. Soon a terrible secret, long hidden, will be revealed. But Lydia must act quickly before she becomes the next target of those who wished to silence Anna.

Ritu Mukerji was born in Kolkata, India, and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. From a young age, she has been an avid reader of mysteries, from Golden Age crime fiction to police procedurals and the novels of PD James and Ruth Rendell. She received a BA in history from Columbia University and a medical degree from Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She completed residency training at the University of California, Davis and has been a practicing internist for fifteen years. She lives in Marin County, California, with her husband and three children.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-murder-degrees

Writing From the Inside Out: A Creative Writing Workshop for Growth and Possibility at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event

Join a vibrant creative writing workshop on the first day of Spring, where you can shake off winter and embrace transformation. Through poetry and engaging prompts, explore your past and craft vivid dreams for your future. Celebrate the beauty of renewal and the endless possibilities of writing from the inside out.

Hosted by Angela Wurtzel

angelawurtzelmft.com

RSVP at Site (Pay What You Want Donation

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1200 N. Alvarado St., Unit D, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/writing-from-the-inside-out-creative-writing-for-growth-and-possibilities

NEW DATE: Liza Monroy, with Charlie Matthau, & The Distractions at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Liza Monroy, in conversation with Charlie Matthau, discusses & signs her book The Distractions.

Solitary tech worker Mischa Osborn is mourning the shelving of her passion project—an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of love—when a chance encounter with a social media celebrity leads her spiraling into an all-consuming obsession. Simultaneously, someone—or something—is watching.

Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher—keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied—from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory.

Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection.

Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic onReel. As Mischa’s ReelWatching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even realspace stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control.

Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices.

A tale of how technology enables obsession, envy, and unrelenting comparison, told through an eccentric cast of interconnected characters, The Distractions invites us to reflect on who we are watching, and why.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/liza-monroy

L.A. Book Launch: Alencia Johnson, with Devi Brown, & Flip the Tables at Reparations Club – In-Person Event

Join us for a book launch discussion with Alencia Johnson, author of Flip the Tables: The Every Day Disrupter’s Guide to Finding Courage and Making Change, and moderator Devi Brown.

We all crave lives of meaning and purpose but figuring out how to start can feel overwhelming. The truth? Your unique gifts and perspectives are needed—right now. It just takes a little courage to tap into them.

In Flip the Tables, Alencia guides readers through three key stages of disruption:

Disruption of Self – Break down barriers and confront the fears that hold you back from stepping into your boldest, most authentic self.

Disruption of Vision – Radically reimagine what’s possible for your life and the world around you.

Disruption of Community – Use your courage and fresh vision to make an impact—becoming the light needed in a dark world.

Alencia Johnson is an award-winning and highly sought-after social impact adviser and cultural commentator. She is the founder of 1063 West Broad, a media and social impact consultancy leading at the intersection of culture, impact, and purpose. She has advised the presidential campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and President Barack Obama, in addition to her work with leading advocacy groups, entertainers, brands, and corporations. She is regularly seen on MSNBC, CNN, and ABC and has been featured on NPR and in The Washington Post, Essence, Glamour, and more.

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

Where: Reparations Club

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launch-flip-the-tables-alencia-johnson-w-devi-brown-tickets-1278618324829?aff=oddtdtcreator

Trenches Full of Prose: Live Readings by Four SoCal Writers at Page Against the Machine, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Join us for Trenches Full of Prose, a sign-off reading series inspired by our ongoing Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series. As its name implies, this series will feature prose writers rather than poets, though both series’ share a focus on published Southern California writers.

This Spring installment features live, in-store readings by Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, Ryane Nicole Granados, G.T. Foster, and Ellie Lopez.

Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera is the author of Breaking Pattern and Stories All Our Own. She is a Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen. Tisha writes so the desert of her childhood can be heard as loudly as her urban adulthood. She earned an MFA at AULA and a PhD at USC. She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit.

Ryane Nicole Grandos is the author of The Aves, She has always called Los Angeles her home and her writing finds its roots in her love of her community. She is inspired to write stories of survival that magnify the marginalized while also unearthing the splendor of second chances. Currently, Ryane teaches at Loyola Marymount University where she also serves as the Associate Director of the Academic Resource Center and Writing Center. Her literary work has been featured in various publications including Pangyrus, The Manifest-Station, Hight Country News, The Atticus Review, and La Parent Magazine. Her storytelling has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and showcased in KPCC’s live series Unheard LA.

G.T. Foster, a twice-nominated Pushcart poet, is a California native, retired educator, married father and grandfather of two. He was formerly the managing editor of SPECTRUM, a poetry and art quarterly and host of Saturday Afternoon Poetry Deep Critique. He resides in Pasadena and has published his first novel, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘺𝘴 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘙𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, a Vietnam era, semi-biographic soldier’s story. His poetry has been published by the Pasadena Weekly, San Gabriel Valley Quarterly, Altadena Poetry Review, Spectrum, and elsewhere.

Ellie Lopez (she/her) is a storyteller from the 209. Her work has been published by Sin Cesar, Maria’s at Sampaguitas, curio cabinet, hot pot magazine and Mixed mag. She received 2nd place in the City of Tracy’s Annual Poetry Contest. Her micro chapbook BuiLit Zine While in Mourning was released via Sampaguitas Press in 2024 and she’s currently working on her full-length poetry book to be released in 2025 via Sampaguitas Press. When she’s not ear hustling for chismes or telling stories you can find her on social media @missellielopez.

Trenches Full of Prose is a monthly poetry series created, curated, and hosted by Los Angeles-based poets and editors, Jesse Tovar of Systemic Dreaming and Brian Dunlap of LosAngelesLiterature.com.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Page Against the Machine

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/949140040323192

Neuro Dive Open Mic Night at The Pop Hop – In-Person Event

Calling all neurodivergent poets, comedians, and artists and allies to come to an Open Mic at The Pop Hop.

See website link for RSVP link.

$5

Where: The Pop Hop

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 5002 York Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://withfriends.co/the_pop_hop_books_co_op/events

All Woman’s Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Village Well is partnering with local trauma-healing poet Kate Burns to provide a platform for female poets, musicians, storytellers, and comedians. While all are welcome to attend, this is an event that aims to amplify women’s voices only.

Acts are limited to 3-5 minutes in length. Sign-ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:00 pm!

Also, please note that not all material may be considered “family-friendly” so please use discretion when deciding whether or not to bring children.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/1336720250320

818 Poetics: 5 Poets from the San Fernando Valley at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

6 PM: Venice Art Crawl Reception

8 PM: Readings in the Wanda Coleman Theater

9:30 PM: Book Signings 

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Thursday, the 20^th

Time: 8 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)

Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/818-poetics-5-poets-from-the-san-fernando-valley-tickets-1275717598679?aff=oddtdtcreator

How a Book Changed My Life Student Essay Contest: Letter to an Author at Diamond Bar Library, LACL – In-Person Teen Event

If you’re a book lover, you’ve likely read something, fiction or non-fiction, classic or contemporary, that has left its mark on you. Now’s your chance to express your appreciation to the author with an essay in the form of a letter.

In this letter, you’ll describe how the author’s work has altered your worldview or personal life. Who knows—the author may even read it!

Don’t miss out on the opportunity.

Three (3) winners will be chosen and will each be awarded $300.

Pick up an entry form at Diamond Bar Library or download a form here. You can submit the completed entry form and essay by dropping it off or mailing it to Diamond Bar Library.

The deadline for submission is April 15, 2025. Winners will be announced on April 26, 2025.

Prizes: $300 (3)

Contest Rules:

* Open to students ages 13-18

* Entries must be 1,000 words or less

* Must be mailed or dropped off at Diamond Bar Library

* All entries become the property of LA County Library

* A completed entry form must accompany all essay submissions

Sponsored by the Diamond Bar Friends of the Library

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

Where: Diamond Bar Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: All Day (see site)

Address: 21800 Copley Dr., Diamond Bar, CA 91765

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

Pajama Storytime at Once Upon a Time, Montrose – In-Person Kids & Family Event

Our most popular story time 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.

There is a large FREE parking lot off Florencita Dr. as well as metered parking along Honolulu Ave. and Montrose Ave.

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

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Friday, the 21^st

Time: 9:30 am

Join us as we celebrate the book Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown with fun activities for preschoolers. For ages 3 – 5.

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

Where: Artesia Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 18801 Elaine Ave., Artesia, CA 90701

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13146335

Bilingual Storytime at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event

Hora de cuentos bilingüe! Exponer a tus hjijos a varios idiomas es de gran beneficio para su aprendizaje y desarrollo, y qué mejor que hacerlo en esta divertida actividad en donde leeremos un maravilloso cuento en inglés y en español.

Bilingual Storytime! Exposing your children to multiple languages is highly beneficial for their learning and development, and what better way to do it than through this fun activity where we will read a wonderful story in both English and Spanish.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2070820250321

Book Party: Matt de la Peña and Loren Long & Home at Children’s Book World – In-Person Teens & Adults Event

Join us as we celebrate Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and bestselling illustrator Loren Long in conversation with Children Book World’s Brein Lopez about their newest picture book collaboration, Home.

From the powerhouse duo behind the #1 New York Times bestseller Love, comes a moving meditation on the places we feel most comfortable, loved, and protected—wherever that might be. With lyrical text and expressive artwork, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long celebrate the beauty and love found in every home, no matter its size. They show how a home is more than just a place…People can be a kind of home—a family and a community that cares for one another. And the natural world is another kind of home, a refuge we share with every living thing on Earth. This deeply moving ode to the universal pull of home, whatever its form, is destined to become a new classic that will be cherished by readers of every age.

Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal-winning author of Last Stop on Market Street. He is also the author of the award-winning picture books The Perfect Place, Patchwork, Milo Imagines the World, Carmela Full of Wishes, Love, and A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis, as well as a number of critically acclaimed young adult novels. Visit him at mattdelapena.com.

Loren Long is the author and illustrator of the New York Times bestselling Otis series, and The Yellow Bus. He’s also the illustrator of the New York Times bestsellers Change Sings by Amanda Gorman, Of Thee I Sing by Barack Obama, and Love by Matt de la Peña. Visit him at LorenLong.com.

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

Where: Children’s Book World

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: 4 pm

Address: 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064

Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/newbery-medal-winning-author%C2%A0matt-de-la-pe%C3%B1a%C2%A0and-bestselling-illustrator%C2%A0loren-long

NEW DATE: Kirk Honeycutt and Mira Advani Honeycutt & Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Kirk Honeycutt and Mira Advani Honeycutt will present and sign Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine.

Two stories unspool in Sideways Uncorked: the story behind Alexander Payne’s modern movie classic adapted from a most unlikely source—an unpublished novel by a burnt-out ex-filmmaker and wine connoisseur Rex Pickett—and the world of Pinot Noir (and Merlot) winemaking before and after Sideways was released. For as Kirk and Mira Advani Honeycutt show, the movie was a pop-culture phenomenon that dramatically impacted the wine industry. Sideways Uncorked offers a tour of the lush Santa Barbara wine country that forms the iconic backdrop to Sideways, tracing the effect the story eventually had there and elsewhere. With ample narrative and special features (such as a wine lineup of recommendations from various wine regions), this is a one-of-a-kind illustrated book that will dazzle the palate of oenophiles and cinephiles alike.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/kirk-honeycutt-mira-advani-honeycutt

At Skylight: Giaae Kwon, with Julia Lee, & I’ll Love You Forever at Skylight – In-Person Event

Giaae Kwon, in conversation with Julia Lee, will discuss I’ll Love You Forever.

I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan is a smart, poignant, constantly surprising essay collection that considers the collision between stratospherically popular music and our inescapably personal selves. Giaae Kwon delves into the global impact of K-pop artists, from H.O.T. to Taeyeon to IU to Suga of BTS, and reveals how each illuminated and shaped her own life.

In using intimate experiences to examine larger cultural topics, this singular work breaks new ground in its consideration of K-pop. Written from the perspective of a bilingual and bicultural Korean American, I’ll Love You Forever blends the critical with the personal. Kwon interweaves profiles of different K-pop idols with ruminations on various aspects of Korean culture, from the country’s attitude toward plastic surgery and female sexuality to its obsession with academia. Combining insightful critique and adoring analysis, I’ll Love You Forever provides readers with a fuller picture of a culturally and socially complex industry and the machine and heart behind its popularity. Above all, Kwon offers up the passion of a superfan, finding joy in K-pop along the way.

Giaae Kwon is a food and culture writer whose work has appeared in Whetstone, Electric Literature, and Taste, among others. She wrote a column about K-pop for Catapult and attended the Tin House Summer Workshop in 2022. She divides her time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn, where she’s working on her next project, which explores Korean food through the lens of the diaspora.

Julia Lee is a Korean American writer, scholar, and teacher. She is the author of Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America, Our Gang: A Racial History of “The Little Rascals” and The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel, as well as the novel By the Book, which was published under the pen name Julia Sonneborn. She is a professor of English at Loyola Marymount University, where she teaches African American and Caribbean literature. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-candy-clark-presents-tight-heads-w-sam-sweet

Book Launch: Liz Pelly, with Katie Alice Greer, & Mood Machine – In-Person Event

Join Liz Pelly, in conversation with Katie Alice Greer, to discuss Mood Machine, an unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

Drawing on over a hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.

Liz Pelly a journalist living in New York. Her essays and reporting have appeared in The Baffler, where she is a contributing editor, as well as in The Guardian, NPR, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and many other outlets. She frequently speaks about music streaming on radio shows and podcasts, including appearances with The New York Times Popcast, NPR’s Morning Edition, and others. Pelly teaches in the recorded music program at New York University and has spent over a decade involved in all-ages show booking.

In conversation with Katie Alice Greer, an artist, songwriter, performer and producer in Los Angeles

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Friday, the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events

Open Mic Night at Underdog Bookstore, Monrovia – In-Person Event

We host an Open Mic Night at Underdog Bookstore on the third Friday of every month to showcase and celebrate the creative talents of our local community, including poetry, music, and more!

While walk-in sign-ups are welcome on the night, if you’d like to be listed as a featured performer and guarantee your spot, you can apply at website link.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Friday, the 21^st

Time: 7 am – 9 pm

The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.

Scaachi Koul’s first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her biting wit to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it’s better to walk away.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-21/scaachi-koul-conversation-franchesca-ramsey-discusses-signs-sucker-punch-essays

SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event

SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music is offered every 1st & 3rd Friday of the month and hosted by Loranzo Frank.

Featured guests: TBA

Tickets at Eventbrite.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center

Date: Friday, the 21^st

Time: 8 pm – 12 am

Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website: https://www.depoet.info/swaam

Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series & Open Mic with host Elena Secota at Rapp Saloon, Santa Monica – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon: Open Mic & Featured Readers, will be this week, and is offered every 3^rd Friday of the month by host Elena Secota.

First Friday: Cynthia Alessandra Briano

Second Friday: Russell Greene

Third Friday: Elena Secota

Fourth Friday: Jim Bolt

Fifth Friday: James Evert Jones

This is a hybrid event, live in-person while offering a Zoom option for our performers and guests.

Our featured guest poets and artists this month TBA.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA – In-Person & Online Event

Date: Friday, the 21^st

Time: 8 pm – 11 pm

Join fan-favorite author Drew Daywalt in person at Children’s Book World for the launch of his hilarious new picture book, Little Freddie Two Pants.

Plus, a special crayons story & art activity. See Drew’s original box of crayons that inspired his picture books!

Little Freddie Two Pants is a laugh-out-loud funny picture book about a dog who doesn’t know how many pairs of pants to wear (or where to wear them!) by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Day the Crayons Quit. One pair of pants? Two pairs? Three? How many pants should Little Freddie wear? And where should he put them? What about underpants? Where do they go? In a book with text and art that are sure to induce giggles, Drew Daywalt and Lucy Ruth Cummins settle the age-old question: Do a dog’s front legs deserve pants, too?

Drew Daywalt is the author of many books, including the blockbuster #1 New York Times bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit and its sequels, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, as well as The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors illustrated by Adam Rex, Twinkle Twinkle Little Kid, illustrated by Molly Idle, and many more. He lives in California with his wife, two children, and multiple pets. You can visit him at DrewDaywalt.com.

Where: Children’s Book World

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064

Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/drew-daywalt-storytime-fun-too-many-pants-lots-crayons-saturday-march-22nd-1030am

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

Read the book and join our lively discussion!

March 22: Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 22^ndt

Time: 11 am

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

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

Book Club: Yellowface at Jefferson – Vassie D. Wright Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

This month’s book is Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, a fast-paced commentary on racism, white privilege, and the publishing industry. The story follows June Hayward, a struggling white author who steals the manuscript of her deceased Chinese American friend Athena Liu. June publishes Athen’s work as her own under the pen name Juniper Song, and the novel explores how she attempts to hide and justify her theft. Electronic formats are available on hoopla.

RSVP:

RSVP by emailing folbookclub@gmail.com.

Where: Jefferson – Vassie D. Wright Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 2211 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90018

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

En-chant-ment: a generative poetry workshop with Sarah Maclay at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event 

Give yourself an inner break with Sarah Maclay’s generative poetry process!

Ready to give yourself an inner break? To create a little bubble of temporary sanity? In this generative workshop with Sarah Maclay, we’ll come to understand the link between the middle syllable of the word “enchantment” and a key craft technique that has ties to meditative practices and that, in the right hands, can further the sense of magical engagement that the word implies, as well as a temporary suspension from our more distracting and vexing inner narratives. And, fortunately, it’s not that hard to do! A reading and examination of poems that exemplify this effect—from Merwin, Lorca, Stevens and Woloch—will smooth our way toward creating spell-like poems of our own. These inspirations will be followed by a leap into a generative exercise and a sharing of our initial drafts. For good measure, you’ll also be able to review the key points of the exercise in Beyond Baroque’s own The Writing Life: 55 Years at Beyond Baroque.

Nightfall Marginalia (What Books Press), a 2023 Foreword INDIES Finalist for Poetry, is Sarah Maclay’s fifth collection. Her fourth chapbook, The H.D. Sequence—A Concordance (Walton Well Press), came out in 2024. Her poems and essays, recognized by a Yaddo residency, a City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry and a Pushcart Special Mention, have appeared in APR, FIELD, Ploughshares, The Writer’s Chronicle, The Best American Erotic Poems, Poetry International, where she served as Book Review Editor, and elsewhere. “Fugue States Coming Down the Hall,” produced at Oberlin and the Beyond Text Festival at Beyond Baroque, appears in Scenarios: Scripts to Perform. She’s taught creative writing at USC and LMU, offers workshops at Beyond Baroque and is producer/host of Poetry.LA’s “The Poetry of Night.” Her poems are also the basis for a sequence of classical art songs, “Identity Had Gone,” by composer Kostas Rekleitis.

NOTE: See site for tickets, and details. 

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 11 am – 2 pm

Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/en-chant-ment-a-generative-poetry-workshop-with-sarah-maclay-tickets-1248700108639?aff=oddtdtcreator

Storytime: Two Authors Event: Matthew Burgess and Doug Salati present Words with Wings and Magic Things and Marla Frazee presents How Elegant the Elephant at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event

Matthew Burgess and Doug Salati present Words with Wings and Magic Things.

From award-winning author Matthew Burgess and Caldecott Medalist Doug Salati comes a spellbinding collection of poems for young readers that celebrates the power of words to awaken the imagination and alchemize the everyday. A gorgeous gift book for fans of Shel Silverstein with seven die-cut spreads throughout.

Beyond the doorway of the first page of this collection awaits a dragon piñata, an alligator on the A train, a hungry yeti, an ice cream dream, jetpack sneakers, midnight firelight, a gray day, a plump tomato, a serious question and so much more. Whether you’re feeling blue, lemon yellow or Day-Glo green, this inviting and magical book of poems takes young readers on an uplifting journey through everyday moments, moods and experiences, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. With enchanting illustrations throughout and seven die-cut portals that open into the realms of Welcome, Wonder, Wild, Weee!, Whoops & Wallops, Windows and Whispers & Well Wishes, Words With Wings and Magic Things explores how words can awaken us to a world of wonder and possibility. Step inside…and take flight!

Marla Frazee presents How Elegant the Elephant: Poems about Animals and Insects

A rollicking collection of poems about the enchanting world of animals and insects, from former children’s poet laureate and New York Times bestselling author Mary Ann Hoberman and Caldecott Honoree illustrator Marla Frazee.

With her signature wordplay and wit, former children’s poet laureate Mary Ann Hoberman celebrates the magnificence, ingenuity, and quirky qualities of creatures big and small. This thoughtfully crafted collection features sixty of Mary Ann’s personal favorite poems curated from her sixty-five-year body of work, as well as eight new poems.

From a fine fat pig and backward running porcupines to a beastly card game and a yoga class for agile animals, this memorable menagerie is cunningly brought to life by three-time Caldecott Honoree Marla Frazee, in an imaginary world where the characters meet and tell an entertaining tale all their own.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 22^nd

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-22/matthew-burgess-and-doug-salati-present-words-wings-and-magic-things-and-marla

Open Mic Poetry at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Share your original poems, lyrics, spoken word, or just enjoy listening. Each poet will have five minutes to read an original work. If you wish to read, sign up when you arrive.

Our featured speaker will be Alicia Viguer-Espert. Three-time Pushcart nominee, Alicia is a native of Valencia, Spain, and lives in Los Angeles. Her chapbooks To Hold a Hummingbird, Out of the Blue Womb of the Sea, and 4 in 1, focus on nature, identity, language, home, and soul. Her work has been published by national and international journals, and her poems are included in several anthologies. Alicia has been the featured poet at numerous art and cultural events, both online and in person.

In addition to national and international publications, she is included in “Top 39 L.A. Poets of 2017,” “Ten Poets to Watch on 2018,” and “Bards of Southern California: Top 30 poets,” by Spectrum.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 1 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/open-mic-poetry-10

Ariadna Sánchez Hernández: A Reading of Visitas Inesperadas at Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a special reading. Ariadna Sánchez Hernández is from Oaxaca, Mexico and is the author of Visitas inesperadas, a Spanish poetry collection. She is the recipient of the 2024 International Latino Book Award in Poetry.

Acompáñanos a una lectura especial. Ariadna Sánchez Hernández es originaria de Oaxaca, México y autora de Visitas inesperadas, una colección de poesía en español. Es la ganadora del International Latino Book Award 2024 en la categoría de Poesía.

Where: Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 2 pm

Address: 2820 W. 6^th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/ariadna-sanchez-hernandez

Miriam’s Garden Poetry Series: Maurice Ford, Maestro Gamin, Sakile Odimo at Miriam Matthews Hyde Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join host Yago Cura for the Miriam’s Garden Poetry Series Reading, held every month at the Hyde Park Library.

Featuring guests:

Maurice Ford is the author of 5 Times a slave: How childhood trauma can create a career criminal, which explores how childhood trauma can influence a child, and if untreated, can create a career criminal.

Maestro Gamin is the author of Verses & Flow. Hebegan developing his poetry sometime in 2009/2010 after attending Vibrations Writer’s group. He soon began attending open mics across southern Los Angeles and downtown areas, such as Lost Souls Cafe, The Monday Speakeasy, World Stage, DPL, Natural High (flight school), Our Mic, and Freedom of Speech Thursdays.

Sakile Odimo is a spoken-word poet and author who writes under the moniker NOMAD the Poet, inspired by her year-long pilgrimage after experiencing a mild traumatic brain injury, that led her down a trial-by-fire healing journey of physical & emotional healing while homeless in LA. She is the author of the debut collection, Forged in Fire, Held in Love, forthcoming from Mama’s Kitchen Press in 2025.

Where: Miriam Matthews Hyde Park Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DG1vQNlvs_u/

The Arroyo Book Club’s Big Read Discussion: The House on Mango Street at Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Arroyo Book Club will discuss the Big Read book: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

Where: Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 3 pm

Address: 6145 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/arroyo-book-clubs-big-read-discussion

Still a Rose: An Ode to Altadena: Poetry, Open Mic, Music & Art at Alkebulan Cultural Center, Pasadena – In-Person Event

This special cultural event and poetry reading features special guests: Teresa Mei Chuc, Hazel Afia Clayton, Angles Ama Clayton & Thelma Reyna.

Free event/ donations are welcome to support our special performers and the Alkebu-Lan Cultural Center

Where: Alkebulan Cultural Center, Pasadena

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Join us for poetry readings by featured guests Diosa X, plus poets published in Four Feather Press, California Steps.

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Lambda Park Branch Library, Pasadena

Date: Saturday, the 22^nd

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: 140 S. Altadena Dr., Pasadena CA 91107

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

Regional Voices: A Mini Poetry Reading Across SoCal at Café con Libros Press, Pomona – In-Person Event

Featuring Poets:

Brian Dunlap is also the host of this event and the author of Concrete Paradise. He is also founder and editor in chief of the online literary magazine, Los Angeles Literature.

Kuntheon “Katon” Meas is the author of sunsets & regrets: a poetry collection and is the host of the quarterly LibroMobile Open Mic in Santa Ana.

Romaine Washington (she/her) is the editor of These Black Bodies Are…A Blacklandia Anthology, and the author of two poetry books, Purgatory Has an Address and Sirens in Her Belly. Washington’s poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and she is a twice-nominated Pushcart Prize poet.

Where: Café con Libros Press, Pomona 

Date: Saturday the 22^nd

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

Address: 208W. 2^nd St., Pomona, CA 91766

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

Historical Fiction Book Club: Ida, in Love and in Trouble Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Ida, in Love and in Trouble by author Veronica Chambers.

This book is a sweeping historical novel from bestselling author Veronica Chambers about courageous (and flirtatious) Ida B. Wells as she navigates society parties and society prejudices to become a civil rights crusader.

Before she became a warrior, Ida B. Wells was an incomparable flirt with a quick wit and a dream of becoming a renowned writer. The eldest child of newly freed parents who thrived in a community that pulsated with hope and possibility after the Civil War, Ida had a big heart, big ambitions, and even bigger questions: How to be a good big sister when her beloved parents perish in a yellow fever epidemic? How to launch her career as a teacher? How to make and keep friends in a society that seems to have no place for a woman who speaks her own mind? And—always top of mind for Ida—how to find a love that will let her be the woman she dreams of becoming?

Ahead of her time by decades, Ida B. Wells pioneered the field of investigative journalism with her powerful reporting on violence against African Americans. Her name became synonymous with courage and an unflinching demand for racial and gender equality. But there were so many facets to Ida Bell and critically acclaimed writer Veronica Chamber unspools her full and colorful life as Ida comes of age in the rapidly changing South, filled with lavish society parties and dances, swoon-worthy gentleman callers, and a world ripe for the taking.

Veronica Chambers is an author and currently a writer/editor for The New York Times. Born in Panama and raised in Brooklyn, her work often reflects her Afro-Latina heritage. She’s written the acclaimed memoir, Mama’s Girl which has been course adopted by hundreds of high schools and colleges throughout the country. She has also authored several children’s books including the NYT bestselling Finish the Fight, Call and Response, Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb and The Go-Between.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 22^nd

Time: 5 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/historical-fiction-book-club-ida-love-and-trouble

GR818: San Fernado Valley Poets & Their Debuts at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event

Featuring Poets:

Nathan Xavier Osorio is the author of The Last Town Before the Mojave, selected by Oliver de la Paz for the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Chapbook Fellowship. His poetry, translations, and essays have been featured or are forthcoming in BOMB, the Offing, Boston Review, Public Books, Notre Dame Review, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and elsewhere. His writing and teaching have been supported by fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, the Kenyon Review, and the Poetry Foundation. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

Soledad con Carne is a casually queer, intergalactic Oakland/Ohlone-based chicanx punk poet, working/poor multiple high school drop-out, bookstore lackey, San Fernando Valley poet laureate, and blatant smoker sharing-trauma-with-their-mother.

Angel Dominguez is a Latiné poet of Yucatec Maya descent born in Hollywood and raised in Van Nuys, CA their immigrant family. They now live amongst the redwoods of Bonny Doon, CA. They’re the author of several books of poetry and prose including Desgraciado (Nightboat Books, 2022) and most recently, the 10-year anniversary edition of their debut work, Black Lavender Milk (Noemi Press, 2024). They were the 2023 Poet in residence with the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the 2021 Mazza writer in residence for San Francisco State University, and currently serves as managing editor for Lilac Press. You can find Angel’s work online and in print in various publications including BOMB Magazine, The Berkeley Poetry Review, FENCE, Prolit Magazine, SFMOMA Open Space, and elsewhere. You can find Angel in the redwoods or ocean.

Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 22^nd

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DG4B56-yYBo/?hl=en

Melrose Trading Post Event & L.A. Poet Society at 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.

JOIN us in space R18 each Sunday, from 11 am – 5 pm.

All poems are donation based, so you name your price.

NOTE: Check every Sunday for story time and reading events

Where: Melrose Trading Post, Greenway Main Stage at Fairfax HS

Date: Sunday, the 23^rd (Every Sunday)

Time: 10 am – 5 pm (market); 11 am – 5 pm (poets on demand)

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

OC Poet Laureate Office Hours with Gustavo Hernandez at LibroMobile, Santa Ana – In-Person Event

OC Poet Laureate Gustavo Hernández hosts monthly office hours at LibroMobile!

RSVP at website link.

Where: LibroMobile

Date: Sunday the 23^rd

Time: 12 pm – 2 pm

Address: 1150 S. Bristol St., #A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704

Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/oc-poet-laureate-office-hours-with-gustavo-hernandez-1-2025-03-23-12-00

Celebrate World Poetry Day with El Martillo Press and Matthew Cuban Hernadez at Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Artists presenting include:

Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and City on the Second Floor (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Both of which are taught at universities throughout the country as well as the upcoming Mexican Style (FlowerSong 2025). Sedillo is the current Literary Director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, the National Coordinator of the World Poetry Movement US, and radio host of La Raza Radio on KPFK 9.07.

Alyesha Wise Hernandez served as the Da Poetry Lounge slam team head coach from 2017-18, co-coaching both teams to final stage at The National Poetry Slam. She also served as the Get Lit-Words Ignite youth slam team co-coach from 2014-2017. Wise is a 2-time Women of the World Poetry Slam finalist and has been featured on different platforms and publications such as OWN, BET, Huffington Post, Afropunk, PBS, LA Times, Buzzfeed, Free Speech TV and more.

Matthew “Cuban” Hernandez is a teaching artist, for over 15 years, Matthew has spent the 10 ten years working in youth detention centers across Los Angeles County, currently serving as the Director of Juvenile Programming for Street Poets, Inc. In addition, he is a current Lead Teacher and Co-Founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. Cuban has opened for artists such as Wu-Tang, performed for platforms such as BuzzFeed and NPR and even appeared on the award-winning television show, Better Things. Matthew is also a three-time Southern Fried poetry slam champion and an award-winning poetry coach.

Sonia Guttierez is the author of two full-length bilingual poetry collections, Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013) and Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma (El Martillo Press, 2024), recipient of an honorable mention for the ILBA’s The Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award—One Author—Bilingual, and the novel, Dreaming with Mariposas (FlowerSong Press, 2020), winner of the Tomás Rivera Book Award 2021, the International Latino Book Awards 2022, and the ILBA Book into Movie Awards 2023. She teaches composition, critical thinking and writing, and creative writing. Sonia Gutiérrez is currently working on her first illustrated book, The Adventures of a Burrito Flying Saucer and Sana Sana Colita de Rana: Poems to Not Perish / Sana sana colita de rana: Poemas para no morir, a bilingual poetry collection. She lives in the Californias.

Felicia “Fe” Montes is the co-founder and director of Mujeres de Maiz, In Lak Ech, Botanica del Barrio and El MERCADO y Mas and an Assistant Professor in Chicanx/Latinx Arts and Social Practice at Cal State University Long Beach. She has published in the books Fleshing the Spirit, Voices from the Ancestors, and MeXicana Fashions and is the co-editor of the book Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento: Spiritual Artivism, Healing Justice and Feminist Praxis (University of Arizona Press, 2024).

Free admission. First come first served.

Where: Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) @MOLAA.ORG

Date: Sunday the 23^rd

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: 628 Alamitos Ave, Long Beach, CA 90802

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHJS74JJQmW/?img_index=1

Latinx Book Club: Witches at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Witches: A Novel by author Brenda Luzano, translated by Heather Cleary.

The beguiling story of a young journalist whose investigation of a murder leads her to the most legendary healer in all of Mexico, from one of the most prominent voices of a new generation of Latin American writers.

Paloma is dead. But before she was murdered, before she was even Paloma, she was a traditional healer named Gaspar. Before she was murdered, she taught her cousin Feliciana the secrets of the ceremonies known as veladas, and about the Language and the Book that unlock their secrets.

Sent to report on Paloma’s murder, Zoe meets Feliciana in the mountain village of San Felipe. There, the two women’s lives twist around each other in a danse macabre. Feliciana tells Zoe the story of her struggle to become an accepted healer in her community, and Zoe begins to understand the hidden history of her own experience as a woman, finding her way in a hostile environment shaped by and for men.

Brenda Lozano is a fiction writer, essayist, and editor. Her books include: Todo nada (All or Nothing, 2009), followed by Cuaderno ideal (Loop, 2019), and a book of short stories Cómo piensan las piedras (How Stones Think, 2017). In 2015 she was selected by Conaculta, the Hay Festival and the British Council as one of Mexico’s best fiction writers under 40. In 2017 she was added to the Bogota 39 list, a selection of the best fiction writers under 40 from across Latin America. Witches is her most recent novel.

Heather Cleary has translated poetry and prose by writers including Betina González, Mario Bellatin, Sergio Chejfec, and María Ospina; her work has been recognized by the National Book Foundation, the Best Translated Book Award, the National Translation Award, and others.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 23^rd

Time: 2 pm

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

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

Sugar and Spice Book Club: Rhapsodic at Bel Canto Books, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Join us for our premiere romance book club, Sugar and Spice.

Participants will discuss Rhapsodic by author Laura Thalassa.

This story is “a dark fantasy romance between a siren and the ‘bargainer’ she owes countless favors to”.

Whether you devour the whole book or stop halfway and want to chat about why you DNFed it, we’re here for all the thoughts! We’ll be picking the next book together at the end of the meeting, so don’t miss your chance to help choose our next read!

Meet other romance book lovers. Chat about the book and earn participation points. Bring potluck snacks to share.

Where: The Open Book

Date: Sunday, the 23^rd

Time: 2 pm

Join us to welcome Sean West to discuss and sign Unruly: Fighting Back When Politics, AI, and Law Upend the Rules of Business.

Veteran global affairs expert Sean West delivers a razor-sharp and timely new discussion of how politics, technology, and law are converging to disrupt the rules of business. Through detailed case studies and irreverent personal stories from his experience as a globe-trotting CEO advisor, West explains how unprecedented disruption creates dangerous risks and incredible opportunities for firms of all sizes.

The world is becoming unruly―not just more volatile but literally “un-ruling” as the laws and norms of politics and business are eroding in front of our eyes. An entire region can be remade in weeks. Technological breakthroughs are no longer tremors but earthquakes shaking the foundations of established businesses. The law has gone from being a safeguard to being a weapon that can be pointed at enemies, juiced by artificial intelligence. As the dashboards of CEOs fill with red flags, executives need a new guide to help them make sense of the new landscape in which their businesses are competing. Unruly will equip you to win the next decade. West offers the concept of an “Unruly Triangle” between politics, law and technology that create the novel synthetic challenges of Geolegal Risk, Artificial Politics Risk, and LegalAI Risk. No longer can you fight politics with lobbying, legal with lawyers and technology with innovation: You need cross-cutting strategies to leverage the whole of your enterprise.

Sean West is an entrepreneur, analyst, educator, and author. He is co-founder of Hence Technologies, a software company bridging geopolitical and legal risk. Prior to that, he spent more than a decade at Eurasia Group, the leading global affairs firm, where he was the Deputy CEO and an advisor to top CEOs, general counsels, and investors. He is author of GeoLegal Notes (geolegal.substack.com), the only weekly newsletter tracking the intersection of geopolitics, law, and technology. He lectures at Berkeley Law Executive Education on geolegal risk.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore (in the Courtyard)

Date: Sunday, the 23^rd

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Sean-West-March-23-3pm-Author-signing

LiveTalks LA Presents: An Afternoon with Senator Chuck Schumer & Antisemitism in America: A Warning at Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

In an urgent and personal new book, Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer sheds light on the Jewish American experience and sounds the alarm about the troubling resurgence of antisemitisms the Senate Democratic Leader and highest-elected Jewish official in American history. He has been United States senator from New York since 1999. He is the author of Positively American: Winning Back the Middle Class One Family at a Time.

When it comes to the history of the Jewish people, there is a national and global crisis of misunderstanding. This lack of knowledge feeds demons of ignorance, hatred, and violence. Antisemitism in America: A Warning is an urgent book that illuminates the Jewish experience and the prejudices both hidden and overt that have led to the chronic persecution of the Jewish people.

By placing antisemitism in its proper historical context, and drawing from Senator Schumer’s own life, the book informs Americans’ understanding of the causes of the recent swell of antisemitic rhetoric and violence in our country. In very personal terms, it will engage with debates over the purpose and meaning of Israel and help draw a line between legitimate criticism of its government and when criticism of Israel as a Jewish homeland verges into antisemitism. This book is a warning, informed by the lessons of history, about what can happen when the “world’s oldest hatred” is allowed to rise, unchecked.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School

Date: Sunday the 23^rd

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/senator-chuck-schumer/

Editors Jerry Portwood and Michael Narkunski, with Contributors, Present: The Queer Love Project at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Jerry Portwood and Michael Narkunski present contributors reading their work from the Queer Love Project.

This online publication has presented a new personal essay every week that reveals heartbreaks, happiness, secrets, reflections on coming out, sexual encounters, and the realities of dating, all serving to answer the question: “What do you know about love?” Since most LGBTQ+ people don’t have many role models to help us learn what it means to put ourselves together, The Queer Love Project has also features a special questionnaire asking notable queer people and the publication’s contributors about their distinctive experiences. As stated in QLP’s mission statement: “Same-sex and queer relationships are not the same as heterosexual ones—and shouldn’t pretend to be—and we must never forget that. In fact, it’s time to come out and celebrate it.”

Jerry Portwood is the founder of The Queer Love Project, which explores LGBTQ+ stories about relationships. He was a top editor at Rolling Stone, Out magazine, and New York Press. He’s a longtime instructor at the New School.

Michael Narkunski is a Los Angeles-based New Yorker whose overly personal essays can be found in Out, Narratively, and other, mostly gay, outlets. He works at Book Soup while living with his fiancé, Max, and their imaginary Chow Chow, Butterscotch.

Martin Goodman is author of a wide range of fiction and nonfiction; emeritus professor; piano player; publisher; one who quests and sometimes finds; happy when out in nature. An Englishman in London, Los Angeles and elsewhere.martingoodman.com

Asya Graf is a writer and psychotherapist living in Brooklyn, New York. Her writing obsessions include swimming, sex, eco-grief, and Soviet trauma. She’s writing a memoir about (queer) failure and athletics, and swimming in the ocean every chance she gets.

Bob Merrick has worked in Hollywood for 25+ years, producing films, the Lance Bass special for E!, and hosting The Baub Show. He’s written for Out magazine, appeared on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, and danced in Sweatin’ to the Oldies.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Sunday the 23^rd

Time: 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/queer-love-project-zine

Zillennial Book Club: Captive Prince at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Captive Prince (The Captive Prince Trilogy #1) by author C.S. Pacat.

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half-brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.

Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.

For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…

C.S. Pacat is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Captive Prince trilogy, Dark Rise and the GLAAD-nominated graphic novels Fence. Educated at the University of Melbourne, C.S. Pacat has lived in a number of cities, including Tokyo and Perugia, and currently resides and writes in Melbourne.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 23^rd

Time: 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/bucket-list-book-club-love-time-cholera

March Historical Romance Book Club: All the Painted Stars at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

March’s participants will discuss All the Painted Stars by author Emma Denny.

When Lily Barden discovers her best friend Johanna’s hand in marriage is being awarded as the main prize at a tournament, she is determined to stop it. Disguised as a knight, she infiltrates the contest, preparing to fight for Jo’s hand. But her conduct ruffles feathers, and when a dangerous incident escalates out of Lily’s control, Jo must help her escape.

Orders Manager Katie S. will lead this discussion on examining historical romance novels. All eras, both new and old. Please join us.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

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

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Sunday the 16^th

Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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